TODAY’S HISTORY

1826: Samuel Morey received the patent for the first internal combustion engine.

1945: Operation Iceberg began as U.S. troops landed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

1970: President Richard Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which required the surgeon general’s warning on tobacco products and banned cigarette ads on radio and TV.

2011: A mob protesting the burning of the Quran attacked the United Nations compound in Mazar-i-sharif, Afghanistan, causing the deaths of 13 people.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Otto von Bismarck (18151898), German political leader; Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), playwright; Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), composer; Milan Kundera (1929-), author; Debbie Reynolds (19322016), actress; Ali Macgraw (1939-), actress; Samuel Alito (1950-), Supreme Court justice; Rachel Maddow (1973-), TV personality; David Oyelowo (1976-), actor; Asa Butterfield (1997-), actor.

TODAY’S FACT: Two monumental innovations in meteorology occurred on April 1: In 1875, Francis Galton published the first newspaper weather map; in 1960, TIROS-1, the first weather satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1985, the eighth-seeded Villanova Wildcats defeated the top-seeded and heavily favored Georgetown Hoyas 66-64 in the NCAA championship game.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.” — Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

TODAY’S NUMBER: $2.28 trillion — value of Apple Inc. in February 2021. The company was founded in Cupertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne on this day in 1976.