April 3
Events
Pre-1600
- 686 - Maya king Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk' assumes the crown of Calakmul.
- 1043 - Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England.
- 1077 - The Patriarchate of Friûl, the first Friulian state, is created.
- 1559 - The second of two treaties making up the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis is signed, ending the Italian Wars.
- 1589 - The janissaries revolt in response to the debasement of coins.
1601–1900
- 1721 - Robert Walpole becomes, in effect, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, though he himself denied that title.
- 1851 - Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand after the death of his half-brother, Rama III.
- 1860 - The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.
- 1865 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America.
- 1882 - American Old West: Robert Ford kills Jesse James.
- 1885 - Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for a light, high-speed, four-stroke engine, which he uses seven months later to create the world's first motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen.
- 1888 - Jack the Ripper: The first of 11 unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurs.
- 1895 - The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.
1901–present
- 1905 - Association football club Boca Juniors is founded in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 1920 - Attempts are made to carry out the failed assassination attempt on General Mannerheim, led by Aleksander Weckman by order of Eino Rahja, during the White Guard parade in Tampere, Finland.
- 1922 - Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- 1933 - First flight over Mount Everest, the British Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale and funded by Lucy, Lady Houston.
- 1936 - Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.
- 1942 - World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
- 1946 - Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March.
- 1948 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
- 1948 - In Jeju Province, South Korea, a civil-war-like period of violence and human rights abuses known as the Jeju uprising begins.
- 1955 - The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.
- 1956 - Hudsonville–Standale tornado: The western half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is struck by a deadly F5 tornado.
- 1961 - LAN-Chile Flight 621 crashes in the Andes mountains, killing 21 people, including Argentinian football player Eliseo Mouriño.
- 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech; he was assassinated the next day.
- 1969 - Vietnam War: United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start to "Vietnamize" the war effort.
- 1973 - Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.
- 1974 - The 1974 Super Outbreak occurs, the second largest tornado outbreak in recorded history. The death toll is 315, with nearly 5,500 injured.
- 1975 - Vietnam War: Operation Babylift, a mass evacuation of children in the closing stages of the war begins.
- 1975 - Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default.
- 1980 - US Congress restores a federal trust relationship with the 501 members of the Shivwits, Kanosh, Koosharem, and the Indian Peaks and Cedar City bands of the Paiute people of Utah.
- 1981 - The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
- 1989 - The US Supreme Court upholds the jurisdictional rights of tribal courts under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in Mississippi Choctaw Band v. Holyfield.
- 1993 - The outcome of the Grand National horse race is declared void for the first time.
- 1996 - Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is captured at his Montana cabin in the United States.
- 1996 - A United States Air Force Boeing T-43 crashes near Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia, killing 35, including Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.
- 1997 - The Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but one of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.
- 2000 - United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
- 2004 - Islamic terrorists involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves.
- 2007 - Conventional-Train World Speed Record: A French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line sets an official new world speed record of 574.8 km/h.
- 2008 - ATA Airlines, once one of the ten largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceases all operations.
- 2008 - Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch. Eventually 533 women and children will be taken into state custody.
- 2009 - Jiverly Antares Wong opens fire at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, killing thirteen and wounding four before committing suicide.
- 2010 - Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer.
- 2013 - More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2016 - The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on 214,488 offshore companies.
- 2017 - A bomb explodes in the St Petersburg metro system, killing 14 and injuring several more people.
- 2018 - YouTube headquarters shooting: A 38-year-old gunwoman opens fire at YouTube Headquarters in San Bruno, California, injuring three people before committing suicide.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1016 - Xing Zong, Chinese emperor
- 1151 - Igor Svyatoslavich, Kievan Rus' prince
- 1395 - George of Trebizond, Greek philosopher, scholar and humanist
- 1438 - John III of Egmont, Dutch nobleman
- 1529 - Michael Neander, German mathematician and astronomer
- 1540 - Maria de' Medici, Italian noblewoman, the eldest daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Eleonora di Toledo.
- 1593 - George Herbert, English poet
1601–1900
- 1643 - Charles V, duke of Lorraine
- 1682 - Valentin Rathgeber, German organist and composer
- 1693 - George Edwards, English ornithologist and entomologist
- 1715 - William Watson, English physician, physicist, and botanist
- 1764 - John Abernethy, English surgeon and anatomist
- 1769 - Christian Günther von Bernstorff, Danish-Prussian politician and diplomat
- 1770 - Theodoros Kolokotronis, Greek general
- 1778 - Pierre Bretonneau, French doctor who performed the first successful tracheotomy
- 1781 - Swaminarayan, Indian religious leader
- 1782 - Alexander Macomb, American general
- 1783 - Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian
- 1791 - Anne Lister, English diarist, mountaineer, and traveller
- 1798 - Charles Wilkes, American admiral, geographer, and explorer
- 1807 - Mary Carpenter, English educational and social reformer
- 1814 - Lorenzo Snow, American religious leader, 5th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 1822 - Edward Everett Hale, American minister, historian, and author
- 1823 - George Derby, American lieutenant and journalist
- 1823 - William M. Tweed, American politician
- 1826 - Cyrus K. Holliday, American businessman
- 1837 - John Burroughs, American botanist and author
- 1842 - Ulric Dahlgren, American colonel
- 1848 - Arturo Prat, Chilean lawyer and captain
- 1852 - Talbot Baines Reed, English author
- 1858 - Jacob Gaudaur, Canadian rower
- 1860 - Frederik van Eeden, Dutch psychiatrist and author
- 1864 - Emil Kellenberger, Swiss target shooter
- 1875 - Mistinguett, French actress and singer
- 1876 - Margaret Anglin, Canadian actress, director, and producer
- 1876 - Tomáš Baťa, Czech businessman, founded Bata Shoes
- 1880 - Otto Weininger, Jewish-Austrian philosopher and author
- 1881 - Alcide De Gasperi, Italian journalist and politician, 30th Prime Minister of Italy
- 1882 - Philippe Desranleau, Canadian archbishop
- 1883 - Ikki Kita, Japanese philosopher and author
- 1885 - Allan Dwan, Canadian-American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1885 - Bud Fisher, American cartoonist
- 1885 - Marie-Victorin Kirouac, Canadian botanist and academic
- 1885 - St John Philby, English colonial and explorer
- 1886 - Dooley Wilson, American actor and singer
- 1887 - Ōtori Tanigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 24th Yokozuna
- 1887 - Nishizō Tsukahara, Japanese admiral
- 1888 - Thomas C. Kinkaid, American admiral
- 1889 - Grigoraș Dinicu, Romanian violinist and composer
- 1893 - Leslie Howard, English actor
- 1895 - Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian-American composer and educator
- 1895 - Zez Confrey, American pianist and composer
- 1897 - Joe Kirkwood Sr., Australian golfer
- 1897 - Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos, Greek general
- 1898 - David Jack, English footballer and manager
- 1898 - George Jessel, American actor, singer, and producer
- 1898 - Henry Luce, American publisher, co-founded Time magazine
- 1900 - Camille Chamoun, Lebanese lawyer and politician, 7th President of Lebanon
- 1900 - Albert Walsh, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland