Today In History
Today is Wednesday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2017. There are 263 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
› 1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
ON THIS DATE
› 1861: The American Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
› 1955: The Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
› 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing.
› 1963: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)
› 1981: The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight.
› 1985: Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, became the first sitting member of Congress to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off.
› 1992: After five years in the making, Euro Disneyland (now called Disneyland Paris) opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Children’s author Beverly Cleary is 101. Actress Jane Withers is 91. Opera singer Montserrat Caballe is 84. Actor Ed O’Neill is
71. Actor Dan Lauria is
70. Former talk show host David Letterman is 70. Author Scott Turow is 68. Singer David Cassidy is
67. Actor-playwright Tom Noonan is 66. Rhythm and blues singer JD Nicholas (The Commodores) is 65. Singer Pat Travers is 63. Actor Andy Garcia is 61. Rock musician Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) is 59. Rock singer Art Alexakis (Everclear) is 55. Country singer Deryl Dodd is
53. Folk-pop singer Amy Ray (Indigo Girls) is 53. Actress Alicia Coppola is
49. Actor Nicholas Brendon is 46. Actress Shannen Doherty is 46. Actress Marley Shelton is 43. Actress Claire Danes is
38. Actress Jennifer Morrison is 38. Actor Matt McGorry is 31. Contemporary Christian musician Joe Rickard (Red) is 30. Rock singer-musician Brendon Urie (Panic! at the Disco) is 30. Actress Saoirse Ronan is 23.