The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought this day in 1775 signaling the start of the American colonies war of independence against Britain. 

On this day in 1995 the Murrah Federal Office building in Oklahoma City was bombed presumably from a device left in a parked truck. 168 persons, including 12 children, were killed and more than 2300 others injured in the blast. Two years later former US Army Sergeant Timothy McVeigh and fellow ex-GI Terry Nichols faced trial for planting the bomb. 

April 20…

Czar Nicholas II was engaged on this day in 1894. His father, Alexander III had long objected to his son’s marriage to Princess Alice of Hessen, but, already on his deathbed, he finally gave his consent. 

The famous British comedian Benny Hill departed this world on April 20 of 1992.

Everyone darling, well, except his most immediate competition maybe, Benny had his TV show broadcast to a hundred countries. At 60, he was a comedian of a truly global caliber, edging ahead of the great Charlie Chaplin himself! In fact Chaplin had a collection of Benny Hill videos at home and was a great fan of Benny’s. Two months before Benny’s death, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson flew in from America for the sole purpose of paying personal tribute to the world’s number one comedian…

In the 1980s Benny Hill already enjoyed cult following with millions of people aping his grimacing and American police officers saluting exactly the way one of Benny’s characters once did…

In everyday life Benny Hill was a walking mystery though sometimes giving the impression of being a bit on the crazy side.  A multimillionaire, he lived in a cramped apartment eating in cheap diners and buying his clothes at flea markets.  He proposed to many women but never married any. He died in his tiny littered room. Worried about Benny’s long absence, one of his friends came in through the window only to see the host dead crouched in an armchair in front of a burned-out TV set and with dirty plates and cups littering the floor…

April 21…

As legend has it, Rome was founded on this day in 754 BCE by Romulus, the son of the Gods.  If we surmise that Romulus really existed, then we should admit that the Eternal City was founded also by a pack of some 500 tramps who rallied behind him and later became the first patricians. A few centuries later the Roman state was riding high as an ancient-era superpower and its capital being the world’s biggest megalopolis of an estimated 2 million people…

Also on this day, but in 1960, Brasilia became the new capital of Brazil, taking over from Rio de Janeiro.  The city was built from scratch in just four short years designed by the world-famous architect Oscar Nimeyer.

April 22…

Queen Isabel of Spain, the patroness of Christopher Columbus and the woman who unified the feuding Iberian principalities, was born on this day in 1451.

Duke Antoine de Bourbon was born on this day in 1518. Commanding a Catholic army he died during the siege of the Protestant-held Rouen. His son, Henri IV became the first Bourbon to rule France.

The 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant was born on this day in 1724. Just like is the case with many other luminaries, Kant was a good joker. Once asked which women, blondes or brunettes were more faithful, he said right away it were gray-heads.

The outstanding French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon was born on this day in 1853. The founding father of modern criminology, Bertillon, during his stint as the head the criminal identification bureau in Paris, developed the first scientific method of criminal identification. The system, named after its author and based on the classification of skeletal and other body measurements and characteristics, was officially adopted in France in 1888.

Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Communist party and the Soviet State, was born on this day in the small Volga town of Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, in 1870. 

Let’s see what we have on April 23… 

Although the only sure fact is that his baptism was recorded in the annals of the Holy Trinity Parish in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564, the world has come to accept this day as the birthday of William Shakespeare. More than four centuries on, there is a swarm of Shakespearean students sill trying hard to prove that a commoner could not have penned such a treasure trove of literary masterpieces, attributing their authorship to some blue-blooded persons whose names have yet to be determined.  Fascinating as all this research may be, we still know for sure the name of the greatest playwright who ever put pen to paper, that is, of course, William Shakespeare.  He lived exactly 52 years and died on his birthday, that is April 23 of 1616. 

The master of the Spanish novel, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of the timeless Don Quixote also died on that very day and year…

April 23 of 1891 is the birthday of one of the greatest 20th century composers Sergei Prokofyev.  His music reflects life’s joy and harmony, is permeated with an energizing desire to live and work and is a fascinating combination of lyricism, epic drama and humor.

Also born on this day, but in 1899, was the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov.

A towering figure of 20th-century literature, Nabokov was the foremost of the post 1917 émigré authors pushing forward the glorious tradition of the Russian novel set forth by the likes of Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Nikolai Gogol.  

As an American writer, Nabokov wrote in both Russian and English. In 1955 he published “Lolita”, a controversial novel seen by many as a determining element of post-war American literature and which made him a domineering figure of American romanticism. 

April 24…

On this tragic day in 1915 the Young Turks launched a massacre of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Of an estimated 1.5 million resident Armenians two-thirds including women, children and seniors, were killed. In Armenia this day is traditionally marked as Genocide Remembrance Day.

And we finally arrive at April 25 of 1792 when Doctor Josef Guillotine set up at Place de Greve in Paris a strange-looking concoction designed with humane considerations in mind.  On that same day the machine was put to the test chopping off the head of a highwayman, named Nicolas Jacques Pelletier who died a painless death.  Originally nicknamed as Louisette, the machine was eventually given the name of its maker…