Today:
1478 – The Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de’ Medici and assassinated his brother Giuliano during High Mass in Florence.
1564 – Playwright William Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
1803 – Thousands of meteor fragments fell from the skies over L’Aigle, France, helping to convince scientists that meteors originate in space.
1865 – Union cavalry troopers captured and killed John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, near Port Royal, Virginia.
1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany, was established.
1937 – German planes bombed the Spanish town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, inspiring Picasso’s famous painting.
1954 – The Geneva Conference began, aiming to resolve issues related to the Korean War and the First Indochina War.
1962 – NASA’s Ranger 4 spacecraft crashed into the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach the lunar surface.
1986 – A reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.
2005 – Syria completed its withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence.