Alodia was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was Soba, near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. In 580 it became a part of the Christian world, following the other two Nubian kingdoms, Nobadia and Makuria. Alodia reached its peak during the 9th–12th centuries, when it exceeded its northern neighbor and close ally, Makuria, in size, military power and economic prosperity. A large, multicultural state, Alodia was ruled by a powerful king and provincial governors appointed by him. Soba was a prosperous town and trading hub, and literacy in Nubian and Greek flourished. Goods arrived from Makuria, the Middle East, western Africa, India and even China. Alodia began a slow decline in the 12th century, possibly because of invasions from the south, droughts and a shift of trade routes, before finally collapsing around 1500. (Full article...)

SARS coronavirus

• ... that the largest in-flight transmission of SARS (virus pictured) took place on an Air China flight in March 2003?


• ... that Canadian investigative journalist Bruce Dowbiggin won a Gemini Award for his reporting on National Hockey League pension fraud?


• ... that while investigating the case of Brittanee Drexel, who disappeared 10 years ago today, the FBI brought federal charges against someone who had already served state probation for the same crime?


• ... that Mark M. Ravitch and Félicien M. Steichen introduced surgical staples, a time-saving replacement for suturing by hand, to American operating rooms?


• ... that the Eklakhi Mausoleum was the first square-shaped building with a single dome built in India?


• ... that Venezuelan politician Miguel Pizarro was expelled from high school for starting protests against military education?


• ... that an "alarming" decline in arthropod populations in Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico has been linked to the warming climate?


• ... that Ronald Read, whose last job was working 17 years as a J. C. Penney janitor, left US$1.2 million to his local library and $4.8 million to the hospital where he died?

Volodymyr Zelensky

• 
  An earthquake in Luzon, the Philippines, kills at least 16 people.


• 
  Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) wins the Ukrainian presidential election.


• At least 250 people are killed and hundreds of others are injured in multiple bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka.


• Scientists announce the discovery of naturally occurring helium hydride ions, believed to be the first compound to have formed in the universe, in the planetary nebula NGC 7027.

April 25: Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (1915)

USS Triton (SSRN-586)

• 
  799 – Pope Leo III was attacked by partisans of his predecessor Adrian I, but was rescued and taken to Charlemagne, as described in the epic Karolus magnus et Leo papa.


• 
  1644 – The Ming dynasty of China fell when the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.


• 
  1792 – The French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by guillotine.


• 
  1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal Allied Powers of World War I decided upon the League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East.


• 
  1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (SSRN-586) (pictured) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

Géza I of Hungary (d. 1077) · Charles Sumner Tainter (b. 1854) · Stefanie Zweig (d. 2014)