On This Day for April 5 - Battle of Maipú, Colin Powell is featured, and more

Created: 2020-04-05 10:02 Updated: 2020-04-05 10:02 Notebook: On this Day in History

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April 05

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Colin Powell

FEATURED EVENT

1818

Battle of Maipú

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2008: American actor Charlton Heston , who possessed a commanding screen presence and was best known for such films as The Ten Commandments (1956) and Planet of the Apes (1968), died in California. [Take our actors and acting quiz.]

2000: Mori Yoshiro of the Liberal-Democratic Party became prime minister of Japan, replacing Obuchi Keizo, who had suffered a stroke earlier in the month and subsequently died. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Japanese history.]

1994: American grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, leader of the band Nirvana , committed suicide. [Read our list of Seattle's 10 claims to fame.]

1984: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as the all-time leading scorer in the National Basketball Association. [ See where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ranks on our list of the 10 best basketball players of all time.]

1951: Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for espionage; two years later they became the first American civilians executed for that crime. [ Discover 10 famous names in the espionage game.]

1908: American actress Bette Davis—whose raw unbridled intensity kept her at the top of her profession for 50 years—was born. [Take our women in classic cinema quiz.]

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1973

Pharrell Williams
American musician and producer

1916

Gregory Peck
American actor

1588

Thomas Hobbes
English philosopher

1908

Bette Davis
American actress

1839

Robert Smalls
American politician