HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Friday, April 14, the 104th day of 2017. There are 261 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (sinks morning of April 15th).

1927 – The first Volvo car premieres in Gothenburg, Sweden. 1941 – World War II: German general Erwin Rommel attacks Tobruk.

1942 – Malta receives the George Cross for its gallantry. The George Cross was given by King George VI himself and is now an emblem on the Maltese national flag.

1944 – Bombay Explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.

1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. The female dog likely lived only a few hours..

1968 – At the US Academy Awards there is a tie for the Academy Award for Best Actress between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.

1986 – In retaliation for the April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two US servicemen, US president Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.

1988 – In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

1999 – NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian

refugees. Yugoslav officials say 75 people were killed.

1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.

2002 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.

2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.

2003 – US troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.

2007 – At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey, protest against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

2010 – Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai, China.

2014 – Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injures 141 others. 2014 – Two hundred seventy-six schoolgirls are abducted by

Boko Haram in Chibok, Northeastern Nigeria.