This month, a little trivia beginning with a man named Wilbur McLean.  In April, 1861 he lived in a place called Manassas Virginia, USA with a small stream on his land called Bull Run.  In July 1861 the first full fledged battle of the United States Civil War raged through his property called The Battle of Bull Run.  A Union shell came down his chimney and landed on his kitchen floor.  After the second Battle of Bull Run in1863, he was ready to get away from the war.  He moved his family into a six room, two story building with a good property 120 miles away in Virginia.  In 1865, a Union (northern) general came to town needing a place to have a meeting between a northern and southern general.  When nowhere else was acceptable, Wilbur McLean offered his own house.  The two generals were Ulysses Grant (North) and Robert E Lee (South).  The conversation led to the signing of a surrender. The United States Civil War was effectively over. Wilbur McLean was able to claim later that the war had begun in his front yard and ended in his living room. 

April is full of historic events.  The Titanic sank, and San Francisco suffered the great earthquake. Ponce DeLeon sighted Florida and Hans Christian Anderson was born in Denmark.  Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman Supreme Court Justice and NATO was born.  Martin Luther King was assassinated and The US entered WWI.  The Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald was liberated by U.S. troops and the words "Houston we have a problem" was issued from Apollo 13 after an explosion on their way to the moon.  The first shuttle launched and Noah Webster published his first American Dictionary.  Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and John F Kennedy messed up at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.  Paul Revere took his midnight ride and Canada got a new Constitution.  The Branch Dividian compound was assaulted in Waco Texas and the nine story federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed.  The deadliest school shooting happened in Columbine Colorado and Texas defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto effectively securing their independence as a country of their own.  Nearly 2 million acres of previous Indian land were made available for settlement in a land run in Oklahoma and the Library of Congress was established in Washington DC.  At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, an explosion caused a meltdown and telegraph inventor Samuel F.B. Morse was born.  Mutiny occurred on the Bounty and George Washington became the first President of the United States.

April is a busy busy month in history and if you can send Blue a message with the years all these things happened I will give you a God Pick.  The staff hopes you write your own history this month, play plenty of Minecraft, and have fun!