2018-04-12

A fire broke out near Valparaíso, Chile, eventually destroying at least 2,500 homes and leaving approximately 11,000 people homeless (damage pictured).

Four Chadian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing by jihadist rebels in Kidal, Mali.

The Guinea-Bissau military seized control in a coup amid a presidential election, later handing power to a transitional administration under Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo.

Bosnian War: NATO forces began Operation Deny Flight (aircraft pictured) to enforce a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered by the United Nations Security Council.

Harold Washington was elected as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

Canadian athlete Terry Fox embarked on an east-to-west "Marathon of Hope" from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, with a prosthetic leg to raise funds for cancer research.

Samuel Doe took control of Liberia in a coup d'état, overthrowing President William Tolbert and ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.

About 1,700 gravediggers in New York City began a 12-week strike, causing a delay in the burial of roughly 1,400 bodies in the city.

Aboard Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin performed the first human spaceflight, completing one orbit of Earth in 108 minutes.

SMS Zrínyi, one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched in Trieste.