Events on April 3 39
Year 801
King Louis the Pious captures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege of several months.
Year 1860
The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.
Year 1865
American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America.
Year 1888
The first of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurs.
Year 1895
The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.
Year 1922
Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Year 1933
First flight over Mount Everest, a British expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale, and funded by Lucy, Lady Houston.
Year 1936
Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the baby son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.
Year 1942
World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
Year 1946
Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March.
Year 1948
United States President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
Year 1948
In Jeju Province, South Korea, a civil-war-like period of violence and human rights abuses begins, known as the Jeju uprising.
Year 1955
The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.
Year 1956
Hudsonville-Standale tornado: The western half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is struck by a deadly F5 tornado.
Year 1969
Vietnam War: United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start to "Vietnamize" the war effort.
Year 1973
Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.
Year 1974
The 1974 Super Outbreak occurs, the second biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history (after the 2011 Super Outbreak). The death toll is 315, with nearly 5,500 injured.
Year 1975
Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default.
Year 1981
The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
Year 1996
Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is captured at his Montana cabin in the United States.
Year 1997
The Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but one of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.
Year 2000
United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
Year 2004
Islamic terrorists involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves.
Year 2007
Conventional-Train World Speed Record: A French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line sets an official new world speed record.
Year 2008
ATA Airlines, once one of the ten largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceases all operations.
Year 2008
Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch. Eventually 533 women and children will be taken into state custody.
Year 2009
Jiverly Antares Wong opens fire at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, killing thirteen and wounding four before committing suicide.
Year 2013
More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Year 2016
The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on 214,488 offshore companies.
Year 2017
A bomb explodes in the St Petersburg metro system, killing 14 and injuring several more people.