Not a great day for the Brits. In 1860, Longfellow wrote:
Listen my child and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”
Eight years later, on 18 April 1783 from headquarters in Newburgh:
The Commander in Chief, orders the cessation of Hostilities, between the United States of America, and the King of Great Britain, to be publickly proclaimed, to morrow at the Newbuilding and that the proclamation, which will be communicated therewith, be read tomorrow evening at the Head of every Regiment and Corps of the Army…”
18 April also marks, in 1909, the beatification of Joan of Arc in 1909; in 1948, the Irish passage of the Republic of Ireland Act, replacing the vestigial authority of King George VI and his successors with that of the president; and in 1960, Zimbabwe’s independence from the UK.
On 18 April 1930, members of the Indian Republican Army, an organisation inspired by Ireland’s Easter Rising, conducted the Chittagong armoury raid. News of it was too late for the BBC’s 8.45pm news bulletin, which famously ran “Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.” Piano music filled the balance of the 15-minute segment.
