Events
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Lexington and Concord which began the American Revolutionary War.
- 1861 - American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861, a pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland, attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
- 1892 - Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
- 1919 - Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
- 1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
- 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that the United States will be abandoning the gold standard.
- 1934 - Shirley Temple debuts in Stand Up and Cheer!.
- 1951 - General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
- 1955 - The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network.
- 1956 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III of Monaco.
- 1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.
- 1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.
- 1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to life for the Sharon Tate murders.
- 1976 - Executive Order 9066 is rescinded.
- 1989 - A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
- 1993 - The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
- 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, was executed in Arkansas.