Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.
Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in April 2022 (so you have time to write about them!)
We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2022. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2023 and 2024 editions are also available if you work further ahead.
1 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
Death of King George II of Greece. Succeeded by his brother Paul.
2 Apr 1922 – 100 years ago
Death of Hermann Rorschach, Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst. Best known for developing the Rorschach inkblot test which was widely used as a means of diagnosing mental disorders.
3 Apr 1922 – 100 years ago
Joseph Stalin became leader of the Soviet Union, succeeding Vladimir Lenin.
4 Apr 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II: white bread was no longer available in Britain. It was replaced by the ‘national loaf’ made from wheatmeal.
5 Apr 1722 – 300 years ago
Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to visit Easter Island.
6 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
The first Tony Awards (for excellence in Broadway theatre) were presented at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, New York City, USA.
7 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
Death of Henry Ford, American industrialist, car manufacturer and inventor. Founder of the Ford Motor Company. He revolutionised factory production by introducing assembly lines, and brought motorised transport to the masses.
8 Apr 1942 to Nov 1945 – 80 years ago
World War II – the Hump. Allied pilots carried out a daily airlift of supplies into China from India after Axis forces blocked supply routes including the Burma Road. They resupplied the Chinese war effort as well as U.S. Army Air Force units stationed in China. They were forced to fly a challenging route over the eastern end of the Himalayas – which they nicknamed ‘the Hump’. 594 aircraft were lost or irreparably damaged during the mission, and 1,659 personnel were killed.
9 Apr 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II: the Bataan Death March. The Japanese forced 75,000 captured Filipino and American troops to march for six days without food or water to a prisoner-of-war camp. Thousands died.
10 Apr 1872 – 150 years ago
The first Arbor Day in the USA was celebrated in Nebraska, when J. Sterling Morton organised the planting of one million trees.
11 Apr 1972 – 50 years ago
The first episode of the radio comedy panel game show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue was broadcast of BBC Radio 4 in the UK. It is still running.
12 Apr 1992 – 30 years ago
Disneyland Paris (originally known as Euro Disney) opened in France.
13 Apr 1997 – 25 years ago
American golfer Tiger Woods, aged 21, became the youngest player to win the U.S. Masters championship, and the first African-American to win. He also set a new tournament record.
14 Apr 1922 – 100 years ago
The Teapot Dome Scandal was revealed in the Wall Street Journal. U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, had secretly granted oil companies the right to drill for oil on federal land in exchange for bribes. It was the biggest political scandal of the era. Investigations revealed an unprecedented level of corruption in the federal government.
15 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, ending the racial segregation that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues.
16 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
The term ‘Cold War’ was used for the first time when American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch described the relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union.
17 Apr 1982 – 40 years ago
Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act into law, severing Canada’s last ties with Britain and making it wholly independent.
18 Apr 1942 – 80 years ago
World War II: the USA bombed mainland Japan for the first time, hitting Tokyo, Yokohama, and other cities. This was a huge boost to the Allies’ morale.
19 Apr 1897 – 125 years ago
The first Boston marathon was held in Massachusetts, USA. It is the world’s oldest annual marathon.
20 Apr 1992 – 30 years ago
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was held at Wembley Stadium in London. It was a tribute to the Queen singer who died in November 1991, with all proceeds going to AIDS research.
21 Apr 1922 – 100 years ago
Birth of Alistair MacLean, Scottish novelist. Best known for The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. (Died 1987.)
22 Apr 1972 – 50 years ago
British rowers John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook became the first people to row across the Pacific Ocean. They took 361 days.
23 Apr 1992 – 30 years ago
The world’s largest McDonald’s fast-food restaurant opened in Beijing, China.
24 Apr 1962 – 60 years ago
The first transcontinental relay of a television signal by satellite. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used the Echo I satellite to send a TV signal between California and Massachusetts.
25 Apr 1982 – 40 years ago
Israel withdrew its troops from the Sinai Peninsula, as agreed under the Camp David Accords of 1978
26 Apr 1942 – 80 years ago
The worst mining disaster in history. An explosion at the Honkeiko (also known as Benxihu) colliery in Benxi, China killed 1,549 miners.
27 Apr 1822 – 200 years ago
Birth of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States (1869–77).
28 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates left Peru on the primitive raft Kon-Tiki in an attempt to prove that Polynesians may have originated in South America and crossed the Pacific. They successfully reached Polynesia in August.
29 Apr 1952 – 70 years ago
IBM announced the IBM 701 (also known as the Defence Calculator), its first commercial scientific computer. Chairman Thomas J. Watson Jr. said they had expected to receive 5 orders but had managed to secure 18. This led to a famous misquote in which he was reported to have said, ‘I think there is a world market for maybe five computers’. 19 were eventually built and installed.
30 Apr 1947 – 75 years ago
Boulder Dam, on the Colorado River in the USA, was renamed Hoover Dam.
More anniversaries:
You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2022. The 2023 and 2024 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The 2025 and 2026 editions will be released later this year. Find out more at ideas4writers.com.