War in Afghanistan: In an airstrike in Nangarhar Province, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb used in combat.
Source13 April 1663
A Friday in history
Weekday
Friday
Season
Spring (N. Hemisphere)
Century
17th century
Records
369
2017
2011The board of Rosendale, New York, voted 3–2 to approve the purchase of Joppenbergh Mountain.
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2009Twenty-three people died in a fire at a homeless hostel in Kamień Pomorski; it was Poland's deadliest fire since 1980.
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1997In golf, 21-year-old Tiger Woods became the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament, breaking the record for the lowest four-round score.
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1996An Israel Defense Forces helicopter fired rockets at an ambulance, killing two women and four children in Mansouri, Lebanon.
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1958In the midst of the Cold War, American pianist Van Cliburn won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
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1956The Vietnamese National Army captured Ba Cụt, a military commander of the religious sect Hòa Hảo, which ran a de facto state in South Vietnam in opposition to Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm.
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1953Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale was published as the first work to feature the British spy character James Bond.
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1953The CIA began Project MKUltra, an illegal, covert human research program into mind control.
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1946Nakam, a Jewish organization seeking revenge for the Holocaust, attempted to poison thousands of SS prisoners at Langwasser internment camp, but did not kill anyone.
Source- 1943
The Neoclassical Jefferson Memorial (pictured) in Washington, D.C., was formally dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.
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1943World War II: German news announced the discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in Katyn, Russia, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union.
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1942Austrian soldier Anton Schmid was executed for rescuing Jews from the Ponary massacre in Vilnius.
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1930C. Rajagopalachari led the non-violent Vedaranyam March from Trichinopoly towards Vedaranyam.
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1829The Roman Catholic Relief Act received royal assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
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1777American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian forces conducted a surprise attack against a Continental Army outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey.
Source- 1742
The first performance of the oratorio Messiah by George Frideric Handel (pictured) took place in Dublin.
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Photo archive
24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.
What was life like?
Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.
Sources & fact check
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