01 April History
- 1572 - The Sea Beggars under Guillaume de la Marck land in Holland and capture the small town of Briel.
- 1778 - Oliver Pollock, creates the dollar sign.
- 1863 - The first wartime conscription law goes into effect in the United States.
- 1865 - At the Battle of Five Forks, Gen. Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
- 1868 - The Hampton Institute is founded in Hampton, Va.
- 1905 - Berlin and Paris are linked by telephone.
- 1918 - England's Royal Air Force is formed.
- 1920 - Germany's Workers Party changes its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazis).
- 1924 - Adolf Hitler sentenced to five years in prison for the "Beer Hall Putsch."
- 1928 - China's Chiang Kai-shek begins attacks on communists.
- 1929 - The yo-yo is introduced in the United States by Louie Marx.
- 1939 - The Spanish Civil War effectively ends with the official recognition of Franco's government.
- 1942 - The U.S. Navy begins a partial convoy system in the Atlantic.
- 1945 - U.S. forces launch invasion of Okinawa.
- 1946 - A miner's strike in the U.S. idles 400,000 workers.
- 1948 - The Berlin Airlift begins, relieving the surrounded city from the Soviet siege.
- 1951 - United Nations forces again move northward across the 38th Parallel in Korea.
- 1954 - The U.S. Air Force Academy is founded in Colorado.
- 1968 - The U.S. Army launches Operation Pegasus, the reopening of a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base.
- 1970 - The U.S. Army charges Captain Ernest Medina for his role in the My Lai massacre.
- 1982 - The United States transfers control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.
01 April Birthdays
- 1578 - William Harvey, English physician and biologist.
- 1815 - Otto Von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany.
- 1868 - Edmond Rostand, French dramatist (Cyrano de Bergerac).
- 1883 - Lon Chaney, film actor.
- 1883 - William Manchester, U.S. historian and biographer.
- 1895 - Alberta Hunter, blues singer.
- 1919 - Joseph E. Murray, transplant physician.
- 1929 - Milan Kundera, Czech writer (The Farewell Party, The Unbearable Lightness of Being).