April 4: The Flag Act of 1818, which incorporated the proposal of War of 1812 hero Samuel Chester Reid, that another star be added to the American flag as a new state entered the Union, but that the original 13 stripes remain unchanged, was signed into law by President James Monroe on this date.
April 3: William M. Tweed, “Boss,” whose name became synonymous with civic corruption, was born on this date in 1823.
April 2: On this date in 1872, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who invented the telegraph and changed the world by creating the first practical means of human communication over a distance, died.
April 1: Brigadier General Robert Winthrop, who rose from a private at the beginning of the Civil War to triumph at the Battle of Five Forks on this date in 1865, where thousands of Confederates surrendered, was mortally wounded and to be carried from the field by his triumphant but mourning troops.