Historical Events
- Apr 1 Cincinnati becomes 1st US city to employ fulltime professional firefighters
Queen Victoria's Use of Chloroform
Apr 7 Queen Victoria asks John Snow to administer chloroform during the delivery of her eighth child, Leopold, leads to wider acceptance of obstetrical anesthesia
- Apr 11 Steamboat ferry 'Jenny Lind' boiler explosion kills at least 31 passengers in San Francisco Bay, California
- Apr 15 Dutch Protestant church petition King Willem III against re-establishment of Roman Catholic bishops in the Netherlands, he does so anyway
- Apr 16 1st passenger railway opens in India, from Bori Bunder (Bombay) to Thane (34 km)
- Apr 17 Johan Rudolf Thorbecke's government in the Netherlands resigns
- Apr 17 US Marine Hospital at Presidio, San Francisco forms
- Apr 19 Netherlands Van Hall government forms
- Apr 26 Dutch King William III disbands 2nd Chamber
- Apr 29 Comet C/1853 G1 (Schweizer) approaches within 0.0839 AUs of Earth
Famous Birthdays
- Apr 4 Tad Lincoln, youngest son of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, born in Springfield, Illinois (d. 1871)
- Apr 5 Alfonso Rendano, Italian composer, born in Consenza, Italy (d. 1931)
- Apr 21 Charles Malherbe, French violinist and composer, born in Paris (d. 1911)
- Apr 22 Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer and anthropologist (devised crime ID system), born in Paris (d. 1914)
- Apr 23 Winthrop M. Crane, American politician, 40th Governor of Massachusetts, born in Dalton, Massachusetts (d. 1920)
- Apr 27 Jules Lemaître, French critic and dramatist, born in Vennecy, Loiret, France (d. 1914)
- Apr 30 Alfred Berger, Austrian playwright, born in Vienna (d. 1912)
Famous Deaths
- Apr 8 Jan Willem Pieneman, Dutch historical painter (Battle at Waterloo), dies at 73
- Apr 11 Louis-Emmanuel Jadin, French pianist, music director, and composer, dies at 84
- Apr 13 James Iredell, Jr., American politician, dies at 64
- Apr 13 Leopold Gmelin, German chemist (Gmelin's test), dies at 64
- Apr 15 Johann Leopold Fuchs, German composer, dies at 67
- Apr 18 William R. King, American politician (Vice President 1853), dies at 67 one month after his inauguration
- Apr 23 Auguste Laurent, French chemist who laid the foundations of organic chemistry, dies of tuberculosis at 45
William Beaumont (1785-1853)
Apr 25 American surgeon and father of gastric physiology, dies at 67
- Apr 28 Ludwig Tieck, German writer, dies at 79
