On this day, April 6
1917 The United States entered World War I as the House joined the Senate in approving a declaration of war against Germany that was then signed by President Woodrow Wilson.
1945 During World War II, the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day.
1954 Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., responding to CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s broadside against him on “See It Now,” said in remarks filmed for the program that Murrow had, in the past, “engaged in propaganda for Communist causes.”
1968 Forty-one people were killed by two consecutive natural gas explosions at a sporting goods store in downtown Richmond, Ind.
1974 Swedish pop group ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest held in Brighton, England, with a performance of the song “Waterloo.”
2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, speaking at a private fundraiser in San Francisco, spoke of voters in Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt communities who “cling to guns or religion” because of bitterness about their economic lot; Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton seized on the comment, calling it “elitist.”
2012 Five Black people were shot, three fatally, in Tulsa, Okla.; Jake England and Alvin Watts, who admitted targeting the victims because of race, pleaded guilty to murder, and were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
2020 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was transferred to the intensive care unit of a London hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19, after his condition deteriorated. 2021 Major League Baseball announced that the All-Star Game would be played at
Coors Field in Denver; the game had been pulled from Atlanta because of objections to changes in Georgia’s voting laws.
2022 The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol said more than 5,000 civilians had been killed during the invasion by Russian troops. In response, the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded war crimes.
Today’s birthdays: Nobel Prize-winning scientist James D. Watson, 96. Actor Billy Dee Williams, 87. Actor Roy Thinnes, 86. Movie director Barry Levinson, 82. Actor John Ratzenberger, 77. Baseball Hall of Famer and former Pirates pitcher Bert Blyleven, 73. Actor Marilu Henner, 72. Olympic bronze medal figure skater Janet Lynn, 71. Actor Michael Rooker, 69. Rock musician Warren Haynes, 64. Actor Paul Rudd, 55.