Author: tmnstaff

1521 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in a fight with natives of the Philippines. 1805 The U.S. Marines captured Derna, on the shores of…

1836 Texan army under Sam Houston defeated Mexicans in the Battle of San Jacinto. 1910 Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), author of the novel Huckleberry Finn,…

1769 Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac murdered. 1841 The first detective story, Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue was published. 1902 Marie and Pierre…

April 19 1775 The “shot heard around the world” was fired. Colonial Minute Men took on British Army regulars at Lexington and Concord, Mass., starting…

April 18 1775 Paul Revere rode from Charlestown to Lexington to warn Massachusetts colonists of the arrival of British troops during the American Revolution. 1906…

April 17 1790 Benjamin Franklin, U.S. patriot, diplomat, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died in Philadelphia. 1895 The Sino-Japanese War ended with…

April 14 1775 Benjamin Rush was among those who founded the first American antislavery society. 1828 Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary.…

April 13 1598 The Edict of Nantes gave religious tolerance to the Huguenots in France. 1742 Handel’s Messiah was first publicly performed in Dublin, Ireland.…

April 11 1814 Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. 1899 The treaty ending the Spanish-American War took effect. 1921 Iowa imposed the first…