Back in Time – This Day in History – April 1

 1976: Apple Computer

By Mick Ferris, Press Association, AP, UPI, calendar.songfacts.com, classicbands.com and thisdayinmusic.com

1318: Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured by the Scottish from the English.

1748: The ruins of Pompeii are rediscovered by Spaniard Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.

1789: The U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in New York; Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first House speaker.

1826: Samuel Morey was granted a patent on the internal combustion engine.

1873: Birth of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in Novgorod, Russia.

1891: The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Ill., by William Wrigley, Jr., originally selling goods such as soap and baking powder. A year later Wrigley would start packaging packets of gum with each tin of baking powder. The rest is history.

1917: Ragtime composer Scott Joplin dies of syphilitic dementia at age 49 in New York City.

1918: Toward the end of World War I, the British founded the Royal Air Force. Two months later it began bombing industrial targets in Germany from bases in France.

1924: Adolf Hitler was sent to prison for five years after failing to take over Germany by force in the unsuccessful "Beer Hall Putsch."

1929: Luis Buñuel releases is experimental 24-minute film “Un Chien Andalou”.

1933: Nazi Germany begins the persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses. On the same day, Scotland beats Ireland, 8-6 at Lansdowne Road, Dublin to win the Home Nations Rugby Championship and Triple Crown.

1937: Aden becomes a British crown colony.

1938: World heavyweight champion Joe Louis KOs Harry Thomas in the fifth round of their title bout in Chicago.

1945: American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. (U.S. forces succeeded in capturing the Japanese island on June 22.)

1946: A massive earthquake near Alaska's Aleutian Islands created a tsunami that raced south across the Pacific Ocean, slamming into the Hawaiian Islands causing widespread destruction. The two events resulted in more than 165 casualties across three states.

1954: The United States Air Force Academy was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1957: The Everly Brothers release "Bye Bye Love", a song that was rejected by 30 labels before Cadence Records picked it up. The song went to #2 on the US Pop chart and #1 on the Country & Western chart.

1961: The Beatles began a three-month residency at The Top Ten Club, Hamburg, playing 92 straight nights – seven hours on a weekday and eight at weekends.

1964: John Lennon reunites with his father Freddie after 17 years.

1966: The Troggs recorded Chip Taylor’s ‘Wild Thing’ at Regent Sound Studio in London in one complete take (Take 2). On the same day, John Lennon bought a copy of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience and The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, where he read near the beginning of the book’s introduction; “When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream,” which captured Lennon’s imagination and became the first line of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, (which he recorded 5 days later).

1967: US TOP 20 : Singles chart:

1. The Turtles - Happy Together

2. The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love

3. The Beatles - Penny Lane

4. Herman's Hermits - There's A Kind Of Hush

5. Four Tops - Bernadette

6. Petula Clark - This Is My Song

7. Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)

8. The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

9. Nancy Sinatra & Frank Sinatra - Somethin' Stupid

10. The Five Americans - Western Union

11. Ed Ames - My Cup Runneth Over

12. Tommy James And The Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now

13. Harpers Bizarre - The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

14. Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)

15. Johnny Rivers - Baby I Need Your Lovin'

16. The Young Rascals - I've Been Lonely Too Long

17. Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels - Sock It To Me-Baby!

18. Martha & The Vandellas - Jimmy Mack

19. The Monkees - A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

20. The Supremes - Love Is Here And Now You're Gone

***

1970: President Richard Nixon signed legislation calling for mandatory health warnings on tobacco product packaging and banning cigarette ads on TV and radio, effective January 1, 1971.

1970: 50 musicians recorded the orchestral scores for The Beatles tracks 'The Long And Winding Road' and 'Across The Universe' for the Phil Spector produced sessions. The bill for the 50 musicians was £1,126 and 5 shillings, ($1.914).

1972: The first Major League Baseball players’ strike began; it lasted 12 days.

1974: Ayatollah Khomeini calls for an Islamic Republic in Iran.

1976: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs’ parents house in California.

1979: Iran is proclaimed an Islamic Republic following fall of the Shah.

1983: Tens of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators linked arms in a 14-mile human chain spanning three defense installations in rural England, including the Greenham Common U.S. Air Base.

1984: Soul legend Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father at his parent's home in Los Angeles, California. The argument started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents, Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun he had given him four months before. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumour.

1984: UK TOP 20: Album chart:

1. Lionel Richie - Can't Slow Down

2. Howard Jones - Human's Lib

3. Various Artists : Now Series - Now That's What I Call Music 2

4. Michael Jackson - Thriller

5. Billy Joel - An Innocent Man

6. The Thompson Twins - Into The Gap

7. Dire Straits - Alchemy

8. The Style Council - Cafe Bleu

9. Culture Club - Colour By Numbers

10. Various Artists - The Very Best Of Motown Love Songs

11. Nik Kershaw - Human Racing

12. The Smiths - The Smiths

13. Eurythmics - Touch

14. Simple Minds - Sparkle In The Rain

15. Queen - The Works

16. Michael Jackson - Off The Wall

17. UB40 - Labour Of Love

18. Marillion - Fugazi

19. U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky

20. Elaine Paige - Stages

***

1987: In his first speech on the AIDS epidemic, President Ronald Reagan told doctors in Philadelphia, “We’ve declared AIDS public health enemy no. 1.”

1988: The scientific bestseller “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes” by British physicist Stephen Hawking was first published in the United Kingdom and the United States by Bantam Books.

1991: Iran releases British hostage Roger Cooper after five years.

1992: The National Hockey League Players’ Association went on its first-ever strike, which lasted 10 days.

1996: An outbreak of "mad cow" disease forced Britain to plan the mass slaughter of cows.

1999: Canada created a new territory, Nunavut, as a means of providing autonomy for the Inuit people.

2002: The Netherlands legalizes euthanasia, becoming the first nation in the world to do so.

2003: U.S. Marines rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, who had been held prisoner in Iraq since an ambush on March 23.

2004: Paul Atkinson, guitarist with The Zombies, and later an A&R executive, working for Columbia and RCA discovering and signing ABBA, Bruce Hornsby, Mr. Mister and Judas Priest, died aged 58.

2009: Sixteen people, most of them oil workers, were killed when a Super Puma helicopter crashed into the North Sea off Scotland’s northeast coast. 

2009: Following in the footsteps of Celine Dion, Cher, Elton John and Bette Midler, Carlos Santana announced that he has been booked to perform about 36 concerts per year at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The show was to be called The Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through the Hits.

2012: Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel peace laureate and voice of the political opposition in Myanmar, won a seat in Parliament less than two years after being freed from nearly two decades of house arrest.

2013: A signed copy of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sold at Dallas-based Heritage Auctions for $290,500 (£191,000). The selling price far exceeded the $30,000 (£19,700) originally estimated for the rare LP record. The UK Parlophone copy of the album included a high gloss cover and vinyl gatefold sleeve.

2015: Cynthia Lennon, ex wife of John and mother of Julian, died at her home in Spain following a short battle with cancer.

2017: After months of uncertainty and controversy, Bob Dylan finally accepted the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature at a jovial, champagne-laced ceremony. The academy, which awards the coveted prize, ended prolonged speculation as to whether the 75-year-old troubadour would use a concert stopover in Stockholm to accept the gold medal and diploma awarded to him back in October.

2018: Writer and producer Steven Bochco, known for creating the groundbreaking TV police drama “Hill Street Blues,” died after a battle with cancer; he was 74. 

2019: Japan announced the name of its new imperial era would be "Reiwa," when Crown Prince Naruhito becomes emperor, which would happen one month later.