On this day, April 7
1862 Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. 1922 The Teapot Dome scandal had its beginnings as Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall signed a secret deal to lease U.S. Navy petroleum reserves in Wyoming and California to his friends, oilmen Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny, in exchange for cash gifts.
1945 During World War II, American planes intercepted and effectively destroyed a Japanese fleet, which included the battleship Yamato, that was headed to Okinawa on a suicide mission.
1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference in which he spoke of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.” (This became known as the “domino theory,” although Eisenhower did not use the term.)
1959 A referendum in Oklahoma repealed the state’s ban on alcoholic beverages.
1962 Nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion were convicted of treason. 1966 The U.S. Navy recovered a hydrogen bomb that the U.S. Air Force had lost in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain following a B-52 crash.
1994 Civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; in the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu moderates were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.
2012 A massive avalanche engulfed a Pakistani military complex in a mountain battleground close to the Indian border; all 140 people on the base died.
2020 Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned after lambasting the officer he’d fired as the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which had been stricken by a coronavirus outbreak; James McPherson was appointed as acting Navy secretary.
2022 The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice.
2023 Palestinian assailants carried out a pair of attacks, killing three people and wounding at least six as tensions soared after days of fighting at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. Today’s birthdays: Country singer Bobby Bare, 89. Former
California Gov. Jerry Brown, 86. Movie director Francis Ford Coppola, 85. Actor Roberta Shore, 81. Singer Patricia Bennett, 77. Singer John Oates, 76. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, 75. Singer Janis Ian, 73. Country musician John Dittrich, 73. Actor Jackie Chan, 70. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett, 70. Actor Russell Crowe, 60. Christian/jazz singer Mark Kibble, 60. Actor Bill Bellamy, 59. Rock musician Dave “Yorkie” Palmer (Space), 59. Rock musician Charlie Hall (The War on Drugs), 50. Former football player-turned-analyst Tiki Barber, 49. Actor Heather Burns, 49. Christian rock singer-musician John Cooper (Skillet), 49. Actor Kevin Alejandro, 48. Retired baseball infielder Adrian Beltre, 45. Actor Sian Clifford, 42. Rock musician Ben McKee (Imagine Dragons), 39. Christian rock singer Tauren Wells, 38. Actor Ed Speleers, 36.