April 7: On this day in 1972, mobster Joey Gallo celebrated his 43rd birthday at Umberto’s Restaurant in Little Italy; before the dinner was over, he was shot and killed.

April 6: James Kirke Paulding, who coined the tongue-twister “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickles peppers,” and rose to be Secretary of the Navy, died on this date in 1860.

April 5: Famed painter Eastman Johnson, whose gravestone describes him simply as “ARTIST” and states “HIS WORKS ARE HIS MONUMENT,” died on this date in 1906.

April 4: The Flag Act of 1818, which incorporated the proposal of War of 1812 hero Samuel Chester Reid, that another star be added to the American flag as a new state entered the Union, but that the original 13 stripes remain unchanged, was signed into law by President James Monroe on this date.

April 3: William M. Tweed, “Boss,” whose name became synonymous with civic corruption, was born on this date in 1823.

April 2: On this date in 1872, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who invented the telegraph and changed the world by creating the first practical means of human communication over a distance, died.

April 1: Brigadier General Robert Winthrop, who rose from a private at the beginning of the Civil War to triumph at the Battle of Five Forks on this date in 1865, where thousands of Confederates surrendered, was mortally wounded and to be carried from the field by his triumphant but mourning troops.

March 31: On this date in 1865, Major and Quartermaster of U.S. Volunteers Horatio Collins King earned the Medal of Honor near Five Forks, Virginia: “While serving as a volunteer aide, [he] carried orders to the reserve brigade and participated with it in the charge which repulsed the enemy.”

March 30: On this date in 1858, DeWolf Hopper, who made a career, starting in 1888, of dramatically reciting the classic baseball poem, “Casey At The Bat,” was born.

March 29: Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, who composed the scores for many movies, including “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Enchanted April,” and “Nicholas and Alexandra,” was born on this date in 1936.