TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, APRIL 20, the 110th day of 2021. There are 255 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1999, the Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives. In 1812, the fourth vice president of the United States, George Clinton, died in Washington at age 72, becoming the first vice president to die while in office. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union, effective in 60 days (on June 20, 1863). In 1914, the Ludlow Massacre took place when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 (accounts vary) strikers, women and children died. In 1916, the Chicago Cubs played their first game at Wrigley Field (then known as Weeghman Park); the Cubs defeated the Cincinnati Reds 7-6. In 1938, “Olympia,” Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, was first shown in Nazi Germany. In 1945, during World War II, allied forces took control of the German cities of Nuremberg and Stuttgart. In 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools. In 1972, Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon. In 1986, following an absence of six decades, Russian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in the Soviet Union to a packed audience at the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
In 1988, gunmen who had hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet were allowed safe passage out of Algeria under an agreement that freed the remaining 31 hostages and ended a 15-day siege in which two passengers were slain.
In 2003, U.S. Army forces took control of Baghdad from the Marines in a changing of the guard that thinned the military presence in the capital.
In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and caused a blow-out that began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well was finally capped nearly three months later.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Leslie Phillips is 97. Former Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is 85. Actor George Takei is 84. Singer Johnny Tillotson is 83. Actor Ryan O’Neal is 80. Bluegrass singermusician Doyle Lawson (Quicksilver) is 77. Actor Judith O’Dea is 76. Rock musician Craig Frost (Grand Funk; Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band) and actor Gregory Itzin are 73. Actors Jessica Lange and Veronica Cartwright are 72. Actor Clint Howard is 62. Actors Crispin Glover and Andy Serkis, and Olympic silver medal figure skater Rosalynn Sumners are 57. Actor William deVry is 53. Country singer Wade Hayes is 52. Actor Shemar Moore is 51. Actor Carmen Electra and reggae singer Stephen Marley are 49. Rock musician Marty Crandall is 46. Actor Joey Lawrence is 45. Country musician Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band) and actor Clayne Crawford are 43. Actor Tim Jo is 37. Actor Carlos Valdes (TV: “The Flash”) is 32.