1980: Four days after his 23rd birthday, Severiano Ballesteros won the US Masters, the event’s youngest winner.
It happened today – April 12 to April 18 By PA reporters
1990:The Soviet Union admitted the massacre of up to 15,000 Polish officers at Katyn in the Soviet Union in 1940.
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1471:The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, in the War of the Roses.
1606:The Union Flag became England’s official flag.
1709:The Tatler was first published.
1759: George Frideric Handel, German composer, died in London, where most of his music-making had been done.
1838: English settlers in South Africa defeated the Zulus at the Battle of Tugela.
1828: Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language.
1861:The American Civil War, a conflict between 23 northern states and 11 southern states, began with the siege of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. 1945: US President Franklin D Roosevelt died of a brain haemorrhage less than a month before the surrender of Germany to the Allies. 1954: Bill Haley recorded Rock Around The Clock, the first record to sell a million in Britain alone. It was featured in 14 films and recorded in 35 languages.
1865:Abraham Lincoln,America’s 16th president, was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, dying the next day.
1894:Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated his “kinetoscope” moving picture machine in New York.
1917: Dr Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof, Polish physician who invented the international language Esperanto, died.
1929:The Monaco Grand Prix was first run – 78 laps round the narrow streets and harbour of Monte Carlo.
1961:The Russians made the first manned space flight with Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1.
1931:The Ministry of Transport issued the first Highway Code.
1981: Death of Joe Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber’, world heavyweight boxing champion. On the same day in 1989, Sugar Ray Robinson, unbeaten welterweight champion and five times winner of the middleweight title, died.
1983:The first cordless telephone, capable of operating up to 600ft from base, was introduced.
2003:The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
1992: Euro Disneyland opened in Paris.
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1668: John Dryden was appointed the first Poet Laureate.
1452: Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, scientist and inventor, the complete Renaissance man, was born.
1732: Birth of Frederick, Lord North, who as Prime Minister levied the tax on tea that incensed the American colonists and provoked the Boston Tea Party.
1755: Dr Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was published, containing 40,000 words.
1742:The first public performance of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin.
1793: £5 notes were first issued by the Bank of England.
1852: Frank Winfield Woolworth, merchant and founder of the chain store, was born in New York.
1912:The Titanic sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage.
1882:The Anti-Semitic League was founded in Prussia.
1942:The island of Malta was awarded the George Cross for its heroism during German and Italian bombardment.
1912:The Royal Flying Corps was instituted by Royal Charter.
1955:The first McDonald’s franchise restaurant was opened by Ray Kroc in Des Plaines, Illinois.
1936: Joe Payne scored 10 goals for Luton Town against Bristol Rovers on his debut as centre forward – a record for one man in one game.
1989: Britain’s worst football disaster happened at Hillsborough, Sheffield, when 96 fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
1964: Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win an Oscar for best actor, in The Lilies Of The Field.
64 | mccarthyholden.co.uk
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