TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Saturday, April 22, the 112th day of 2017. There are 253 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On April 22, 1864, Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.
On this date
• In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
• In 1930, the United States, Britain and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty, which regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding.
• 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.
On April 23
• In 1016, Aethelred II “The Unready,” King of the English, died in London after 38 years on the throne.
• In 1616 (Old Style calendar), English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon on what has traditionally been regarded as the 52nd anniversary of his birth in 1564.
• In 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt delivered his “Man in the Arena” speech at the Sorbonne in Paris.
• In 1940, about 200 people died in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Mississippi.
• In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)
• In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
• In 1971, hundreds of Vietnam War veterans opposed to the conflict protested by tossing their medals and ribbons over a wire fence in front of the U.S. Capitol.
• In 1992, McDonald’s opened its first fast-food restaurant in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
• In 2005, the recently created video-sharing website YouTube uploaded its first clip, “Me at the Zoo,” which showed YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim standing in front of an elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.
On April 24
• In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress.
• In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States. (The United States responded in • kind the next day.)
• In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.
• In 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The rising was put down by British forces five days later.)
• In 1932, in the Free State of Prussia, the Nazi Party gained a plurality of seats in parliamentary elections.
• In 1947, novelist Willa Cather, author of “My Antonia,” died in New York at age 73.
• In 1953, British statesman Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
• In 1970, the People’s Republic of China launched its first satellite, which kept transmitting a song, “The East Is Red.”
• In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.