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Today in History, April 29th

On April 29, 1945, U.S. troops liberated Dachau. Plus Joan of Arc at Orléans, the 1992 Los Angeles riots and a royal wedding.

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

Published April 29, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

April 29 is best known for 1945, when U.S. troops liberated Dachau, the first concentration camp set up by the Nazi regime. The same date saw Joan of Arc enter besieged Orléans in 1429 and riots break out in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdicts in 1992.

The big story: U.S. troops liberate Dachau (1945)

Dachau opened on the edge of a small town about 10 miles northwest of Munich in 1933, just five weeks after Hitler became chancellor. It was the Nazi regime’s first concentration camp. The first inmates were political opponents, mostly German communists and Social Democrats. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma, gay men and others followed, and after the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, thousands of Jewish men were held there. Inmates were worked as forced laborers, and doctors carried out medical experiments that killed or maimed hundreds. On April 29, 1945, soldiers of the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division reached the main camp after a short fight with the guards who remained, while the 42nd “Rainbow” Division freed a large subcamp. They found about 30,000 survivors, most of them starving, and thousands of dead. Incomplete records show at least 32,000 people died at Dachau and its subcamps.

More events on April 29

Year	What happened
1429	Joan of Arc entered the besieged city of Orléans through its eastern gate, bringing supplies and troops. The English siege was broken on May 8.
1854	The Ashmun Institute in Pennsylvania, later renamed Lincoln University, was chartered as the first degree-granting historically Black college in the U.S. Thurgood Marshall and Langston Hughes are among its graduates.
1968	The rock musical Hair opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theater. It ran for 1,750 performances.
1974	President Richard Nixon announced he would release edited transcripts of 46 taped White House conversations in response to a Watergate subpoena.
1992	Riots broke out in Los Angeles hours after a jury acquitted four police officers in the beating of Rodney King. More than 60 people were killed over about three days.
2004	The last Oldsmobile, an Alero sedan, rolled off the line in Lansing, Michigan, ending a 106-year-old brand.
2004	The National World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington opened to visitors. It was formally dedicated a month later.
2011	Prince William married Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London. An estimated 2 billion people watched on television.

Born on April 29

1863: William Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher who built one of America’s largest media empires, born in San Francisco.
1899: Duke Ellington, jazz composer, pianist and bandleader, born in Washington, D.C.
1901: Hirohito, emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989, born in Tokyo.