April 10 in History

The Statute of Anne, enacted on April 10, 1710, was the world's first copyright law, transferring control of printed works from the Stationers' Company guild to the authors who wrote them. Previously, the Crown granted monopoly printing rights to the guild, which had no obligation to compensate writers. The new law gave authors a 14-year copyright term, renewable once for another 14 years, after which works entered the public domain. The statute established two principles that still underpin copyright law: that creators have a natural right to benefit from their work, and that this right must eventually expire so knowledge can be freely shared. The concept of public domain, now fundamental to open-source software and Creative Commons, began here.

The bell now called Big Ben was cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1858 after the original, cast by Warner's of Norton, cracked during testing in the yard of the Palace of Westminster. The replacement weighs 13.76 tonnes and stands 7 feet 6 inches tall. It cracked again in 1859, just months after installation, and has rung with a distinctive tone ever since because the crack was never repaired; instead, the bell was rotated so the hammer strikes a different spot. Strictly speaking, Big Ben is the bell, not the tower, which was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The bell rings in the key of E natural and can be heard up to nine miles away in favorable conditions.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby sold only 20,000 copies in its first year and earned mixed reviews when published on April 10, 1925. Fitzgerald was disappointed and believed the novel had failed. He died in 1940 thinking himself a forgotten writer. The book's resurrection came during World War II, when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed 155,000 free copies to American soldiers overseas. By the 1950s it had entered high school curricula and never left. Today it sells roughly 500,000 copies annually. The novel's examination of the American Dream through the eyes of a self-invented millionaire resonated more powerfully with each passing decade of American consumer culture.

Halley's Comet passed within 5.1 million kilometers of Earth on April 10, 837 AD, its closest recorded approach and one of the most spectacular astronomical events of the medieval period. Chinese astronomers of the Tang Dynasty documented a tail stretching across the entire visible sky. European chronicles recorded widespread panic, with the comet interpreted as a harbinger of war, plague, or dynastic change. The comet returns approximately every 75-79 years. Edmond Halley first calculated its periodic orbit in 1705 by connecting observations from 1531, 1607, and 1682. Its most recent pass in 1986 was disappointingly faint due to its unfavorable position relative to Earth, but the 837 approach remains the closest in over 2,000 years of records.

Soviet authorities renamed the city of Tsaritsyn to Stalingrad on April 10, 1925, honoring Stalin's role in defending the city during the Russian Civil War in 1918-1920. The name change was part of the broader personality cult Stalin was constructing even before achieving supreme power. Seventeen years later, the name became synonymous with the deadliest battle in human history. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from August 1942 to February 1943, killing an estimated two million soldiers and civilians combined. After Stalin's death and Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign, the city was renamed Volgograd in 1961. Periodic campaigns to restore the Stalingrad name continue in Russia, particularly on the battle's anniversary.

Indian soldiers in the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry at Meerut mutinied on May 10, 1857, though the tensions had been building since April when new Enfield rifle cartridges arrived. The cartridges were greased with what soldiers believed was cow and pig fat, offensive to both Hindu and Muslim troops who had to bite them open. When 85 soldiers refused the cartridges on April 10, they were court-martialed and sentenced to ten years hard labor. Their comrades freed them on May 10, killed British officers, and marched to Delhi. The rebellion spread across northern India over the next year. The British response was savage, including strapping rebels to cannons. The East India Company was dissolved and direct Crown rule imposed in 1858.