TODAY IN HISTORY ― APRIL 1

April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 274 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Monday or Tuesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Thursday or Saturday (56).   

EASTER SUNDAY 

286 – Emperor Diocletian elevates his general Maximian to co-emperor with the rank of Augustus and gives him control over the Western regions of the Roman Empire. 

1572 – In the Eighty Years' War, the Watergeuzen capture Brielle from the Spaniards, gaining the first foothold on land for what would become the Dutch Republic.

1789 – In New York City, the United States House of Representatives holds its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker.

1833 – The Convention of 1833, a political gathering of settlers in Mexican Texas to help draft a series of petitions to the Mexican government, begins in San Felipe de Austin.

1865 – American Civil War: In the Battle of Five Forks the Union Army led by Philip Sheridan decisively defeated Confederate States Army led by George Pickett, leading to Breakthrough at Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign. 

1873 – The White Star steamer, RMS Atlantic, sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547 in the worst marine disaster of the 19th century.

1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch". However, he spends only nine months in jail, during which he writes Mein Kampf.

1939 – Spanish Civil War: Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender.

1945 – World War II: In Operation Iceberg, United States troops land on Okinawa in the last major campaign of the war.

1946 – An Aleutian Islands earthquake: An 8.6 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands creates a tsunami that strikes the Hawaiian Islands killing 159, mostly in Hilo.

1948 – Cold War: During the Berlin Airlift military forces, under direction of the Soviet-controlled government in East Germany, set up a land blockade of West Berlin.

1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Chinese Communist Party holds unsuccessful peace talks with the Nationalist Party in Beijing, after three years of fighting.

1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO.

1970 – President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, requiring the Surgeon General's warnings on tobacco products and banning cigarette advertising on television and radio in the United States, starting on January 1, 1971.

    

1976 – Apple, Inc. is formed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

1976 – The Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect, soon revealed as an April Fools' Day hoax, is first reported by British astronomer Patrick Moore.

1979 – Iran becomes an Islamic republic by a 99% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah.

1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion.

2001 – Former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on war crimes charges.

2011 – After protests against the burning of the Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of thirteen people, including eight foreign workers.


BORN TODAY

1815 – Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (d. 1898)

1873 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1943)

1901 – Whittaker Chambers, American journalist and Soviet spy (d. 1961)

1908 – Abraham Maslow, American psychologist and academic (d. 1970)

1922 – William Manchester, American historian and author― The Death of a President (d. 2004)

1951 – Kay Davies, English geneticist, anatomist, and academic

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.