Just a Day in April Trivia Quiz

Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan (ca. 1480-1521) commanded the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Sailing for Spain's King Charles I after Portugal's King Manuel declined to sponsor him, Magellan left on his westward journey to the Spice Islands on September 20, 1519. Landing in what is now Rio de Janerio and Guam along the way, the expedition reached the Philippines in March 1521. Magellan was killed in a battle between his crew and natives of Mactan Island. Of the 270 sailors who left Spain in 1519, 18 or 19 returned on September 6, 1522.

Under the 1557 charter to the Stationers' Company of London, registering a work with them was an Earl form of copyright protection. John Milton (1608-1674) was a writer and Secretary for Foreign Tongues under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth government.

He went blind by 1652, so "Paradise Lost" was dictated to an amanuensis. It tells parallel stories, that of Adam and Eve and that of Lucifer.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a writer and a founder of feminism. Born in London, she worked as a ladies' companion and governess, unsatisfactory and unstable positions she described in her 1787 work, "Thoughts on the Education of Daughters." Her "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" (1792) argued that women should be educated and given the same rights in society as men. Wollstonecraft was also known for her unconventional personal life, including having a child out of wedlock with American Gilbert Imlay while living in Revolutionary France, and marriage to William Godwin six months before the birth of their daughter, Mary. Wollstonecraft died on September 10, 1797, 11 days after giving birth to her daughter, who would go on to write "Frankenstein" (1818).

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant) was a U.S. Civil War general and later the country's 18th President. Born in Point Pleasant, Ohio (the first of seven Presidents born in that state), Grant graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served in the Mexican American War and in a number of peacetime military positions before retiring as a captain in 1854. He tried his hand at farming and a few other businesses at which he was unsuccessful before returning to the Army in 1861. During this time, he was given a slave by his father-in-law, and while he at the time had no strong views on slavery, he freed the man by manumission deed in 1859. Grant became the overall commander of the Union Forces on March 2, 1864, and accepted the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

Grant was unanimously nominated as the Republican candidate for President in 1868 and served two terms, overseeing Reconstruction and creating the Department of Justice to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan. Grant's administration also oversaw the United States' venture into globalism by getting involved in matters in the Dominican Republic and Cuba and pursuing a free trade treaty with then-independent Hawaii. His time in office also saw economic turmoil during the Panic of 1873 and several scandals involving members of his Cabinet. His retirement was marred by business failures and he died on July 23, 1885 from throat cancer caused by cigar smoking. Before his death, he finished his memoirs which were published posthumously by Mark Twain,ensuring the financial support of his family.

Habeas corpus (having the body) is a common law right which in the United States allows a prisoner to challenge the reason for their confinement. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in 1861 in response to reports that a vital train line in Maryland was going to be sabotaged by state officials. If successful, destruction of the train line between Annapolis and Philadelphia would have cut off a vital supply line for Union forces, so Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to allow those officials to be arrested if necessary.

The order was challenged and overturned by the U.S Circuit Court of Appeals. Writing for the court, Roget B Taney stated that the writ could only be suspended by Congress.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was the Fascist leader of Italy during WWII. Initially a socialist, he was expelled from Italy's Socialist Party in 1914 and formed the nationalistic Fascist Party. He was elected to Italy's Chamber of Deputies in 1921, and after the Fascists marched on Rome in 1922 was appointed Prime Minister.

Italy evolved into a police state and Mussolini entered an alliance with Germany making Italy one of the Axis Powers of WWII. With Allied troops advancing through Italy, Mussolini attempted to escape with his mistress, but was causing on April 27, 1945, and was executed the following day.

Cory Anthony Booker was born in Washington DC and raised in New Jersey. He earned a BA in Political Science in 1991 and an MA in Sociology in 1992 from Stanford University, where he also played football. He earned another MA, in American History in 1994, from The Queen's College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a law degree from Yale University in 1997. From there, he ventured into politics, serving on the Newark, NJ Municipal Council and as Mayor of that city 2006-2013.

Booker was elected to the Senate in a special election after the death of Frank Laughtenberg, becoming the 9th African American Senator ( the 7th since Reconstruction and the 6th to be elected). In the Senate, Booker has served on the Judiciary Committee and has supported LGBTQ+ and environmental rights, the decriminalization of cannabis, abortion rights, affirmative action, and reduction of the national debt.

Booker ran for President in the 2020 Democratic primary, but dropped out on January 13, 2020, and endorsed eventual nominee Joe Biden in March. Starting on the evening of March 31, 2025, he delivered a 25 hour and 5 minute speech, the longest in Congressional history, protesting the Presidency of Donald Trump.

On April 26, 1986, the #4 Reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, killing two people in the explosion and a further 28 due to radiation poisoning. The worst nuclear disaster of the 20th Century, it occurred while unsung a test on the system and led to the evacuation of 137,000 people from a 19 mile (30 km) radius, including the nearby town of Pripyat the day after the explosion. Pripyat (then in the USSR, now in Ukraine) was founded in 1970 to house workers at Chernobyl and was granted city status in 1979.

Betty Boothroyd (1929-2003) was a member of the Labour Party and British MP from West Bromwich 1973-2000. In 1992, she was elected the first (and as of 2025 only) woman elected as the Speaker of the House of Commons. Born in Yorkshire to two textile workers, she was a professional dancer before entering politics.

She was elected in her fifth run for Parliament and became the second woman elected Deputy Speaker in 1987, serving in that position until her 1992 election as Speaker. She was named a Life Peer in 2001 and died on February 26, 2023.

The 2011 Super Outbreak lasted from April 25 to 28, with 368 confirmed tornadoes, causing 423 deaths and over 3,100 injuries. Tornadoes touched down in 22 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, but a handful were confirmed in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. April 27 was the most active day of the outbreak, with a total of 224 tornadoes, including four F5 tornadoes (two each in Mississippi and Alabama, causing a total of 120 deaths, 24 in Mississippi and 96 in Alabama).