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Pony Express debuts

Born on This Day

Jane Goodall

1934 - 2025

English primatologist who first observed tool-use among chimpanzees. Passionate advocate for conservation.

Marlon Brando

1924 - 2004

Oscar-winning godfather of method acting, best known for "A Streetcar Named Desire," "On the Waterfront" and "Apocalypse Now."

Eddie Murphy

1961 -

Chameleonic actor-comedian who leapt from "SNL" to "Beverly Hills Cop" and "The Nutty Professor" film series.

Jane GoodallGetty Images

Marlon BrandoBettmann Archive

Eddie MurphyGetty Images for MoÃ«t and Chando

1973

APR3

A Motorola engineer makes the first known call from a handheld cell phone. The 2.2-pound brick-size device, called the DynaTAC, wouldn’t become commercially available for another decade, when it carried a price tag of about $4,000.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on April 3rd

Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain

Near present-day St. Augustine, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León comes ashore on the Florida coast, and claims the territory for the Spanish crown. Native Americans inhabited the area that became known as Florida for thousands of years before any European contact. Although other European navigators may have sighted the Florida peninsula before, Ponce de León is credited with the […]

Congress authorizes privateers to attack British vessels

Lacking sufficient funds to build a strong navy, the Continental Congress gives privateers permission to attack any and all British ships on April 3, 1776. In a bill signed by John Hancock, its president, and dated April 3, 1776, the Continental Congress issued “INSTRUCTIONS to the COMMANDERS of Private Ships or vessels of War, which […]

Texas Ranger “Big Foot” Wallace born

The legendary Texas Ranger and frontiersman “Big Foot” Wallace is born in Lexington, Virginia. In 1836, 19-year-old William Alexander Anderson Wallace received news that one of his brothers had been killed in the Battle of Goliad, an early confrontation in the Texan war of independence with Mexico. Pledging to “take pay of the Mexicans” for […]

Confederate capital of Richmond is captured

The Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days. For ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman along the Union line on March 25, Grant prepared for […]

Wyatt Earp dropped from Wichita police force

After a public disturbance occurred between policeman Wyatt Earp and a candidate for Wichita, Kansas county sheriff, Earp is fined $30 and relieved of his job. Born in 1848, Wyatt was one of the five Earp brothers, some of whom became famous for their participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881. Before […]

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Jesse James is murdered

One of America’s most famous criminals, Jesse James, is shot to death by fellow gang member Bob Ford, who betrayed James for reward money. For 16 years, Jesse and his brother, Frank, committed robberies and murders throughout the Midwest. Detective magazines and pulp novels glamorized the James gang, turning them into mythical Robin Hoods who […]

Bruno Hauptmann, convicted of kidnapping Lindbergh’s son, executed

Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted in the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the 20-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh, is executed by electrocution. On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the son of the famous American aviator who made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927, was kidnapped from the nursery of the Lindbergh home […]

“The Louisiana Hayride” radio program premieres on KWKH-AM Shreveport

“The Lousiana Hayride,” a country radio program broadcast out of Shreveport, Louisiana, premieres. The show would launch the careers not only of several country music giants, but also of a young, genre-crossing singer named Elvis Presley, the future King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Even the most ardent non-fans of country music can probably name the […]

President Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan

On April 3, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signs the Economic Assistance Act, which authorized the creation of a program that would help the nations of Europe recover and rebuild after the devastation wrought by World War II. Commonly known as the Marshall Plan, it aimed to stabilize Europe economically and politically so that European […]

Nixon administration vows to “Vietnamize” the war

Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States is moving to “Vietnamize” the war as rapidly as possible. By this, he meant that the responsibility for the fighting would be gradually transferred to the South Vietnamese as they became more combat capable. However, Laird emphasized that it would not serve the United States’ […]

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“Annie Hall” beats out “Star Wars” for Best Picture

The rise of the action-adventure blockbuster was on the horizon, but on April 3, 1978, the small-scale romantic comedy triumphs over the big-budget space extravaganza. At the 50th annual Academy Awards, held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall won the Oscar for Best Picture, beating out George Lucas’ Star […]

Unabomber arrested

At his small wilderness cabin near Lincoln, Montana, Theodore John Kaczynski is arrested by FBI agents and accused of being the Unabomber, the elusive terrorist blamed for 16 mail bombs that killed three people and injured 23 during an 18-year period. Kaczynski, born in Chicago in 1942, won a scholarship to study mathematics at Harvard […]

U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, killed in plane crash

Ronald H. Brown, the U.S. secretary of commerce, is killed along with 32 other Americans when their U.S. Air Force plane crashes into a mountain near Dubrovnik, Croatia. Brown was leading a delegation of business executives to the former Yugoslavia to explore business opportunities that might help rebuild the war-torn region. Brown, born in Washington, […]

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