- April Fool's Day

- United States House of Representatives holds its first quorum. (1789)

- Otto von Bismarck, architect of the German empire, was born. (1815)

- Maria Mitchell, first female professional astronomer in the United States, was born. (1818)

- First weather satellite was sent into orbit. (1960)

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- International Children's Book Day

- Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Lombards, and the first Holy Roman Emperor, was born. (742)

- Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author famed for children’s stories, was born. (1805)

- Walter Percy Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Automobile Company, was born. (1875)

- Easter Egg roll was first hosted at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (1878)

- Charles Lindbergh paid over $50,000 ransom for his kidnapped son. (1932)

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- Washington Irving, American author (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle), was born. (1783)

- William Macy "Boss" Tweed, New York City political boss, was born. (1823)

- Pony Express service began by connecting St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. (1860)

- Marshall Plan signed by President Harry Truman. (1948)

- "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

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- Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard the Golden Hind. (1581)

- William C. Rose, American biochemist who researched the role of amino acids in nutrition and calculated the minimum daily requirement for each of them, was born. (1887)

- Maya Angelou, African American poet and writer, was born. (1928)

- North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty was signed. (1949)

- Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination (1968)

- Ill-fated Challenger Space Shuttle (OV-099) took its first voyage into orbit. (1983)

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- Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe. (1614)

- Hong Kong was proclaimed a British crown colony by Queen Victoria. (1843)

- Booker T. Washington, former slave and educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute, was born. (1856)

- Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British. (1930)

- Colin Powell, U.S. Army General and former Secretary of State, was born. (1937)

- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for espionage. (1951)

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- National Public Health Week, April 6 – 12, 2009

- Sacagawea, American explorer, was born. (1786)

- Modern Olympics began in Athens with eight nations participating. (1896)

- North Pole was reached by Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson. (1909)

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- World Health Day

- Cape Town South Africa settlement was established by the Dutch. (1652)

- William Wordsworth, English poet (“The Prelude,” ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”), was born. (1770)

- Billie "Lady Day" Holiday, jazz and blues singer, was born. (1915)

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- Passover, commemorating the Jews’ flight from slavery in Egypt, begins. April 8 - 16, 2009

- Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism, birth celebrated. (563 BCE)

- Sculpture Venus de Milo is discovered on the island of Melos. (1820)

- Betty Ford, First Lady of the United States, born. (1918)

- Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record. (1974)

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- Captain James Cook discovers Botany Bay in Australia. (1770)

- Alaska purchase from Russia passed by a single vote. (1867)

- Civil War officially ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. (1865)

- Paul Bustill Robeson, actor and activist, was born. (1898)

- J. William Fulbright, U.S. Senator from Arkansas born. (1905)

- Winston Churchill was made the first honorary U.S. citizen. (1963)

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- U.S. Patent System was established. (1790)

- Matthew C. Perry, American naval officer who opened Japan to trade with the west, was born. (1794)

- Safety pin was patented. (1849)

- F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby. (1925)

- Jackie Robinson broke the major leaue baseball color barrier when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. (1947)

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- Napoleon, leader of France, abdicated and was exiled to Elba. (1814)

- The Shogunate is abolished in Japan. (1868)

- Puerto Rico ceded to the United States by Spain. (1899)

- Einstein reveals his Theory of Relativity. (1905)

- Jerrie Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the world, was born. (1964)

- 1968 Civil Rights Act was signed by President Johnson. (1968)

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- Easter 2009

- National Library Week April 12 - 18, 2009

- The Union Jack is adopted as the national flag of Great Britain. (1606)

- The Fourth Crusade attacked Constantinople, driving out the Byzantine emperor. (1204)

- Henry Clay, American statesman, born. (1777)

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office. (1945)

- Polio vaccine discovery by Dr. Jonas Salk was announced. (1952)

- Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. (1961)

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- Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, was born. (1743)

- First elephant arrived in America. (1796)

- Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker), American outlaw and leader of the Wild Bunch, was born. (1866)

- J.C. Penny opened his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. (1902)

- First navigational satellite was launched into Earth's orbit. (1960)

- Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win a Best Actor Academy Award. (1963)

- The world's longest doubles ping-pong match ended after 101 hours. (1979)

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- National Library Workers Day 2009

- Linus Yale, American inventor and designer of the compact cylinder pin-tumbler lock that bears his name, was born. (1821)

- Noah Webster's first edition dictionary was published. (1828)

- Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. (1865)

- Anne Mansfield Sullivan, teacher who educated Helen Keller, was born. (1866)

- Titanic, the passenger liner deemed unsinkable, struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and began to sink. (1912)

- Columbia, America's first space shuttle on its first mission, returned to Earth. (1981)

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- U.S. Taxes are due.

- Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, scientist and visionary, was born. (1452)

- McDonald's, founded by Ray Kroc, and the first fast food chain restaurant, opened in Des Plaines, Illinois. (1955)

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- Support Teen Literature Day 2009

- Act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, was signed by President Lincoln. (1862)

- Charles “Charlie” Spencer Chaplin, film actor and director, born. (1889)

- Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel. (1912)

- Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, setting a woman's record. (1922)

- Two giant pandas, named Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, arrived in the United States from China. (1972)

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- Martin Luther was ex-communicated from the Roman Catholic Church. (1521)

- Karen Blixen (also known as Isak Dinesen), Danish writer (Out of Africa), was born. (1885)

- Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet premier from 1958-64, was born. (1894)

- Bay of Pigs Invasion. (1961)

- Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ends. (1986)

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- YMCA Healthy Kid’s Day 2009

- Paul Revere and William Dawes, American revolutionaries, rode through the towns of Massachusetts to warn the people "the British are coming." (1775)

- First Seminole War ended when a regiment of Indians and blacks was defeated at the Battle of Suwanna. (1818)

- San Francisco earthquake hit and measured 8.25 on the Richter scale. (1906)

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- Administrative Professionals Week (formerly Secretary's Day) April 19 - 25, 2009

- National Playground Safety Week April 19 - 25, 2009

- Public School Volunteer Week April 19 - 25, 2009

- The American Revolution began as fighting broke out in Lexington, Massachusetts. (1775)

- First Boston Marathon was run. (1897)

- Eliot Ness, Treasury Agent during Prohibition and famous for stopping crime, was born. (1903)

- Sally Ride was named by NASA to be the first woman astronaut. (1982)

- Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people. (1995)

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- Patriot's Day, 2009

- TV-Turnoff Week April 20 – 26, 2009

- Adolf Hitler, Fascist dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945, was born. (1889)

- Joan Miro, surrealist Spanish painter, was born. (1893)

- First electron microscope was demonstrated. (1940)

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- Catherine the Great, Russian empress, was born. (1729)

- Charlotte Bronte, novelist (Jane Eyre), was born. (1816)

- William III and Mary II were crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. (1869)

- Spanish-American War began. (1898)

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- Earth Day

- Isabella I Castile, Queen of Spain, patron of Christopher Columbus, was born. (1451)

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- Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Day 2009

- Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (Don Quixote), was born. (1547)

- William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet, was born. (1564)

- Charlotte E. Ray passed the bar exam. She was the first African American woman to become a lawyer. (1872)

- First U.S. motion picture premiered in New York City. (1896)

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- Arbor Day, United States, 2009

- La Marseillaise, which later became the French national anthem, was composed. (1792)

- Library of Congress was established in Washington, D.C., with a $5000 allocation. (1800)

- IBM personal computer was introduced. (1981)

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- World Penguin Day

- Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe was published in London. (1719)

- Suez Canal construction began in Egypt. (1859)

- Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist and inventor of the radio, was born. (1874)

- War on Spain was declared by the United States. (1898)

- Seeing eye dog was used for the first time. (1938)

- An article describing the double helix of DNA was published in Nature magazine by biologists Francis Crick and James. (1953)

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- John James Audubon, artist and naturalist, was born. (1785)

- Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect who designed New York's Central Park and the University of Washington campus, was born. (1822)

- Weather forecast was broadcast by WEW radio in St. Louis, Missouri, for the first time. (1921)

- Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 1,200 for first time. (1983)

- World's worst nuclear disaster occurred at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Union. (1986)

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- Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph and the code, was born. (1791)

- Beethoven composed his famous piano piece, Für Elise. (1810)

- Ulysses S. Grant, Union General during the American Civil War and 18th president of the United States, was born. (1822)

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- The crew of the HMS Bounty mutinied against Captain William Bligh. (1789)

- Thor Heyerdahl set out in Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. (1947)

- Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army and was stripped of his boxing title. (1967)

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- Joan of Arc led French forces to victory over English at Orleans. (1429)

- Rubber was patented. (1813)

- Roget's Thesaurus first edition was published. (1852)

- William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper publisher, was born. (1863)

- Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, jazz musician, born. (1899)

- The zipper was patented by Hoboken, New Jersey, resident Gideon Sundback. (1913)

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- Children's Day ("Día del niño") is celebrated in Mexico.

- George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president. (1789)

- Louisiana Purchase added 800,000 square miles to the United States. (1803)

- Hawaii became a territory of the United States. (1900)

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