April 4

And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long. 

Psalm 35:28

 April is:

• Home Improvement Time - From April 1st to September 30th, encourage people to make their homes more livable and valuable. Sponsor: Home Improvement 'Time.
  
  
• International Amateur Radio Month - Celebrates the role of amateur radio operators who help promote friendship and good will among all people. Sponsor: International Society of Friendship and Good Will.
  
  
• International Guitar Month - Sensor; Guitar & Accessories Marketing Association, Jerome Hershman.

Today is:

• Ballroom Dancing Day - We celebrate the birthday of Arthur Murray, famous ballroom dancing instructor, by going ballroom dancing. Dance up a storm! Sponsor: The Life of the Party. 
  
  
• First U.S. flag approved (1818) - In the Flag Act of 1918, Congress approved the stars and stripes flag.
  
  
• First woman mayor elected in U.S. (1887) - Susanna Salter of Argonia, Kansas, was the first woman mayor in the U.S.
  
  
• Party Party Day - An excuse to have a party once a month (when the day equals the month). Sponsor: Bonza Bottler Day. 
  
  
• Victims of Violence Holy Day - On the anniversary of the 1964 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, we take time out to show respect for everyone. Sponsor: Global Committee Commemorating Kingdom Respect Days
  
  
• Vitamin C isolated (1937)

Born on this Day

• 0186: Caracalla, Emperor of Rome
  

• 1527: Abraham Ortelius
  

• 1648: Grinling Gibbons
  

• 1758: French historical and portrait painter Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (a favorite of Napoleon)
  

• 1792: American abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont.
  

• 1802: Social reformer Dorothea Dix
  

• 1821: American portrait painter-inventor Linus Yale was born in Salisbury, New York. He invented the Yale infallible bank lock and developed the cylinder lock.
  

• 1884: Japanese naval leader Isoroku Yamamoto was born. He planned the Pearl Harbor attack December 7, 1941. He was killed when his plane was shot down by U.S. aircraft.
  

• 1888: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tristram Speaker
  

• 1896: Author-playwright Robert E. Sherwood
  

• 1906: Broadcaster John Cameron Swayze. He was one of television's first news anchors and began the popular 15-minute "Camel News Caravan" on NBC-TV from 1948-1956.
  

• 1915: Blues musician Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield
  

• 1922: Composer Elmer Bernstein
  

• 1925: Actress Elizabeth Wilson
  

• 1926: Actress Cloris Leachman 
  

• 1928: Author-poet Maya Angelou
  

• 1932: Recording executive Clive Davis
  

• 1938: Former Baseball Commissioner and president of Yale University, A. Bartlett Giamatti was born in Boston, MA. One week prior to his death, he suspended Pete Rose for life for betting on baseball games.
  

• 1938: Actor Michael Parks
  

• 1939: Bandleader Hugh Masekela
  

• 1942: Author-Celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley
  

• 1944: Baseball player Rusty Staub was born. He was the first player to be Designated Hitter in all 162 games, in 1978 with the Detroit Tigers.
  

• 1945: Actress Catherine Spaak
  

• 1945: Actor Walter Charles
  

• 1946: Actor Craig T. Nelson
  

• 1948: Rock musician Berry Oakley (The Allman Brothers Band)
  

• 1948: Country singer Gail Davies
  

• 1950: Actress Christine Lahti
  

• 1951: Country singer Steve Gatlin (The Gatlin Brothers)
  

• 1960: Actress Lorraine Toussaint
  

• 1962: Rock musician Craig Adams (The Cult)
  

• 1965: Actor Robert Downey Junior
  

• 1966: Actress Nancy McKeon
  

• 1970: Actor Barry Pepper
  

• 1971: Country singer Clay Davidson
  

• 1972: Rock musician Magnus Sveningsson (The Cardigans)
  

• 1973: Singer Kelly Price
  

• 1974: Rhythm-and-blues singer Andre Dalyrimple (Soul For Real)
  

• 1979: Actress Natasha Lyonne 
  

• 1979: Actor Heath Ledger                
     

Events in History on this day
  

• 0304: Deaths of Sts. Agape, Chionia, and Irene
  

• 0397: Death of St. Ambrose
  

• 0527: Justinian crowned co-Emperor of the East
  

• 0636: Death of St. Isidore of Seville
  

• 0896: Death of Pope Formosus
  

• 1284: Death of Alfonso X, King of Castile-Leon
  

• 1292: Death of Pope Nicolas IV
  

• 1297: James II, King of Aragon, given Corsica & Sardinia by the Pope
  

• 1305: Death of Joan, Queen to King Philip "the Fair" of France
  

• 1406: Death of Robert III, King of Scotland
  

• 1490: Death of Mathias, King of Hungary
  

• 1528: Pierre Attaingnant publishes "Chansons nouvelles musique a quartes partes," the first French publication of polyphonic music.
  

• 1558: Ivan IV, Czar of Russia, grants lands to Grigory Stoganov
  

• 1581: Death of St. Benedict the Black
  

• 1581: Queen Elizabeth dines on board the "Pelican," the ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the World, and, after dinner, Knighted him
  

• 1588: Death of Fredrick II, King of Denmark and Norway
  

• 1593: Condemnation for witchcraft of three members of the Samuels family in Warboys, England
  

• 1617: Death of John Napier, inventor of logarithms
  

• 1625: Death of Prince Maurice of the Netherlands
  

• 1627: Quakers arraigned as Recusants
  

• 1818: Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.
  

• 1841: President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after serving for one month. He was the ninth U.S. president and the first to die in office.
  

• 1850: The city of Los Angeles was incorporated.
  

• 1859: Daniel Emmett introduced "I Wish I Was In Dixie's Land" (later renamed Dixie) in New York City. Just two years later, the song became the Civil War song of the Confederacy.
  

• 1877: A pianist performed in Philadelphia, and an audience heard the performance in New York. It was an important early demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone.
  

• 1887: Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of an American community -- Argonia, Kansas.
  

• 1896: Gold is discovered in the Yukon.
  

• 1902: British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University.
  

• 1939: Professor C.G. King of the University of Pittsburgh isolated Vitamin C after five years of research.
  

• 1941: The American composer George Chadwick died in Boston.
  

• 1943: Raoul Laparra, the music critic of the Paris newspaper "Le Matin," died in an Allied air raid.
  

• 1945: During World War Two, US forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
  

• 1945: US troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from Japanese forces.
  

• 1949: Representatives of 11 nations gathered in Washington, D.C., to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the NATO alliance.
  

• 1968: Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.
  

• 1969: "Star Trek" was canceled by NBC, after a total of 79 episodes.
  

• 1969: CBS canceled the popular Smothers Brothers comedy series. The hour-long show strongly influenced television humor during the two years it aired. Tom and Dick, however, frequently found themselves at odds with the censors over material that would be considered tame today.
  

• 1974: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth's home-run record by hitting his 714th round-tripper in Cincinnati.
  

• 1975: More than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a US Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed shortly after take-off from Saigon.
  

• 1979: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the deposed prime minister of Pakistan, was hanged after he was convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent.
  

• 1981: Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican-American elected mayor of a major US city -- San Antonio, Texas.
  

• 1983: The space shuttle "Challenger" roared into orbit on its maiden voyage.
  

• 1983: The U.S. government granted political asylum to Chinese tennis champion Hu Na.
  

• 1983: Actress Gloria Swanson died in New York at age 84.
  

• 1985: Gary Dotson, who served six years of a prison sentence for rape, was freed on bail from the Joliet Correctional Center in Illinois after his accuser, Cathleen Crowell Webb, testified the attack had never occurred.
  

• 1987: During a visit to Chile, Pope John Paul the Second denounced torture and pleaded for reconciliation.
  

• 1988: The Arizona Senate convicted Governor Evan Mecham of two charges of official misconduct, and removed him from office. (Mecham was the first US governor to be impeached and removed from office in nearly six decades.)
  

• 1989: Democrat Richard M. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago, defeating Republican Edward R. Vrdolyak and independent Timothy C. Evans.
  

• 1990: Secretary of State James A. Baker III began three days of talks in Washington with his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, to discuss the Lithuanian crisis and arms control issues.
  

• 1991: Sen. John Heinz, R-PA, and six other people, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.
  

• 1992: His campaign acknowledged that Bill Clinton had received an induction notice in April 1969 while attending college in Oxford, England; Clinton said the notice arrived after he was due to report, and that his local draft board had told him he could complete the school term.
  

• 1993: President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their two-day summit in Vancouver, British Columbia. Clinton extended $1.6 billion in aid; Yeltsin proclaimed the two countries "partners and future allies."
  

• 1994: On Wall Street, stocks plummeted in violent spasms of selling that sent the Dow industrial down more than 40 points to a six-month low.
  

• 1994: The University of Arkansas won the NCAA basketball championship, defeating Duke 76-72.
  

• 1995: Francisco Martin Duran, who had raked the White House with semiautomatic rifle fire in October 1994, was convicted in Washington of trying to assassinate President Clinton. Duran was later sentenced to 40 years in prison.
  

• 1996: President Clinton signed legislation severing the link between crop prices and government subsidies.
  

• 1996: The former general manager of Daiwa Bank's New York branch pleaded guilty to aiding a $1.1-billion cover-up.
  

• 1997: Space shuttle "Columbia" blasted off from Cape Canaveral on what was supposed to have been a 16-day mission -- however, a defective power generator forced the shuttle's return four days later.
  

• 1998: During a visit to Haiti, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged leaders to stop political infighting that had paralyzed the Caribbean nation for nearly a year.
  

• 1998: Sixty-three people were killed in an explosion inside a Ukrainian coal mine.
  

• 1999: NATO warplanes and missiles attacked an army headquarters, oil refineries and other targets in and around Belgrade.
  

• 1999: The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 8-to-2 in baseball's first season opener held in Mexico.
  

• 2000: In a volatile day on the US stock market, the Nasdaq composite index and the Dow Jones industrial average each plunged more than 500 points before reversing course as buyers flooded back into the market. 
  

• 2001: Sudan's defense minister and 14 other military officers are killed when their plane crashes on takeoff. The loss comes during a critical point in country's civil war.
  

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