Born on this day
Thursday, April 15, 1452. : Renaissance painter, architect, engineer and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci, is born.
Leonardo da Vinci was born 15 April 1452 in Vinci, Italy. His name means “Leonardo from the town of Vinci”, so he is generally referred to in short as “Leonardo” rather than as “da Vinci”. He is perhaps best known for paintings such as the “Mona Lisa”, which took three years to paint and was completed in 1506, and “The Last Supper”.
Leonardo was also a sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist. He was actually employed as a military engineer: thus, his notebooks contain several designs for military machines, including machine guns and an armoured tank powered by humans or horses. Other inventions include a submarine, a cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as the first mechanical calculator, and a car powered by a spring mechanism. He is known for designing many inventions that anticipated modern technology, such as flying machines. On 3 January 1496 he unsuccessfully tested a flying machine he had constructed. PBS (America’s Public Broadcasting Service) aired a special about the building and testing of a glider based on Leonardo’s design. The glider was completely successful. He also advanced the study of anatomy, dissecting bodies and drawing intricately detailed sketches in notebooks, though not many of these have survived. His study of human anatomy led to the design of the first known robot in recorded history. The design, which has come to be called Leonardo’s robot, was probably made around the year 1495 but was rediscovered only in the 1950s.
Leonardo died on 2 May 1519. His legacy, besides his paintings, lies in his extensive notebooks filled with engineering and scientific observations that were often centuries ahead of their time.
Born on this day
Friday, April 15, 1892. : Dutch Christian, Corrie ten Boom, who helped to save hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust, is born.
Corrie ten Boom was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 15 April 1892. She was instrumental in assisting Jewish refugees to safety during the WWII holocaust, and her family was very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. Although Corrie’s family was Christian, they helped Jews unconditionally, even providing Kosher food and honouring the Sabbath. During any given time in 1943 and into 1944, the ten Boom family averaged 6-7 people illegally living in their home, usually 4 Jews and 2 or 3 members of the Dutch underground. It is estimated that the family saved around 800 Jews during the holocaust.
On 28 February 1944, Nazi soldiers arrested the entire ten Boom family. They were sent first to Dutch prisons, where they were interrogated. Corrie’s father died ten days after the family’s arrest, and other family members were sent to different prisons. After being shunted around various prisons, Corrie and Betsie were interred at the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, which held around 35,000 women, in September 1944. There, Betsie actively led daily Bible studies with the women, bringing hope in a place where torture and death was commonplace. Betsie died a week before Corrie was released, and it was years later that Corrie discovered her release was due to a “clerical error”, and should not have been permitted. A week after her release, all women of her age were executed.
The story of Corrie ten Boom’s family and their work during World War II is told in the book ‘The Hiding Place’. Corrie actively used the rest of her life to aid others after the war, and to spread the ministry of the gospel of Christ around the world. She died on 15 April 1983, on her 91st birthday.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, April 15, 1823. : Allan Cunningham departs Bathurst to find an easier overland stock route to the Liverpool Plains.
Allan Cunningham was born on 13 July 1791 in Wimbledon, England. As a botanist who came to Australia suffering from tuberculosis, he found that Australia’s climate helped him regain some of his health, and he was anxious to discover more of the country he came to love. Initially, he explored as part of John Oxley’s expeditions to follow the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers in 1817.
By the 1820s, the pastoral industry in the young colony of New South Wales was growing, and there was greater need for more grazing land. On 15 April 1823, Cunningham departed from Bathurst on the orders of Governor Brisbane to find an easier route north between the settlements around Bathurst and the Liverpool Plains which Oxley had discovered five years earlier. On this expedition, Cunningham discovered the only point where sheep and cattle could easily cross the mountain barriers, at the junction of the Warrumbungle and Liverpool Ranges. This gap became known as Pandora’s Pass.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, April 15, 1873. : Colonel Warburton sets out to cross the continent from central Australia to Perth.
Peter Egerton Warburton was born on 15 August 1813, at Northwich, Cheshire. He joined the navy at the tender age of 12, initially serving as a midshipman on the HMS Windsor Castle. He then served for many years in India before retiring in 1853. He then came to Australia, whereupon he was appointed to command the Police Forces of the Colony of South Australia, an office he held until 1867. It was during this time that he developed his love of exploring.
Warburton undertook numerous smaller expeditions, but his goal was to complete the first crossing of the central Australian continent from east to west. In 1872, he was selected by Sir Thomas Elder, a Member of the Legislative Council to lead an expedition in an attempt to find a route from central Australia to Perth, and to report on what sort of country lay in between. On 21 September 1872, Warburton departed Adelaide with his son Richard, two white men with bush knowledge, two Afghan camel drivers and a black tracker. His purpose was to attempt to find an overland route from Alice Springs to Perth and determine the nature of the country in between. Warburton’s expedition departed Alice Springs on 15 April 1873.
The expedition was particularly hard going. The men endured long periods of extreme heat with little water and survived only by killing the camels for their meat. After finally crossing the Great Sandy Desert, they arrived at the Oakover River, 800 miles north of Perth with Warburton strapped to one of the two remaining camels. Warburton received a grant of £1000 and his party received £500 from the South Australian parliament for the expedition.
World History
Sunday, April 15, 1984. : Tommy Cooper, famous British comic, dies while performing on stage.
British comedian and skilled magician Thomas Frederick “Tommy” Cooper was born in Caerphilly, South Wales on 19 March 1921. At age three, his family moved to Exeter, Devon, where he acquired the West Country accent that later became an integral part of his act. Cooper’s interest in magical illusions developed when he was eight, and his aunt bought him a magic set. He perfected numerous magic tricks, which helped him to develop his comedy acts later on. Some accounts say his great sense of comedy grew out of the many conjuring tricks that failed when Cooper was performing to various audiences: despite the failures, his acts gained plenty of laughs. He soon learned that adding the occasional trick that worked added to the winning formula. Respected by traditional magicians and illusionists, Cooper became a member of The Magic Circle. His trademark was his red fez.
Cooper enjoyed a successful career as both magician and comedian for almost four decades. However, he was a heavy drinker and smoker, and suffered from declining health during the 1970s. He suffered his first heart attack in 1977, and his professionalism suffered from his alcoholism. He continued to make guest appearances on television shows, but even these were fraught with problems: whilst appearing on Michael Parkinson’s show, he forgot to set the safety catch on the guillotine illusion in which he had convinced Parkinson to participate. Fortunately, a last-minute intervention by the floor manager saved Parkinson from serious injury.
Cooper was midway through an act on the live television variety show Live From Her Majesty’s when he collapsed and died of a heart attack, on 15 April 1984. His legacy as one of the greatest comedians of all time can be seen in the fact that, in a 2005 poll The Comedians’ Comedian, Cooper was voted the sixth greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
World History
Saturday, April 15, 1989. : 96 soccer fans are killed in a crush at Hillsborough, England.
Britain’s worst sporting disaster to date occurred on 15 April 1989, during the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool at Hillsborough football stadium, Sheffield. When the match commenced at 3pm, up to 5,000 Liverpool supporters remained outside. The gates were opened to allow them to enter, as the policemen in charge of crowd control believed the potential crush outside represented a greater danger. Thousands of fans poured in through a narrow tunnel at the rear of the standing section and into the already overcrowded central two sections, causing a crush at the front where people were pressed against the fencing that separated them from the field.
The distress of those at the front was not immediately apparent, and the game was not stopped until 3:06. 95 people died as a result of suffocation or injuries received in the crush; the 96th victim remained in a vegetative state for four years before he died. 766 others were injured. A subsequent inquiry found that the disaster occurred primarily because of overcrowding and inadequate police control. As a result of the inquiry, fences in front of fans were removed and stadia were converted to become all-seated.
World History
Wednesday, April 15, 2009. : It is reported that Russian surgeons find a fir tree growing inside a man’s lung.
On 15 April 2009, newspapers across the world picked up on an unusual story coming out of Russia: that of a fir tree being found inside a man’s lung.
28 year old Russian man Artyom Sidorkin was believed to have lung cancer when he began coughing up blood and experiencing excruciating chest pain. X-rays showed what looked like a tumour, so surgeons prepared to operate. A biopsy was performed prior to removal of a major part of Sidorkin’s lung, and surgeon Vladimir Kamashev was stunned to find a 5cm fir tree in the lung tissue.
It is believed that Sidorkin must have inhaled a fir seed sometime, which then sprouted and grew inside his lung. The miniature pine needles would have pierced capillaries, causing Sidorkin to cough up blood. The patient was most relieved that he did not have cancer.
World History
Monday, April 15, 2019. : Fire breaks out in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, almost destroying the building.
Notre-Dame de Paris or, more commonly, Notre-Dame, is considered one of France’s most iconic monuments. Construction began over 800 years ago with the laying of the cornerstone between 24 March and 25 April 1163, witnessed by King Louis VII and Pope Alexander III. Although the cathedral was functional by 1260, the building was only consecrated in 1345. Notre Dame is famous for its Gothic architecture, enormous rose windows and unique use of the rib vault and flying buttress in its construction. With 12 to 13 million visitors annually, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is the most-visited site in Europe.
Notre-Dame has been the site of many significant events, including the coronation of King Henry VI of England in 1431 and the crowning of Napoleon as emperor of France in 1804, as well as famous weddings such as that of James V, king of Scotland in 1537; Mary, Queen of Scots and her first husband Francis, Dauphin of France in 1558; and King Charles I of England in 1625. The cathedral has weathered much damage and degradation such as being pillaged by rioting Huguenots in the 16th century, heavily ransacked during the French Revolution and damaged during the two World Wars. Numerous modifications and renovations have been undertaken through the years, and it was restoration work that inadvertently led to the cathedral almost being destroyed in 2019.
Shortly before 7:00pm Paris time on 15 April 2019, just after the final visitors had left, fire broke out beneath the roof of Notre-Dame. Although guards heard the fire alarm at 6:20pm, no fire was sighted until a guard climbed to the roof and confirmed a fire, almost half an hour later. This delay was largely responsible for how quickly the roof and spire were consumed by flames. The 93m lead-covered spire, which was only added in the mid-19th century, collapsed onto the stone vaulting that fashioned the ceiling of the cathedral’s interior, and some sections of this vaulting subsequently collapsed as well, causing the burning roof to fall to the marble floor below. Although there were fears the entire structure would collapse, the worst of the fire was contained by the following day. Investigations are continuing but it is believed that a short circuit caused the fire. Damage has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros.