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Births on April 5

1912Apr, 5

Bill Roberts (athlete)

Bill Roberts, English sprinter and soldier (d. 2001)
William Roberts (5 April 1912 – 5 December 2001) was an English sprinter and winner of gold medal in 4x400 m relay for Great Britain at the 1936 Summer Olympics.Born in Salford, Lancashire, William Roberts won the British AAA championships in 440 yd (400 m) in 1935 and 1937.

At the 1934 British Empire Games, Roberts finished second in 440 yd (400 m) behind Godfrey Rampling, but turned the silver into the gold medal in the next British Empire Games in 1938 in Sydney, Australia. He also won a silver in 4x440 yd relay event and finished sixth in the 220 yards contest.

At the Berlin Olympics, Roberts just missed the medal in the individual 400-metre event, finishing fourth in the final, and ran the third leg in the gold medal-winning British 4x400 m relay team.

After World War II and service in the RAF, Roberts returned to athletics to win the silver medal as a member of British 4x400 m relay team at the 1946 European Championships.

At the 1948 Summer Olympics, Roberts was chosen as Great Britain's athletics team captain, but he was eliminated in the heats of the 400-metre event and anchored the British relay team to a fourth place in their heat of the 4×400-metre competition.

After his retirement from athletics in 1949, he worked as a columnist for the Manchester Evening News. William Roberts died in Timperley, Manchester, aged 89.

References

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Events on 1912

  • 6Mar

    Airship

    Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.
  • 15Apr

    Sinking of the RMS Titanic

    The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive.
  • 14Oct

    Theodore Roosevelt

    While campaigning in Milwaukee, the former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, is shot and mildly wounded by John Schrank, a mentally-disturbed saloon keeper. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Mr. Roosevelt still carries out his scheduled public speech.
  • 17Oct

    First Balkan War

    Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
  • 26Oct

    Thessaloniki

    First Balkan War: The Ottoman occupied city of Thessaloniki, is liberated and unified with Greece on the feast day of its patron saint Demetrius. On the same day, Serbian troops captured Skopje.