April 20th has, throughout history been ‘one of those days’. Apart from French scientists Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard inventing Pasteurisation on April 20 1862, which, lets face it, has been fairly useful, the 20th of April is what historians might refer to as an ‘oops’ day. For example, on April 20 1968, British politician Enoch Powell made a controversial speech in Birmingham in which he warned of what he believed would be the consequences of continued immigration from the Commonwealth to Britain. This speech became known as the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Some, not surprisingly, interpreted this speech as being racist and questioned his judgement but what gave it that real ‘20th of April’ factor was that, with a keen sense of timing, Enoch made this speech on the anniversary of Hitler’s birth (April 20 1889). For the neo-nazis and fascist groups in Britain and Europe this was manna, Enoch was sacked and never re-elected for the Tory party again - oops. In 1534 French explorer Jacques Cartier, in search of the ‘Northwest Passage’ arrived on the coast of Labrador, North America on 20th April. Cartier, became convinced that he had found gold and diamonds lying about all over the place and as a result, he filled his ship with ‘jewels’ and gleefully set sail back to St Malo, ignoring the Northwest Passage plan completely. Sadly, he was to discover when he returned to France that all his samples were in fact worthless rubble - oops. In 1979 US President Jimmy Carter admitted, for no apparent reason, that, whilst fishing (on 20 April) he had been attacked by a killer rabbit. The Washington Post, headed a piece ‘President Attacked by Rabbit’ and ran it on the front page - "It was hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for me". Well, never mind the Iran hostage crisis, what were his chances of re-election after that? Ooops.
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