Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion kills 11 and causes rig to sink, initiating a massive oil discharge in the Gulf of Mexico.

Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.

Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.

German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.

Professional basketball player Michael Jordan sets all-time record for points in an NBA playoff game with 63 against the Boston Celtics.

Pianist Vladimir Horowitz performs in his native Russia for the first time in 61 years.

ATF raid on The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas.

The Good Friday Massacre, an extremely violent ice hockey playoff game, is played in Montreal, Canada.

Climax of Berber Spring in Algeria as hundreds of Berber political activists are arrested.

Korean Air Flight 902 is shot down by Soviets.

Apollo 16 landed on the moon commanded by John Young.

English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial ''Rivers of Blood'' speech.

BBC Two launches with the power cut because of the fire at Battersea Power Station.

Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed troops against Cuba.

World War II: Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.

World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.

Billie Holiday records the first Civil Rights song "Strange Fruit".

Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.

Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.

The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 in 11 innings

Forty-five men, women, and children die in the Ludlow Massacre during a Colorado coal-miner's strike.

Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

Opening day of competition of the New South Wales Rugby League.

Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.

Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical ''Humanum Genus''.

The April Uprising - a key point in the new bulgarian history, leading to the Russo-Turkish War and the liberation of Bulgaria from ottoman slavery, as an independent part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 becomes law.

Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the first pasteurization tests.

American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.

U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.

René Caillié becomes the first non-Muslim to enter Timbouctou.

The case of ''Ashford v Thornton'' was concluded, with Abraham Thornton allowed to go free rather than face a retrial for murder, after his demand for trial by battle was upheld.

The Governor of Caracas declares independence from Spain.

Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon I of France at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four day campaign which ended in a French victory.

France declares war on Austria, the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.

American Revolutionary War: the Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.

The former King James II of England, now deposed, lays siege to Derry.

Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).

Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.

The Sun Dog phenomenon observed over Stockholm and depicted in the famous painting "Vädersolstavlan"

Jacques Cartier begins the voyage during which he discovers Canada and Labrador.

The last naval battle in Byzantine history occurs, as three Genoese galleys escorting a Byzantine transport fight their way through the huge Ottoman blockade fleet and into the Golden Horn.

The University of Rome La Sapienza is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII.