The 3rd of April is the 93rd day of the year (Gregorian calendar) or 94th day in a leap year.
On the 3rd of April 1913
A prominent leader in the British “Suffragette” or woman’s Suffrage (right to vote) Movement, Emmeline Pankhurst, was sentenced to 3 years in prison. She was arrested on the 26th of March that year with fellow activists and charged with conspiring to destroy Mr. Lloyd-George’s country house. This was not the first time Pankhurst had been imprisoned for her militant acts used to publicise the women’s suffrage movement and they had been the first to employ hunger strikes as a form of political protests. Pankhurst was a strong political figure and was friends with Keir Hardy (leader of the Independent Labour Party) who supported the cause. Her long battle for women’s suffrage lasted until the year of her death in 1924 when women aged 18 were entitled to vote (the same as men). The suffragettes suffered severe hardship in their struggle with the forced feeding of hunger strikers and when on the 4th of June 1913, suffragette Emily Davison ran in front of King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby and was instantly killed.
On the 3rd of April 1043
Edward the Confessor (so called because he was extremely religious) was crowned King of England. Edward was the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King of England. His father Ætherald II (or Etherald the unready) was exiled in Normandy after the Danish invaded in 1013 but returned to be reinstated as King in 1014. Upon Ætheralds death in 1016 the Danish took control again and Edward was forced into exile once more with his mother in Normandy. In 1041 the Danish King Sweyn died and Edward returned to England to claim his crown. His mother Emma of Normandy was daughter of Richard 1st of Normandy and during his reign Edward sought council with many Norman subjects. This infuriated the many powerful English nobles including from the Godwin family. King Edward married Godwin’s daughter Edith in 1043, but when Godwin and the king argued over the Norman presence in the royal court, King Edward had the Godwin family exiled. The Godwin family returned in 1052 with support from other nobels. The Godwin family were in many ways more powerful than the King and to prevent civil war King Edward exiled the Norman subjects. It is not known for certain if Edward had promised the crown to his cousin William (later to be William the Conqueror) but with the Normans gone it was Harold Godwinson (Godwin’s son and Edwards brother in law) that took leadership in the country by making subjects of the Welsh and securing the Kingdom for Edward. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts Edward on the throne with Harold at his side. Upon Edward’s death on the 5th of January he named Harold as his successor who reigned as King Harold II of England until the 14th of October 1066 when he fought William the Conqueror for the Crown and died in the battle of Hastings.
On the 3rd of April 1922
Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
On the 3rd of April 2016
The Panama Papaers were leaked detailing thousands of companies and many world leaders with links to tax havens shining a light on part of the huge tax evasion scandal.