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April 2
The President of the New York Public Library serves as the chief executive officer of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and exercises general supervision over its affairs. The president is elected yearly by the New York Public Library Board of Trustees. John Bigelow served as the first president from the library's founding in 1895 to his death in 1911. The current president is Anthony Marx (pictured), who has served since taking office in 2011. Upon the urging of Bigelow, an executor of Samuel J. Tilden's will, the NYPL was formed when the Lenox and Astor libraries merged in 1895. Both the Astor and the Lenox maintained presidents for the duration of their existence. The three libraries have had a total of twenty presidents. Historically, presidents of the libraries have been both wealthy and prominent individuals. Additionally, several prominent lawyers served as President. It was customary for presidents to serve until their deaths until Morris Hadley resigned in 1958. Subsequently, all presidents have resigned before their deaths, with the exception of Timothy S. Healy. (Full list...)
April 6
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a domestic, annual Twenty20 cricket tournament in India, organized by the IPL Governing Council, under the aegis of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It is the most watched Twenty20 tournament and the second-best paying sporting league globally. The IPL was established in 2008. The inaugural season was won by Rajasthan Royals. Altogether, thirteen teams have played in the past ten seasons of the IPL tournament, with the latest 2018 season being conducted from April to May 2018 and featuring eight teams, including Delhi Daredevils, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians. Current champion Mumbai Indians is the most successful team in league history, having won three titles. Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, apart from former team Deccan Chargers, are the other teams to have won the tournament title. (Full list...)
April 9
There are 210 Grade II* listed buildings in Mendip, a local government district in the English county of Somerset. The Mendip district covers a largely rural area of 285 square miles (738 km2) ranging from the Mendip Hills to the Somerset Levels. In the United Kingdom, the term listed building refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance; Grade II* structures are those considered to be "particularly significant buildings of more than local interest". Mendip's Grade II* listed buildings include a large number of churches, some of which are Norman. Several buildings are associated with the church, particularly the Anglican Glastonbury Abbey and Wells Cathedral along with the Benedictine Downside Abbey. Many of the rest of the buildings are urban or rural houses ranging in date from the 12th to 19th centuries. (Full list...)
April 13
The Mexican state of Aguascalientes is divided into eleven municipalities. According to the 2015 Mexican Intercensal Survey, Aguascalientes is the sixth least populous state with 1,312,544 inhabitants and the fourth smallest by land area spanning 5,630.27 square kilometres (2,173.86 sq mi). Municipalities in Aguascalientes are administratively autonomous of the state according to the 115th article of the 1917 Constitution of Mexico. Their legal framework derives from the state Constitution and the 2003 Municipal Law for the State of Aguascalientes. Municipalities are responsible for public services (such as water and sewerage), street lighting, public safety, traffic, supervision of slaughterhouses and the maintenance of public parks, gardens and cemeteries. The largest municipality by population is the state capital Aguascalientes (pictured), with 877,190 residents or approximately 66.8% of the state population. (Full list...)
April 16
The film Zootopia garnered a variety of awards and nominations, many of them in the Best Animated Feature category. At the 89th Academy Awards, the film won Best Animated Feature. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film. At the 44th Annie Awards, Zootopia received eleven nominations and won six including Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for Jason Bateman. The film won Best Animated Motion Picture at the 28th Producers Guild of America Awards. Ginnifer Goodwin received the Best Animated Female award from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists and received nominations from the People's Choice Awards, and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. The American Film Institute included Zootopia in their list of the top ten movies of 2016. (Full list...)
April 20
The Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy was established by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) in 1948 after a trust fund was created in 1936 by Godfrey Lowell Cabot of Boston, a former president of the NAA. It is awarded to a living American for "significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States." The presentation of the award is made annually at the Aero Club of Washington, as close as possible to December 17 each year, the day on which, in 1903, the Wright brothers made the first flight in an airplane. The inaugural recipient of the trophy was William F. Durand (pictured), "a pioneer in aeronautics, naval propulsion and engineering research methods". Until 2010, winners of the award received a trophy depicting the Wright brothers' Wright Flyer aircraft. From 2010 onwards, a redesigned trophy featuring a silver obelisk and bronze inscription has been awarded. The trophy has only been awarded to women on three occasions. The most recent winner of the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, in 2017, was John R. Dailey. (Full list...)
April 23
Filipino singer Regine Velasquez has recorded more than 300 songs for her seventeen studio albums and other official releases. She rose to prominence with the release of her debut album Regine in 1987. The record contained eight original songs and spawned the singles "Kung Maibabalik Ko Lang", "Urong Sulong" and "Isang Lahi". In 1994, she signed with Polygram and released her fifth studio album—Listen Without Prejudice—that established her commercial music career in Southeast and East Asia. As executive producer, she released her tenth studio album, R2K, in November 1999. The record became the best-selling album by a solo female artist in the Philippines. The singer has released a string of cover albums, including Covers. Vol 1 (2004), Covers, Vol. 2 (2006), Low Key (2008) and Fantasy (2010). In addition to her music career, Velasquez has also starred in films and recorded songs for nine soundtrack albums. (Full list...)
April 27
There have been 70 cycles in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) since Fumio Fujimura's (pictured) first cycle during the single league era in 1948. Completing the cycle is the accomplishment of hitting a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in the same game. Collecting the hits in that order is known as a "natural cycle", which has occurred five times in NPB. Hitting for the cycle was not recognized in Japanese professional baseball until former Major League Baseball (MLB) player Daryl Spencer made a remark about it after hitting for the cycle with the Hankyu Braves in 1965. The most cycles hit by a player in Nippon Professional Baseball is three, accomplished by Bobby Rose. Three other NPB players have hit for multiple cycles: Fumio Fujimura with the Osaka Tigers and Hiromi Matsunaga with the Hankyu/Orix Braves and Kosuke Fukudome with the Chunichi Dragons and the Hanshin Tigers, all with two. No player has ever hit a cycle in both the Central and Pacific Leagues; however, after Alex Ochoa hit his cycle with the Chunichi Dragons on April 13, 2004, he became the only player to hit a cycle in both MLB and NPB. (Full list...)
April 30
The first video game by BioWare, a Canadian video game developer, was Shattered Steel, a mech simulation action game released in 1996. The game was a modest success, but BioWare's second title, Baldur's Gate (1998), achieved overwhelming critical praise and defined the company's future direction. A role-playing video game (RPG) based on Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur's Gate sold more than two million copies and became the most successful Dungeons & Dragons game ever at the time. BioWare was given the opportunity to work on another popular intellectual property, Star Wars, when LucasArts approached them at the turn of the millennium. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic released first on Microsoft's Xbox video game console in 2003. While it was not BioWare's first console game, it helped the studio break into the console market since Microsoft Game Studios wanted to partner with them on console exclusive titles, such as Jade Empire (2005) and Mass Effect (2007). In October 2007, American publisher Electronic Arts (EA) announced that it had acquired BioWare. Under EA, BioWare established the fantasy RPG series Dragon Age and continued to release games in their science fiction RPG series Mass Effect. (Full list...)