This Day in History

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Today is April 29.

This date is observed as a Day of Remembrance For All Victims of Chemical Warfare, and also as International Dance Day.


Events

1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.

1770 – James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.

1834 – Charles Darwin during the second survey voyage of HMS Beagle, ascended the Bell mountain, Cerro La Campana on 17 August 1834, his visit being commemorated by a memorial plaque.

1903 – A 30 million cubic-metre landslide kills 70 people in Frank, in the District of Alberta, Canada.

1944 – World War II: British agent Nancy Wake, a leading figure in the French Resistance and the Gestapo's most wanted person, parachutes back into France to be a liaison between London and the local maquis group.

1945 – World War II: Start of Operation Manna.

1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor; Hitler and Braun both commit suicide the following day. [video link]

1953 – The first U.S. experimental 3D television broadcast showed an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.

1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the previous day, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" ~Muhammad Ali

1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opens at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with some of its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

1975 – Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S. begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon before an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end.

1986 – A fire at the Central library of the City of Los Angeles Public Library damages or destroys 400,000 books and other items.

1992 – Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.

2015 – A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.

2016 - Fifteen of Prince's (<--Wait for it...) albums made it into the UK chart as fans rushed to buy his music following his sudden death. Six were in the top 40 with The Very Best Of, Ultimate and Purple Rain at two, three and four.



1863 – William Randolph Hearst, 1899 – Duke Ellington, 1901 – Hirohito, 1917 – Celeste Holm, 1931 – Lonnie Donegan, 1933 – Rod McKuen, 1933 – Willie Nelson, 1935 – Otis Rush, 1936 – Zubin Mehta, 1938 – Bernard Madoff, 1943 – Duane Allen, 1947 – Tommy James, 1947 – Johnny Miller, 1951 – Dale Earnhardt, 1951 – John Holmes (no, not that one), 1952 – Nora Dunn, 1954 – Jerry Seinfeld, 1955 – Kate Mulgrew, 1957 – Daniel Day-Lewis, 1958 – Michelle Pfeiffer, 1958 – Eve Plumb, 1970 – Andre Agassi, 1970 – Uma Thurman



1967 – J. B. Lenoir, 1980 – Alfred Hitchcock, 1997 – Mike Royko, 2008 – Albert Hofmann, 2014 – Bob Hoskins, 2015 – Calvin Peete