On This Day - 9th April

1865 - The American civil war ends. The Federal forces of the Northern States win leaving around 600,000 American dead. 1898 Paul Robeson born
1903 - Ward Bond born
1926 - Hugh Hefner born
1933 - Jean-Paul Belmondo born
1935 - Avery Schreiber born
1939 - Michael Learned born
1940 - Germany invades Norway
1954 - Dennis Quaid born
1965 - Paulina Porizkova born
1966 - Cynthia Nixon born
1969 - Sikh busmen in Wolverhampton have won the right to wear turbans on duty after a long-running campaign.
1971 - Austin Peck born
1976 - The president of the Young Liberals, Peter Hain, is acquitted of robbing a branch of Barclays bank.
1978 - Rachel Stevens born
1979 - Keshia Knight Pulliam born
1984 - About 100 pickets are arrested during violent clashes with police outside two working coal pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

1999 - The president of Niger, Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, is shot dead in an apparent coup attempt.
2003 - Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down a statue and tearing it to pieces as US tanks roll into the centre of Baghdad.
2005 - The Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker-Bowles at a civil ceremony followed by a blessing.

On This Day - 8th April

1893 - Mary Pickford born
1902 - Texaco founded
1912 - Sonja Henie born
1918 - Betty Ford born
1926 - Shecky Greene born
1938 - Kofi Annan born

1953 - Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years hard labour for his part in the organisation of the rebel Mau Mau movement.
1963 - Julian Lennon born
1968 - Patricia Arquette born
1973 - The artist Pablo Picasso dies of a heart attack at his chateau near Cannes on the French Riviera.
1980 - Adam Brody born

1986 - Residents of the Californian town of Carmel overwhelmingly vote for actor Clint Eastwood as their mayor.
1994 - Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain is found dead with single gunshot wound to the head. The coroner found that he had taken his own life on 5 April.

1995 - British-born Nicholas Ingram is executed by electric chair in the U.S. after two appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were turned down.
1997 - Veteran war reporter Martin Bell vows to fight on to victory over disgraced Conservative MP Neil Hamilton in the general election battle for the constituency of Tatton.

On This Day - 7th April

1897 - Walter Winchell born
1906 - Mount Vesuvius erupts
1915 - Billie Holiday born
1920 - Ravi Shankar born
1928 - James Garner born
1933 - Wayne Rogers born
1939 - David Frost and Francis Coppola born
1951 - Janis Ian born
1954 - Jackie Chan born
1964 - Russell Crowe born

1968 - Motor racing world champion Jim Clark is killed in a car crash during a Formula Two race at Hockenheim.
1976 - Controversial MP John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party, leaving James Callaghan's government in a minority of one.
1978 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter decides to postpone production of the controversial neutron bomb.
1986 - Home-computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair sells the marketing and merchandising rights to his inventions for £5m to computing rival Amstrad.

1999 - The World Trade Organisation has ruled in favour of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with Europe over bananas.

On This Day - 6th April

1814 - Napoleon abdicates and is banished to Elba
1866 - Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) born
1892 - Lowell Thomas born
1909 - Robert Peary becomes the first person to reach the North Pole
1917 - The U.S. joins the first word war
1929 - Andre Previn born
1937 - Billy Dee Williams and Merle Haggard born
1941 - Philip Austin born
1947 - John Ratzenberger born
1952 - Marilu Henner born

1968 - Dozens of major cities in the United States are rocked by an escalation in the race riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King.
1969 - Ari Meyers born
1975 - A plane carrying 99 Vietnamese orphans has lands at Heathrow airport in 'Operation Babylift'.
1976 - Candace Cameron born
1989 - The government has announced it is to abolish legislation which guarantees work for more than 9,000 dockers.

1994 - The presidents of the African states of Rwanda and Burundi are killed in a plane crash believed to have been caused by rocket fire.
1997 - Nasa brings home the space shuttle Columbia 12 days early amid fears over a defective fuel cell.

On This Day - 5th April

1843 - Hong Kong is proclaimed a colony
1856 - Booker T. Washington born
1900 - Spencer Tracy born
1908 - Bette Davis born

1916 - Gregory Peck born
1921 - Gale Storm born
1926 - Roger Corman born
1934 - Frank Gorshin born
1937 - Colin Powell born
1950 - Agnetha Fältskog born
1955 - Sir Winston Churchill resigns as prime minister of Britain due to failing health.
1970 - West Germany's kidnapped ambassador to Guatemala has been shot dead. The body of Count Karl von Spreti was found in an empty shack 10 miles (16 kilometres) to the north of the country's capital, Guatemala City

1976 - Eccentric American billionaire Howard Hughes dies aged 70, whilst on a plane flying him from Acapulco, Mexico, to Houston, in Texas, for medical treatment at the Methodist Hospital.
1976 - James Callaghan wins the Labour leadership contest and takes over at Number 10 Downing Street.

1986 - A bomb explodes in La Belle disco crowded with US servicemen in Berlin, Germany, killing at least two and injuring over 120.
1988 - Hijackers who took control of a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet release 24 female passengers and one man with a heart condition.
2001 - A Dutch lorry driver is sentenced to 14 years in prison for his part in the deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants.

On This Day - 4th April

1812 - Louisiania becomes the 18th US State
1895 - Arthur Murray born
1906 - John Cameron Swayze born
1914 - Frances Langford born
1915 - Muddy Waters born
1928 - Maya Angelou born
1929 - Carl Benz dies
1932 - Anthony Perkins born
1946 - Craig T. Nelson born
1950 - Christine Lahti born
1963 - David Gavurin born
1965 - Robert Downey born
1966 - Nancy McKeon born
1968 - The American black civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King, is assassinated in the southern U.S. city of Memphis.
1973 - David Blaine born

1979 - Pakistan's former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is hanged in spite of international calls for clemency. Mr Bhutto was sentenced to death for the murder of a political opponent following a trial which was widely condemned as unfair. Also Heath Ledger born
1984 - The women from the main peace camp at Greenham Common in Berkshire are evicted but say it will not end their protest.
1991 - The children at the centre of satanic abuse allegations in the Orkney Islands off Scotland are reunited with their families after the case was thrown out of court.
2000 - Severe weather forces the closure of Luton airport as blizzards and flooding cause widespread chaos.

On This Day - 3rd April

1783 - Washington Irving born
1882 - Jessie James is killed
1916 - Herb Caen born

1924 - Doris Day and Marlon Brando born
1925 - Jan Merlin born
1934 - Jane Goodall born
1942 - Wayne Newton and Marsha Mason born
1944 - Tony Orlando born
1954 - Oxford wins the 100th Boat Race in rough conditions on the River Thames.
1958 - Alec Baldwin born
1959 - David Hyde Pierce born
1961 - Eddie Murphy born
1964 - Robert Chapin born
1971 - Picabo Street born
1972 - Jennie Garth born
1987 - The late Duchess of Windsor's jewellery is sold for £31m ($50m) - six times the expected figure.
1993 - The world-famous Grand National steeplechase is declared void after a series of mishaps at the start.
1996 - Police in the United States arrest Theodore Kaczynski, who they believe is the notorious "Unabomber" who killed three people and maimed 23 others.

2000 - A controversial plan to give asylum seekers vouchers instead of cash comes into force.