9 APRIL

1961 - Original text of the Philippine law proclaiming April 9 as "Bataan Day": Section 1. The ninth day of April is hereby proclaimed as Bataan Day, and all public officials and citizens of the Philippines are enjoined to observe such day with a one-minute silence at 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and to hold appropriate rites in honor of the heroic defenders of Bataan and their parents, wives and/or widows; Republic Act No. 3022 was approved to commemorate the start of the Bataan Death March, the World War II atrocity in which some 75,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war were forcibly and often fatally made to march from Bataan peninsula to prison camps.

1865 - United States Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War; Grant will thereafter remark that "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again," as the Civil War that broke out partly over the issue of slavery is effectively ended by the surrender.

1973 - In Denmark, a new two-year collective wage agreement is accepted by workers and employers alike, putting an end to a labor crisis involving over a quarter of a million workers since March 21; the labor agreement gives reduced working hours,  a 7.5 percent wage increase, equal pay to female and male industrial workers, as well as automatic adjustments to the cost of living benefits.

1999 - Niger's President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara is shot dead in what diplomats will describe as an ambush assasination staged by mutinous troops while the leader attempted to flee the country; only a few days following Mainassara's assasination, a military junta headed by Major Daouda Wanke will take over the reigns of power and by August, the new government of the West African state will adopt a new constitution.