28th April 1789 – Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors were set adrift and the rebel crew returned to Tahiti briefly and then set sail for Pitcairn Island. The incident became known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. 1920 – Azerbaijan was added to the Soviet Union. (I collect stamps and coins, not countries). 1932 […]

27th April 1124 – David I became King of Scotland. 1296 – The Scots were defeated by Edward I of England at the Battle of Dunbar. 1667 – The blind and impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. 1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Tea Act, designed to […]

26th April 1949 - Heads of government from Australia, Britain, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs signed the Declaration of London and the modern Commonwealth was born.

25th April 1719 - Daniel Defoe's famous book, Robinson Crusoe, was published. 1886 - Sigmund Freud opened his practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna. 1953 - James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the structure of DNA.1967 - The first law legalizing abortion in the United […]

23rd April 1564 - The Bard, William Shakespeare, is said to have been born on the 23rd of April. So, if he were still alive, he would be well over 400 years old today. Of course no one really knows the exact date of his birth because these things weren't so well regulated back then, […]

20th April 1653 - Oliver Cromwell, puritan, revolutionary, Lord Protector of England and the man who banned Christmas, dissolved Parliament to rule by decree.  (Of course he did.) 1999 - Two teenage boys murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., before turning their guns on themselves.