182 Fun Facts About April

Besides April, three months have exactly 30 days; which of these is one of them?

November: like April it had only 29 days in the old Roman calendar, until the reform of 46 BC handed each of the four short months a thirtieth.

In the United States, what is normally due on 15 April each year?

Federal income tax returns were due six weeks earlier when the tax began in 1913; the deadline was pushed back twice, reaching 15 April in the 1950s, and still slips to the next working day when the 15th lands on a weekend or holiday.

The Latin verb aperire, one proposed root of April's name Aprilis, means what?

To open: the old idea is that buds and blossoms open in April, though the name's origin is uncertain and some scholars trace it to Aphrodite through the Etruscan Apru instead.

In the earliest Roman calendar, what number month was April?

April was the second month, because the earliest Roman calendar began in March; January and February were added around 700 BC, later pushing April to fourth.

What is April's birthstone?

Diamond is April's birthstone; its name comes from the Greek adamas, 'unbreakable', and it is the hardest known natural material.

Which two blooms serve as April's birth flower?

Daisy and sweet pea: a daisy is not one flower but a crowd, each head packing a ring of white ray flowers around a centre of many tiny yellow ones.

The flower name 'daisy' comes from an Old English phrase meaning what?

Day's eye, dæges ēage in Old English, fits because the flower head closes at dusk and opens again at dawn.

Whose career home run record did Hank Aaron break with his 715th on 8 April 1974?

Babe Ruth's record of 714 had stood since 1935; Aaron passed it in Atlanta after enduring racist death threats as he closed in on the mark.

Aries, the zodiac sign covering most of April, is represented by which animal?

Ram: Greek myth made it the golden-fleeced ram that carried Phrixus to safety in Colchis, where its fleece became the prize Jason and the Argonauts later sailed to win.

What did the Anglo-Saxons call the month we know as April?

Ēastre-monaþ, 'Easter month': one early medieval scholar wrote that it honoured a goddess, Ēostre, and that English Christians kept her name for their own spring festival.

Which environmental observance falls on 22 April each year?

Earth Day: Senator Gaylord Nelson's organisers picked a weekday between spring break and final exams so that students could turn out, and some 20 million Americans joined the first one in 1970.

The land run of 22 April 1889 opened part of which future US state to settlers?

Oklahoma: about 50,000 people raced for claims when the signal came, and those who had slipped in early to hide on the best plots were branded sooners.

The first American Arbor Day, in 1872, set out to put trees on the plains of which state?

Nebraska planted an estimated one million trees that first day, 10 April 1872, after newspaper editor J. Sterling Morton urged settlers to raise windbreaks, fuel and shade on the open prairie.

Which shipping line owned the Titanic, lost on 15 April 1912?

White Star Line ordered the Titanic and her sisters to answer rival Cunard's record-breaking Lusitania and Mauretania, betting on size and comfort where Cunard had speed.

Which play was Abraham Lincoln watching at Ford's Theatre when he was shot on 14 April 1865?

Our American Cousin: Booth, an actor who knew the comedy well, timed his shot to a line that reliably drew a roar of laughter.

Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant on 9 April 1865 in which Virginia village?

Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, in Wilmer McLean's parlour; Grant let the Confederates keep their horses and sent rations to the hungry army.

The Civil War began on 12 April 1861 with a bombardment of which federal fort in Charleston Harbor?

Sumter: the bombardment killed nobody on either side; the first deaths, among them Private Daniel Hough, came when a cannon misfired during the garrison's surrender salute.

Who rode out on 18 April 1775 to warn that British troops were marching?

Paul Revere reached Lexington, but a British patrol stopped him on the road to Concord; a doctor, Samuel Prescott, carried the alarm on, and the fighting began on Lexington green the next morning.

The Boston Marathon is run each April on Patriots' Day, which falls on which day of the week?

Monday: Patriots' Day was fixed on 19 April until 1969, when Massachusetts moved the holiday to the third Monday of the month and the marathon moved with it.

Golf's Masters Tournament, played in the first full week of April, is always held at which club?

Augusta National: the other three men's majors move from course to course, but the Masters has never left the Georgia club where Bobby Jones started it in 1934.

Which US president started the tradition of throwing the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, in 1910?

William Howard Taft threw the ball from his seat in the stands to Washington's pitcher, Walter Johnson, who beat Philadelphia 3–0 that day and got the president to sign the ball.

Which cosmonaut became the first human in space on 12 April 1961?

Yuri Gagarin circled Earth once aboard Vostok 1 but did not land in it: he ejected about 7 km up and came down under his own parachute.

Exactly 20 years after the first human spaceflight, on 12 April 1981, which spacecraft made its first launch?

Space Shuttle Columbia was due up two days earlier; a computer timing fault scrubbed that attempt, so John Young and Robert Crippen reached orbit on the anniversary by accident.

Apollo 13, launched 11 April 1970, was crippled two days later when what exploded?

An oxygen tank blew when wiring inside it, scorched during a ground test, sparked as the tank was stirred; the crew rode home using the lunar module Aquarius as a lifeboat.

A flaw in what blurred the first images from Hubble, launched on 24 April 1990?

Its main mirror had been ground slightly too flat towards the edge; in December 1993 astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour fitted corrective optics that worked like a pair of glasses.

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened on 26 April 1986 in which Soviet republic?

Ukraine: Reactor No. 4 blew apart during a test of its safety systems, and the whole town of Pripyat, built for the plant's workers, was evacuated the following day.

Which volcano's 1815 eruption, the most powerful in recorded history, peaked on 10 April?

Mount Tambora's ash and haze dimmed the sun worldwide, and 1816 became the Year Without a Summer, with summer frosts in New England and failed harvests across Europe.

After the earthquake of 18 April 1906, what did most of the damage to San Francisco?

Fires: the quake shattered the city's water pipes, so some thirty blazes burned unchecked for three days and levelled about 500 blocks.

Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated on 23 April, the feast day of which patron saint of England?

George: tradition makes him a Roman soldier beheaded for his faith in 303 and buried at Lydda in Palestine, far from the England that adopted him; Shakespeare died on his feast day in 1616.

On 23 April each year, people in Catalonia traditionally exchange which two gifts?

Books and roses: the rose fair is centuries old, and books joined it around 1930, when Spain's booksellers moved their book day to 23 April; UNESCO later made the date World Book Day.

Songkran, the mid-April water-throwing festival, marks which country's traditional New Year?

Thailand: the street water fights sit alongside a gentler rite, sprinkling water on Buddha statues and into elders' palms to wash away the old year's bad luck.

Vaisakhi, in mid-April, marks the founding of the Khalsa in 1699, a turning point for which religion?

Sikhism: by tradition Guru Gobind Singh asked a festival crowd who would give his head for the faith, and the five who stepped forward became the Panj Piare, the first of the Khalsa.

ANZAC Day, 25 April, marks the 1915 landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on which peninsula?

Gallipoli: the campaign was a costly defeat and the troops were withdrawn after eight months, yet the landing's anniversary became both nations' day of remembrance, first marked in 1916.

In German folklore, who gathers on the Brocken, the Harz's highest peak, on Walpurgis Night, 30 April?

Witches: Goethe staged their revel on the Brocken in Faust, yet the night is named for a saint, the abbess Walburga, whose feast falls on 1 May.

Easter is fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after what?

The spring equinox, which the Church pins to a fixed calendar date while reading the full moon from tables, so the Easter of the rule does not always match the astronomers' sky.

Which intercepted message, proposing a German alliance with Mexico, helped bring the US into war on 6 April 1917?

The Zimmermann Telegram offered Mexico its lost land in the American south-west; British codebreakers passed it to Washington, the American press printed it, and Congress declared war five weeks later.

The Jewish festival of Passover, which often falls in April, commemorates what event?

The Exodus from Egypt is why families eat matzah all week: the Israelites left in too much of a hurry for their bread to rise.

Which country marks Freedom Day on 27 April, the date of its first democratic election?

South Africa held its first election open to all races on 27 April 1994, which brought Nelson Mandela to the presidency; Freedom Day has been a public holiday since 1995.

Where did an act Lincoln signed on 16 April 1862 free about 3,100 enslaved people?

In the District of Columbia: the Compensated Emancipation Act freed about 3,100 people in the capital and paid their former owners, if loyal to the Union, up to $300 for each.

Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926, but Britain celebrated her 'official' birthday in which month?

June: Trooping the Colour has marked the sovereign's official birthday since 1748, and Edward VII, whose own birthday fell in late autumn, kept the parade in early summer rather than trust the British weather.

Which UN agency, founded on 7 April 1948, has its anniversary marked each year as a themed awareness day?

The WHO's constitution took effect on 7 April 1948, the date now kept as World Health Day; by 1980 its vaccination drive had wiped out smallpox, still the only human disease eradicated.

Which organisation launched National Poetry Month in April 1996?

The Academy of American Poets gathered publishers, booksellers, librarians and teachers in 1995 to plan it, taking Black History Month and Women's History Month as the model.

Jazz Appreciation Month, held every April, was created in 2001 by which US institution?

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History created Jazz Appreciation Month in 2001, choosing April because Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald were both born in that month.

Which jazz pianist chairs UNESCO's International Jazz Day, held every 30 April since 2012?

Herbie Hancock, a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, marked the first Jazz Day itself, 30 April 2012, with a sunrise concert in New Orleans's Congo Square and a sunset concert at the United Nations in New York.

Washington DC's cherry blossom festival celebrates a 1912 gift of trees from which city?

Tokyo gave 3,020 trees in 1912 after a first shipment of 2,000 in 1910 arrived riddled with insects and disease and had to be burned.

Coachella, held over two April weekends, takes place at a polo club in which city near Palm Springs?

Indio's Empire Polo Club drew a rock crowd in 1993, when Pearl Jam played there to avoid venues tied to Ticketmaster; the same promoters came back to launch Coachella in the autumn of 1999.

Who became US president on 12 April 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt died in office?

Harry Truman, vice president for only 82 days, was summoned to the White House that afternoon, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him the news herself; within hours he had taken the oath.

Which musician, whose songs include 'Sometimes It Snows in April', died on 21 April 2016?

Prince died at his Paisley Park home near Minneapolis; he had recorded the song on 21 April 1985, 31 years earlier to the day.

A favourite old April Fools' prank sent victims to the Tower of London to watch which animals being washed?

The lions: the Tower had housed a royal menagerie since the Middle Ages; a newspaper of 1698 reports people sent to 'see the Lions washed', and hoax tickets were still being printed in 1857.

South of the equator, April matches which Northern Hemisphere month in the cycle of the seasons?

October: the seasons are offset by six months across the equator, so April in the Southern Hemisphere, mid-autumn, matches October in the north.

Which British territory did Argentina invade on 2 April 1982, starting a ten-week war?

The Falkland Islands: Argentina's junta, under fire at home for economic mismanagement, hoped the seizure would rally the country, but Britain sent a task force and the invaders surrendered within 74 days.

Whose calendar reform restored April's 30th day in the mid-40s BC?

Julius Caesar's reform gave April its thirtieth day and, to drag the calendar back in line with the seasons, stretched the year 46 BC to 445 days.

Which Anglo-Saxon scholar wrote that the word Easter comes from the name of a pagan goddess?

Bede, in The Reckoning of Time (725), said her feasts were once kept in spring; scholars long debated whether he had simply invented the goddess.

In which country is April called huhtikuu, a name that recalls felling trees for slash-and-burn farming?

Finland: huhta is a clearing cut for burning and kuu means month or moon, so April is the month when the trees were felled and left to dry before the fire.

Which Roman grain festival was held for seven days in mid-to-late April?

Cerealia honoured the grain goddess Ceres; Ovid describes one of its rites, in which foxes were set loose with burning torches tied to their tails.

Which meteor shower peaks around 22 April each year?

The Lyrids appear when our planet ploughs through dust shed by Comet Thatcher; Chinese chroniclers noted them in 687 BC, one of the earliest records of any meteor shower.

The Battle of San Jacinto, won in 18 minutes on 21 April 1836, secured independence for which future US state?

Texas: Sam Houston's smaller army charged with the cry 'Remember the Alamo!', routed the Mexican force and captured its commander, Santa Anna, the next day.

Which condition is marked by a UN awareness day on 2 April?

Autism: the UN General Assembly created the 2 April day in 2007, and with the emphasis moving from awareness to acceptance, US advocates now call April Autism Acceptance Month.

Which food gets its own US month-long observance in April?

Grilled cheese: April is National Grilled Cheese Month in the United States, with National Grilled Cheese Day on the 12th, alongside National Pecan Month and National Soft Pretzel Month.

What kind of institution gets a US celebration week each April?

Libraries: National Library Week was launched in 1958 after research showed Americans spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments; its first slogan was 'Wake Up and Read!'

On which day is Arbor Day observed nationally in the United States?

Nebraska held the first one on 10 April 1872.

Which Chaucer story about a cock and a fox is disputedly linked to 1 April?

The Nun's Priest's Tale has Chauntecleer the cock tricked by a fox 'syn March bigan thritty dayes and two', which some read as 32 March, i.e. 1 April, though many scholars now take it to mean early May.

In the French April Fools' term 'poisson d'avril', what does 'poisson' mean?

A fish: pranksters try to stick a paper one on someone's back unnoticed, and the person fooled is called an April fish.

A Flemish poem of 1561, an early record of April Fools' Day, has a nobleman fool his servant how?

With pointless errands: in every verse of Eduard de Dene's poem the servant grumbles that he is being sent on a fool's errand because it is the first of April.

In Scotland's old April Fools' custom of 'hunting the gowk', which bird is a gowk?

A cuckoo: in Scots a gowk is both the bird and a fool, so the victim of an April trick is a gowk too, and playing one was hunting the gowk.

Which Ukrainian Black Sea port celebrates April Fools' Day as 'Humorina', with a parade?

Odesa: the city's student comedy team launched Humorina in 1973, after Soviet censors had taken their television contest off the air, and nervous officials later banned the festival itself for a time.

By what time of day must UK April Fools' pranks traditionally stop?

Noon: anyone who plays a trick after midday is told that they are the April fool themselves.

Which BBC programme aired the 1957 'Swiss spaghetti harvest' hoax?

Panorama, narrated by Richard Dimbleby, showed a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees on 1 April 1957; viewers phoned in asking how to grow their own.

Which real Google product launch on 1 April 2004 was widely mistaken for a prank?

Gmail launched on 1 April 2004 with a full gigabyte of storage, far more than rival services offered, and Google's record of April Fools' pranks made many assume the announcement was another joke.

Which company was founded on 1 April 1976 by three partners, one of whom sold his stake for $800?

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne; Wayne pulled out after 12 days, fearing creditors could seize his assets if the partnership ran up debts.

Which tech company was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 4 April 1975?

Microsoft began in Albuquerque because MITS, maker of the Altair computer that ran Gates and Allen's BASIC, was based there; it left for the Seattle area at the turn of 1979.

Which Nazi organisation was founded on 4 April 1925 as Hitler's small personal bodyguard?

The SS, short for Schutzstaffel or 'protection squadron', began as a handful of guards; under Heinrich Himmler from 1929 it grew into a state within a state with vast police and military powers.

Where in Memphis was Martin Luther King Jr. shot on 4 April 1968?

King was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, outside room 306; James Earl Ray was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport that June.

The first modern Olympic Games opened on 6 April 1896 in which city?

Athens hosted the first modern Games in the restored Panathenaic Stadium; winners received a silver medal and an olive branch, because gold medals were not awarded until later Games.

Whose plane being shot down on 6 April 1994 triggered the Rwandan genocide?

President Juvénal Habyarimana's Falcon 50 jet was shot down on approach to Kigali; Burundi's president Cyprien Ntaryamira died on the same aircraft, and the killings began within hours.

Roughly how many days did the Rwandan genocide last from 7 April 1994?

About 100 days: the killing ran from 7 April until the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front took the country in mid-July 1994, by which time more than half a million people, most of them Tutsi, were dead.

Which volcano erupted in April 1906, burying towns near Naples in ash?

Vesuvius struck while Italy was preparing to host the 1908 Olympics in Rome; pleading the cost, Italy gave the Games up and they went to London instead.

Which country did Mussolini's Italy invade on 7 April 1939, driving King Zog into exile?

Albania fell within days; its parliament then deposed Zog and offered the crown to Italy's Victor Emmanuel III, who became King of the Albanians.

Which singer sang at the Lincoln Memorial on 9 April 1939 after being barred from a hall?

Marian Anderson sang to 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused her Constitution Hall; Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest.

Whose polio vaccine was declared safe and effective on 12 April 1955?

Jonas Salk's killed-virus vaccine was declared safe and effective on 12 April 1955, ten years to the day after Franklin Roosevelt's death; asked on television who owned the patent, Salk said the people did.

Which famous street-circuit Grand Prix was first run on 14 April 1929?

Monaco's first Grand Prix was won by 'Williams', the racing alias of William Grover-Williams, whose Bugatti beat Rudolf Caracciola's favoured Mercedes after a slow German pit stop.

'Black Sunday', 14 April 1935, was one of the worst storms of which US disaster?

The Dust Bowl got its name from that day: an Associated Press report on the storm, printed the next day, was the first to call the region by that name.

Which cathedral caught fire on 15 April 2019?

Notre-Dame de Paris lost its 19th-century spire and most of its oak roof, the 'forest', in the blaze; the cathedral reopened in December 2024.

Which Renaissance artist was born on 15 April 1452, the illegitimate son of a Tuscan notary?

Leonardo da Vinci was born in or near the hill town of Vinci to Ser Piero and a peasant woman, Caterina; in his teens he was apprenticed to the Florentine artist Verrocchio.

Which concentration camp did British troops liberate on 15 April 1945?

Bergen-Belsen's liberators found tens of thousands of starving prisoners and thousands of unburied dead; Anne Frank had died in the camp only weeks earlier.

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's colour line on 15 April 1947 for which team?

The Brooklyn Dodgers started Robinson at first base at Ebbets Field on 15 April 1947; MLB retired his number 42 across all teams in 1997, and every player wears it on Jackie Robinson Day.

Which 1746 battle, fought on 16 April, ended the Jacobite rising?

Culloden, on Drummossie Moor near Inverness, saw the Duke of Cumberland's army crush Charles Edward Stuart's Jacobites in under an hour, the last pitched battle on British soil.

In April 1912 Harriet Quimby became the first woman to pilot a plane across which stretch of water?

The English Channel: on 16 April 1912 Quimby flew a Blériot monoplane from Dover to the French coast in about an hour, but the Titanic had just sunk and the news buried her story.

Which 18 April 1942 operation saw US bombers strike Tokyo for the first time?

The Doolittle Raid launched sixteen B-25s from the carrier Hornet; led by Jimmy Doolittle, they bombed Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya before flying on toward China.

Which country, formerly Rhodesia, became independent on 18 April 1980 with Canaan Banana as president?

Zimbabwe's first president, Canaan Banana, was a ceremonial head of state beside prime minister Robert Mugabe, who took the presidency himself in 1987 after it was made an executive office.

Which physicist died in Princeton, New Jersey, on 18 April 1955?

Albert Einstein died at Princeton Hospital of a burst aortic aneurysm, having refused surgery; the pathologist Thomas Harvey then removed and kept his brain without the family's permission.

Which act of Jewish resistance began in occupied Poland on 19 April 1943?

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on 19 April 1943, the eve of Passover, when German troops entered to deport the remaining Jews; the fighters held out until 16 May.

Which religious sect's compound near Waco, Texas, burned on 19 April 1993 after a 51-day siege?

The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, had been surrounded since a failed ATF raid on 28 February; Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City two years later to the day, citing Waco.

Which Colorado high school was the site of a massacre on 20 April 1999?

Columbine High School's attackers were two of its own seniors; police waited outside for hours, and the criticism led US forces to train officers to confront a shooter at once.

Which oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010?

Deepwater Horizon, a BP-leased rig, burned and sank, and the Macondo well gushed for 87 days before it was capped, the largest marine oil spill in history.

Which US-backed invasion of Cuba failed on 20 April 1961?

The Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained Brigade 2506 landed at Playa Girón on 17 April 1961 and collapsed within three days, with about 1,200 exiles captured.

Which dictator was born on 20 April 1889?

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria; on his 56th birthday in 1945 Soviet guns began shelling central Berlin, and ten days later he killed himself in his bunker there.

Which two thinkers share a 22 April birthday, in 1724 and 1870?

Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724 and Vladimir Lenin in Simbirsk in 1870, on a day Russia's old calendar called 10 April until the Bolshevik government he led switched calendars in 1918.

Which Spanish author died in Madrid on 22 April 1616, the year Shakespeare died?

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, died on 22 April 1616; Shakespeare's death is dated 23 April, but England still used the Julian calendar, so he actually outlived Cervantes by eleven days.

Which Bavarian beer purity law took effect on 23 April 1516?

The Reinheitsgebot, issued at Ingolstadt by Bavaria's ruling dukes, limited beer to water, barley and hops; yeast goes unmentioned, though brewers already passed it from one brew to the next.

Which soft drink launched on 23 April 1985 and soon provoked a consumer backlash?

New Coke's sweeter formula provoked such outrage that Coca-Cola Classic returned on 11 July 1985, 79 days later.

Which two scientists published the double-helix structure of DNA on 25 April 1953?

Crick and Watson's one-page Nature paper of 25 April 1953 proposed the double helix; Rosalind Franklin's X-ray Photo 51 had been key, and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel with them.

Which country's dictatorship was toppled by the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974?

Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship fell to an army coup in which almost no shots were fired; it is named for the carnations that people in Lisbon pushed into the soldiers' gun barrels.

Which Basque town was bombed by the Condor Legion on 26 April 1937?

Guernica, the Basques' symbolic town, was bombed on a market day by German and Italian aircraft; Picasso's Guernica was shown at the Paris Exposition that summer.

Which record of Shakespeare's is dated 26 April 1564?

His baptism at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, is recorded on 26 April 1564; the birth date itself is unrecorded, and 23 April is traditional.

Where did George Washington take the presidential oath on 30 April 1789?

Federal Hall, New York, was the first Capitol; Washington swore the oath on its balcony on a Bible fetched at the last minute from a nearby Masonic lodge, because nobody had provided one.

How much did the US agree to pay France for the Louisiana Territory in the treaty dated 30 April 1803?

$15 million bought some 828,000 square miles and roughly doubled the country; Napoleon sold because a revolt in Saint-Domingue had wrecked his American plans and war with Britain was looming.

Which city fell to communist forces on 30 April 1975, ending the Vietnam War?

Saigon fell when a North Vietnamese tank smashed through the gates of the presidential palace; the following year the city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Which 1922 poem opens with the phrase 'April is the cruellest month'?

The Waste Land is T. S. Eliot's; Ezra Pound's blue pencil cut the draft to about half its length, and Eliot dedicated the poem to him as 'il miglior fabbro', the better craftsman.

Which Middle English poem's General Prologue is set in April and praises its rains?

The Canterbury Tales opens 'Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote', as the pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark before riding to Becket's shrine.

Which April event, first held in 2008, was modelled on Free Comic Book Day?

Record Store Day was launched on 19 April 2008 by Metallica, who spent hours meeting fans at a California record shop; releases made for the day are sold only through independent stores.

Which city's marathon did Chris Brasher run in 1979, inspiring him to found the London Marathon?

New York's race so impressed Brasher that he wrote in The Observer asking whether London could stage such a festival; he and John Disley held the first London Marathon in March 1981.

Which runner won the 2026 London Marathon in the first official sub-two-hour time?

Sabastian Sawe won in 1:59:30 on 26 April 2026, the first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race; runner-up Yomif Kejelcha also broke two hours and still lost.

Which horse won the Grand National three times, in 1973, 1974 and 1977?

Red Rum, trained by Ginger McCain on Southport beach, won in 1973, 1974 and 1977 and finished second in 1975 and 1976; he is buried beside the Aintree winning post.

Which Boston-area town is the starting point of the Boston Marathon?

Hopkinton took over the start in 1924 from neighbouring Ashland, where the first 24.5-mile course began, as the route was stretched toward the Olympic marathon distance.

Which runner did an official try to throw out of the April 1967 Boston Marathon for being a woman?

Kathrine Switzer had entered as K. V. Switzer; official Jock Semple tried to tear off her bib number mid-race, but she finished, and women were officially admitted five years later.

What is the Japanese custom of picnicking under the cherry blossoms called?

Hanami, 'flower viewing', means parties and picnics under the trees; forecasters track the 'cherry blossom front' as it crosses the country each spring so that people can plan them.

Which choral work had its first performance in Dublin on 13 April 1742?

Handel's Messiah is a Christmas tradition today, but it was not written as Christmas music: it was meant for, and first heard in, the run-up to Easter.

Which country became the first to legalise same-sex marriage, under a law that took effect on 1 April 2001?

The Netherlands: Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, married four couples at City Hall on the stroke of midnight, the moment the law came into force.

Which two signs share the fire element with Aries?

Leo and Sagittarius join Aries as the fire signs; the three sit a third of the zodiac apart, an angle astrologers call a trine and read as an easy, harmonious link.

Astrologers assign which classical element to Taurus, the sign that begins in late April?

Earth: astrologers deal out fire, earth, air and water in that order round the zodiac, so Taurus, the second sign, is earth, as are Virgo and Capricorn.

Which actress plays deadpan April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation?

Aubrey Plaza played April Ludgate across all seven seasons, 2009 to 2015; April starts as an intern and becomes Ron Swanson's assistant.

Which Northern Ireland peace deal was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998?

The Good Friday Agreement, named for the day it was reached, set up power-sharing at Stormont and was approved by referendums on both sides of the Irish border that May.

Who led the mutiny that seized HMS Bounty from Lieutenant William Bligh on 28 April 1789?

Fletcher Christian, Bligh's acting lieutenant, led the mutiny near Tofua; Bligh and 18 loyalists were set adrift in a 23-foot launch and sailed some 3,600 nautical miles to Timor.

For which company was Martin Cooper working when he made the first handheld cell phone call on April 3, 1973?

Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the call on a DynaTAC prototype from a Manhattan sidewalk to Joel Engel, his rival at AT&T's Bell Labs.

Which grunge band's frontman died in Seattle around 5 April 1994?

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was found at his Seattle home on 8 April 1994, about three days after he died, by an electrician who had come to install a security system.

Where did Prince William marry Catherine Middleton on Friday 29 April 2011, a public holiday?

Westminster Abbey hosted the wedding; afterwards William drove his bride away from Buckingham Palace in his father's vintage Aston Martin, decked out by friends as a newlyweds' car.

Which ancient Roman festival on 21 April came to be celebrated as the anniversary of Rome's founding?

Parilia, the shepherds' festival of Pales, was reinterpreted as Rome's birthday; Varro's chronology fixed the founding at 753 BC, which Claudius marked with Secular Games in AD 47.

Which comic actor and filmmaker was born in London on 16 April 1889?

Charlie Chaplin first reached America on tour with Fred Karno's comedy troupe, in which Stan Laurel was his understudy; he died on Christmas Day 1977 in Switzerland.

Which president was born at Shadwell plantation, Virginia, on 13 April 1743?

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, his father's plantation; when the house burned down in 1770, taking most of his books, he moved to the hilltop home he was building nearby, Monticello.

The Los Angeles riots began on April 29, 1992 after a jury acquitted four officers in whose beating?

Rodney King's 1991 beating by LAPD officers had been videotaped by bystander George Holliday; the unrest spread from South Central LA over six days and killed more than 60 people.

From which English port did the Titanic begin her maiden voyage in April 1912?

Southampton: Titanic left on 10 April 1912, calling at Cherbourg and Queenstown before heading for New York with about 2,200 people aboard.

April O'Neil, a Channel 6 news reporter in the 1987 cartoon, is the human ally of which team of heroes?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles readers first met April in a 1984 comic as a computer programmer. The 1987 cartoon recast her as a strong-willed news reporter.

What garment has been presented to the winner of golf's Masters Tournament, held each April, since 1949?

A green jacket goes to each champion, who must hand it back to the clubhouse a year later, where it is stored with the other winners' jackets.

Keukenhof, the Dutch tulip park whose display peaks around mid-April, has a name with what literal meaning?

Kitchen garden is the meaning: the land once supplied a castle with game, fruit and vegetables. Some 7 million bulbs are now planted there each year.

On 15 April each year, every Major League Baseball player wears which number in honour of Jackie Robinson?

42 was Robinson's own uniform number, and coaches, managers and umpires wear it that day too. The league retired it for every team in 1997.

April's full moon takes which colour as its traditional name, after the moss phlox that blooms in early spring?

Pink Moon is the label, but the Moon keeps its usual colour that night. The name honours 'moss pink', one of the first wildflowers of spring.

Which sport has held its world championship, starting in April, at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre since 1977?

Snooker fills the Crucible for 17 days, ending on the early-May bank holiday. Only 32 players reach the theatre each year.

Which duo's song 'April Come She Will' appears on the soundtrack of the 1967 film The Graduate?

Simon & Garfunkel had put it on their 1966 album Sounds of Silence, but it first appeared on a solo record, The Paul Simon Songbook.

Which Roman goddess was honoured with games that opened on 28 April and ran into early May?

Flora had her temple founded on that date, and her games, the Floralia, turned annual only after repeated crop damage.

Which clean-cut crooner took the film theme 'April Love' to number one in the United States in 1957?

Pat Boone also starred in the film of the same name opposite Shirley Jones, and the single held the top spot for six weeks.

Which Roman emperor, who died in AD 68, renamed the month of April after himself?

Nero called April 'Neroneus' and even meant to rename Rome 'Neropolis', part of a longing for undying fame noted by his ancient biographer.

Which mail service launched on 3 April 1860, linking Missouri with California in about ten days?

The Pony Express cut coast-to-coast messages to about 10 days, yet it went bankrupt within 18 months once a faster telegraph line opened.

Which Missouri outlaw was shot dead on 3 April 1882 by Robert Ford, a new recruit to his own gang?

Jesse James was killed for the reward on his head and a promised amnesty. Ford had been negotiating in secret with the state's governor.

Which military alliance was created by a treaty signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949?

NATO began with twelve members, and its pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all was first invoked after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

Which vice president, mocked as 'His Accidency', took over when William Henry Harrison died on 4 April 1841?

John Tyler was the first vice president to succeed a president who died in office, and the Whigs who coined the insult soon expelled him from their party.

Which Powhatan woman married the tobacco planter John Rolfe in Virginia in April 1614?

Pocahontas had been baptised as Rebecca while held captive by the colonists, and two years after the wedding she was presented to London society.

In which city was a giant statue of Saddam Hussein pulled down in Firdos Square on 9 April 2003?

Baghdad civilians began the attack on the statue that afternoon, but US Marines finished the job with an armoured recovery vehicle.

Which F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, published on 10 April 1925, sold fewer than 20,000 copies in its first six months?

The Great Gatsby found its audience during World War II, when free copies were handed to US soldiers serving overseas.

Which everyday fastener did the American mechanic Walter Hunt patent on 10 April 1849?

The safety pin earned Hunt just $400, the price he took for the patent to clear a small debt, while others made millions from his device.

An ash cloud that shut most of Europe's airspace from 15 April 2010 came from a volcano in which country?

Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull grounded about 10 million travellers as some 20 countries closed their skies to commercial jets.

Which fast-food chain dates its founding to 15 April 1955, when Ray Kroc opened in Des Plaines, Illinois?

McDonald's had really begun in 1940 as a California restaurant run by two brothers. Kroc started as their franchise agent and later bought them out.

Which New York ballpark opened on 18 April 1923 and was nicknamed 'The House That Ruth Built'?

Yankee Stadium lived up to the nickname on day one: Babe Ruth hit a three-run homer as his team beat his old club, the Boston Red Sox, 4–1.

Which animated family first appeared on 19 April 1987 in short cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show?

The Simpsons starred in 48 of those shorts over three seasons before spinning off into a half-hour prime-time show of their own.

A world map published in April 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller named the New World after which Italian explorer?

Amerigo Vespucci's first name became 'America', a label the mapmaker printed across what is now the southern continent.

Which execution device was first used on 25 April 1792, on a highwayman named Nicolas Jacques Pelletier?

The guillotine let its first crowd down: spectators found it too swift to entertain and called for the return of the wooden gallows.

Which heavyweight champion refused induction into the US armed forces in Houston on 28 April 1967?

Muhammad Ali refused three times to step forward when his name was called, despite an officer's warning that it was a felony carrying five years in prison.

Which balsa-wood raft did Thor Heyerdahl launch from Peru on 28 April 1947 to cross the Pacific?

Kon-Tiki carried six men for 101 days and 6,900 km before smashing into a reef in the Tuamotu islands.

Which young French heroine reached the besieged city of Orléans on 29 April 1429 with a relief army?

Joan of Arc was about seventeen when Charles VII sent her, and from the sixteenth century she was known as the Maid of Orléans.

Which invention did CERN release into the public domain on 30 April 1993, with no fees due from anyone?

The World Wide Web was made free after the University of Minnesota declared its rival system, Gopher, proprietary and subject to licensing.

Which author's castaway novel Robinson Crusoe was first published on 25 April 1719?

Daniel Defoe saw the book run through four editions within the year, and its many imitators grew into a genre of their own, the Robinsonade.

On 29 April 1770, Captain Cook's Endeavour first landed on the Australian mainland at which inlet near Sydney?

Botany Bay was first called Stingrays Harbour by Cook and his journal keepers, after the stingrays the crew caught there.

Which entertainer introduced the song 'April Showers' in the 1921 Broadway musical Bombo?

Al Jolson made it one of his standards, recording it several times from 1921 and singing it again on screen in 1926 and 1936.

Which star sang and danced through a downpour in the title number of the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain?

Gene Kelly filmed the sequence while sick with a fever. The rain was made visible by backlighting, not by mixing in milk as legend has it.

Which scientist split sunlight with a prism and divided the rainbow's spectrum into seven named colours?

Isaac Newton first counted only five colours, then added orange and indigo to make seven, matching the notes of a musical scale.

Which British duke gave his name to the waterproof boots worn for splashing through puddles?

Wellington had his shoemaker rework the military Hessian boot, and the name was later applied to the rubber boots worn in the wet.

The word 'umbrella' comes from the Latin 'umbra', which has what meaning?

Shade was the point: the umbrella began as a sunshade around the Mediterranean and only later became a rain shelter in England.

Which towering cloud type, often topped by a flat anvil, brings torrential rain, hail and thunderstorms?

Cumulonimbus clouds are known as thunderheads when they turn stormy, and the strongest can spawn tornadoes and large hailstones.

What name did two Australian researchers give in 1964 to the pleasant smell of rain on dry soil?

Petrichor joins the Greek words for stone and ichor, the fluid said to run in the veins of the gods.

Mawsynram, a hill town often called the wettest place in the world, lies in which country?

India's Khasi Hills sit in the path of moist monsoon winds blowing north from the Bay of Bengal, which squeeze their rain out over the town.

Which Scottish chemist invented a rubberised waterproof cloth and gave his name to a style of raincoat?

Charles Macintosh cemented two layers of cloth together with rubber dissolved in naphtha. The coat later gained a 'k', becoming the Mackintosh.

Which singer recorded 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head' for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

B. J. Thomas was recovering from laryngitis, which left his voice huskier, and the version heard in the film was his seventh take.

Families sweep their ancestors' tombs at Qingming, an early-April public holiday in which country?

China made it a public holiday on the mainland only in 2008. The day is also known for qingtuan, dumplings made of glutinous rice and mugwort.

Japan's Hana Matsuri, the 'Flower Festival' held at temples on 8 April, celebrates whose birthday?

The Buddha is honoured by pouring ama-cha, a hydrangea tea, over small flower-decked statues, as if bathing a newborn baby.

North Korea's 15 April holiday, long known as the Day of the Sun, marks which leader's birthday?

Kim Il Sung, the state's founder, was born on that date in 1912, and his body lies in the capital's Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.

Japan's Shōwa Day, a public holiday held on 29 April, honours the birthday of which emperor?

Hirohito reigned from 1926 to 1989, and the holiday is meant to prompt reflection on those turbulent 62 years, from war to post-war rebuilding.

Which jeweller's firm made the bejewelled Imperial Easter eggs given as gifts by Russia's last two tsars?

Fabergé made 50 Imperial eggs from 1885 for the tsars to give to their empresses, and the whereabouts of several are unknown.

Which president brought the Easter Egg Roll for children to the White House lawns in 1878?

Hayes and first lady Lucy Hayes gave the egg roll its home, and it has run there almost every year since, pausing for wars and renovations.

Zurich's April festival Sechseläuten ends with the burning of the Böögg, an exploding effigy of what?

A snowman stands for winter, and tradition says the sooner its explosive-packed head bursts, the warmer and sunnier the summer will be.

Until 1955, when Tax Day moved to 15 April, US income-tax returns were due in the middle of which month?

March 15 was set as the deadline by the Revenue Act of 1918. Under the 1913 income tax law, the first returns had been due on the 1st of that month, in 1914.

International Children's Book Day falls on or around 2 April, the birthday of which storyteller?

Hans Christian Andersen wrote 156 fairy stories, since translated into more than 125 languages. The day in his honour was founded in 1967.

What do meteorologists call streaks of rain that evaporate before they ever reach the ground?

Virga cools the air as it evaporates, and that air can plunge as a microburst, a sudden downdraught that is a hazard to aircraft.