April

1 April Fools’ Day
Golden Rule Week
Nat’l Poetry Month
Nat’l Humor Month

2 Ponce de Leon discovers Florida, 1513
Hans Christian Andersen b. 1805
Frederic Bartholdi b. 1834

3 Daylight Savings Time begins at 2:00 AM
Washington Irving b. 1783

4 Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated, 1968
NATO ratified, 1949
Maya Angelou b. 1928

5 Tutor Appreciation Day
Joseph Lister b. 1827
Booker T. Washington b. 1856

6 First Modern Olympics at Athens, Greece, 1896
Robert E. Peary reaches North Pole, 1909
US Enters WWI, 1917

7 First use of Metric System, France, 1795
No Housework Day
Mars Odyssey launched, 2001
UN World Health Day

8 Day of Vesak, commemorates birth of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddah, c. 563 BC
Solar eclipse begins 1:51 PM EDT, visible over Pacific Ocean, Central and South America

9 Civil War ends, 1865
Civil Rights Bill passes, 1866
Winston Churchill Day

10 Nat’l Library Week
Commodore Perry Day
Joseph Pulitzer b. 1847

11 Civil Rights Act signed, 1968
Liberation of Buchenwald, 1945
Apollo 13 flight, 1970

12 Highest velocity wind on earth, 231 MPH, recorded at Mt. Washington, NH, 1934
Yuri Gagarin first man in space, 1961
Salk develops polio vaccine, 1955
Astronomy Week
Truancy Law first enacted in New York, 1853

13 Thomas Jefferson b. 1743
Marguerite Henry b. 1902

14 Noah Webster publishes first dictionary of American
English, 1828
Abraham Lincoln assassinated, 1865
Anne Sullivan b. 1866
First American abolition society founded in Philadelphia, 1775

15 Income Tax Pay Day
Titanic sinks, 1912
First McDonald’s opens, 1955
Gallaudet and Clerc found first US public school for the deaf
Charles Willson Peale b. 1741

16 Astronomy Day
Wilbur Wright b. 1867

17 Ellis Island Family History Day
Nat’l Volunteer Week

18 Nat’l Park Week
Nat’l TV Turnoff Week
Nat’l Wildlife Week
Paul Revere’s Ride, 1775
San Francisco earthquake, 1906
Yankee Stadium opens, 1923

19 Battle of Lexington and Concord, 1775
Oklahoma City bombing, 1995

20 Adolf Hitler b. 1889

21 Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower
Rome founded, 753 BC
Mawlid Al Nabi, birth of Muhammad
Queen Elizabeth II b. 1926

22 “In God We Trust” first stamped on all US coins, 1864
Girl Scout Leaders’ Day
Oklahoma land rush, 1889

23 Passover begins at sunset
James Buchanan b. 1791
Shakespeare born, 1564
Shakespeare dies, 1616
First movie theater opens in New York City, 1896
Physicists discover top quark, 1994

24 Earth Day
Reading Is Fun Week
Library of Congress founded, 1800
Penumbral lunar eclipse begins 3:49 AM EDT
Orthodox Palm Sunday

25 New York issues first auto license plates, 1901
Hubble space telescope deployed, 1990
Guglielmo Marconi b. 1874

26 Confederate Day (FL)
Richter Scale Day
Chernobyl disaster, 1986
John James Audubon b. 1785

27 Ferdinand Magellen dies, 1521
Samuel Morse b. 1791
Ulysses S. Grant b. 1822
Ludwig Bemelmans b. 1898
Walter Lantz b. 1900
Babe Ruth Day anniversary, 1947

28 Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
Mutiny on HMS Bounty, 1789
James Monroe b. 1758

29 Nat’l Arbor Day
Japan celebrates Greenery Day
Duke Ellington b. 1899
Zipper patented, 1913

30 Nat’l Honesty Day
George Washington inaugurated, 1789
First presidential telecast by FDR, 1939
Saigon falls, 1975
Spank Out Day USA

----

It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.
-- George Orwell (1984)

Listen, my children, and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Tales of a Wayside Inn)

He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May.
-- Shakespeare (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

O! how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day!
-- Shakespeare (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
--T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land)

Sweet April showers
Do spring May flowers.
--Thomas Tusser (A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry)