Historical Events on Monday, 7th April

07/04/2022

Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.

Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first Black woman, the first former federal public defender, and the sixth woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

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07/04/2021

COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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07/04/2020

COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan.

The global COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other parts of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed it as having become a pandemic on 11 March. The WHO declared the public health emergency caused by COVID-19 had ended in May 2023.

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COVID-19 pandemic: Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigns for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt and the dismissal of Brett Crozier.

Thomas B. Modly is an American businessman and former government official who served as acting United States Secretary of the Navy from November 24, 2019, to April 7, 2020.

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07/04/2018

Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the "Car-Wash Operation". Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, after being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

Brazilians are the citizens of Brazil. A Brazilian can also be a person born abroad to a Brazilian parent or legal guardian as well as a person who acquired Brazilian citizenship. Brazil is a multiethnic society, which means that it is home to people of many ethnic origins.

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Syria launches the Douma chemical attack during the Eastern Ghouta offensive of the Syrian Civil War.

On 7 April 2018, a chemical warfare attack was launched in the city of Douma, Syria by the military of the Ba'athist regime led by Bashar al-Assad. Medics and witnesses reported that it caused the deaths of between 40 and 50 people and injuries to possibly well over 100. The attack was attributed to the Syrian Army by rebel forces in Douma, and by the United States, British, and French governments. A two-year long investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) concluded in January 2023 that the Syrian Air Force perpetrated the attack, dropping two cylinders, one of which hit the rooftop floor of a three-storey residential building and released chlorine gas. On 14 April 2018, the United States, France and the United Kingdom carried out a series of military strikes against two alleged chemical weapons facilities of the Syrian government.

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07/04/2017

A man deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people and injuring fifteen others.

On 7 April 2017, a vehicle-ramming terrorist attack took place in central Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. A hijacked truck was deliberately driven into crowds along Drottninggatan before being crashed into an Åhléns department store. Five people were killed and 14 others were seriously injured.

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U.S. President Donald Trump orders the 2017 Shayrat missile strike against Syria in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.

Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

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07/04/2011

The Israel Defense Forces use their Iron Dome missile system to successfully intercept a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza, marking the first short-range missile intercept ever.

The Israel Defense Forces, alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal (צה״ל), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and the Israeli Navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security apparatus. The IDF is headed by the chief of the general staff, who is subordinate to the defense minister.

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A gunman opens fire at an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing twelve children and injuring 22 others before committing suicide.

On the morning of 7 April 2011, a school shooting occurred at the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School, an elementary school in Realengo on the western fringe of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Twelve students were killed and 22 others were seriously wounded by Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a 23-year-old former student, who committed the attack with two revolvers. Oliveira was intercepted by the police but committed suicide before being arrested. It was the first non-gang-related mass school shooting to be reported in Brazil, and it remains tied with the 1997 São Gonçalo do Amarante massacre and the 2016 Campinas massacre as the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in Brazilian history.

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07/04/2009

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, to the east by Brazil, to the southeast by Bolivia, to the south by Chile, and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country, with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west, to the peaks of the Andes mountains extending from the north to the southeast of the country, to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. Peru has a population of over 32 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. At 1,285,216 km2 (496,225 sq mi), Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America.

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Mass protests begin across Moldova under the belief that results from the parliamentary election are fraudulent.

Protests against the April 2009 Moldovan parliamentary election results began on 6 April 2009 in major cities of Moldova before the final official results were announced. The demonstrators claimed that the election, which saw the governing Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) win a majority of seats, were fraudulent, and alternatively demanded a recount, a new election, or resignation of the government. Similar demonstrations took place in other major Moldovan cities, including the country's second largest, Bălți, where over 1,000 people protested.

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07/04/2005

First release of Git distributed version control system.

Git is a distributed version control software system that is capable of managing versions of source code or data. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively.

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07/04/2003

Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later.

The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States–led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. During the US occupation of Iraq, the conflict persisted as an insurgency that arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.

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Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demands reparations of $21 billion from France for the Haiti Independence Debt.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who served as president of Haiti in 1991, from 1993 to 1994, from 1994 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2004. He was in exile after the 1991 military coup until 1994 and again after his overthrow in 2004 until 2011. Aristide was a member of the Lavalas Political Organization before he founded the party Fanmi Lavalas in 1996.

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07/04/2001

NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and space exploration. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into mission directorates for Science, Space Operations, Exploration Systems Development, Space Technology, Aeronautics Research, and Mission Support. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle.

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07/04/1999

Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 crashes near Ceyhan in southern Turkey, killing six people.

Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 was a Boeing 737-400 on an international repositioning flight from Adana Şakirpaşa Airport in Adana, Turkey, to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which crashed on 7 April 1999 in the vicinity of Ceyhan, Adana Province, in southern Turkey, eight minutes after takeoff. The flight was on its way to Saudi Arabia to pick up pilgrims from Jeddah, and as such took off without any passengers on board. All six crew members were killed in the accident.

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07/04/1995

First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.

The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a conflict between the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. The conflict ended in a peace treaty that saw Russian forces withdraw from the territory only for them to invade again three years later sparking the Second Chechen War of 1999–2009.

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07/04/1994

Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda, and soldiers kill the civilian Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.

The Rwandan genocide, also known as the Tutsi genocide, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died, mostly men. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbours, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.

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Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy.

On April 7, 1994, Federal Express Flight 705, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 cargo jet carrying electronics equipment across the United States from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Jose, California, was the subject of a hijack attempt by Auburn R. Calloway, a Federal Express employee facing possible dismissal for falsifying his flight hours. Calloway boarded the scheduled flight as a deadhead passenger carrying a guitar case concealing several hammers and a speargun. He planned to crash the aircraft hoping he would appear to be an employee killed in an accident, so his family could collect on a $2.5 million life insurance policy provided by Federal Express. Calloway tried to switch off the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) before takeoff, but the flight engineer noticed and turned it back on, believing he had neglected to turn it on. Once airborne, he attempted to kill the crew with hammers so their injuries would appear consistent with an accident rather than a hijacking. Despite severe injuries, the crew fought back, subdued Calloway, and landed the aircraft safely.

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07/04/1990

A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people.

A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus.

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John Poindexter is convicted for his role in the Iran–Contra affair. In 1991 the convictions are reversed on appeal.

John Marlan Poindexter is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran–Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. During the George W. Bush administration, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office. He is the father of NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Alan G. Poindexter.

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07/04/1989

Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway, killing 42 sailors.

The K-278 Komsomolets was the Project-685 Plavnik, nuclear-powered attack submarine of the Soviet Navy; the only submarine of her design class.

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07/04/1988

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Dmitry Timofeyevich Yazov was a Marshal of the Soviet Union. A veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Yazov served as Minister of Defence from 1987 until he was arrested for his part in the 1991 August coup, four months before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yazov was the last person to be appointed to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union on 28 April 1990 and the only Marshal born in Siberia. At the time of his death on 25 February 2020, he was the last living Marshal of the Soviet Union.

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07/04/1983

During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

STS-6 was the sixth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 4, 1983, the mission deployed the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-1, into orbit, before landing at Edwards Air Force Base on April 9, 1983. STS-6 was the first Space Shuttle mission during which a Extravehicular activity was conducted, and hence was the first in which the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) was used.

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07/04/1982

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh is arrested.

Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was an Iranian politician who served as a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini during his 1978 exile in France and was foreign minister during the Iran hostage crisis following the Iranian Revolution. In 1982, he was executed for allegedly plotting the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

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07/04/1980

During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran.

The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of them being held until January 20, 1981. The incident occurred after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed and occupied the building in the months following the Iranian Revolution. With support from Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Iranian Revolution and would eventually establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, the hostage-takers demanded that the United States extradite Iranian king Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been granted asylum by the Carter administration for cancer treatment. Notable among the assailants were Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Mohammad Bagheri. The hostage crisis contributed to a dramatic decline in Iran–United States relations. After 444 days, it came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Accords between the Iranian and American governments; Iran's king had died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.

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07/04/1978

Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.

A neutron bomb, officially defined as a type of enhanced radiation weapon (ERW), is a low-yield thermonuclear weapon designed to maximize lethal neutron radiation in the immediate vicinity of the blast while minimizing the physical power of the blast itself. The neutron release generated by a nuclear fusion reaction is intentionally allowed to escape the weapon, rather than being absorbed by its other components. The neutron burst, which is used as the primary destructive action of the warhead, is able to penetrate enemy armor more effectively than a conventional warhead, thus making it more lethal as a tactical weapon.

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07/04/1977

German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.

Siegfried Buback was the Attorney General of West Germany from 1974 until his murder in 1977.

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07/04/1976

Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party after being arrested for faking his own death.

John Thomson Stonehouse was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician, businessman and minister who was a member of the Cabinet under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974. It is alleged that Stonehouse had been an agent for Czechoslovak military intelligence.

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07/04/1972

Vietnam War: Communist forces overrun the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh.

The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-led armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV). The movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.

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07/04/1971

Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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07/04/1969

The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that comprises private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information services and resources, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, discussion groups, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing.

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07/04/1968

Two-time Formula One British World Champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim.

Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel, single-seater formula racing cars run by Formula One Group and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world's premier forms of motorsport since its inaugural running in 1950 and is often considered to be the pinnacle of motorsport. The word formula in the name refers to the set of rules all participant cars must follow. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. Grands Prix take place in multiple countries and continents on either purpose-built circuits or closed roads.

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07/04/1965

Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate in Washington, D.C., against the termination of the Colville tribe.

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist U.S. federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilation of their people. These were in contradiction of their treaty rights and status as sovereign entities. The organization continues to be an association of federally recognized and state-recognized Indian tribes.

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07/04/1964

IBM announces the System/360.

International Business Machines Corporation, doing business as IBM, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries; for 29 consecutive years, from 1993 to 2021, it held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business.

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07/04/1956

Francoist Spain agrees to surrender its protectorate in Morocco.

Francoist Spain, also known as the Franco dictatorship, was the period of Spanish history during which Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. During this period, the country was officially known as the Spanish State.

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07/04/1955

Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

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07/04/1954

United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. Earlier, during World War II, he became a General of the Army, and was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of the War: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

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07/04/1948

The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide. Only sovereign states are eligible to join, and it is the largest intergovernmental health organization at the international level.

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07/04/1946

The Soviet Union annexes East Prussia as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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07/04/1945

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato, one of the two largest ever constructed, is sunk by United States Navy aircraft during Operation Ten-Go.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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07/04/1944

In the Fragheto massacre, soldiers belonging to the German 356th Infantry Division kill 30 Italian civilians and 15 partisans near Casteldelci in central-northern Italy.

The Fragheto massacre was the massacre of 30 Italian civilians and 15 partisans in Fragheto, a frazione of Casteldelci in central-northern Italy, on 7 April 1944, during World War II, by soldiers of the German 356th Infantry Division. After partisans belonging to the Eighth Garibaldi Brigade ambushed troops approaching the hamlet, fourteen soldiers of the Sturmbattaillon OB Sudwest conducted house-to-house searches and summarily killed civilians. Representing 40% of the hamlet's population, many of the victims were elderly people, women, or children. A further seven partisans and one civilian were shot the next day at Ponte Carrattoni, at the confluence of the Senatello and Marecchia.

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07/04/1943

The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.

The Holocaust saw the systematic mass murder of Jews in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the General Government, the Crimean General Government and some areas which were located to the east of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, in the Transnistria Governorate and Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region and Carpathian Ruthenia during World War II. The listed areas are currently parts of Ukraine.

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Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation.

Ioannis Rallis was the third and last collaborationist prime minister of Greece during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, holding office from 7 April 1943 to 12 October 1944, succeeding Konstantinos Logothetopoulos in the Nazi-controlled Greek puppet government in Athens.

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The National Football League makes helmets mandatory.

The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by an 18-week regular season, which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Seven teams from each conference, including the four division winners and three wild card teams, then advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament, which culminates in the Super Bowl, played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games. The NFL is headquartered in New York City.

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07/04/1940

Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.

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07/04/1939

Benito Mussolini declares an Italian protectorate over Albania and forces King Zog I into exile.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who led Italy as Il Duce from 1922 until his overthrow in 1943. He founded the fascist movement in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which became the National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1921. Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy after the March on Rome in 1922, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. He oversaw Italy's participation in World War II as an ally of Germany, and was summarily executed near the end of the war in 1945.

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Benito Mussolini invades Albania.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who led Italy as Il Duce from 1922 until his overthrow in 1943. He founded the fascist movement in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which became the National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1921. Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy after the March on Rome in 1922, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. He oversaw Italy's participation in World War II as an ally of Germany, and was summarily executed near the end of the war in 1945.

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07/04/1933

Prohibition in the United States is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. (Now celebrated as National Beer Day in the United States.)

The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.

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Nazi Germany issues the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service banning Jews and political dissidents from civil service posts.

Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

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07/04/1927

AT&T engineer Herbert Ives transmits the first long-distance public television broadcast (from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).

AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation of its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.

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07/04/1926

Violet Gibson attempts to assassinate Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

Violet Albina Gibson was an Irish woman who attempted to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926. She was released without charge but spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital in England.

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07/04/1922

Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.

The Teapot Dome scandal was a political corruption scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Warren G. Harding. It centered on Albert B. Fall, the interior secretary, who had leased petroleum reserves designated for the Navy at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, as well as two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of an investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison, but no one was convicted of paying the bribes.

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07/04/1906

Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.

Mount Vesuvius is a somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera, resulting from the collapse of an earlier, much higher structure.

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The Algeciras Conference gives France and Spain control over Morocco.

The Algeciras Conference of 1906 took place in Algeciras, Spain, and lasted from 16 January to 7 April. The purpose of the conference was to find a solution to the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905 between France and Germany, which arose as Germany responded to France's effort to establish a protectorate over the independent state of Morocco. Germany was not trying to stop French expansion. Its goal was to enhance its own international prestige, and it failed badly. The result was a much closer relationship between France and Britain that strengthened the Entente Cordiale since both London and Paris were increasingly suspicious and distrustful of Berlin.

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07/04/1868

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, is assassinated by a Fenian activist.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was an Irish Catholic who opposed British rule in Ireland, and was part of the Young Ireland attempts to overthrow British rule and create an independent Irish Republic. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, after which some of his political positions reversed. He remained ardently Catholic, but his Irish nationalism moderated. He became disgusted with American republicanism, Anti-Catholicism, and classical liberalism. McGee became intensely monarchistic in his political beliefs and in his religious support for the embattled Pope Pius IX.

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07/04/1862

American Civil War: The Union's Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, Tennessee.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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07/04/1831

Pedro II becomes Emperor of Empire of Brazil.

Dom Pedro II, known as "the Magnanimous", was the second and final emperor of the Empire of Brazil. He reigned from 1831 until his deposition in the military coup of 1889, presiding over the longest and most stable reign in Brazilian history.

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07/04/1824

The Mechanics' Institution is established in Manchester, England at the Bridgewater Arms hotel, as part of a national movement for the education of working men. The institute is the precursor to three Universities in the city: the University of Manchester, UMIST and the Metropolitan University of Manchester (MMU).

Mechanics' institutes, also known as mechanics' institutions, sometimes simply known as institutes, and also called schools of arts, were educational establishments originally formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men in Victorian-era Britain and its colonies. They were often funded by local industrialists on the grounds that they would ultimately benefit from having more knowledgeable and skilled employees. The mechanics' institutes often included libraries for the adult working class, and were said to provide them with an alternative pastime to gambling and drinking in pubs.

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07/04/1805

Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Clark, along with 30 others, set out from Camp Dubois, Illinois, on May 14, 1804, met Lewis and ten other members of the group in St. Charles, Missouri, then went up the Missouri River. The expedition crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas near the Lemhi Pass, eventually coming to the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The return voyage began on March 23, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, ending six months later on September 23.

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German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers and a bridge from the Classical to the Romantic periods.

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07/04/1798

The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and the Spanish Empire. It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.

The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that was created under an organic act passed by the Congress of the United States. It was approved and signed into law by President John Adams on April 7, 1798.

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07/04/1795

The French First Republic adopts the kilogram and gram as its primary unit of mass.

In the history of France, the First Republic, sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire on 18 May 1804 under Napoléon Bonaparte, although the form of government changed several times.

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07/04/1790

Russo-Turkish war (1787–1792): Greek privateer Lambros Katsonis loses three of his ships in the Battle of Andros.

The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 involved an unsuccessful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to regain lands lost to the Russian Empire in the course of the previous Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). It took place concomitantly with the Austro-Turkish War (1788–1791), the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790), and the Theatre War.

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07/04/1788

Settlers establish Marietta, Ohio, the first permanent settlement created by U.S. citizens in the recently organized Northwest Territory.

This is a list of early settlers of Marietta, Ohio, the first permanent settlement created by United States citizens after the establishment of the Northwest Territory in 1787. The settlers included soldiers of the American Revolutionary War and members of the Ohio Company of Associates.

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07/04/1767

End of Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767).

The Burmese–Siamese War of 1765–1767, also known as the war of the second fall of Ayutthaya was the second military conflict between Burma under the Konbaung dynasty and Ayutthaya Kingdom under the Siamese Ban Phlu Luang dynasty that lasted from 1765 until 1767; the war ended the 417-year-old Ayutthaya Kingdom.

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07/04/1724

Premiere performance of Bach's St John Passion, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.

The structure of the St John Passion, BWV 245, a sacred oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday 1724, is "carefully designed with a great deal of musico-theological intent". Some main aspects of the structure are shown in tables below.

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07/04/1541

Francis Xavier leaves Lisbon on a mission to the Portuguese East Indies.

Francis Xavier, venerated as Saint Francis Xavier, was a Navarrese cleric and missionary. He co-founded the Society of Jesus and, as a representative of the Portuguese Empire, led the first Christian mission to Japan.

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07/04/1521

Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu.

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer best known for planning and leading the 1519–22 Spanish expedition to the East Indies. During this expedition, he discovered the Strait of Magellan, performed the first European crossing of the Pacific Ocean, and made the first known European contact with the Philippines. Magellan himself was killed in battle in the Philippines in 1521, but his crew, commanded by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, completed the return trip to Spain in 1522, achieving the first circumnavigation of Earth in history.

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07/04/1449

Felix V abdicates his claim to the papacy, ending the reign of the final Antipope.

Amadeus VIII, nicknamed the Peaceful, was Count of Savoy from 1391 to 1416 and Duke of Savoy from 1416 to 1440. He was the first to hold the ducal title, granted by Emperor Sigismund. Known for his diplomatic temperament and administrative reforms, he strengthened the state's institutions and fostered internal peace.

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07/04/1348

Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV charters Prague University.

Charles IV was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death in 1378. He was elected King of Germany in 1346 and became King of Bohemia that same year. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the Bohemian House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong affinity for the Bohemian side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the Přemyslid line included two saints.

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07/04/1141

Empress Matilda becomes the first female ruler of England, adopting the title "Lady of the English".

Empress Matilda, also known as Empress Maud, was Holy Roman Empress as the consort of Emperor Henry V from 1110 until his death in 1125, and was subsequently a claimant to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. Following the death of her father, King Henry I of England, she asserted her right to the English throne as his only surviving legitimate child and styled herself Lady of the English. However, her cousin Stephen of Blois was crowned king in her place.

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07/04/0529

First Corpus Juris Civilis, a fundamental work in jurisprudence, is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.

The Corpus Juris Civilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, enacted from 529 to 534 by order of Roman Emperor Justinian I. It is also sometimes referred to metonymically after one of its parts, the Code of Justinian.

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07/04/0451

Attila the Hun captures Metz in France, killing most of its inhabitants and burning the town.

Attila, frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.

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