The History Channel

• On April 28, 1789, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat. Bligh and his men reached the East Indies in June after a voyage of some 3,600 miles.

• On April 30, 1888, orange-sized hail devastates a farming town in India, killing 230 people. The area’s many farmers were out working their fields when the storm began, and most of the victims died instantly.

• On May 1, 1923, Joseph Heller, author of the classic satirical novel “Catch-22,” is born in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Catch-22” explores a paradox in Army regulations: A pilot could be grounded if found insane, but if the pilot requested to be grounded because of insanity, the Army considered him perfectly sane for wanting to avoid danger — and wouldn’t ground him.

• On May 4, 1948, Norman Mailer’s first novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” is published. After leaving the Army in 1946, he wrote the best-seller while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, basing it on his own military experiences.