📜 This Day in History

April 1

• 1234Richard Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was defeated by knights loyal to King Henry III of England at the Battle of the Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland.
• 1833Mexican Texans met at San Felipe de Austin to begin the Convention of 1833.
• 1922Under the South Seas Mandate, Japan set up a government in Koror, precipitating large-scale Japanese settlement in Palau.
• 1955The British Army's Mobile Defence Corps, intended to assist with civil defence after a nuclear attack, was established by royal warrant.
• 1974A man ignited tires in the crater of Mount Edgecumbe, prompting a false eruption scare later revealed as an April Fools' hoax.
• 2001An American Lockheed EP-3 and a Chinese Shenyang J-8 collided in mid-air off Hainan, resulting in an international dispute between the two countries.

Born on this day

• 1815Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (died 1898)
• 1920Toshiro Mifune, Japanese actor (died 1997)
• 1929Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist, poet, and playwright (died 2023)
• 1940Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2011)