7 April 1661

A hijacker deliberately drove a truck into crowds along Drottninggatan in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people.

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey (artist's conception pictured), the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, launched from Cape Canaveral.

First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops began a massacre of hundreds of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.

Rwandan Civil War: The Rwandan genocide began a few hours after the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, with hundreds of thousands killed in the following 100 days.

A FedEx employee tried to hijack Federal Express Flight 705 in a failed suicide attempt.

Uganda–Tanzania War: Tanzanian forces defeated Ugandan troops and their Libyan allies at the Battle of Entebbe, opening the way for an advance on the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Communist forces overran the South Vietnamese town of Lộc Ninh.

American Presbyterian minister Bruce W. Klunder was killed by a bulldozer while protesting the construction of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, based on Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, opened on Broadway.

The United Nations established the World Health Organization to act as a coordinating authority on international public health.

World War II: U.S. forces sank the Japanese battleship Yamato during Operation Kikusui I in the East China Sea.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini survived an assassination attempt by Irishwoman Violet Gibson.

An Arctic expedition led by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (pictured) reached 86°13.6′N, almost three degrees beyond the previous Farthest North latitude.

American Civil War: Union forces defeated Confederate troops at the Battle of Shiloh, at the time the bloodiest battle in U.S. history, in Hardin County, Tennessee.

Pedro II became emperor of the Empire of Brazil.

After a conclave lasting eighty days, the College of Cardinals elected Fabio Chigi as Pope Alexander VII.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.

COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.

COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan.

COVID-19 pandemic: Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigns for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt and the dismissal of Brett Crozier.

Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the "Car-Wash Operation". Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, before being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

A man deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people and injuring fifteen others.

U.S. President Donald Trump orders the 2017 Shayrat missile strike against Syria in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.

The Israel Defense Forces use their Iron Dome missile system to successfully intercept a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza, marking the first short-range missile intercept ever.