TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, APRIL 22, the 112th day of 2021. There are 253 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 2005, Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom outside Washington, D.C., to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to kill Americans. (Moussaoui is serving a life prison sentence.)
In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
In 1898, with the United States and Spain on the verge of war, the U.S. Navy began blockading Cuban ports. Congress authorized creation of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, also known as the “Rough Riders.”
In 1915, the first full-scale use of deadly chemicals in warfare took place as German forces unleashed chlorine gas against Allied troops at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium during World War I; thousands of soldiers are believed to have died.
In 1937, thousands of college students in New York City staged a “peace strike” opposing American entry into another possible world conflict.
In 1952, an atomic test in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb was dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.
In 1954, the publicly televised sessions of the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.
In 1970, millions of Americans concerned about the environment observed the first “Earth Day.”
In 1994, Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at a New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke; he was 81.
In 2000, in a dramatic pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives’ home in Miami; Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. In 2004, Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who’d traded in a multimillion dollar NFL contract to serve in Afghanistan, was killed by friendly fire; he was 27.
In 2015, a federal judge in Philadelphia approved a settlement agreement expected to cost the NFL $1 billion over 65 years to resolve thousands of concussion lawsuits.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Estelle Harris is 93. Actor Jack Nicholson is 84. Singer Mel Carter is 82. Author Janet Evanovich is 78. Country singer Cleve Francis is 76. Movie director John Waters is 75. Singer Peter Frampton is 71. Rock singer-musician Paul Carrack (Mike and the Mechanics; Squeeze) is 70. Comedian and entertainment executive Byron Allen is 60. Actor Chris Makepeace is 57. Rock musician Fletcher Dragge and actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan are 55. Country singer Kellie Coffey, and actors Eric Mabius and Ingo Rademacher are 50. Rock musician Shavo Odadjian (System of a Down) is 47. Rock singermusician Daniel Johns (Silverchair) is 42. Actor Malcolm Barrett is 41. Actor Amber Heard is 35. Singer-songwriter BC Jean (Alexander Jean) is 34. Drummer Tripp Howell (LANCO) is 32. Rapper/singer Machine Gun Kelly is 31.