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20th April

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1902: Curies isolate radium


On this day, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate the radioactive substance radium from the mineral pinchblende in their laboratory in Paris. The Curies discovered radium in 1898, along with another element that Marie named polonium, in honour of her native Poland. For their groundbreaking work on radioactivity, the Curies were awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1906, Pierre Curie died, but Marie continued her work, isolating pure radium in 1910, which earned her a second Nobel, the 1911 prize in chemistry. Marie Sklodowska Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, had become the first person to win it twice. Radium was later used to treat cancer and was important in the development of nuclear physics.

2005

Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, resigns in order to try and form a new coalition government.

1999

Two American high school students go on a shooting spree in Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado - 15 people are killed, including the two attackers.

1978

Soviet aircraft force a Korean Air Lines passenger jet to land in the Soviet Union after the jet veers into Russian airspace. Two people are killed and several others injured after the jet was forced to make an emergency landing. .

1974

The 1000th victim of the conflict in Northern Ireland is claimed.

1972

Astronauts aboard Apollo 16 make a safe landing on the Moon.

1968

Right-wing Tory MP, Enoch Powell, makes his famous ‘rivers of blood speech’, attacking the British government's immigration policy.

1953

During the Korean War, one hundred United Nations prisoners are freed under Operation “Little Switch.”

1945

The Second World War: Allied bombers in Italy begin a three-day attack on the bridges over the rivers Adige and Brenta to cut off German lines of retreat on the peninsula.

1871

Congress authorises American President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan.

1821

Edgar Allan Poe's book, ‘Murders In The Rue Morgue’, considered to be the world's first modern detective story, is published in America.

1792

France declares war on Austria, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars.

1770

Captain James Cook discovers New South Wales in Australia.

1689

The former British King, James II, begins a siege of Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

1657

The Spanish Fleet is destroyed in the Battle of Santa Cruz by an English Fleet commanded by Admiral Blake.

1653

In England, Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.

1951

American actress Jessica Lange.

1941

American actor Ryan O'Neal

1924

American actress Nina Foch.

1893

Silent film comedy star Harold Lloyd, famous for his daring stunt scenes, is born in Nebraska, USA.

1893

Spanish artist Joan Miro.

1889

Adolf Hitler is born in Austria - the son of a customs official who had changed his surname to Hitler from Schickelgruber.

1808

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III). .

1912

Author Bram Stoker, aged 65. Creator of Dracula.