Last month, we riffed on the name of March — since that month was coming up. But while it’s still going on, we’ve had enough of March now, so let’s look ahead to April.
And rather than dig into the name, we’ll share some trivia that you can use to impress your friends. They’ll be thoroughly convinced that you are pretty smart, and also very weird. But you can’t have everything go your way.
Forget April Fool’s Day. Everybody knows about that one, and yet they still get fooled, year after year. Let’s look at something you can trust, something a little more fixed — what happened each day in history.
We won’t give you the whole month, but just get you started. Maybe by Tax Day, you’ll figure out how to look this stuff up on the interwebs by yourself. Let’s get started:
1
1924 – The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed. This led inevitably to the workout craze that came along in the 1960s.
2
1513 – Having spotted land on March 27, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León comes ashore on what is now the U.S. state of Florida, landing somewhere between the modern city of St. Augustine and the mouth of the St. Johns River. Alas, he never found that Fountain of Youth — if he had, he’d probably still be around, bragging about it.
3
1948 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries. Which as much as anything helped to prevent World War III. So good move, Harry.
4
1581 – Francis Drake is knighted by Queen Elizabeth I for completing a circumnavigation of the world. But he was just the first Englishman to do it. Magellan beat him by about six decades. That’s Francis in the picture at the top.
5
1792 – United States President George Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power is used in the United States. It had to do with apportionment, and we’ve been fighting over the same issue ever since.
6
1808 – John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, which would eventually make him America’s first millionaire. Remember that in 1808, that was a lot of money.
7
1906 – Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples. So, you know, Pompeii wasn’t the only time it happened.
8
1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as Major League Baseball‘s first African-American manager. Notice how we’re edging the subject over to baseball, because it’s high time for that.
9
1865 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the war. One of those dates that maybe we all should know.
10
1970 – Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons. Which led to an emotional scene in the film “Apollo 13.”
11
1968 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Trot this out next time somebody says not much happens in April.
12
1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes President upon Roosevelt’s death. Fortunately for Truman, FDR mostly had the war won by that time.
13
1743 – Thomas Jefferson, American lawyer and politician, 3rd President of the United States (died 1826). Exactly 200 years later, the Lincoln Memorial would be dedicated on the same date.
14
2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine: The Russian warship Moskva sinks. Sorry to bring it up, but we should never forget what’s happening over there.
15
1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s color line. Yep, baseball again! But surely you didn’t want to hear about Tax Day.
And so forth. Have a great April. We’ll close with some appropriate music…
Comments are closed.