742 The warrior chief Charlemagne, Charles 1st the Great, was born on April 2, 742 to Pepin the Short and Bertha of the Big Foot. He became King of the Franks in 768 after the death of his father and was crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800. At his death Charlemagne's kingdom extended from South Italy and Pyrenees to Bohemia.
1513 Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited by Europeans. Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León first sighted Florida on April 2, 1513, before setting foot on the land on Easter Sunday 1513. In de León's Spanish tongue, the Easter festival was known as “Pascua Florida”, meaning the Passover of Flowers after the many flowers decorating the church on that day. Thus the newly discovered land was named “Florida”.
1792 The idea of linking the value of money to the price of gold came in with the US congress. The first gold prices were fixed by Congress on April 2, 1792, at $19.39 an ounce. It’s “Gold Standard” has been maintained despite fluctuations in gold's value, ever since.
1792 The Coinage Act was passed on April 2, 1792 establishing the United States Mint. The first Mint building was in Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States; it was the first building of the Republic raised under the Constitution.
1801 The Battle of Copenhagen was fought on April 2, 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars. A British naval fleet engaged in battle with a Danish fleet anchored just off Copenhagen. Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main attack. Nelson went onto a splendid victory, obtaining the surrender of the entire Danish fleet enabling British to break the Northern League of Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia which had attempted to keep British shipping out of the Baltic.
1805 Hans Christian Andersen was born in the town of Odense, Denmark, on April 2, 1805. He was the only child of a poor young shoemaker, and a washerwoman. As a child, his favorite toy was a little homemade toy-theatre and young Hans sat at home making clothes for his wooden puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow. He had a retentive memory and was known to memorize entire Shakespeare plays and recite them using his puppets as the characters.
1836 The 24 year old Charles Dickens married Catherine "Kate" Hogarth (below) at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on April 2, 1836, two days after the first monthly edition of Pickwick Papers appeared. Dickens had met his pretty and quiet wife through his journalism work. She was the daughter of the Evening Chronicle's co-editor. Kate was quiet, sensitive "handsome, with a red rose bud mouth, short tip tilted nose and fresh complexion."
1838 Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code, died on April 2, 1872. He developed the concept of a single-wire telegraph using dots and dashes in 1838, after missing the death and burial of his wife, due to slow communication.
1871 The first census of the Dominion of Canada on April 2, 1871 listed the population as 3,689,257. Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was officially adopted for the new Dominion. Alternative names proposed were Tuponia, Borealia, Cabotia, Transatlantica, Victorialand and Superior. It was commonly referred to as the Dominion of Canada until after World War II.
1893 The first color cartoon to appear in an American newspaper is believed to be a cartoon created by George Turner and published in the New York Recorder on April 2, 1893. The cartoon depicted a character named "The Yellow Kid" in various situations, and it was printed using a primitive form of color printing called the "chromolithograph" process. The cartoon became very popular and helped to establish the tradition of color cartoons in American newspapers.
1513 Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited by Europeans. Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León first sighted Florida on April 2, 1513, before setting foot on the land on Easter Sunday 1513. In de León's Spanish tongue, the Easter festival was known as “Pascua Florida”, meaning the Passover of Flowers after the many flowers decorating the church on that day. Thus the newly discovered land was named “Florida”.
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| 17th century Spanish engraving (colored) of Juan Ponce de León |
1792 The idea of linking the value of money to the price of gold came in with the US congress. The first gold prices were fixed by Congress on April 2, 1792, at $19.39 an ounce. It’s “Gold Standard” has been maintained despite fluctuations in gold's value, ever since.
1792 The Coinage Act was passed on April 2, 1792 establishing the United States Mint. The first Mint building was in Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States; it was the first building of the Republic raised under the Constitution.
1801 The Battle of Copenhagen was fought on April 2, 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars. A British naval fleet engaged in battle with a Danish fleet anchored just off Copenhagen. Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main attack. Nelson went onto a splendid victory, obtaining the surrender of the entire Danish fleet enabling British to break the Northern League of Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia which had attempted to keep British shipping out of the Baltic.
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| The Battle of Copenhagen, as painted by Nicholas Pocock |
1805 Hans Christian Andersen was born in the town of Odense, Denmark, on April 2, 1805. He was the only child of a poor young shoemaker, and a washerwoman. As a child, his favorite toy was a little homemade toy-theatre and young Hans sat at home making clothes for his wooden puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow. He had a retentive memory and was known to memorize entire Shakespeare plays and recite them using his puppets as the characters.
1836 The 24 year old Charles Dickens married Catherine "Kate" Hogarth (below) at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on April 2, 1836, two days after the first monthly edition of Pickwick Papers appeared. Dickens had met his pretty and quiet wife through his journalism work. She was the daughter of the Evening Chronicle's co-editor. Kate was quiet, sensitive "handsome, with a red rose bud mouth, short tip tilted nose and fresh complexion."
1838 Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code, died on April 2, 1872. He developed the concept of a single-wire telegraph using dots and dashes in 1838, after missing the death and burial of his wife, due to slow communication.
1871 The first census of the Dominion of Canada on April 2, 1871 listed the population as 3,689,257. Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was officially adopted for the new Dominion. Alternative names proposed were Tuponia, Borealia, Cabotia, Transatlantica, Victorialand and Superior. It was commonly referred to as the Dominion of Canada until after World War II.
1893 The first color cartoon to appear in an American newspaper is believed to be a cartoon created by George Turner and published in the New York Recorder on April 2, 1893. The cartoon depicted a character named "The Yellow Kid" in various situations, and it was printed using a primitive form of color printing called the "chromolithograph" process. The cartoon became very popular and helped to establish the tradition of color cartoons in American newspapers.
1902 Thomas Lincoln Tally’s Electric Theatre, the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opened on April 2, 1902 in Los Angeles. It showed short films for ten cents per customer. A converted arcade, The Electric Theatre was located at 262 Main Street - next to St. Vibiana's Cathedral.
1911 On April 2, 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), then known as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, conducted the very first national census of Australia. The population of Australia in 1911, according to the census, was approximately 4.5 million people. The census also revealed that the majority of Australians at the time were of British or Irish descent.
1911 On April 2, 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), then known as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, conducted the very first national census of Australia. The population of Australia in 1911, according to the census, was approximately 4.5 million people. The census also revealed that the majority of Australians at the time were of British or Irish descent.
1917 After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines during World War I, the American President, Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress on April 2, 1917, and requested a declaration of war against Germany. In his speech, Wilson stated that the world must be made safe for democracy, and that the United States had a duty to help protect the rights of neutral nations and to defend its own interests. The US Congress declared war four days later.
1936 The author George Orwell moved to a very small 16th-century cottage called the "Stores" at No 2 Kits Lane, Wallington, Hertfordshire on April 2, 1936. The house was a death-trap, freezing, insanitary and vermin ridden. He and Eileen kept a small village store in Wallington to subsidize his writing income.
1972 Charlie Chaplin left America in 1952 after being accused of being a communist. He did not return until April 2, 1972 when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offered him an Honorary Award. Chaplin had the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history when receiving his 1972 honorary Oscar. Chaplin's only other Oscar was for the music score of Limelight, awarded in 1973.
1977 Red Rum galloped into racing history by winning the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree for a third time on April 2, 1977. He achieved the unmatched historic treble having won in 1973 and 1974, and also came second in the two intervening years (1975 and 1976).
1977 Charlotte Brew, at the age of 21, became the first female jockey to compete in the Grand National on April 2, 1977. Her ride, Barony Fort, was an eighteenth birthday gift from her parents. She didn't finish the course as her horse was hampered and refused four fences from home.
2005 Pope John Paul II died in his private apartment of heart failure on April 2, 2005. John Paul II spoke his final words in Polish, "Pozwólcie mi odejść do domu Ojca" ("Allow me to depart to the house of the Father"), to his aides, and fell into a coma about four hours later. He died in his private apartment that evening of heart failure from profound hypotension and complete circulatory collapse, 46 days before his 85th birthday.
2015 The record for the loudest purring cat is held by Merlin, a 13-year-old rescue kitty from Torquay, Devon in England. During the filming of the Channel 5 TV show, Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud 2 on April 2, 2015, with a Guinness World Records adjudicator on hand to verify, Merlin registered a purr measuring 67.8 decibels, beating the previous record of 67.68 decibels set in 2011 by Smokey – another British cat.
2017 On April 2, 2017, Lenin Moreno was elected President of Ecuador defeating banker Guillermo Lasso in the Ecuadorian presidential round-off with 51% of the vote to Lasso's 49%. As a paraplegic, Moreno became the world’s only head of state in a wheelchair.
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