April 2022 A Month of Transformation and Opening Up to the Fundamental Goodness of the World
April 1st
April Fools Day
Netherlands becomes the first country to allow same-sex marriage in 2001
Sacred Stone Camp founded at Standing Rock, ND to protest the Dakota Access pipeline, 2016
April 2
Ramadan begins at sunrise
World Autism Awareness Day ( that kicks off Autism Awareness Month)
International Children’s Book Day
Hans Christian Anderson, author of the The Snow Queen and so many other fairy tales, b. 1805
Jeannette Rankin takes her seat as the first woman ever elected to the House of Representatives in 1917
April 3rd
Find a Rainbow Day ( and if you can’t find one learn about them!)
April 4th
School Librarian’s Day
Maya Angelou, author, poet Civil Right’s activist, her classic memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, banned from many high schools, was the first non-fiction bestseller by an African American woman, b. 1928
April 5th
Anti War marches against the Vietnam War, in 50 U.S. cities, attract over 150,000 protesters
Booker T. Washington, born a slave he became the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and will always be remembered for his debates with W.E.B DuBois on the proper education for African American children and young people
April 6th
One of many U.S. slave revolts begins in New York, in 1712
Graeme Base, children’s author and illustrator of animals, magical creatures and wondrous beasts extraordinary, b.1958
Billie Holiday, one of the most important vocalists in the history of the Blues and popular music in general, b. 1915
April 7th
The Advanced Research Projects Agency is awarded a contract to build a precursor to today’s world wide web in 1969
The World Health Organization is established in 1948
April 8th
Draw a Bird Day
April 9th
Paul Robeson, singer, athlete, political activist, renaissance man, b. 1898
April 10th
Martin Waddle, author of Owl Babies, b. 1941
April 11th
Civil Rights Act of 1968 signed into law
April 12
Beverley Cleary, author of the Beezus and Ramona Quimby books, among many others, b. 1916
Gary Soto, Mexican American author who wrote Too Many Tamales, and poetry for children and adults, b. 1952
Dennis Banks a leader of the American Indian Movement, author, educator, b. 1937
April 13th
British troops massacre 400 Indian civilians in the Amritsar Massacre to “punish the Indians for their disobedience” in 1919
April 14th
Celebrate Dolphins Day
David Buckel was an American LGBT lawyer and environmental activist who immolated himself in Prospect Park to protest fossil fuels in 2018
April 15th
Good Friday
Jacqueline Briggs Martin, outstanding young children’s author of nonfiction books about nature including “Creekfinding: A True Story”, b. 1945
Leonardo da Vinci, artist, inventor, thinker, b. 1452
Passover begins at sundown
250,000 attend nuclear disarmament rallies across Australia in 1984
April 16th
Pink Full Moon
Charlie Chaplin, great actor of both the silver and silent screen, always memorable for his performance in Modern Times, b. 1889
April 17th
Easter Sunday
April 18th
Afro-Asia conference of unaligned nations ( neither communist or capitalist) in Bandung Indonesia, 1955
26,000 high school and college students, petitioned, marched and came to Washington, D.C. to demand the end of segregated schools, in 1959
April 19th
1943 Albert Hoffman, who had invented synthetic LSD a few days earlier, takes first intentional LSD trip and drives bike home from his lab, in 1943
United States successfully thwarts the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by the Soviet Union in 1961
April 20th
Joan Miro, Spanish surrealist painter that is particularly accessible to children, b. 1893
15 people die in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999
April 21
Charlotte Bronte, one of three Bronte sisters, author of Jane Eyre, a trailblazing exemplar of the modern romance novel where a woman balances love and social achievement, b. 1816
John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist and author, who grew up in Wisconsin, invented things such a machine that tipped him out of bed before sunrise, went walking and sailing, fell in love with the Sierra Madre mountains and Yosemite Valley, started many National Parks, was the first president of the Sierra Club, and wrote, The Thousand Mile Walk, The Sierra Mountains, The Yosemite, The Story of my Boyhood and Youth, b. 1838 https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
April 22nd
Earth Day
Fernando Nicole Sacco, anarchist b. 1891
April 23
First YouTube video posted in 2005, “Me at the Zoo”
Me, Charlie Malone, reading The Day You Were Born at the top of Sleeping Giant on Earth Day 2020
April 24
Hubble Space Telescope is launched out beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, in 1990
April 25th
Ella Fitzgerald, musician, b. 1917
The beginning of the U.S. Mexico War that established the boundary between the United States and Mexico begins in 1846
April 26th
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, Puerto Rican independence activist, b. 1933
National Student Strike enlists over one million students, across the United States, against the Vietnam War, 1968
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant melts down, spreading radiation globally, 1986
John James Audubon, bird and wildlife illustrator and environmental activist, b. 1785
April 27th
Philippine’s natives kill Ferdinand Magellan, European explorer, after he found a passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and before the rest of his crew completed their circumnavigation of the world, 1521
April 28th
Mothers hold first rally for the disappearance at Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1977
Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mocking Bird, b. 1926
Mary Badham as Scout in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Universal Pictures)Mary Badham as Scout in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Universal Pictures)
Take your Children to Work Day
April 29th
Arbor Day, United States
Duke Ellington, Jazz musician, b. 1899
April 30th
International Jazz Day
Martin Luther King makes his “ Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” speech and praises Muhammad Ali’s position on the war in 1967
March 31st
New Moon
