| | 193 - Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus. |
| | 364 - Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother Flavius Valens co-emperor. |
| | 845 - Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving. |
| | 1776 - Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site for the Presidio of San Francisco. |
| | 1794 - Allies under the prince of Coburg defeated French forces at Le Cateau. |
| | 1795 - Partitions of Poland: The Duchy of Courland, a northern fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ceases to exist and becomes part of Imperial Russia. |
| | 1802 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second asteroid known to man. |
| | 1809 - Peninsular War: In the Battle of Medelin the France defeats Spain. |
| | 1834 - The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in defunding the Second Bank of the United States. |
| | 1854 - Crimean War: France declares war on Russia. |
| | 1860 - First Taranaki War: The Battle of Waireka begins. |
| | 1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Glorieta Pass - In New Mexico, Union forces succeed in stopping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory. The battle began on March 26. |
| | 1871 - The Paris Commune is formally established in Paris. |
| | 1910 - Henri Fabre becomes the first person to fly a seaplane after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France. |
| | 1913 - Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. |
| | 1930 - Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara. |
| | 1935 - Robert Goddard launches the world's first successful liquid-fuelled rocket. |
| | 1939 - Spanish Civil War: Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquers Madrid. |
| | 1941 - World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan - In the Mediterranean Sea, British Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham leads the Royal Navy in the destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers. |
| | 1942 - World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces raid the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire. |
| | 1946 - Cold War: The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power. |
| | 1964 - Good Friday Earthquake devastates Southern Alaska, parts of Canada, and the Western US. |
| | 1978 - US Supreme Court hands down 5-3 decision in Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, a controversial case involving involuntary sterilization and judicial immunity. |
| | 1979 - In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system fails at Three Mile Island, resulting in the evaporation of some contaminated water causing a nuclear meltdown. |
| | 1979 - British Prime Minister James Callaghan, is defeated by one vote in a Motion of No Confidence. This results in Parliament being dissolved in order to make way for a forthcoming General Election. |
| | 1984 - The NFL's Colts move from Baltimore to Indianapolis in the middle of the night, a move that still angers many of the team's former players and fans. |
| | 1990 - President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal. |
| | 1994 - In South Africa, Zulus and African National Congress supporters battle in central Johannesburg, resulting in 18 deaths. |
| | 2005 - The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1960. |
| | 2006 - At least 1 million union members, students and unemployed take to the streets in France in protest at the government's proposed First Employment Contract law. |