DAY IN HISTORY

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Today is the 107th day of 2020 and the 29th day of spring.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in a sealed train after years in exile.

In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD.

In 1947, a fertilizer explosion during the loading of the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, left more than 500 dead.

In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous “Letter From Birmingham City Jail.”

In 2007, a gunman killed 32 people in a shooting spree on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Anatole France (18441924), writer; Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), pilot/ engineer; Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), filmmaker; Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), actor; Henry Mancini (1924-1994), composer; Pope Benedict XVI (1927); Kareem Abdul-jabbar (1947- ), basketball player; Bill Belichick (1952- ), football coach; Ellen Barkin

(1954- ), actress; Jon Cryer (1965- ), actor; Martin Lawrence (1965- ), actor; Gina Carano (1982- ), model/actress; Chance the Rapper (1993- ), rapper.

TODAY’S FACT: Charlie Chaplin’s body was stolen in 1978 by grave robbers hoping to extort money from his family for its return. It was recovered 11 weeks later, and the perpetrators were arrested.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 2003, Michael Jordan of the Washington Wizards played the final NBA game of his career, a season-ending 107-87 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“Suffering -- how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.” — Anatole France, “The Garden of Epicurus”

TODAY’S NUMBER: 0 — hits allowed by Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller on this day in 1940. Feller’s performance remains the only opening day no-hitter in Major League Baseball history.

TODAY’S MOON: Between last quarter moon (April 14) and new moon (April 22).