April was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before January and February were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it also was given 29 days. The derivation of the name (Latin Aprilis) is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the Latin aperire, "to open," in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open," which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of ἁνοιξις (opening) for spring. Since most of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis being held on the first day.
April 1, 2010, April Fools Day
April 1, 2010,
April 1, 2010,
April 1, 2010,
April 1, 2010, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, speaking at Holy Thursday mass in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, criticizes Catholics who believe the church should move on from recent child abuse scandals in Ireland. (RTÉ)
April 1, 2010, India launches its new 2011 biometric census, the largest census in the world. (The Times of India)
April 1, 2010, Academy Award winning actor Anna Paquin's unexpected public acknowledgement of her bisexuality in a video causes the anti-discrimination Give a Damn campaign website she is promoting to crash. (Reuters)
April 1, 2010, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson are inducted into the hall of fame at New York's Apollo Theater. (BBC)
April 1, 2010, Members of the Christian militia group Hutaree plead not guilty to a court in Michigan, United States, to claims of plotting to kill American police officers. (CNN)
April 1, 2010, Sarah Palin spoke to thousands of tea party activists gathered in the Nevada desert about Harry Reid. (Main line)
April 2, 2010, Release of Clash of the Titans
April 2, 2010,
April 2, 2010, Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor says at St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast in Ireland that the "crimes and sins of abuse of children and minors by clergy and religious" are "faith-shaking". (RTÉ)
April 2, 2010, Soyuz TMA-18 is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying three members of the Expedition 23 crew of the International Space Station. (CNN)
In the Kazakh language, Tyuratam means "broken arrow". For whatever reason, the name of "Baikonur Cosmodrome" became official when the nearby town of Leninsk, was renamed to Baikonur by Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995.
April 2, 2010, Limerick pubs break with tradition by opening on Good Friday following the recent landmark court ruling. (RTÉ)
April 3, 2010, Senegal has inaugurated a massive $27m (£18m) monument - higher than the Statue of Liberty - that has drawn huge criticism over its cost and symbolism.
April 3, 2010, Thousands of "red shirt" anti-government protesters rally in the Thai capital Bangkok demanding new elections. (Thai News Agency)
April 4, 2010, A 7.2-magnitude earthquake hits Baja California, about 108 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, says the U.S. Geological Survey. (USGS Earthquake Hazards Program)
April 4, 2010, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon witnesses one of the world's worst environmental disasters as he flies over the shrinking Aral Sea, the world's fourth largest lake, which has in recent decades shrunk in size by more than 70 percent. (UN)
April 5, 2010, The Duke Blue Devils defeat the Butler Bulldogs, 61-59, to win their fourth U.S. men's college basketball title. (AP at Yahoo)
April 5, 2010, An explosion at a coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia kills 25 miners and leaves several missing. This is the deadliest mining accident in the U.S. in at least 35 years. (BBC News)
April 5, 2010, Wikileaks releases a video from 2007 showing the killing of civilians, including two Reuters news staff, by the U.S. military in Baghdad, Iraq. (BBC News)
April 5, 2010, Iran invites 60 countries to a two-day nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran on April 17–18, entitled "Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one". China says it will attend the conference which invites "the world to disarm and prevent proliferation". (Al Jazeera)
April 6, 2010,
April 6, 2010,
April 6, 2010, Details of North Korea's own Red Star operating system emerge. (BBC)
April 6, 2010, Lord Saville is asked to hold back until after the UK general election the publication of the Bloody Sunday (1972) report into the killing of 14 unarmed civil rights protesters by British Army paratroopers in Bogside, Derry. (RTÉ)
April 6, 2010, Vigils and a musical requiem are among a series of events held in L'Aquila to mark the first anniversary of one of Europe's largest post-war natural disasters. (BBC)
April 6, 2010, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules that the FCC cannot enforce net neutrality and that Comcast can limit its customers' access to BitTorrent. (The New York Times)
April 7, 2010,
April 7, 2010,
April 7, 2010, James Hansen wins the Sophie Prize. (350.org)
April 7, 2010, A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes northern Sumatra, Indonesia. (CNN)
April 7, 2010, Sixteen countries attend a two-day conference organised by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo to discuss the retrieval of old items which were pillaged by other nations, such as the Rosetta Stone (held by the British Museum, London) and Queen Nefertitti's bust (held by the Neues Museum, Berlin). (BBC)
April 7, 2010, FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi is widely hailed as the best footballer in the world after scoring four goals for the first time in his career in one UEFA Champions League game, including his fourth hat-trick of 2010. (BBC)
April 7, 2010, Norway experiences its first Catholic child abuse scandal as it becomes known that a bishop, Georg Müller, was forced to resign in 2009 because of sexual abuse of an altar boy in the early 1990s. (The New York Times)
April 8, 2010, Professor Lee R. Berger announces the discovery of a new hominid species, Australopithecus sediba, believed to be an ancestor of either Homo habilis or Homo erectus. (Time)
April 8, 2010, United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign a new arms reduction treaty that will cut both countries' arsenals by a third. (BBC)
April 8, 2010,
April 8, 2010, About 103 people are killed in flooding and mudslides in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. Of the total, thirty-three people died in the city of Rio de Janeiro, while 33 were killed in the neighbouring city of Niterói, 12 people dead in São Gonçalo, and one in Petrópolis. (BBC)
April 8, 2010, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, notorious for the banned "God Save the Queen" single, dies in New York. (The Independent)
April 8, 2010, Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery, which holds 1.5 million corpses, is reopened with a new museum after an €11 million redevelopment. (The Irish Times)
April 9, 2010, Release of Date Night
April 9, 2010, Release of After Life
April 9, 2010, Rescue efforts continue in Brazil in an attempt to locate around 200 people believed to have been buried in their homes by a large landslide in Morro do Bumba near Rio de Janeiro city in the state of Rio de Janeiro. (BBC)
April 9, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI encounters allegations he was responsible for obstructing the punishment of American paedophile priest Stephen Kiesle by signing a letter in 1985 - the first time he has been directly accused of involvement in the Catholic Church's ongoing international child sex abuse scandal. (BBC)
April 9, 2010, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court announces his retirement after serving on the court for 34 years. (LA Times)
April 9, 2010, American and Russian physicists announce the creation of ununseptium, atomic element number 117. (CBC News)
April 9, 2010, The World Bank approves a $3.75 billion loan for a coal-fired power plant in South Africa. (Democracy Now)
April 10, 2010, A Tu-154 from the 36th Special Aviation Regiment crashes while landing at military airport Severny in Smolensk Oblast, Russia; 96 persons onboard are reported dead.
April 10, 2010, The Shroud of Turin is displayed in public for the first time in 10 years. (BBC)
April 10, 2010,
April 10, 2010, A spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI claims allegations that he deliberately delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest have been "taken out of context". (BBC)
April 11, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama opens a Nuclear Security Summitof 47 countries, the purpose of which is to discuss nuclear security, in particular how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of potential terrorists. (CCTV)
April 11, 2010,
April 11, 2010,
April 11, 2010, Iran announces its decision to file a formal complaint with the United Nations against the United States, citing Barack Obama's threat to use a "nuclear attack" against it as a "threat to global peace and security". (Al Jazeera)
April 11, 2010, A 6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes the southern Solomon Islands, 97 km southwest of Kirakira on Makira Island. (The Australian)
April 11, 2010, Analysts predict the 2011 bankruptcy of one of the world's largest economies, Japan, with a public debt figure larger than any other industrialised nation. (Press TV)
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010, Homosexuality is to blame for paedophilia, according to Vatican Secretary of State and the Pope's Deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, speaking today at a news conference in Chile. (The Washington Post)
-The Vatican has handled damaging child abuse cases in an “exemplary” manner, according to the editor-in-chief of Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano Giovanni Maria Vian, who also hails Benedict as a “great communicator”. (National Post)
-Children were allegedly "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in Ettal, Bavaria. (Reuters)
-Benedict's security is increased for his visit to Malta after the island's population of sexually abused announce plans to protest at his handling of the scandal. (The Daily Telegraph)
-British campaigners threaten to arrest Benedict for crimes against humanity when he visits the UK. (Deutsche Welle)
-The Vatican publishes its guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of children in an effort to quell critics. (Reuters via The New York Times)
-The Vatican says it is overhauling its rules on handling sexual abuse accusations. (CNN)
-Ten Maltese men, who have taken three priests to court on charges of child abuse, request a private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Malta this weekend. (Reuters India)
April 12, 2010, The Copenhagen Conference was destroyed from the start by the leak of the "Danish draft" negotiating text to The Guardian, the Indian environment minister said this weekend in a warning that the breakdown of international trust would continue to undermine climate talks this year. (The Guardian)
April 12, 2010, A 6.2 magnitude earthquake strikes Spain, one of the first large earthquakes to strike the Iberian region in half a century.
April 12, 2010, Tiger Woods announces he will take more time off from golf after finishing fourth in the 2010 Masters Tournament. (BBC)
April 13, 2010, The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, makes an unannounced visit to Haiti. It is her first official trip overseas without US President Barack Obama since he took office last year. (BBC News)
April 13, 2010, A magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes southeastern Qinghai, China, near the Yangtze River. There were no immediate reports of casulties. (The Associated Press)
April 14, 2010,
April 14, 2010,
April 14, 2010, It is reported that U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday will unveil a "bold and daring" new space mission to send astronauts to Mars months after he controversially scrapped a project to return to the Moon. (The Telegraph)
April 14, 2010, Apple delays the international launch of its iPad computer for a month, blaming "surprisingly strong US demand" that has outstripped its ability to produce them. (The Guardian)
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010, Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010, Benedict prepares for a trip to Malta, his first trip abroad in 2010, where abuse survivors demand to meet him. (euronews)
-The Government of Ireland announces a statutory fund of €110 million for former residents of institutions who were abused as children. (RTÉ)
-A new poll suggests most Americans think Pope Benedict XVI has done a bad job of dealing with the sex problem. (CNN)
April 15, 2010, Gary Jackson, former president of the US private security firm, Blackwater Worldwide (Xe Services LLC), and four other former workers are indicted on federal weapons charges. (BBC)
April 15, 2010, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors. (The Wall Street Journal)
April 15, 2010, The 2010 BRIC summit opens in Brasília amidst growing cooperation and calls for a bigger role. (The Hindu)
April 15, 2010, United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls again on Israel and the Palestinians to make a better effort to pursue peace. (BBC)
April 15, 2010, Lady Gaga breaks a YouTube most viewed record, becoming "Queen of YouTube" with more than one billion views. (NBC Philadelphia)
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 17, 2010, The "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for No One" disarmament conference opens in response to President of the United States Barack Obama's conference in Washington, D.C. (Al Jazeera)
April 17, 2010, Former Vatican Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos says his 2001 praise of a French bishop for hiding a paedophile priest was endorsed by Pope John Paul II. (RTÉ)
-Benedict flies to Malta to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of Saint Paul on the island, his first overseas visit since the latest round of child sex abuse claims. (The Observer)
-President of Malta George Abela mentions an abuse trial involving three Catholic clergy in his speech to mark Benedict's coming, saying "justice had both to be done and seen to be done". Benedict makes no direct reference.
April 17, 2010, Internal e-mails reveal Porter Goss, a former head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), agreed with a decision to destroy hundreds of tapes purportedly showing agents waterboarding two al-Qaeda suspects being held in Thailand in 2002 over fears that public release of the tapes would be "devastating". (Al Jazeera)
April 18, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI concludes his visit to Malta. Reports suggest he is trying to avoid discussing the recent child sex abuse scandal, on his first trip since the scandal broke. (BBC)
-However, he does meet with some of those who survived abuse and expresses "shame and sorrow" for their suffering. (The New York Times)
April 18, 2010, King Oyo, Rukidi IV of Toro, one of Uganda's last remaining kings and the world's youngest monarch, reaches the age of 18 at the end of a four-day ceremony and takes full control of his kingdom. (CNN)
April 18, 2010, Former President of the United States George Washington owes $300,000 for overdue library books he borrowed from New York Society Library five months into his presidency and which he failed to return. (The Guardian)
April 18, 2010, Seven are killed and 30 are injured in a magnitude 5.3 earthquake in the mountains north of Kabul, Afghanistan. (The Washington Post)
April 19, 2010,
April 20, 2010,
April 20, 2010, Lorena Ochoa, the world's number one golfer for the past three years, announces her retirement from the sport at the age of 28. (Brisbane Times)
April 20, 2010, President of the United States Barack Obama speaks of the "unbreakable bonds" and "special relationship" between his country and Israel on the 62nd anniversary of Israel's birth. (Sky News)
April 21, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI makes an explicit promise that the Roman Catholic Church will take action against child sexual abuse by priests. (BBC)
April 21, 2010, The British government announces that British airports will reopen and passenger flights will resume, but officials caution that it will take time for flight schedules to return to normal after the six-day shutdown caused by volcanic ash from the 2010 eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. (USA Today)
April 21, 2010, Five men accused of conspiring to extort £4.25 million for the safe return of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder masterpiece are cleared. (BBC)
April 21, 2010, Cirque du Soleil announces it will stage a live tour featuring the works of Michael Jackson. (BBC)
April 22, 2010,
April 22, 2010,
April 22, 2010, Transocean oil platform Deepwater Horizon sinks into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana after an explosion two days earlier that injured 7, with 11 still missing. (Fox News)
April 22, 2010, President Barack Obama is expected to call on Wall Street to join him in his efforts to reform the financial sector in a visit to Manhattan. (CNN)
April 23, 2010, Release of Losers
April 23, 2010, Release of The Back up Plan
April 23, 2010, Release of Paperman
April 23, 2010, Red Shirt leader Veera Musikapong agrees to end the protests in Bangkok if the government agrees to dissolve parliament and hold elections within 90 days. (The Guardian)
April 23, 2010, Greece activates the €45 billion aid package it was offered by Europe earlier in the month to combat the country's debt crisis. (Washington Post)
April 23, 2010, Algerian-born airline pilot Lotfi Raissi, falsely accused of being involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, wins his legal battle for compensation from the British government after "nine years of hell". (BBC)
April 23, 2010, A Spanish hospital claims to have performed the world's "first full-face transplant". (AP)
April 23, 2010, Bishop of Bruges since 1984 Roger Joseph Vangheluwe admits sexually abusing a boy and resigns with immediate effect. (BBC)
-A guest visit by Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos to a prominent Catholic church in Washington, D.C. is canceled after the decision to invite the controversial Cardinal was criticized by survivors of child abuse. (The Irish Times)
April 23, 2010, The Boy Scouts of America are ordered to pay $18.5 million in damages following the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy. (The New York Times)
April 23, 2010, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signs the the state's controversial immigrant detention bill into law. Supporters say it will take 'the handcuffs' off police; opponents say it will violate people's civil rights. (The Washington Post)
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010, A strong earthquake measuring 6.1 strikes in the Maluku Islands north of Ambon Island. (Arab News)
April 24, 2010, In Chile, Catholic Church leaders and President Sebastián Piñera meet for more than an hour to discuss the child sexual abuse scandal and agree to send a letter to all the country's parishes. (BBC)
-A retired priest says he was ignored when he spoke out about Belgium's longest-serving bishop having sexually abused a boy years before his admission and immediate resignation yesterday. (CBC)
April 24, 2010, Former Nazi corporal and founder of a self-sufficient colony in Chile Paul Schäfer dies in prison at the age of 88. (BBC)
April 24, 2010, Russia's Proton-M rocket sent a United States SES-1, a telecommunications satellite, into space on Saturday. (Xinhua)
April 24, 2010, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh injures his ankle in a carriage driving accident on the Queen's Windsor estate. (Arab News)
April 24, 2010, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office apologises after The Sunday Telegraph obtains a "foolish" document calling for the upcoming September visit of Pope Benedict XVI to be marked by the launch of "Benedict-branded" condoms, the opening of an abortion clinic and the blessing of a same-sex marriage. (BBC)
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010, Professor Stephen Hawking warns humans about the dangers of contacting extraterrestrials. (BBC)
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010, Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki meets the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and says Iran remains interested in a nuclear fuel swap drafted by the United Nations. (Al Jazeera)
April 25, 2010, The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office apologises after The Sunday Telegraph obtains a "foolish" document calling for the upcoming September visit of Pope Benedict XVI to be marked by the launch of "Benedict-branded" condoms, the opening of an abortion clinic and the blessing of a same-sex marriage. (BBC)
April 25, 2010, The first passenger flight between Iraq and the United Kingdom in two decades touches down at London Gatwick Airport, nine days overdue because of volcanic ash problems. (BBC)
April 26, 2010,
April 26, 2010,
April 27, 2010, A United States Senate investigation finds that Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars at the expense of its clients during the collapse of the housing market. (BBC)
April 27, 2010,
April 27, 2010, Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk, four days after the country's government requests the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout. (Business Week)
April 27, 2010, Oh Eun-Sun becomes the first woman to successfully scale all of the world's 14 highest peaks. (Korea Times)
April 27, 2010, Haiti drops kidnapping charges against U.S. missionaries detained for trying to take children out of the country after the January earthquake. (USA Today)
April 27, 2010, The evangelical group Noah's Ark Ministries International claims to have found a 4800 year old wood structure that they are "99.9 percent" certain is the remains of Noah's Ark. (Fox News)
April 28, 2010, The United States military begins a controlled burn to remove oil spilled in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (BBC News)
April 28, 2010, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is granted a visa to visit the United States next week for the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. (BBC)
April 28, 2010, United States Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approves Cape Wind, the nation's first off-shore wind farm. (BBC News)
April 28, 2010, Team China is stripped on a 2000 Olympics bronze medal in women's gymnastics after it is revealed that one member of the team was underage. (NY Times)
April 29, 2010, Fringe S2 Ep21: Brown Betty
April 29, 2010, The Mentalist S2 Ep:
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010, Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
-The United States Coast Guard begins a controlled burn to remove oil spilled in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (BBC News)
-As economic losses begin to mount, shrimp fishermen in Louisiana and Alabama file class action lawsuits against the oil company BP and owners of the drilling rig (Reuters)
April 29, 2010, Twenty-eight children and three adults are stabbed at a nursery school in China. (BBC News)
April 29, 2010, The FDA approves Provenge (sipuleucel-T), the first "vaccine" approved to treat cancer, for men with advanced prostate cancer. (USA Today)
April 29, 2010, The United States tells Israel that it must remove 23 West Bank outposts, as previously promised. (Jerusalem Post)
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010, The oil spill resulting from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico reaches the Louisiana coast. (CBS News)
April 30, 2010, Hailed as the largest World's Fair in history, Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai, China. (Financial Times)
April 30, 2010, Former Pakistani spy Khalid Khawaja is murdered; a previously unknown militant group - Asian Tigers - claims responsibility. (The Wall Street Journal)
April 30, 2010, The United States Justice Department opens a criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Goldman Sachs. (Washington Post)
April 30, 2010, The United States announces it will begin mediating indirect peace talks between Israel and Palestine. (NY Times)
April 30, 2010, Iran threatens to "cut off Israel's feet" if Israel attacks Syria. (Jerusalem Post)
April 1, 2010,
April 1, 2010,
April 1, 2010, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, speaking at Holy Thursday mass in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, criticizes Catholics who believe the church should move on from recent child abuse scandals in Ireland. (RTÉ)
April 1, 2010, India launches its new 2011 biometric census, the largest census in the world. (The Times of India)
April 1, 2010, Academy Award winning actor Anna Paquin's unexpected public acknowledgement of her bisexuality in a video causes the anti-discrimination Give a Damn campaign website she is promoting to crash. (Reuters)
April 1, 2010, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson are inducted into the hall of fame at New York's Apollo Theater. (BBC)
April 1, 2010, Members of the Christian militia group Hutaree plead not guilty to a court in Michigan, United States, to claims of plotting to kill American police officers. (CNN)
April 1, 2010, Sarah Palin spoke to thousands of tea party activists gathered in the Nevada desert about Harry Reid. (Main line)
April 2, 2010, Release of Clash of the Titans
April 2, 2010,
April 2, 2010, Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor says at St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast in Ireland that the "crimes and sins of abuse of children and minors by clergy and religious" are "faith-shaking". (RTÉ)
April 2, 2010, Soyuz TMA-18 is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying three members of the Expedition 23 crew of the International Space Station. (CNN)
In the Kazakh language, Tyuratam means "broken arrow". For whatever reason, the name of "Baikonur Cosmodrome" became official when the nearby town of Leninsk, was renamed to Baikonur by Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995.
April 2, 2010, Limerick pubs break with tradition by opening on Good Friday following the recent landmark court ruling. (RTÉ)
April 3, 2010, Senegal has inaugurated a massive $27m (£18m) monument - higher than the Statue of Liberty - that has drawn huge criticism over its cost and symbolism.
April 3, 2010, Thousands of "red shirt" anti-government protesters rally in the Thai capital Bangkok demanding new elections. (Thai News Agency)
April 4, 2010, A 7.2-magnitude earthquake hits Baja California, about 108 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, says the U.S. Geological Survey. (USGS Earthquake Hazards Program)
April 4, 2010, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon witnesses one of the world's worst environmental disasters as he flies over the shrinking Aral Sea, the world's fourth largest lake, which has in recent decades shrunk in size by more than 70 percent. (UN)
April 5, 2010, The Duke Blue Devils defeat the Butler Bulldogs, 61-59, to win their fourth U.S. men's college basketball title. (AP at Yahoo)
April 5, 2010, An explosion at a coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia kills 25 miners and leaves several missing. This is the deadliest mining accident in the U.S. in at least 35 years. (BBC News)
April 5, 2010, Wikileaks releases a video from 2007 showing the killing of civilians, including two Reuters news staff, by the U.S. military in Baghdad, Iraq. (BBC News)
April 5, 2010, Iran invites 60 countries to a two-day nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran on April 17–18, entitled "Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one". China says it will attend the conference which invites "the world to disarm and prevent proliferation". (Al Jazeera)
April 6, 2010,
April 6, 2010,
April 6, 2010, Details of North Korea's own Red Star operating system emerge. (BBC)
April 6, 2010, Lord Saville is asked to hold back until after the UK general election the publication of the Bloody Sunday (1972) report into the killing of 14 unarmed civil rights protesters by British Army paratroopers in Bogside, Derry. (RTÉ)
April 6, 2010, Vigils and a musical requiem are among a series of events held in L'Aquila to mark the first anniversary of one of Europe's largest post-war natural disasters. (BBC)
April 6, 2010, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules that the FCC cannot enforce net neutrality and that Comcast can limit its customers' access to BitTorrent. (The New York Times)
April 7, 2010,
April 7, 2010,
April 7, 2010, James Hansen wins the Sophie Prize. (350.org)
April 7, 2010, A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes northern Sumatra, Indonesia. (CNN)
April 7, 2010, Sixteen countries attend a two-day conference organised by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo to discuss the retrieval of old items which were pillaged by other nations, such as the Rosetta Stone (held by the British Museum, London) and Queen Nefertitti's bust (held by the Neues Museum, Berlin). (BBC)
April 7, 2010, FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi is widely hailed as the best footballer in the world after scoring four goals for the first time in his career in one UEFA Champions League game, including his fourth hat-trick of 2010. (BBC)
April 7, 2010, Norway experiences its first Catholic child abuse scandal as it becomes known that a bishop, Georg Müller, was forced to resign in 2009 because of sexual abuse of an altar boy in the early 1990s. (The New York Times)
April 8, 2010, Professor Lee R. Berger announces the discovery of a new hominid species, Australopithecus sediba, believed to be an ancestor of either Homo habilis or Homo erectus. (Time)
April 8, 2010, United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign a new arms reduction treaty that will cut both countries' arsenals by a third. (BBC)
April 8, 2010,
April 8, 2010, About 103 people are killed in flooding and mudslides in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. Of the total, thirty-three people died in the city of Rio de Janeiro, while 33 were killed in the neighbouring city of Niterói, 12 people dead in São Gonçalo, and one in Petrópolis. (BBC)
April 8, 2010, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, notorious for the banned "God Save the Queen" single, dies in New York. (The Independent)
April 8, 2010, Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery, which holds 1.5 million corpses, is reopened with a new museum after an €11 million redevelopment. (The Irish Times)
April 9, 2010, Release of Date Night
April 9, 2010, Release of After Life
April 9, 2010, Rescue efforts continue in Brazil in an attempt to locate around 200 people believed to have been buried in their homes by a large landslide in Morro do Bumba near Rio de Janeiro city in the state of Rio de Janeiro. (BBC)
April 9, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI encounters allegations he was responsible for obstructing the punishment of American paedophile priest Stephen Kiesle by signing a letter in 1985 - the first time he has been directly accused of involvement in the Catholic Church's ongoing international child sex abuse scandal. (BBC)
April 9, 2010, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court announces his retirement after serving on the court for 34 years. (LA Times)
April 9, 2010, American and Russian physicists announce the creation of ununseptium, atomic element number 117. (CBC News)
April 9, 2010, The World Bank approves a $3.75 billion loan for a coal-fired power plant in South Africa. (Democracy Now)
April 10, 2010, A Tu-154 from the 36th Special Aviation Regiment crashes while landing at military airport Severny in Smolensk Oblast, Russia; 96 persons onboard are reported dead.
April 10, 2010, The Shroud of Turin is displayed in public for the first time in 10 years. (BBC)
April 10, 2010,
April 10, 2010, A spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI claims allegations that he deliberately delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest have been "taken out of context". (BBC)
April 11, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama opens a Nuclear Security Summitof 47 countries, the purpose of which is to discuss nuclear security, in particular how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of potential terrorists. (CCTV)
April 11, 2010,
April 11, 2010,
April 11, 2010, Iran announces its decision to file a formal complaint with the United Nations against the United States, citing Barack Obama's threat to use a "nuclear attack" against it as a "threat to global peace and security". (Al Jazeera)
April 11, 2010, A 6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes the southern Solomon Islands, 97 km southwest of Kirakira on Makira Island. (The Australian)
April 11, 2010, Analysts predict the 2011 bankruptcy of one of the world's largest economies, Japan, with a public debt figure larger than any other industrialised nation. (Press TV)
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010,
April 12, 2010, Homosexuality is to blame for paedophilia, according to Vatican Secretary of State and the Pope's Deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, speaking today at a news conference in Chile. (The Washington Post)
-The Vatican has handled damaging child abuse cases in an “exemplary” manner, according to the editor-in-chief of Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano Giovanni Maria Vian, who also hails Benedict as a “great communicator”. (National Post)
-Children were allegedly "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in Ettal, Bavaria. (Reuters)
-Benedict's security is increased for his visit to Malta after the island's population of sexually abused announce plans to protest at his handling of the scandal. (The Daily Telegraph)
-British campaigners threaten to arrest Benedict for crimes against humanity when he visits the UK. (Deutsche Welle)
-The Vatican publishes its guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of children in an effort to quell critics. (Reuters via The New York Times)
-The Vatican says it is overhauling its rules on handling sexual abuse accusations. (CNN)
-Ten Maltese men, who have taken three priests to court on charges of child abuse, request a private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Malta this weekend. (Reuters India)
April 12, 2010, The Copenhagen Conference was destroyed from the start by the leak of the "Danish draft" negotiating text to The Guardian, the Indian environment minister said this weekend in a warning that the breakdown of international trust would continue to undermine climate talks this year. (The Guardian)
April 12, 2010, A 6.2 magnitude earthquake strikes Spain, one of the first large earthquakes to strike the Iberian region in half a century.
April 12, 2010, Tiger Woods announces he will take more time off from golf after finishing fourth in the 2010 Masters Tournament. (BBC)
April 13, 2010, The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, makes an unannounced visit to Haiti. It is her first official trip overseas without US President Barack Obama since he took office last year. (BBC News)
April 13, 2010, A magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes southeastern Qinghai, China, near the Yangtze River. There were no immediate reports of casulties. (The Associated Press)
April 14, 2010,
April 14, 2010,
April 14, 2010, It is reported that U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday will unveil a "bold and daring" new space mission to send astronauts to Mars months after he controversially scrapped a project to return to the Moon. (The Telegraph)
April 14, 2010, Apple delays the international launch of its iPad computer for a month, blaming "surprisingly strong US demand" that has outstripped its ability to produce them. (The Guardian)
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010, Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010,
April 15, 2010, Benedict prepares for a trip to Malta, his first trip abroad in 2010, where abuse survivors demand to meet him. (euronews)
-The Government of Ireland announces a statutory fund of €110 million for former residents of institutions who were abused as children. (RTÉ)
-A new poll suggests most Americans think Pope Benedict XVI has done a bad job of dealing with the sex problem. (CNN)
April 15, 2010, Gary Jackson, former president of the US private security firm, Blackwater Worldwide (Xe Services LLC), and four other former workers are indicted on federal weapons charges. (BBC)
April 15, 2010, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors. (The Wall Street Journal)
April 15, 2010, The 2010 BRIC summit opens in Brasília amidst growing cooperation and calls for a bigger role. (The Hindu)
April 15, 2010, United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls again on Israel and the Palestinians to make a better effort to pursue peace. (BBC)
April 15, 2010, Lady Gaga breaks a YouTube most viewed record, becoming "Queen of YouTube" with more than one billion views. (NBC Philadelphia)
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 16, 2010,
April 17, 2010, The "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for No One" disarmament conference opens in response to President of the United States Barack Obama's conference in Washington, D.C. (Al Jazeera)
April 17, 2010, Former Vatican Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos says his 2001 praise of a French bishop for hiding a paedophile priest was endorsed by Pope John Paul II. (RTÉ)
-Benedict flies to Malta to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of Saint Paul on the island, his first overseas visit since the latest round of child sex abuse claims. (The Observer)
-President of Malta George Abela mentions an abuse trial involving three Catholic clergy in his speech to mark Benedict's coming, saying "justice had both to be done and seen to be done". Benedict makes no direct reference.
April 17, 2010, Internal e-mails reveal Porter Goss, a former head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), agreed with a decision to destroy hundreds of tapes purportedly showing agents waterboarding two al-Qaeda suspects being held in Thailand in 2002 over fears that public release of the tapes would be "devastating". (Al Jazeera)
April 18, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI concludes his visit to Malta. Reports suggest he is trying to avoid discussing the recent child sex abuse scandal, on his first trip since the scandal broke. (BBC)
-However, he does meet with some of those who survived abuse and expresses "shame and sorrow" for their suffering. (The New York Times)
April 18, 2010, King Oyo, Rukidi IV of Toro, one of Uganda's last remaining kings and the world's youngest monarch, reaches the age of 18 at the end of a four-day ceremony and takes full control of his kingdom. (CNN)
April 18, 2010, Former President of the United States George Washington owes $300,000 for overdue library books he borrowed from New York Society Library five months into his presidency and which he failed to return. (The Guardian)
April 18, 2010, Seven are killed and 30 are injured in a magnitude 5.3 earthquake in the mountains north of Kabul, Afghanistan. (The Washington Post)
April 19, 2010,
April 20, 2010,
April 20, 2010, Lorena Ochoa, the world's number one golfer for the past three years, announces her retirement from the sport at the age of 28. (Brisbane Times)
April 20, 2010, President of the United States Barack Obama speaks of the "unbreakable bonds" and "special relationship" between his country and Israel on the 62nd anniversary of Israel's birth. (Sky News)
April 21, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI makes an explicit promise that the Roman Catholic Church will take action against child sexual abuse by priests. (BBC)
April 21, 2010, The British government announces that British airports will reopen and passenger flights will resume, but officials caution that it will take time for flight schedules to return to normal after the six-day shutdown caused by volcanic ash from the 2010 eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. (USA Today)
April 21, 2010, Five men accused of conspiring to extort £4.25 million for the safe return of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder masterpiece are cleared. (BBC)
April 21, 2010, Cirque du Soleil announces it will stage a live tour featuring the works of Michael Jackson. (BBC)
April 22, 2010,
April 22, 2010,
April 22, 2010, Transocean oil platform Deepwater Horizon sinks into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana after an explosion two days earlier that injured 7, with 11 still missing. (Fox News)
April 22, 2010, President Barack Obama is expected to call on Wall Street to join him in his efforts to reform the financial sector in a visit to Manhattan. (CNN)
April 23, 2010, Release of Losers
April 23, 2010, Release of The Back up Plan
April 23, 2010, Release of Paperman
April 23, 2010, Red Shirt leader Veera Musikapong agrees to end the protests in Bangkok if the government agrees to dissolve parliament and hold elections within 90 days. (The Guardian)
April 23, 2010, Greece activates the €45 billion aid package it was offered by Europe earlier in the month to combat the country's debt crisis. (Washington Post)
April 23, 2010, Algerian-born airline pilot Lotfi Raissi, falsely accused of being involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, wins his legal battle for compensation from the British government after "nine years of hell". (BBC)
April 23, 2010, A Spanish hospital claims to have performed the world's "first full-face transplant". (AP)
April 23, 2010, Bishop of Bruges since 1984 Roger Joseph Vangheluwe admits sexually abusing a boy and resigns with immediate effect. (BBC)
-A guest visit by Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos to a prominent Catholic church in Washington, D.C. is canceled after the decision to invite the controversial Cardinal was criticized by survivors of child abuse. (The Irish Times)
April 23, 2010, The Boy Scouts of America are ordered to pay $18.5 million in damages following the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy. (The New York Times)
April 23, 2010, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signs the the state's controversial immigrant detention bill into law. Supporters say it will take 'the handcuffs' off police; opponents say it will violate people's civil rights. (The Washington Post)
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010,
April 24, 2010, A strong earthquake measuring 6.1 strikes in the Maluku Islands north of Ambon Island. (Arab News)
April 24, 2010, In Chile, Catholic Church leaders and President Sebastián Piñera meet for more than an hour to discuss the child sexual abuse scandal and agree to send a letter to all the country's parishes. (BBC)
-A retired priest says he was ignored when he spoke out about Belgium's longest-serving bishop having sexually abused a boy years before his admission and immediate resignation yesterday. (CBC)
April 24, 2010, Former Nazi corporal and founder of a self-sufficient colony in Chile Paul Schäfer dies in prison at the age of 88. (BBC)
April 24, 2010, Russia's Proton-M rocket sent a United States SES-1, a telecommunications satellite, into space on Saturday. (Xinhua)
April 24, 2010, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh injures his ankle in a carriage driving accident on the Queen's Windsor estate. (Arab News)
April 24, 2010, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office apologises after The Sunday Telegraph obtains a "foolish" document calling for the upcoming September visit of Pope Benedict XVI to be marked by the launch of "Benedict-branded" condoms, the opening of an abortion clinic and the blessing of a same-sex marriage. (BBC)
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010, Professor Stephen Hawking warns humans about the dangers of contacting extraterrestrials. (BBC)
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010,
April 25, 2010, Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki meets the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and says Iran remains interested in a nuclear fuel swap drafted by the United Nations. (Al Jazeera)
April 25, 2010, The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office apologises after The Sunday Telegraph obtains a "foolish" document calling for the upcoming September visit of Pope Benedict XVI to be marked by the launch of "Benedict-branded" condoms, the opening of an abortion clinic and the blessing of a same-sex marriage. (BBC)
April 25, 2010, The first passenger flight between Iraq and the United Kingdom in two decades touches down at London Gatwick Airport, nine days overdue because of volcanic ash problems. (BBC)
April 26, 2010,
April 26, 2010,
April 27, 2010, A United States Senate investigation finds that Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars at the expense of its clients during the collapse of the housing market. (BBC)
April 27, 2010,
April 27, 2010, Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk, four days after the country's government requests the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout. (Business Week)
April 27, 2010, Oh Eun-Sun becomes the first woman to successfully scale all of the world's 14 highest peaks. (Korea Times)
April 27, 2010, Haiti drops kidnapping charges against U.S. missionaries detained for trying to take children out of the country after the January earthquake. (USA Today)
April 27, 2010, The evangelical group Noah's Ark Ministries International claims to have found a 4800 year old wood structure that they are "99.9 percent" certain is the remains of Noah's Ark. (Fox News)
April 28, 2010, The United States military begins a controlled burn to remove oil spilled in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (BBC News)
April 28, 2010, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is granted a visa to visit the United States next week for the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. (BBC)
April 28, 2010, United States Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approves Cape Wind, the nation's first off-shore wind farm. (BBC News)
April 28, 2010, Team China is stripped on a 2000 Olympics bronze medal in women's gymnastics after it is revealed that one member of the team was underage. (NY Times)
April 29, 2010, Fringe S2 Ep21: Brown Betty
April 29, 2010, The Mentalist S2 Ep:
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010,
April 29, 2010, Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
-The United States Coast Guard begins a controlled burn to remove oil spilled in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (BBC News)
-As economic losses begin to mount, shrimp fishermen in Louisiana and Alabama file class action lawsuits against the oil company BP and owners of the drilling rig (Reuters)
April 29, 2010, Twenty-eight children and three adults are stabbed at a nursery school in China. (BBC News)
April 29, 2010, The FDA approves Provenge (sipuleucel-T), the first "vaccine" approved to treat cancer, for men with advanced prostate cancer. (USA Today)
April 29, 2010, The United States tells Israel that it must remove 23 West Bank outposts, as previously promised. (Jerusalem Post)
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010,
April 30, 2010, The oil spill resulting from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico reaches the Louisiana coast. (CBS News)
April 30, 2010, Hailed as the largest World's Fair in history, Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai, China. (Financial Times)
April 30, 2010, Former Pakistani spy Khalid Khawaja is murdered; a previously unknown militant group - Asian Tigers - claims responsibility. (The Wall Street Journal)
April 30, 2010, The United States Justice Department opens a criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Goldman Sachs. (Washington Post)
April 30, 2010, The United States announces it will begin mediating indirect peace talks between Israel and Palestine. (NY Times)
April 30, 2010, Iran threatens to "cut off Israel's feet" if Israel attacks Syria. (Jerusalem Post)
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