1784 – The first balloon was flown in Ireland.
1813 – U.S. troops under James Wilkinson attacked the Spanish-held city of Mobile that would be in the future state of Alabama.
1861 – U.S. President Lincoln mobilized the Federal army.
1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died from injuries inflicted by John Wilkes Booth.
1892 – The General Electric Company was organized.
1899 – Thomas Edison organized the Edison Portland Cement Company.
1912 – The ocean liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg the evening before. 1,517 people died and more than 700 people survived.
1917 – The British defeated the Germans at the battle of Arras.
1940 – French and British troops landed at Narvik, Norway.
1945 – During World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.
1948 – The Arabs were defeated in the first Jewish-Arab battle.
1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.
1952 – The first B-52 prototype was tested in the air.
1953 – In Buenos Aires, six people were killed by a bomb at a rally addressed by President Peron.
1956 – General Motors announced that the first free piston automobile had been developed.
1959 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro began a U.S. goodwill tour.
1986 – U.S. F-111 warplanes attacked Libya in response to the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin on April 5, 1986.
1998 – Pol Pot died at the age of 73. The leader of the Khmer Rouge regime thereby evaded prosecution for the deaths of 2 million Cambodians.
1999 – In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, a panel of two Lahore High Court judges convicted former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of corruption.
