April 3

April 3 is the 93rd day of the year (94th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 272 days remaining.

Events

33 - Crucifixion of Jesus (traditional date)

1559 - The treaty, Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, is signed, ending the Italian Wars.

1860 - The first successful Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California is started (completed on April 13).

1865 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the break-away Confederate States of America.

1882 - American Old West outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back and killed in Saint Joseph, Missouri by Robert Ford for a $5,000 reward.

1885 - Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his engine design.

1895 - The libel trial instigated by Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Queensbury begins, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.

1922 - Joseph Stalin succeeds Vladimir Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

1936 - Richard Bruno Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the baby son of Anne and world-famous pilot Charles Lindbergh.

1941 - Hungarian and German troops march into Yugoslavia.

1942 - World War II: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Bataan fell on April 9 and the Bataan Death March began.

1946 - Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed outside Manila in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March.

1948 - President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan which authorizes $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.

1953 - TV Guide debuts.

1955 - The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.

1968 - Elvis Presley sings Heartbreak Hotel on the Milton Berle Show with an estimated 25% of the United States population viewing.

1968 - Simon and Garfunkel release the critically acclaimed album Bookends.

1968 - Martin Luther King Jr delivers his "mountaintop" speech.

1969 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start to "Vietnamize" the war effort.

1971 - In Dublin, Ireland, Séverine wins the sixteenth Eurovision Song Contest for Monaco singing "Un banc, un arbre, une rue" (A bench, a tree, a street).

1973 - The first ever Mobile phone call is placed by Martin Cooper, in New York City

1974 - The Super Outbreak occurred. 148 tornadoes affected 13 states and 1 Canadian province in 18 hours. It was the biggest tornado outbreak in the planet's recorded history. 315 people die, nearly 5,500 are injured.

1975 - Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title.

1976 - In The Hague, Netherlands, Brotherhood of Man wins the twenty-first Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom singing "Save Your Kisses For Me".

1986 - IBM unveils the PC Convertible, their first laptop computer.

1996 - Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his Montana cabin.

1996 - An Air Force air transport carrying United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown crashes in Croatia, killing all 35 on-board.

1997 - Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but 1 of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.

2000 - Microsoft antitrust case: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.

2004 - Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves with explosives.

2005 - First OXBL Event in Canada played in London, Ontario, with over 100 participants.