TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, April 25, the 115th day of 2017. There are 250 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On April 25, 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (vehs-POO’-chee).

On this date

In 404 B.C., the Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta.

• In 1792, French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine.

• In 1862, during the Civil War, a Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut captured the city of New Orleans.

• In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli (guh-LIHP’-uh-lee) Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

• In 1917, legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia.

• In 1945, during World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe (EL’-beh) River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany’s defenses. Delegates from some 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.

• In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping.

In 1964, vandals sawed off the head of the “Little Mermaid” statue in Copenhagen, Denmark.

• In 1974, the “Carnation Revolution” took place in Portugal as a bloodless military coup toppled the Estado Novo regime.

• In 1983, 10-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, received a reply from Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov to a letter she’d written expressing her concerns about nuclear war; Andropov gave assurances that the Soviet Union did not want war, and invited Samantha to visit his country, a trip she made in July.

• In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.)

• In 2002, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the Grammy-winning trio TLC died in an SUV crash in Honduras; she was 30.

Ten years ago

Brushing off a presidential veto threat, the House passed, 218208, a $124.2 billion supplemental spending bill ordering U.S. troops to begin coming home from Iraq in the fall of 2007. The Dow Jones industrial average topped 13,000 for the first time, ending the day at 13,089.89. Rosie O’Donnell announced she was leaving the ABC talk show “The View” (she returned to the program in 2014, but left again the following year). Singer-songwriter Bobby “Boris” Pickett of “Monster Mash” fame died in Los Angeles at age 69.

Five years ago

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Arizona’s tough immigration law. (A divided court later threw out major parts of the law.)

One year ago

The city of Cleveland reached a $6 million settlement in a lawsuit over the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy shot by a white police officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled 2-to-1 that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had to serve a fourgame “Deflategate” suspension imposed by the NFL, overturning a lower judge and siding with the league in a battle with the players union. (Brady ended up serving the suspension.)