Today in History

Thousands of Chinese students strike in Beijing for more democratic reforms.

The IBM Personal Computer is introduced.

A rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages held in Iran fails when a plane collides with a helicopter in the Iranian desert.

Leftist students take over Columbia University in protest over the Vietnam War.

President John Kennedy accepts “sole responsibility” for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

The Berlin airlift begins to relieve the surrounded city.

The first B-29 arrives in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.

Irish nationalists launch the Easter Uprising against British occupation.

Turks of the Ottoman Empire begin massacring the Armenian minority in their country.

William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw,’ British traitor, Nazi propagandist.

Robert Penn Warren, novelist, America’s first poet laureate.

Willem de Kooning, abstract impressionist painter.

Elizabeth Goudge, English author.

Spain declares war on United States, rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.