Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On April 18, 1978, the Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty, providing for the complete turnover of control of the waterway to Panama on the last day of 1999.
On this date:
1775: Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Massachusetts, warning colonists that British Regular troops were approaching.
1831: The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa was officially opened.
1906: A devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between
3,000 and 6,000.
1910: Suffragists showed up at the U.S. Capitol with half a million signatures demanding that women be given the right to vote.
1934: The first laundromat (called a “washateria”) opened in Fort Worth, Texas.
1938: Superman, AKA “The Man of Steel,” made his debut as the first issue of Action Comics went on sale for 10 cents a copy.
1945: Famed American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, 44, was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa.
1954: Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power as he became prime minister of Egypt.
1956: American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco in a civil ceremony. A church wedding took place the next day.
1983: Sixty-three people, including 17 Americans, were killed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber.
1988: An Israeli court convicted John Demjanjuk,a retired auto worker from Cleveland, of committing war crimes at the Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Israel’s Supreme Court later overturned his conviction.
1995: Quarterback Joe Montana retired from professional football. The Houston Post closed after more than a century.
Ten years ago: Tens of thousands of Poles bade farewell to President Lech Kaczynski at a state funeral in Krakow.
Five years ago: A ship believed to be carrying more than 800 migrants from Africa sank in the Mediterranean off Libya; only about 30 people were rescued.
One year ago: The final report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was made public; it outlined Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. Mueller offered no conclusion on the question of whether the president obstructed justice.