April 2, 1902: “Electric Theatre”, the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.
April 3, 1974: The Super Tornado Outbreak leads to an unbelievable 148 tornadoes in the United States during a 24 hour period. At one time there were 23 tornadoes on the ground at various locations at the same time. A record 6 of the tornadoes that day were F5, the strongest rating possible. (There has been discussion of rating the Xenia, Ohio tornado on this date as an F6, because it was so unbelievably strong.) Over 300 die.
April 3, 1860: The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.
April 3, 1922 - Mary Ann Kappelhoff (aka Doris Day) was born.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 4, 1905, The Kangra India earthquakekills over 20,000.
April 5, 1936: The Tupelo-Gainesville Tornado Outbreak (Pt. 1). An F5 tornado destroys Tupelo Mississippi. Over 200 people are killed in the fourth deadliest tornado in US history. Here is a very interesting short video about the event. One survivor whose home was only a short distance away from the terrible wreckage was a one-year old Elvis Presley.
April 5, 1242 – During the Battle on the Ice of Lake Peipus, Russian forces led by Alexander Nevsky rebuff an invasion attempt by the Teutonic Knights.
April 5, 1951: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.
April 6, 1936: The Tupelo-Gainesville Tornado Outbreak (Pt. 2): The same storm system that spawned the April 5th Tupelo tornado produces a terrible tornado in Gainesville, Georgia. The Tupelo tornado was the 4th deadliest in US history. This tornado was the 5th. No single storm system had ever before or has ever since had two separate tornado events that killed multiple hundreds each. In Gainesville, the tornado killed 70 workers in the Cooper Pants factory. That still stands as the most deaths ever in a single building during a tornado. The official death toll in Gainesville was 206. The Tupelo-Gainesville Tornado outbreak total death toll is listed as 454. However, experts believe many more people died during the event as African American deaths were often not recorded.
April 6, 1962: Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto. In his remarks, Bernstein is critical of Gould’s interpretation of the concerto. Conductors and soloists often disagree, but very rarely in public.
April 7, 1945: The Japanese battleship *Yamato *, the heaviest battleship ever constructed, is sunk by United States forces. Over 3000 die.
April 7, 1927: The first long-distance public television broadcast, from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.
April 8, 1961: The MV Dara, a British passenger ship, suffers a large explosion while in the Persian Gulf. 238 of the over 800 aboard die. The explosion is believed to have been caused by an intentionally placed bomb.
April 8, 1974: At Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record.
April 9, 1947: The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward tornado kills over 180 people in Texas and Oklahoma. This is Oklahoma’s deadliest tornado and the sixth deadliest in US history. This storm is also known for the mystery surrounding one of its survivors. Joan Gay Croftand her sister were taken to the hospital in Woodward after the disaster. Joan was 4 and her sister Geri was 8. Their mother had been killed in the tornado and their father seriously injured. Two men showed up at the hospital and said they were taking Joan to be reunited with other family members. They would be back for her sister, they said. The two men left with the little girl. She was never seen again.
April 9, 1939: Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing to an integrated audience at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician, especially a Black one. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.
April 10, 1815: The Mount Tambora Volcano explodes. This is the largest explosion on Earth in the past 10,000 years. Tens of thousands died as a direct result of the eruption, and hundreds of thousands died indirectly from the effects. 1816 was “The Year Without a Summer” because global temperatures dropped an average of over 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The explosion was 10 times as great as Krakatoa.
April 10, 1970: Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.
April 11, 1965: The Palm Sunday tornado outbreakkills 271 and injures another 1500 across Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. (Check out the terrifying double tornado picture in the link!) The 137 dead in Indiana is that state’s deadliest tornado day.