April Almanac
April 1 – Justice Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court (appointed 2006) is born in New Jersey
April 2 – In 1878, the number of soldiers in the Royal Italian Army reaches a total of 920,850, making it the largest standing army in Europe.
– Adventurer/seducer Giovanni Casanova is born in 1752
April 3 – In 1864, Giuseppe Garibaldi arrives in London and receives the largest reception ever provided by that city to a foreign visitor to that date.
– In 1896, the 1st edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport hits the newsstands in Italy
April 4 – In 1949, Italy becomes a member of NATO.
April 5 – Vincenzo Viviani is born in 1622. Mathematician and scientist who assisted both Galileo and Torricelli. After Galileo’s death, he created a compendium the scientist’s papers.
April 6 – Renaissance painter Raphael (née Raffaello Santi) is born in 1483.
April 7 – In 1167, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantova & Ferrara unite to form the Lombard League to oppose Holy Roman Emperor Frederick (“Barbarossa”)
April 8 – Jurist Pasquale Fiore is born in 1837. His expertise and writings about international law had a profound influence on the legal systems of all Latin countries in Europe and the Americas.
April 9 – British engineer Sebastian Ferranti is born in 1864. He promoted and oversaw the development of England’s AC power grid.
– Spanish admiral Alessandro Malaspina dies in 1810. In 1789, he sailed from Cadiz Spain leading a scientific expedition while circumnavigating the globe. He mapped the Pacific coasts of the Americas up to Alaska.
– Italian Enrico Tonti and Frenchmen Robert LaSalle reach the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682 from the Great Lakes. This became the basis of French claims to the Louisiana Territory, named for King Louis XIV. Tonti spent 25 years developing this area. Known as “Ironhand” to the Indians for his lost limb.
April 10 – Giovanni Aldini is born in 1762. He carried on the work of his uncle Luigi Galvani in the use of electro-stimulation of human muscles. He famously demonstrated on the cadaver of an English criminal, which later inspired the story of Frankenstein.
April 11 – Italian military aviator Renato Donati sets the high altitude record of 47,352 feet in 1934.
April 12 – In 1633, Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo Gallilei is formally charged with heresy by the Roman Catholic Inquisition for asserting that the Earth is not the center of the Universe.
April 13 – In 1848, Sicilian revolutionaries declare their island’s independence from Spanish Bourbon rule. The revolution ultimately failed.
– Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci is born in 1808. Living in Staten Island, NY, Meucci files the first papers for his teletrofono (telephone) five years before Alexander Graham Bell. A later lawsuit found for Bell.
April 14 – In 2004, Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi is executed in Iraq by Islamic terrorists.His last words were “Now see how an Italian dies.”
– Puppet mouse Topo Gigio is first seen in America on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
April 15 – In 1959, the first Italian nuclear reactor is opened in Ispra (Varese). Italy later banned all nuclear power.
– Leonardo Da Vinci is born in 1452
– Actress Claudia Cardinale is born to Italian parents in Tunisia in 1939
April 16 – In 1209, Giovanni Francesco Bernardone, later to be known as St. Francis of Assisi, establishes the Order of Friars Minor, a new monastic rule emphasizing charitable works, kindness to animals, and the rejection of worldly possessions.
– Composer Henry Mancini is born in 1924. Among his songs were Moon River, The Pink Panther, and The Days of Wine and Roses
April 17 – In 1492, the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella sign an agreement with the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus, authorizing him to lead an expedition under the auspices of the Crown in search westward route to the Orient.
– In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazano, sailing for France, enters New York harbor eighty years before Henry Hudson.
– Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli Ferrara is born in 1598
April 18 – A parliamentary vote in 1948 the Communist Party is defeated, clearing the way for a center-right Italian Republic.
April 19 – Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia is born in 1935. He was forced to retire in 2011 for protecting pedophile priests.
April 20 – Col. Henry Mucci dies in 1997. He famously led the raid in 1945 that freed survivors of the Bataan Death March being held in a Japanese prison in the Philippines.
April 21 – In 753 BC, according to tradition, the City of Rome is founded by the brothers Romulus and Remus.
April 22 – Giovanni Branca, an Italian engineer and architect is born in 1571. He designed a rudimentary steam turbine.
April 23 – In 1859, Austria delivers an ultimatum to King Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. The resulting war and victory by Savoy and France extended Savoy’s rule into northern Italy. Often called the Second War Italian Independence.
April 24 – At the Versailles Conference of 1919 the victorious Italian delegation angrily withdraws from negotiations, protesting that their country is being shortchanged of spoils by its allies France, Britain and the U.S.
April 25 – In 1926, Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot premiers at La Scala, two years after the death of its composer, famous for the aria Nessun Dorma (Let No One Sleep!)
– Inventor Guglielmo Marconi is born in Bologna in 1874
– Inventor Giovanni di Caselli is born in Siena in 1815. His Pantelegrafo, a fax machine, went into public service in 1865 between Paris
and Lyon.
– A German cartographer first uses the name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci to label the New World in 1507
– GIs Vincent Romano, Lenny Barbella and Dan Angelozzi of the 69th Division claim to be the first Americans to link up with Soviet forces on the Elbe River, Germany in 1945.
April 26 – In 1915, as World War I rages in Europe, Italy ends its proclaimed neutrality by signing the (secret) Treaty of London, officially placing the Kingdom on the side of the British, French and Russian allies. French and British promises of overseas territories were never fulfilled. Italians term their defeat of Austria-Hungary and loss of 600,000 servicemen as a “mutilated victory.”
– Roman Emperor/Stoic Marcus Aurelius is born in 121 A.D.
April 27 – Heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano retires undefeated 46 -0 in 1956.
– Pope Julius II excommunicates the city-state of Venice in 1509.
April 28 – Italian auto designer Nicola Romeo (Alfa-Romeo) is born at Sant’Antimo near Naples, in 1876
– Businessman Dennis Tito becomes the first space tourist in 2001 when he pays $20 million to ride aboard a Russian rocket,
– Cinecitta` is opened in 1937 by Benito Mussolini to jumpstart the Italian film industry and his own propaganda machine. Today, the second largest film studio after Hollywood, the complex also contains a theme park.
– Italian leader Benito Mussolini is summarily executed by Communist partisans in 1945, despite Allied orders to bring him to trial.
April 29 – The Fascist youth organization Opera Nazionale Balilla is established in 1929.
April 30 – Freedom fighter Romolo Gessi is born in 1831. This soldier/explorer led numerous expeditions for the British in Africa freeing 30,000 slaves from bondage.