On This Day - 23rd April

1564 - William Shakespeare born
1891 - Sergei Prokofiev born
1899 - Vladimir Nabokov born
1928 - Shirley Temple Black born
1936 - Roy Orbison born
1940 - Lee Majors born
1942 - Sandra Dee born
1949 - Joyce DeWitt born
1954 - Michael Moore born
1957 - Jan Hooks born
1960 - Craig Sheffer and Valerie Bertinelli born
1968 - The first decimal coins make their way into purses throughout Britain in preparation for replacing the current system of pounds, shillings and pence by 1971.
1970 - Scott Bairstow born
1979 - A 33-year-old man dies from head injuries after a bloody battle breaks out between police and demonstrators in Southall.
1984 - The discovery of a virus which may cause Aids, the fatal disease sweeping through America, is hailed as a "monumental breakthrough" in medical research.

1998 - James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of the black American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, dies in prison aged 70, still protesting his innocence.
2001 - Jane Andrews, aformer personal assistant to the Duchess of York goes on trial accused of murdering her boyfriend.
Jane Andrews
2005 - John Mill dies

On This Day - 22nd April

1870 - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin born
1908 - Eddie Albert born
1915 - The Germans use Poison gas for the first time in warfare
1916 - Yehudi Menuhin born
1928 - Aaron Spelling born
1936 - Glen Campbell born

1937 - Jack Nicholson born
1950 - Peter Frampton born
1959 - The world famous British ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn arrives in New York after spending 24 hours in a Panama City jail.

1971 - Dictator of Haiti Papa Doc Duvalier dies after 14 years in power
1978 - Kim Elizabeth born
1979 - Daniel Johns born
1980 - Thirteen leading officials of the ousted government in Liberia are publicly executed on the orders of the new military regime.
1997 - The four-month siege of the Japanese embassy in Peru ends in gunfire and explosions as troops storm in.
2000 - US federal agents seize six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez in an early morning raid on the home of his relatives in Miami.

On This Day - 21st April

1619 - Jan van Riebeeck born
1729 - Catherine the Great born
1816 - Charlotte Bronte born
1838 - John Muir born
1910 - Aurthor Mark Twain dies

1915 - Anthony Quinn born
1926 - Elizabeth II born
1932 - Elaine May born
1935 - Charles Grodin born
1945 - Russian troops capture some outlying suburbs of Berlin at the beginning of what promises to be a bitter battle for control of the city.

1947 - Iggy Pop born
1951 - Tony Danza born
1955 - National newspapers are published for the first time in nearly a month following the end of the maintenance workers' strike.
1958 - Andie Macdowell born
1959 - Robert Smith born
1975 - The President of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu is forced to resign, accusing the United States of betrayal.
1987 - More than 100 people are killed and over 300 injured after a Tamil Tiger bomb explodes in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
1994 - One of the Guildford Four, Paul Hill, wins his appeal against a conviction for an IRA murder in Northern Ireland.

On This Day - 20th April

1889 - Adolf Hitler born
1893 - Joan Miró and Harold Lloyd born
1908 - Lionel Hampton born
1924 - Nina Foch born
1940 - George Takei born
1941 - Ryan O'Neal born
1949 - Jessica Lange born
1953 - The US and Korea swap sick and wounded prisoners of war at Panmunjon.
1959 - Clint Howard born
1961 - Don Mattingly born
1968 - The Conservative right-winger Enoch Powell makes a hard-hitting speech attacking the government's immigration policy.

1972 - The Apollo 16 mission has landed on the Moon after a seven-hour crisis that nearly aborted the mission altogether. Also Carmen Electra born
1974 - The conflict in Northern Ireland claims its 1,000th victim, James Murphy a petrol station owner from County Fermanagh.

1976 - Joey Lawrence born
1999 - Two students, wearing balaclavas and trench coats, rampage through Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado, firing automatic weapons and throwing homemade bombs, leaving 15 dead.

On This Day - 19th April

1838 - The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is established
1881 - Lord Salisbury becomes Leader of the Tory Party
1906 - Pierre Curie killed
1925 - Hugh O'Brian born
1933 - Jayne Mansfield born
1935 - Dudley Moore born
1946 - Tim Curry born
1949 - Paloma Picasso born

1956 - Prince Rainier III of Monaco marries film actress Grace Kelly in a religious ceremony at the Cathedral of Monaco.
1962 - Al Unser born
1966 - Suge Knight born
1968 - Ashley Judd born
1970 - Luis Miguel Basteri born
1972 - The British army is largely cleared of blame for Bloody Sunday which ended in the deaths of 14 civilians in Northern Ireland.
1979 - Kate Hudson born
1981 - Hayden Christensen born
1987 - Maria Sharapova born

1993 - 77 people die in a fire at the besieged headquarters of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas.
1995 - A huge car bomb explodes at a government building in Oklahoma, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring more than 500 others.
2001 - The world's biggest pharmaceutical companies back out of a landmark court battle over cheap anti-Aids drugs.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected as the Pope, taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

On This Day - 18th April

1857 - Clarence Darrow born
1882 - Leopold Stokowski born
1906 - San Francisco is destroyed by an earth quake
1913 - A diptheria serum is discovered
1946 - Hayley Mills born
1947 - James Woods born
1955 - Eminent scientist Dr Albert Einstein, who developed the theory of relativity, dies in hospital aged 76.

1956 - The British Chancellor Harold Macmillan unveils plans for a new state 'premium bond' saving scheme offering cash prizes instead of interest. Also Eric Roberts born
1960 - At least 60,000 demonstrators gather in Trafalgar Square to mark the end of the Aldermaston to London "ban the bomb" march

1963 - Conan O'Brien born
1967 - Maria Bello born
1976 - Melissa Joan Hart born
1978 - The US Senate narrowly back President Carter's controversial Panama Canal treaty.
1988 - A retired US car worker has been found guilty of Nazi war crimes. John Demjanjuk was sentenced to death but appealed. His conviction was quashed in 1993 by the Israeli Supreme Court, after evidence suggested that another Ukrainian was Ivan the Terrible.

1994 - The ethnic violence in Rwandan capital Kigali is spreading throughout the country, aid officials say.
1996 - Seventeen Greek tourists and an Egyptian tour guide are killed by gunmen in Cairo.

On This Day - 17th April

1894 - Nikita Khrushchev born
1918 - William Holden born
1923 - Harry Reasoner born
1945 - Buchenwald concentration camp liberated by Americans
1951 - The entire 75-strong crew of HM Submarine Affray are feared dead after going missing off the south coast of England. Also Olivia Hussey born
1961 - Reports from Cuba say an invasion force has landed on the island to try to overthrow the country's leader, Fidel Castro.
1967 - Liz Phair born
1969 - A 21-year-old woman, Bernadette Devlin, is voted in as Britain's youngest ever female MP and the country's third youngest ever.
1972 - Jennifer Garner born
1974 - Victoria Addams born
1984 - WPC Yvonne Fletcher is killed after shots were fired from the Libyan People's Bureau in central London.

1986 - John McCarthy is abducted on his way to the airport - three bodies, believed to be of British hostages, are also found.
1999 - An explosion outside a busy supermarket in Brixton, south London, injures at least 45 people.