1525 – The Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed by Hernán Cortés’s forces.
1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.
1838 – Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaims the independence of Lower Canada (today Quebec)
1849 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.
1867 – Seventy years of Holy See-United States relations are ended by a Congressional ban on federal funding of diplomatic envoys to the Vatican and are not restored until January 10, 1984.
1874 – One of the longest cases ever heard in an English court ends when the defendant is convicted of perjury for attempting to assume the identity of the heir to the Tichborne baronetcy.
1883 – The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston
1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)
1893 – The USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, is launched.
1912 – Clara Petacci, Italian mistress of Benito Mussolini (d. 1945) was born.
1922 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
1933 – Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.
1947 – 228 massacre: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.
1953 – James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April’s Nature (pub. April 2).
1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
1975 – In London an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.
1991 – The first Gulf War ends.
1993 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.
1997 – The North Hollywood shootout takes place, resulting in the injury of 19 people and the deaths of both perpetrators.
1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.
2001 – The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.
2004 – Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947
2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church becoming the first pope to do so since 1415.
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