Under Monday, April 3, the book of history records, among other things:
1833: Students and craftsmen storm the Hauptwache in Frankfurt am Main. The uprising, which was supposed to signal the rise of the German liberal-democratic opposition, was put down militarily.
1868: Eduard van der Nüll, one of the most important architects of the Gründerzeit, committed suicide by hanging at the age of 56 in Vienna-Mariahilf. The desperate act was preceded by violent hostility to his design for the construction of a new court opera theatre.
1913: Radical women’s suffrage activist Emmeline Pankhurst is sentenced to three years in prison for being behind the bombing of the country home of British politician and later Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
1918: The British Army of Palestine crosses the Jordan from the east and advances further north. As early as December 9, 1917, Jerusalem had been taken by General Edmund Allenby.
1938: The “Wiener Tagblatt” publishes an interview with the top social democratic politician, ex-Chancellor and last President of the National Council Karl Renner: “Although it was not achieved with the methods to which I profess, the union is now complete, is a historical fact”. (Renner later justified himself by trying to help his party colleague Robert Danneberg, who was imprisoned by the Nazis and was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942).
1948: US President Harry Truman signs the ERP program (“Marshall Plan”) passed by both houses of Congress as foreign aid legislation.
1973: The conflict over the construction of an institute building in Vienna’s Observatory Park (which later resulted in the change of mayor from Felix Slavik to Leopold Gratz) reaches its climax.
1973: Second wave of foot-and-mouth disease in Austria: 4,500 cattle and 75,000 pigs have to be slaughtered in Lower Austria and Burgenland.
1983: The green members of the Bundestag are boycotting the swearing-in ceremony of the new German federal government under Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU).
1993: The Norwegian Thorvald Stoltenberg will succeed the American Cyrus Vance as UN mediator for former Yugoslavia.
2003: US units are approaching the outskirts and Baghdad International Airport from the south.
2003: The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro is admitted to the Council of Europe as the 45th member.
2008: NATO officially invites Croatia and Albania to join. An invitation to Macedonia fails at the NATO summit in Bucharest because of Greece’s veto. The USA cannot get their way with their desire for a roadmap for Ukraine and Georgia to join.
2008: The trial of the Herberstein case begins in the Graz Criminal Court. The entrepreneur Andrea Herberstein has to answer for serious fraud, grossly negligent impairment of creditors’ interests and tax evasion. On July 9, she was sentenced to 15 months in prison, five of which were unconditional, and a fine. The judgment is not final. On February 17, 2011, Herberstein was sentenced to two years in prison, eight months of which were unconditional, and the appeal for nullity was dismissed. The judgment is final.
birthdays: Washington Irving, US writer (1783-1859); Peter Huchel, German writer (1903-1981); Miguel Herz-Kestranek, East actor and author (1948); Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Dutch Politician; 2004-2009 NATO Secretary General (1948); Oliver Grimm, German actor (1948-2017); Alec Baldwin, US actor (1958).
days of death: Friederike Brion, friend of young Goethe (1752-1813); Eduard van der Nüll, Austria. Architect (1812-1868); Theodor Kramer, Austria poet (1897-1958); Hans Ringier, Switzerland. publishers (1906-2003); Alexandre Mnouchkine, Russian-French film producer (1908-1993); Hrvoje Ćustić, Croatian football player (1983-2008).
name days: Richard, Gangolf, Liudbirg, Irene, Christian, Darinus, Elisabeth, Elsa, Dorothea, Heinrich, Konrad.