April 2024 A Month of Birth, Transformation and Opening Up to the Fundamental Possibility of Goodness in the World
April is a time of transformation in the natural word with the earth teeming with new life. The earth is thawing out. Animals are returning from southern wintering grounds, waking up from hibernation, switching over to new diets, and giving birth. Trees are blossoming ( most trees reproduce by wind propagation which works best when there are no leaves on the trees!). The ephemerals are pushing up from the forest floor and flowers are beginning to blossom including the pink phlox that the Pink Full Moon ( April 23rd) is named after. The water is high in the streams and rivers, the birds and the frogs are gathering nature’s orchestra, and there is more light everyday filling the ecosystem with more energy. There are new beginnings in the natural world everywhere!
Cultures around the world, in the temperate regions, celebrate the rebirth of Spring in different ways: see Wendy Pfeffer’s, A New Beginning: Celebrating the Spring Equinox, Hans Christian Anderson, the father of the modern fairy tale, was born April 2. Learn more about his childhood in the beautiful children’s book, The young Hans Christian Anderson, by Karen Hesse.
Both the Civil War (1861) and the Mexican American War ( 1846), began in April, reminding us of the horrors of war and their ongoing effects. How can we have developmentally appropriate conversations with children about difficult subjects ( Russia and Ukraine anyone?). How can we cultivate an anti-war culture especially with children fixated on swords, guns, weapons, violent super-heroes, first-person shooters, and a society whose default answers to deep, seemingly intractable problems are “solutions” steeped in violence? How can we “beat their swords into ploughshares, … their spears into pruning hooks; [and live in a way where] nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”?
April is the month when we can get outside, garden, make animal friends, find new places to play, enjoy the freedom of getting out of our little bubble worlds, and experience the joy of exploring, learning from, and connecting with where we live, this good earth, in all its complexity and interconnectedness. Earth Day, April 22nd, inspires us to get outside with our children, and reaffirm our fundamental belonging to the earth and our ancestral connections with the natural world. Living in the Anthropocene Age, where human actions have radically transformed the landscape where we live and breathe, it is up to us to generate both the political will and the necessary funds of knowledge to make wise choices if we are to reconnect with the natural world and live in harmony with the Earth. Children, like the birds making their nests and singing in excitement, like the snapping turtles rising from the murky depths of the swamps with the earth on their backs, like the plants pushing up towards the sun, like the new-born babies figuring things out, participate in the affirmation of the earth being reborn.
April 1st
April Fools Day
Gil Scott Heron, poet, musician, wrote “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” b. 1949
Netherlands becomes the first country to pass a same-sex marriage equality law in 2001
Sacred Stone Camp founded at Standing Rock, ND to protest the Dakota Access pipeline, 2016
Many trees, including Willow, Eastern Cottonwood and Red Maple’s are flowering
April 2
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
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey makes its world premiere in 1968
April 3rd
Find a Rainbow Day ( and if you can’t find one learn about them!)
Allen Ginsberg, Buddhist, beat poet, critic of capitalism and conformity, celebrant of life, b. 1926
Red-Shouldered Hawks Courting and Mating
First public cellular phone call made on a Manhattan sidewalk in 1973
April 4th
School Librarian’s Day
Maya Angelou, author, poet Civil Rights 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
Many species of warblers that live primarily in Haiti, make their first migratory stop after crossing Long Island Sound in East Rock Park, to find food, make nests and have babies (https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/warbler_watcher_spins_stories_of_home)
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, tireless advocate for African-American people, 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, b. 1856
Palestine Children’s Day to commemorate and acknowledge the struggles Palestinian children have in accessing basic human rights under Occupation
Painted Turtles basking
April 6th
American Robins foraging for earthworms ( in the spring invertebrates make up 90 % of the Robin’s diet as opposed to 10 percent in fall and winter)
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
“Youth Movement” is an Egyptian activist group established in Spring 2008 ( as part of the larger movement of the Arab Spring) organized to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6th
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 ( of the US government) is awarded a contract to build a precursor to today’s world wide web in 1969
The World Health Organization is established in 1948
Paris Communards burn guillotine as a reactionary symbol of counter-revolution, 1871
Good Friday commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus ( Christian)
Chipmunks are preparing nests and giving birth
April 8th
Eastern Newts (whose juvenile stage is the striking red eft) migrating back to ponds as adults
Draw a Bird Day
COBOL, a programmatic computer language created by Grace Hopper, woman, computer scientist, mathematician and United States Rear Admiral, in 1959
Trina Schart Hyman, children’s illustrator of fairy tales, and her own original stories, Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, and many other stories, b. 1939
New Moon
The birth of Gautama Buddha celebrated, b. 563 BC
April 9th
Paul Robeson, singer, athlete, political activist, renaissance man, b. 1898
Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders are emerging from hibernation and laying eggs
April 10th
Northern Cardinals singing, whereas males sing all year, females sing and vocalize mostly from the nest during the Spring
Martin Waddle, author of Owl Babies, and many other delightful children books centered around animals, b. 1941
Mount Tambora, in Indonesia, explodes in one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. At least 71,000 people were killed by the eruption, 1815
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in in 1866
April 11th
Civil Rights Act of 1968 signed into law
Red Fox kits venturing out of their dens
The trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust, is put on trial in 1961 ( he was hanged the following year)
April 12
Beverly 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
American Civil War begins, 1861
Dennis Banks a leader of the American Indian Movement, author, educator, b. 1937
April 13th
Ospreys returning to nesting sites, building their nest and laying their eggs ( Visit Waite Street between Whitney and Mather in Hamden to see this extraordinary phenomena)
British troops massacre 400 Indian civilians in the Amritsar Massacre to “punish the Indians for their disobedience” in 1919
CIA Director Allen Dulles, launches mind control program MKULTRA, 1953
Erik Christian Haugaard, Danish born illustrator, who fled from the Nazi invasion of Denmark, well known for his translations of Hans Christian Anderson, and adventure stories set in war torn and poverty stricken social milieus, b. 1923
Marguerite Henry, stricken with rheumatic fever as a young child, she created imaginary worlds around books and animals, writing the classic Misty of Chincoteague and many other horse and animal stories, b. 1902
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
Human genome project, the mapping of the complete sequence of the human genome, is declared “complete,” in 2003
Spring Peepers emerging from hibernation, mating, laying eggs and making a beautiful, holy, symphony of bells
Abraham Lincoln assassinated in 1865
April 15th
Jacqueline Briggs Martin, outstanding young children’s author of nonfiction books about nature including “Creekfinding: A True Story”, and “Snowflake Bentley”, b. 1945
Leonardo da Vinci, artist, inventor, thinker, b. 1452
250,000 attend nuclear disarmament rallies across Australia in 1984
Extinction Rebellion, committed to non-violent action to compel governments to act to prevent tipping points in the climate system, biological diversity loss, and ecological collapse, staged its first international rebellion week, in 2019
Common loons find staging areas in rivers and ponds, free of ice, as they make their way northward
Eastman Kodak Company launches Kodachrome the most popular media for professional and hobbyist photographers ( discontinued in 2009 because of the ubiquity of digital media), in 1935
April 16th
Common Garter Snakes emerging from hibernacula and mating
Charlie Chaplin, great actor of both the silver and silent screen, always memorable for his performance in Modern Times, b. 1889
Garth Williams, brilliant children’s book illustrator of such classics as Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, Bedtime for Francis, and many others, b. 1921
April 17th
Carrion Beetles feeding on animal carcasses and the fly larva that are already eating the carcass
Great Egrets Migrating
April 18th
Afro-Asia conference of unaligned nations ( neither communist or capitalist) in Bandung Indonesia, 1955
Snapping Turtles mating
Great San Francisco earthquake destroys much of the city in 1906
26,000 high school and college students, came to Washington, D.C., petitioned, marched, and demanded 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. You could say it was quite a “trip” from work to home.
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, carried out by Cuban exiles and funded and coordinated by the U.S. government, thwarted in 1961
Wood frogs mating and making a raucous racket of quaking and clucking
April 20th
Joan Miro, Spanish surrealist painter that is particularly accessible to children, b. 1893
Porcupines giving birth
15 people die in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999
Prophet Muhammad ( Islam), b. 571
Mary Hoffman, author of Amazing Grace, the story of a black girl who wants to play the role of Peter Pan in the school play, and The Great Big Book of Feelings, b. 1945
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, and The Story of my Boyhood and Youth, b. 1838 https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
Noah Webster publishes a two volume dictionary of American English, in 1828
Ephemerals, like Bloodroot, Trout Lilly, Dutchman’s Breeches, Wild Columbine, and wild ginger are springing up on the forest floor
Fish Migration Day
April 22nd
Earth Day
Common grackles nesting
Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, transcendental idealist, fundamental figure in the European Enlightenment, b. 1724
Me, Charlie Malone, reading The Day You Were Born at the top of Sleeping Giant on Earth Day 2020
Fernando Nicole Sacco, anarchist b. 1891
April 23
First YouTube video posted in 2005, “Me at the Zoo”
Eastern tent caterpillars hatching and building tents
April 24
Hubble Space Telescope is launched out beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, in 1990
Queen Bumble Bees flying and starting a new colony by themselves, building a nest and then laying eggs
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
One million people march in Washington D.C. for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender rights, in 1993
Big Brown bats emerging from hibernation and females are forming maternity roosts
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, ( also held racist views and owned and sold Black people as slaves), b. 1785
Frederick Law Olmstead, utopian urbanist , park planner, designer of Central Park and Prospect Park, and hundreds of other reserves, and public places throughout the United States including Walnut Hill park in New Britain CT, b. 1822
Wild Leek leaves emerging
Arbor Day, United States
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
Ludwig Bemelmans, author of the Madeleine series, about an iconoclastic little girl asserting her individuality within regimented social institutions, b. 1898
Killdeer nesting on the ground
April 28th
Mothers hold first rally for the children of the over 30,000 people who were killed or “disappeared” after the military coup in Argentina, at Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1977 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_of_Plaza_de_Mayo)
Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, b. 1926
Oskar Schindler, who saved over 1200 Jewish people from the Holocaust, b. 1908
Take your Children to Work Day
April 29th
Duke Ellington, Jazz musician, b. 1899
International Dance Day
April 30th
International Jazz Day
Spring Peepers mating
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
