Here are 30 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in April 2024 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)
Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)
We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2024, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries (an average of eight newsworthy anniversaries for every day of the year).
1 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch (an attempted revolution in November 1923). He used his time in prison to write his famous memoir Mein Kampf. He was released after eight months.
2 Apr 1974 – 50 years ago
Death of Georges Pompidou, President of France (1969–74 – died in office).
Succeeded by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on 27th May.
3 Apr 1934 – 90 years ago
British inventor Percy Shaw patented the Cat’s Eye reflective road stud.
He set up a company to manufacture them in 1935, and in 1937 he was awarded a government contract to mass produce them for national use.
4 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
The first BBC radio broadcast for schools: the composer Sir Walford Davies gave a talk on music.
Regular schools broadcasting began in 1928.
5 Apr 1874 – 150 years ago
Austrian composer Johann Strauss II’s operetta Die Fledermaus was performed for the first time, in Vienna.
6 Apr 1974 – 50 years ago
The Swedish pop group ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Waterloo.
It was the first time that Sweden won the contest.
ABBA went on to be one of the most successful groups in music history.
7 Apr 1724 – 300 years ago
German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion was performed for the first time, at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig.
8 Apr 1974 – 50 years ago
The song Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings was released. It was the title track of their 1973 album.
9 Apr 1024 – 1000 years ago
Death of Pope Benedict VIII. Succeeded by John XIX.
10 Apr 1944 – 80 years ago
World War II: two Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and wrote a report (the Vrba–Wetzler report) which detailed for (possibly) the first time the extent of the atrocities taking place there.
11 Apr 1899 – 125 years ago
Spanish–American War: the Treaty of Paris came into effect, officially marking the end of the war and the end of the Spanish Empire. Spain relinquished its sovereignty of Cuba, and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the USA.
This marked the USA’s beginning as a world power.
12 Apr 1994 – 30 years ago
The first mass commercial spam campaign was launched.
U.S. lawyers Canter & Siegel flooded around 6,000 Usenet message boards with ads for their services in connection with a Green Card Lottery. Their internet service was swiftly terminated, but they said they gained 1,000 new clients from the campaign and made $100,000 from it.
13 Apr 1964 – 60 years ago
Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in the film Lilies of the Field.
14 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
Death of Louis Sullivan, American architect. Regarded as ‘the father of modern American architecture’ and ‘the father of skyscrapers’.
15 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
The first Rand McNally Road Atlas was published in the USA (as the Rand McNally Auto Chum).
16 Apr 1964 – 60 years ago
The Rolling Stones released their first album The Rolling Stones in the UK.
(USA: May 30th with the sub-title England’s Newest Hit Makers.)
17 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) was founded when Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures merged.
18 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
The Cross Word Puzzle Book was published in the USA by Simon & Schuster. It was the world’s first crossword puzzle book, and the company’s first publication. The book contained a compilation of crossword puzzles from the New York World newspaper. It was an instant success and helped establish Simon & Shuster, which became one of the world’s largest publishing companies.
19 Apr 1824 – 200 years ago
Death of Lord Byron, British poet and politician. One of the greatest British poets, and a leading figure of the Romantic movement. Father of Ada Lovelace, who is considered the first computer programmer.
(Died of sepsis/fever while fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, aged 36.)
20 Apr 1999 – 25 years ago
The Columbine High School massacre, Colorado, USA.
Two students went on a shooting spree, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves.
21 Apr 1994 – 30 years ago
American astronomer Alexander Wolszczan announced the discovery of the first exoplanets (planets outside our solar system).
They orbited the pulsar PSR B1257+12.
22 Apr 1724 – 300 years ago
Birth of Immanuel Kant, German philosopher. One of the leading philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment.
23 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
The British Empire Exhibition opened in Wembley, London.
24 Apr 1974 – 50 years ago
Death of Bud Abbott, American comedian and actor (Abbott & Costello).
25 Apr 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of Guglielmo Marconi, Italian electrical engineer and inventor who developed long-distance radio transmission.
Joint winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing wireless telegraphy.
26 Apr 1994 – 30 years ago
The first post-apartheid multiracial elections were held in South Africa, with 18 million blacks eligible to vote for the first time.
Nelson Mandela was elected president and took office on 10th May.
27 Apr 1944 – 80 years ago
World War II: Exercise Tiger – a large-scale rehearsal for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France.
The exercise took place on Slapton Sands in Devon, UK, and involved the use of live ammunition to acclimatise 30,000 Allied servicemen to battle conditions. Due to coordination and communication issues, up to 450 U.S. servicemen were killed in ‘friendly fire’ incidents. During the exercise, their boats were also torpedoed by German forces, and at least 749 U.S. servicemen were killed.
28 Apr 1774 – 250 years ago
Birth of Francis Baily, British astronomer. Best known for his observations of Baily’s Beads, which can be seen during a total solar eclipse. He was also a co-founder and president of the Royal Astronomical Society.
29 Apr 1964 – 60 years ago
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Soviet Union, reported to the U.S. State Department in Washington that hidden microphones had been planted in the Embassy. The Embassy set about finding and removing them all, and found more than 40 over the next month.
(A similar incident happened when Soviet contractors built a new U.S. Embassy, starting in 1979, and packed it with listening devices.)
30 Apr 2004 – 20 years ago
The Sasser computer worm was created and released.
It affected unpatched versions of Microsoft’s Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems.
It had significant effects on computer systems worldwide, including halting France’s news agency, causing the cancellation of Delta Air Lines transatlantic flights, halting the work of banks, insurance offices and the European Commission, and disabling the British Coastguard’s mapping system and a number of X-ray machines.
A German student, Sven Jaschan, was arrested for creating it. He received a 21-month suspended sentence.
More anniversaries:
You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2024. The 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.
How to use the anniversaries:
If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.
It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, hundreds of article-writing tips and ideas, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.
