On This Day - What happened 1 April

Spurred by the crisis, on 1 April 286, Maximian took up the title of Augustus. His appointment is unusual in that it was impossible for Diocletian to have been present to witness the event. It has even been suggested that Maximian usurped the title and was only later recognized by Diocletian in hopes of avoiding civil war.

Al-Ashraf Sayf ad-Dīn Bārsbay was the ninth Burji Mamluk sultan of Egypt from AD 1422 to 1438. He was Circassian by birth and a former slave of the first Burji Sultan, Barquq.

On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed".

On 1 April, Alexander addressed the Sénat conservateur. Long docile to Napoleon, under Talleyrand's prodding it had turned against him. Alexander told the Sénat that the Allies were fighting against Napoleon, not France, and they were prepared to offer honorable peace terms if Napoleon were removed from power.

As Grant continued to weaken Lee's forces, efforts to discuss peace began. Confederate Vice President Stephens led a group meeting with Lincoln, Seward, and others at Hampton Roads. Lincoln refused to negotiate with the Confederacy as a coequal; his objective to end the fighting was not realized. On April 1, 1865, Grant nearly encircled Petersburg in a siege. The Confederate government evacuated Richmond and Lincoln visited the conquered capital. On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, officially ending the war.

In 1893, a Muslim merchant in Kathiawar named Dada Abdullah contacted Gandhi. Abdullah owned a large successful shipping business in South Africa. His distant cousin in Johannesburg needed a lawyer, and they preferred someone with Kathiawari heritage. Gandhi inquired about his pay for the work. They offered a total salary of £105 plus travel expenses. He accepted it, knowing that it would be at least one-year commitment in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, also a part of the British Empire. In April 1893, Gandhi aged 23, set sail for South Africa to be the lawyer for Abdullah's cousin.

In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Although it was crushed after a week of fighting, the Easter Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence.

On 1 April, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.

On 1 April 1933, there was a boycott of Jewish businesses.

He composed the text of Hitler's decree authorizing the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, held on 1 April.

In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April, he threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British continued to guarantee Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy.

Victory was proclaimed on 1 April 1939, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered. On the same day, Franco placed his sword upon the altar of a church and in a vow, promised that he would never again take up his sword unless Spain itself was threatened with invasion.

The Nationalists won the Spanish Civil War in April 1939.

Franco proclaimed victory in a radio speech aired on 1 April, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.

Before the outbreak of World War II, Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. He chose military service, despite being offered a deferment because of his shipyard work, on April 1, 1942, at Camp Lee, Virginia. He was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division. Meanwhile, his brother Harold served aboard the USS Lindsey.

On 1 April 1943, Goebbels was named Stadtpräsident of Berlin, thus uniting under his control the city's highest party and governmental offices.

On 2 April 1948, the CPB (the Communist Party of Burma) fired the first shots of the conflict in Paukkongyi, Pegu Region (present-day Bago Region).

After a six-year absence, Wong returned to film the same year with a small role in a B movie called Impact.

In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins, openly violating laws that they considered unjust.

The Man with the Golden Gun is the twelfth novel (and thirteenth book) of Ian Fleming's James Bond series. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the UK on 1 April 1965, eight months after the author's death.

Robert McNamara became President of the World Bank.

Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

Great Blue Hill eruption prank: On April 1, 1980, Boston television station WNAC-TV aired a fake news bulletin at the end of the 6 o'clock news which reported that Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts was erupting. The prank resulted in panic in Milton, where some residents began to flee their homes. The executive producer of the 6 o'clock news, Homer Cilley, was fired by the station for "his failure to exercise good news judgment" and for violating the Federal Communications Commission's rules about showing stock footage without identifying it as such.

During a crisis meeting headed by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, advised them that "Britain could and should send a task force if the islands are invaded". On 1 April, Leach sent orders to a Royal Navy force carrying out exercises in the Mediterranean to prepare to sail south.

The first mobile computers were heavy and ran from mains power. The first laptops, such as the Grid Compass, removed this requirement by incorporating batteries – and with the continued miniaturization of computing resources and advancements in portable battery life.

On 1 April 1988, Nokia bought the computer division of Ericsson's Information Systems, which originated as a computer division of Swedish aircraft and car manufacturer Saab called Datasaab.

The Bijeljina Killings (of mostly Bosniaks) on 1–2 April.

In 1993 IBM posted an US$8 billion loss – at the time the biggest in American corporate history. Lou Gerstner was hired as CEO from RJR Nabisco to turn the company around, on 1 April 1993.

In April 1997, the trio (Ahmad Salama Mabruk - Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi - al-Zawahiri) were sentenced to six months, and were subsequently released a month later and ran off without paying their court-appointed attorney Abulkhalik Abdusalamov his $1,800 legal fee citing their "poverty".

Google has a tradition of creating April Fools' Day jokes. Its first on April 1, 2000 was Google MentalPlex which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.

Milošević was arrested by Yugoslav authorities on 1 April 2001, following a 36-hour armed standoff between police and Milošević's bodyguards at his Belgrade villa. Although no official charges were made, Milošević was suspected of abuse of power and corruption.

The Rock feuded with the Royal Rumble winner, Stone Cold Steve Austin, whom he lost the title to at WrestleMania X-Seven after Austin allied with Vince McMahon, who interfered on his behalf.

On 1 April 2003, Turing's work at Bletchley Park was named an IEEE Milestone.

In April 2006, Harry completed his officer training and was commissioned as a Cornet (second lieutenant) in the Blues and Royals, a regiment of the Household Cavalry in the British Army.

In 2010 Riot staged an April Fool's Joke where they introduced a fake new champion, "Urf the Manatee." After a large amount of enthusiasm from the game's player base, Riot decided to donate the proceeds made from selling in-game skins to the Save the Manatee Club, a national non-profit organization striving to save and raise awareness of manatees.

On April 1, at WrestleMania XXVIII, The Rock beat Cena in the main event after countering Cena's attempt at a People's Elbow into a Rock Bottom.

In April 2013, joined in an HRF condemnation of Kanye West for having performed for the leader of Kazakhstan in exchange for a $3 million paycheck, saying that West "has entertained a brutal killer and his entourage" and that his fee "came from the loot stolen from the Kazakhstan treasury".

In April 2015, the Public Ministry of Brazil opened an investigation into allegations of influence peddling by Lula, which claimed that between 2011 and 2014 he had lobbied for government contracts in foreign countries for the Odebrecht company and had also persuaded the Brazilian Development Bank to finance the projects in Ghana, Angola, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

On April 1, 2019, Tesla reached a settlement with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its mishandling of hazardous waste in 2017.

On April 1, 2020, Zoom announced a 90-day freeze on releasing new features, to focus on fixing privacy and security issues on Zoom.

The ninth Nanak, also known as Teg Bahadur Ji, was born in Amritsar in India.

A French mathematician, Sophie Germain, was born in Paris in 1776.