Explore 10 April

Explore 10 April: the Titanic sets out on her maiden voyage, Northern Ireland’s parties strike the Good Friday Agreement, Mount Tambora explodes in the greatest eruption of modern times and Emiliano Zapata is ambushed. Meet Omar Sharif, Max von Sydow and Sadio Mané, born on this date, and remember Evelyn Waugh.

This day through time →17 verified events across 4 eras

⌛17Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ◉2Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫2Culture
Stories

RMS Titanic leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage, 10 April 1912.

Image credit

Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1912

The Titanic sets sail

Around midday on 10 April 1912 the White Star liner Titanic, the largest ship afloat, left Southampton on her first voyage, bound for New York. As she pulled away her wash almost drew a smaller liner, the New York, into a collision.

She called at Cherbourg in France that evening and at Queenstown in Ireland the next day before heading out across the Atlantic with more than 2,200 people aboard. Four days later, on the night of 14 April, she struck an iceberg.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Royal Museums Greenwich: RMS Titanic facts ↗

Parliament Buildings at Stormont, Belfast, home of the Northern Ireland Assembly set up by the agreement.

Image credit

Wknight94 · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

1998

The Good Friday Agreement

After nearly two years of talks chaired by the former US senator George Mitchell, the British and Irish governments and most of Northern Ireland’s political parties reached agreement in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April 1998.

The deal set up a power-sharing assembly and government, new links between North and South, and a promise that Northern Ireland’s future would be decided by its people’s consent. Approved by voters on both sides of the border, it largely brought three decades of the Troubles to an end.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: GOV.UK: The Belfast Agreement ↗

The 6-kilometre-wide crater of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa, Indonesia, photographed from the International Space Station in 2009.

Image credit

NASA, Expedition 20 crew · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1815

Mount Tambora explodes

Mount Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, had begun to erupt on 5 April 1815. On the evening of 10 April it blew itself apart in the largest eruption in recorded history, throwing ash more than 40 kilometres into the sky and leaving a crater 6 kilometres wide.

At least 10,000 islanders were killed outright, and many more died of hunger and disease afterwards. The ash in the upper atmosphere cooled the whole planet: 1816 became the ‘Year Without a Summer’, with crops failing across Europe and North America.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program: Tambora ↗

Emiliano Zapata, photographed by Agustín Casasola.

Image credit

Agustín Casasola · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1919

Emiliano Zapata is ambushed

Emiliano Zapata, the revolutionary leader who fought for land for Mexico’s peasants under the cry of ‘land and liberty’, was lured to the Chinameca hacienda in Morelos on 10 April 1919 by a colonel who pretended to be changing sides. As he rode in, hidden soldiers opened fire and killed him.

The ambush was ordered by the government of President Venustiano Carranza. Zapata’s death made him a legend, and his ideas shaped the land reforms of the decades that followed.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Government of Mexico, Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional: 10 de abril de 1919, fallece Emiliano Zapata ↗

♙

PEOPLE

Born Today

Image credit

Yfyyejgjwguj · CC0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1755

Samuel Hahnemann

German doctor who founded homeopathy.

Image credit

Materialscientist · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1827

Lew Wallace

American Civil War general who wrote the novel Ben-Hur.

Image credit

Harris & Ewing, photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1882

Frances Perkins

The first woman in a US cabinet, Secretary of Labor under Franklin Roosevelt.

Image credit

jvoves from Los Angeles, CA, USA · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1929

Max von Sydow

Swedish actor who played chess with Death in The Seventh Seal.

Image credit

Photographer-Gene Weber, Seattle · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1932

Omar Sharif

Egyptian actor of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, and a champion bridge player.

Image credit

Ramnarasimhan · CC BY 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1941

Paul Theroux

American travel writer of The Great Railway Bazaar.

Image credit

ManuluxWiki · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1986

Vincent Kompany

Belgian footballer who captained Manchester City, and later a manager.

Image credit

Bryan Berlin · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1992

Sadio Mané

Senegalese footballer who led his country to the Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022.

◉

IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

The drawing from Walter Hunt’s safety pin patent, No. 6,281, dated 10 April 1849.

Image credit

U.S. Patent Office - inventor Walter Hunt · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1849

The safety pin is patented

The New York mechanic Walter Hunt received US patent number 6,281 on 10 April 1849 for a pin made from one piece of wire, with a coiled spring at one end and a clasp that covered the point at the other.

The story goes that he twisted it into shape in a few hours to pay off a small debt, then sold the rights for 400 dollars. The design has hardly changed since.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Inventors Hall of Fame: Walter Hunt ↗

The first image of a black hole, at the heart of the galaxy M87, released by the Event Horizon Telescope on 10 April 2019.

Image credit

Event Horizon Telescope · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

2019

The first picture of a black hole

At six press conferences held at the same moment around the world on 10 April 2019, astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope unveiled a glowing orange ring around a dark shadow: the black hole at the centre of the galaxy M87, 55 million light-years away.

The picture was made by linking radio telescopes across the globe into one Earth-sized instrument. The black hole weighs about 6.5 billion times as much as the Sun.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Event Horizon Telescope: Astronomers capture first image of a black hole (press release, 10 April 2019) ↗

☆

SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

President Nixon at a sports exhibition in Beijing during his visit of February 1972, which ping-pong diplomacy helped to bring about.

Image credit

Unknown photographer (US National Archives) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1971

Ping-pong diplomacy

Invited at the world championships in Japan, the United States table tennis team crossed into China on 10 April 1971, the first American group officially welcomed there in more than 20 years. They played exhibition matches and were received by Premier Zhou Enlai.

The friendly games opened a door between two countries that had been bitter enemies since 1949. Within a year President Richard Nixon made his own historic visit to Beijing.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Rapprochement with China, 1972 ↗

♫

MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The cover of the first edition of The Great Gatsby, painted by Francis Cugat.

Image credit

Francis Cugat (restoration by Flask) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1925

The Great Gatsby is published

Charles Scribner’s Sons published F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third novel, The Great Gatsby, on 10 April 1925. Set among the rich of Long Island in the Jazz Age, it follows the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his longing for Daisy Buchanan.

It sold disappointingly at first, and Fitzgerald died believing himself a failure. Rediscovered after the Second World War, it is now counted among the greatest American novels.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress blog: The not-so-great Gatsby ↗

The Beatles with their producer George Martin in the studio, 1966.

Image credit

Capitol Records · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1970

Paul McCartney leaves the Beatles

The news broke around the world on 10 April 1970: Paul McCartney was no longer working with the Beatles. It came in a printed question-and-answer sheet sent out with copies of his first solo album, in which he spoke of personal, business and musical differences.

The band had in fact been drifting apart for months. Their last album, Let It Be, came out that May, and the partnership was formally ended in the courts later.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: When did the Beatles break up? ↗

✦

LIVES REMEMBERED