7 Curious Facts About This Date in History – April 2
I enjoy learning new facts, don’t you? Today I checked out The History Place and found this 7 curious facts about this exact date in history, April 2, 2012. I hope you enjoy reading them, too.
April 2
April 2, 1513 - Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon claimed the future state of Florida for the Spanish Crown. His landing site became the present day city of St. Augustine, now the oldest city in the continental U.S.
April 2, 1792 - Congress established the first U.S. Mint at Philadelphia.
April 2, 1863 - A bread riot occurred in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as angry people demanded bread from a bakery wagon then wrecked nearby shops. Confederate President Jefferson Davis made a personal plea and had to threaten the mob with force before they dispersed.
April 2, 1865 - General Robert E. Lee informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he must evacuate the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Davis and his cabinet then fled by train.
April 2, 1982 - The beginning of the Falkland Islands War as troops from Argentina invaded and occupied the British colony located near the tip of South America. The British retaliated and defeated the Argentineans on June 15, 1982, after ten weeks of combat, with about 1,000 lives lost.
Birthday - Fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark. He created 168 fairy tales for children including the classics The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen and The Nightingale.
Birthday - French writer Emile Zola (1840-1902) was born in Paris. His works included a series of 20 books known as the Rougon-Macquart Novels in which he defined men and women as products of heredity and environment, portraying them as victims of their own passions and circumstances of birth. In his later years, he became involved in resolving the Dreyfus affair, a political-military scandal in which Captain Alfred Dreyfus had been wrongly accused of selling military secrets to the Germans was sent to Devil's Island.
All of these facts were located at The History Place.
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