On This Day: 20 April

Jacques Cartier sets sail on his first voyage, on which he would reach what is now Labrador, Newfoundland, the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Quebec), New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island		1534
Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump – the remains of the Long Parliament		1653
Admiral Blake destroys the Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz de Tenerife		1657
Supporters of the deposed James II attack Londonderry and begin the siege		1689
Captain James Cook discovers New South Wales		1770
Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue – considered to be the world's first detective story – published in Graham's Magazine		1841
Muslim leader Ali Hajj Uman besieges the French fort of Medine in Senegal		1857
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities published		1859
Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the US Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia		1861
US Congress passes the Third Force Act, authorising the use of military force against the Ku Klux Klan		1871
Edouard Manet dies, one week after having a gangrenous leg amputated		1883
The first motor race takes place in Paris. Georges Bouton is the only entrant!		1887
Bob Chatt of Aston Villa scores after 30 or 40 seconds (depending on source) in the FA Cup final, against West Bromwich Albion – which would be the fastest ever, until 2009; it proves to be the only goal of the game		1895
Isadora Duncan's two children die when their car rolls into the Seine		1913
The first issue of Gramophone magazine goes on sale		1923
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy opens the new parliament, composed entirely of Mussolini's Fascists		1929
Electron microscope demonstrated for the first time		1940
Massacre of Jews in Warsaw Ghetto begins		1943
RAF drops 4,500 tons of bombs on Germany – a record for a single raid		1944
Soviet troops enter Berlin; US troops enter Leipzig; Hitler leaves the Führerbunker for the last time, to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth		1945
The League of Nations officially dissolves, passing most of its powers to the United Nations		1946
Failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion		1961
Pierre Trudeau becomes Prime Minister of Canada		1968
Enoch Powell makes his "rivers of blood" speech, against large–scale immigration		1968
117 arrested when violence breaks out at a free pop festival in Venice, Los Angeles		1969
President Nixon announces the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam		1970
The Apollo 16 lunar module, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, lands on the Moon		1972
Steve Davis, 23, wins his first world snooker title – beating Doug Mountjoy in the final		1981
President Gorbachev cuts off gas supplies to Lithuania; Soviet troops storm the Lithuanian state printing works		1990
All 51 passengers and crew lose their lives when Air France flight 422 (a Boeing 727) ploughs into a mountain near Bogota, Colombia, shortly after take–off		1998
Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Kiebold (17), seniors at Columbine High School in Denver, shoot twelve students and one teacher dead, and injure 24 others, at the school – then turn their guns on themselves		1999
Government scientific advisor Sir Robert May warns that commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops could have a serious effect on wildlife		1999
US palaeontologist Erik Trinhaus says that a 24,500–year–old skeleton found in Portugal proves that homo sapiens bred with Neanderthal man		1999
British and Italian scholars hail the discovery of eight almost perfectly preserved ancient Roman ships in what used to be the harbour of Pisa		1999
Panic grips Beijing, and health minister Zhang Winking is sacked, as the government admits that the city has over 700 cases of SARS – ten times more than previously admitted		2003
Soldiers and police open fire on pro–democracy protestors in Kathmandu, killing at least three		2006
Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win an Indy car race, winning the Indy Japan 300		2008
Over 150 people lose their lives, and thousands are injured, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico		2010
127 people lose their lives when a plane crashes in a residential area near Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad		2012
Over 150 people lose their lives, and thousands are injured, when an earthquake of moment magnitude 6.6 strikes in China's Sichuan Province		2013

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On This Day: 20 April