April 16, 1951: The HMS Affray submarine disappears in the English Channel. It is not found for over two months, and the cause of the sinking is still unknown today. Any raising of the sub is determined to be too dangerous and too expensive. 75 lives are lost.
April 18, 1880: Marshfield, Missouri is devastated by a tornado. 99 are killed. This storm is part of a widespread tornado outbreak in Missouri that day that kills over 150.
April 19, 1940: The Lake Shore Limited derails on the dangerous Gulf Curve near Little Falls, New York. 31 are killed and 140 injured.
April 19, 1927: Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play “Sex.”
April 20, 1944: The ST Voorbode, a Dutch fishing boat confiscated by the Germans for troop and explosive transport, blows up at a pier in Bergen, Norway. The blast kills 160 and injures thousands. A tsunami caused by the explosion destroys 5000 homes.
April, 21, 1967: The Belvidere, Illinois tornado kills 24. This was one of ten tornadoes in the area that day that killed over 50 people and injured a thousand.
April 21, 1989: In Beijing, around 100,000 students gather in Tiananmen Square to commemorate Chinese reform leader Hu Yaobang.
**April 22, 1916 **: The Chinese transport ship SS *Hsin-Yu * collides with the cruiser *Hai Yung * and sinks south of the Chusan Islands. Over 1000 are killed in the disaster.
April 23, 1564: William Shakespeare is born.
April 23, 1985: Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than three months.
April 24, 2013: The Rana Plaza Collapse in Bangladesh kills 1134. Most of the dead are garment workers. The previous day the factory had been evacuated when cracks in the building were discovered. But management declared the building safe and demanded that the workers return. There were over 3000 inside when the structure crumbled.
April 24, 1967: Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.
April 25, 2015: Over 9000 are killed in an earthquake in Nepal.
April 25, 1901: New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
April 26, 1986: Chernobyl
April 27, 2011: The second deadliest tornado day in U.S. history. 317 are killed and nearly 3000 are injured. There were 216 reported tornadoes in the United States that day, including 4 tornadoes rated F5.
April 28, 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster kills 183 miners in West Virginia
April 29, 1909: An outbreak of violent tornadoes across Middle Tennessee kills at least 62 and injures hundreds.
**April 30, 1927 **: An explosion at the Everettville mine in West Virginia kills 111 men.
May 1, 1952: Mr. Potato Head is born.