^B{^#!16!27 April^N! Feast day of St Zita, St Machalus, St Floribert of LiΦge, St Asicus, St Anthimus of Nicomedia, and Saints Castor and Stephen.
^B{1296^B} An English army, led by Edward I, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. ^B{1749^B} The first official performance of Handel's ^I{Music for the Royal Fireworks^I} finished early due to the outbreak of fire. ^B{1937^B} King George VI performed the official opening of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. ^B{1939^B} Conscription for men aged 20- 21 was announced in Britain. ^B{1947^B} Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl set off from Callao, Peru, heading for Polynesia to prove his theory that the original Polynesian islanders could have come from Peru. ^B{1960^B} French Togoland became independent as the Republic of Togo. ^B{1961^B} Sierra Leone became an independent republic within the Commonwealth.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}Edward Gibbon, English historian who wrote ^I{The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^I}, ^B{1737^B}; Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, English feminist author, ^B{1759^B}; Samuel Morse, US inventor of Morse Code, ^B{1791^B}; Ulysses Simpson Grant, US general and 18th president, ^B{1822^B}; Cecil Day Lewis, English poet, ^B{1904^B}; Anouk AimΘe, French film actress, ^B{1932^B}; Sandy Dennis, US film actress, ^B{1937^B}.
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator, murdered by islanders in the Philippines, ^B{1521^B}; Ralph Waldo Emerson, US poet and essayist, ^B{1882^B}; Alexander Skryabin, Russian composer, ^B{1915^B}; Harold Hart Crane, US poet, ^B{1932^B}; Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, ^B{1972^B}.
