• 1329 - Pope John XXII issues his 'In Agro Dominico' condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.
• 1513 (not 1512 as often cited) - Explorer Juan Ponce de León sights North America (specifically Florida) for the first time, mistaking it for another island.
• 1613 - The first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy.
• 1625 - Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.
• 1642 - The sixth Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Joseph takes office.
• 1782 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 1794 - The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
• 1794 - Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact.
• 1814 - War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
• 1834 - Andrew Jackson is censured by the U.S. Senate for his actions regarding the U.S. National Bank.
• 1836 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.
• 1836 - Kirtland Temple in Ohio is dedicated in an 8 hour long service led by Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon.
• 1846 - Mexican-American War: Siege of Fort Texas.
• 1851 - First reported case of Europeans seeing Yosemite Valley.
• 1854 - Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.
• 1868 - The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.
• 1871 - The first international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, is played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
• 1881 - Rioting takes place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperence by the Salvation Army.
• 1890 - A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.
• 1906 - Founding of the Alpine Club of Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba
• 1910 - Fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, killed 312
• 1918 - Moldova and Bessarabia join Romania.
• 1938 - The Battle of Taierzhuang takes place.
• 1941 - World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers topple the pro-axis government in a bloodless coup.
• 1942 - World War II: United Kingdom forces raid the U-boat base at St. Nazaire, France.
• 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands - In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
• 1945 - World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
• 1948 - The Second Congress of the Workers Party of North Korea is convened.
• 1958 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
• 1963 - Beeching axe: Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network.
• 1964 - The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
• 1968 - Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Cosmonaut, first human in space dies in aircraft training accident.
• 1969 - Mariner 7 is launched.
• 1970 - The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight.
• 1976 - The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
• 1977 - Tenerife disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 247 on KLM and 335 on PAN AM) and 61 survived on a PAN AM flight.
• 1980 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
• 1986 - A car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing 1 police officer and injuring 21 people.
• 1990 - The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba in an effort to bridge the information blackout imposed by the Castro regime.
• 1993 - Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People's Republic of China.
• 1994 - One of the biggest tornado outbreaks in recent memory hits the Southeastern United States. One tornado slams into a church in Piedmont, Alabama during Palm Sunday services killing 20 and injuring 90.
• 1994 - The Eurofighter takes its first flight in Manching, Germany.
• 1998 - The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
• 2000 - Phillips explosion of 2000 kills 1 and injures 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
• 2002 - Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber kills 29 people in Netanya, Israel.
• 2004 - HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
• 2006 - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights holds its final meeting.

Births