April 15th Anniversaries

Santo Domingo.- The events of the 15th of April, are marked by important historical events and international celebrations that left their mark on world history. Below are the main events of the April 15th:

• World Art Day.
• International Pompe Disease Day.

Saint's Day: Saints Anastasia, Domitilla, Eutychius, and Basilia. Saints Hannibal, Telmo, and Maron. Navy Day.

National: April 15th Anniversaries

• 1502: Friars Bartolomé de las Casas and Nicolás de Ovando arrive at the port of Santo Domingo, the latter to take possession as Governor of the island.
• 1502: Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, who would become an ardent defender of the indigenous people, arrives on the island of Hispaniola.
• 1821: The newspaper “El Duende”, directed by Dr. José Núñez de Cáceres, circulates in Santo Domingo.
• 1844: The naval battle of “Tortuguero” takes place, which culminates in the victory of the improvised Dominican fleet over the Haitian one. The Dominicans were led by Juan Bautista Cambiaso.
• 1844: The Central Governing Board legally acknowledges the existence of the Navy.
• 1857: The school directed by P. Agüero begins the teaching of shorthand in the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo.
• 1867: The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Gabriel García, alerts the Venezuelan government of an alleged plan by former President Buenaventura Báez who is preparing to remove armaments and supplies from La Vela de Coro to once again harass his homeland.
• 1954: Doctor Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle, a prominent collaborator of the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship, dies.
• 1957: The statutes of the Ibero-American Education Office (OEI) are approved in Santo Domingo.
• 1962: From New York, former President Joaquín Balaguer says he is not afraid of justice for the accusations against him for the Espaillat street massacre and the death of those who executed dictator Rafael Trujillo.
• 1963: The National Police headquarters orders the creation of the Transportation Departments and the Radio Patrol Division.
• 1970: The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, lawyer Manuel Ramón Ruiz Tejada, is in charge of the Executive Power until the day of the issuance of the Official Election Certificate of the candidate elected for the presidency of the Republic in the elections of May 16 of this year.
• 1974: The political opposition led by the Dominican Revolutionary Party forms a front called the Santiago Agreement, with the aim of displacing Joaquín Balaguer from power, taking Antonio Guzmán Fernández as presidential candidate.
• 1992: The Government prohibits people of the civilian class from buying and using olive green clothing and military-style chamacos.
• 2005: The prosecutor of the National District, Manuel Hernández Peguero, announces the postponement, without a date, of the interrogation he would conduct of former President Hipólito Mejía, in relation to the case of former Captain Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo, accused of drug trafficking.
• 2014: The Dominican Republic and Turkey sign an economic and civil aviation cooperation agreement, taking advantage of the country's strategic location to connect with other Caribbean nations.
• 2019: The Dominican Republic and Texas A&M International University sign two cooperation agreements, one of which establishes that the university will advise the country on the organization and development of its maritime and terrestrial borders, so that the exchange of goods with the world increases.
• 2019: The Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Francisco Ozoria, expresses his concern about what he understands is a lack of independence of the powers of the State, warning that “if we do not wake up and change”, the country will head towards a dictatorship.
• 2020: The former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Department of State, Roger Noriega, accuses the Dominican government of allegedly fabricating a judicial file to accuse an opposition candidate (Luis Abinader) of the failed elections of last February.
• 2020: Based on the recommendations contained in the report submitted by the technical commission of the OAS, the Central Electoral Board cancels the suspended National Director of Informatics, Miguel Ángel García, for the failure of the municipal elections of February 16, 2020.

International: April 15th Anniversaries

• 1502: Commander Nicolás de Ovando arrives in La Española as governor, replacing Bobadilla, along with a total of 30 ships filled with 1,500 people and loaded with all kinds of food.
• 1817: In Alto Perú, present-day Bolivia, the Battle of La Tablada is fought, within the framework of the Bolivian War of Independence, with the montoneros led by Eustaquio Méndez victorious over the Spanish army commanded by Colonel Mateo Ramírez.
• 1829: The project to create Scotland Yard is presented in the British parliament.
• 1865: President Abraham Lincoln dies, a victim of the attack that occurred the night before at Ford's Theatre perpetrated by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States.
• 1953: Two bombs explode in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires while President Juan Domingo Perón is speaking at an act of adhesion to the president organized by the CGT: 6 people die and there are numerous injuries.
• 1961: Cuban airports are bombed by US planes, as a preparatory part of the Bay of Pigs invasion, carried out by a group of anti-Castro dissidents.
• 1995: In Bolivia, former military dictator Luis García Meza is captured, responsible for more than 500 murders, among other terrorist acts, such as the Massacre of Calle Harrington (in La Paz).
• 2007: President Rafael Correa obtains a solid political victory when Ecuadorians overwhelmingly approve a popular consultation that authorizes the call for a constituent assembly with full powers, whose objective is to transform the model of the State.
• 2008: Pope Benedict XVI makes his first papal trip to the United States, being received by US President George W. Bush and hundreds of parishioners.
• 2009: Colombian authorities arrest Daniel Rendón (Don Mario), considered one of the most dangerous and astute drug lords in that South American nation.
• 2010: In Iceland, the dense ash cloud released by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano causes the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights at several airports in Europe.
• 2013: Three people die and more than 280 are injured in a bombing during the celebration of the Boston, Massachusetts marathon, for which the Chechen brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are held responsible.
• 2019: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture located in the heart of medieval Paris, is devastated by a fire.
• 2020: The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announces that three vaccines against covid-19 are in the clinical trial stage and another 70 are in development.
• 2020: US President Donald Trump threatens to suspend Congress if the Democrats do not come out of quarantine to approve the new positions nominated by him.
• 2021: Eight of the 11 members of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) decide to uphold the ruling of a judge who annulled the convictions against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the state of Paraná, which rehabilitates him to participate in the presidential elections of October 2022.

Births: April 15th Anniversaries

• 1894: Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War.
• 1907: Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ethologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.
• 1947: Roy Raymond, American businessman, founder of Victoria's Secret.
• 1965: Linda Perry, American singer and music producer, from the band 4 Non Blondes.

Deaths: April 15th Anniversaries

• 1865: Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President, victim of the assassination by John Wilkes Booth.
• 1954: Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle, Dominican politician and intellectual.
• 1957: Pedro Infante, Mexican singer and actor.
• 1973: Carmen Celia Ricardo widow Balaguer, mother of former president Joaquín Balaguer.
• 1980: Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and writer.
• 1995: Carlos Facundo Menem and Silvio Oltra, victims of a helicopter attack in Argentina.
• 2017: Emma Morano, Italian supercentenarian, last verified living person born in 1899 and in the 1890s.
• 2019: Vitelio Ruiz Hernández, Cuban linguist and pedagogue, creator of the basic school dictionary.