April 4 in history — On This Day

A photograph taken after the 1871 fire can make Chicago look as though its future had been decided by a wall of flame. A view from around 1905 tells a different story: tall offices, busy transport routes and commercial streets crowded again.

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Challenger begins its first space mission

War & Conflict

Air France Flight 139 is hijacked

Space

Challenger begins its first space mission

Technology

The Boeing B-52 prototype takes flight

History

Ivy Mike Detonates and Opens the Thermonuclear Age

Tsar Bomba: The Largest Nuclear Test Explosion

China Conducts Its First Nuclear Test

Crime & Justice

An Ovechkin family group hijacks Aeroflot Flight 3739

Seven Lives Lost: The Unsolved Mystery of United Air Lines Flight 23

Science

Astronomers unveil the first image of a black hole

Stones fall from the sky near L’Aigle

A total eclipse shares the sky with Hale–Bopp

Medicine & Health

Hong Kong Begins a Mass Poultry Cull Against Bird Flu

The First American IVF Baby Is Born

The First Successful Human Kidney Transplant

Nature & Disasters

The Endangered Species Act Is Signed

The Andes Flight Survivors' Rescue Is Completed

A Living Coelacanth Is Caught off South Africa

Exploration

The First Flight Around the World Returns to Seattle

Film & TV

Edison’s laboratory demonstrates a prototype Kinetoscope

The Lumière Cinématographe Is Shown to a Paying Paris Audience

The Story Behind the Photo

Chicago After the Fire: From Burned Blocks to a New Skyline

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The Road to the Moon

Fires That Changed Cities

The Age of Invention

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My Birthday in History

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