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Today in History, April 1st

On April 1, 1945, U.S. troops landed on Okinawa. Plus the founding of the Royal Air Force and the 2026 launch of Artemis II.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published April 1, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

April 1 is best known as the day in 1945 when U.S. troops landed on Okinawa, opening the last great battle of World War II in the Pacific. The date also saw the Royal Air Force formed in 1918 and NASA’s Artemis II launch astronauts toward the Moon in 2026.

The big story: U.S. Troops Land on Okinawa (1945)

On April 1, 1945, some 50,000 U.S. combat troops under Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner Jr. came ashore on the island’s southwest coast, backed by more than 1,300 ships. The landing itself met little resistance. That was by design. Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima’s defenders, nearly 120,000 soldiers, militia and laborers, had pulled back inland to dug-in positions, and the Americans quickly took two airfields and cut the island in half. The hard part came later. U.S. forces had to grind through those defenses while waves of kamikaze planes attacked from the air. Buckner was killed by artillery fire days before the Japanese surrender on the island, and Ushijima took his own life. American casualties topped 50,000, including more than 12,000 dead. Japanese losses ran to about 117,000.

More events on April 1

Year	What happened
1789	The first U.S. House of Representatives reached a quorum and chose Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first speaker.
1918	Britain formed the Royal Air Force by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.
1924	Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for the failed Beer Hall Putsch. He served about nine months.
1946	A magnitude 8.6 undersea earthquake off Alaska sent a tsunami across the Pacific that killed 159 people in Hawaii.
1970	President Richard Nixon signed a law banning cigarette advertising on U.S. television and radio.
1976	Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne formed Apple Computer.
1979	Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic after a national referendum.
1999	Canada split its Northwest Territories to create the new territory of Nunavut.
2001	The Netherlands became the first country to give same-sex couples equal marriage rights.
2001	A U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot died, and the damaged U.S. plane landed on China’s Hainan Island.
2026	NASA launched Artemis II from Kennedy Space Center, sending Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen on the first crewed flight around the Moon since 1972. They splashed down on April 10.

Born on April 1

1578: William Harvey, English physician who showed that blood circulates through the whole body.
1776: Sophie Germain, French mathematician known for work on elasticity and number theory.
1901: Whittaker Chambers, American journalist and former Soviet agent who became the central witness in the Alger Hiss case.