History of the Day for:
April 29
- 1813: A patent for rubber was given to J.F. Hummel of Philadelphia.
- 1861: Maryland's House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union.
- 1863: Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst was born.
- 1899: Band leader/composer Duke Ellington was born.
- 1913: The improved version of the zipper was patented by Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback.
- 1916: The Easter Rising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities.
- 1941: The Boston Bees agreed to rename themselves the Braves.
- 1945: The terms of surrender of the German armies in Italy were signed; Venice and Mestre were captured by the Allies; Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun; American forces liberated the Dachau concentration camp.
- 1960: "American Bandstand" host Dick Clark told a House of Representatives committee investigating the payola scandal that he never took money to feature records on his TV show.
- 1961: "Wide World of Sports" debuted on ABC.
- 1968: The musical "Hair" made its debut on Broadway, marking the first time actors appeared nude in a Broadway musical.
- 1974: President Nixon said he would release edited tapes secretly made in the White House related to the Watergate scandal.
- 1975: In the closing hours of the Vietnam War, the last U.S. troops were evacuated from Saigon.
- 1980: Filmmaker Sir Alfred Hitchcock died.
- 1981: In England, Peter Sutcliffe admitted he was the Yorkshire Ripper, murderer of 13 women.
- 1983: Harold Washington was sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago.
- 1988: McDonald's announced it would open restaurants in Moscow.
- 1992: Rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four white policemen of charges related to the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King.
- 1993: Queen Elizabeth II announced that Buckingham Palace would be opened to tourists.
- 1997: The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories.
- 1999: The Avala TV Tower near Belgrade is destroyed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
- 2002: The United States is re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat that it had held for 50 years.
- 2004: Dick Cheney and George W. Bush testify before the 9/11 Commission in a closed, unrecorded hearing in the Oval Office.
- 2004: Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production.
- 2005: Syria completes withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation.
- 2005: New Zealand's first civil union takes place.
- 2007: Republic Protests in Turkey.