TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, April 17, the 107th day of 2021. There are 258 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history
On April 17, 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., Fred Haise and Jack Swigert splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft while en route to the moon.
On this date
In 1492, a contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to Asia. In 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the first SinoJapanese War.
In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lochner v. New York, struck down, 5-4, a New York State law limiting the number of hours that bakers could be made to work. (This ruling was effectively overturned in 1937 by the high court’s West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish decision.)
In 1961, some 1,500 CIAtrained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro, whose forces crushed the incursion by the third day.
In 1969, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
In 1972, the Boston Marathon allowed women to compete for the first time; Nina Kuscsik was the first officially recognized women’s champion, with a time of 3:10:26.
In 1973, Federal Express (later FedEx) began operations as 14 planes carrying 186 packages took off from Memphis International Airport, bound for 25 U.S. cities.
In 1975, Cambodia’s five-year war ended as the capital Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, which instituted brutal, radical policies that claimed
an estimated 1.7 million lives until the regime was overthrown in 1979.
In 1986, at London’s Heathrow Airport, a bomb was discovered in the bag of Anne-Marie Murphy, a pregnant Irishwoman about to board an El Al jetliner to Israel; she’d been tricked into carrying the bomb by her Jordanian fiance, Nezar Hindawi. The bodies of kidnapped American Peter Kilburn and Britons Philip Padfield and Leigh Douglas were found near Beirut; they had been slain in apparent retaliation for the U.S. raid on Libya.
In 1991, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 3,000 for the first time, ending the day at 3,004.46, up 17.58.
In 1993, a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King; two other officers were acquitted.
In 2013, 15 people were killed when a fertilizer plant exploded in West, Texas.
Five years ago: Pennsylvania became the 24th state to legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program as Gov. Tom Wolf signed the bill into law. Actor Doris Roberts, who played the tart-tongued, endlessly meddling mother on CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond,” died at age 90.
Today’s birthdays
Actor David Bradley is 79. Composer Jan Hammer is 73. Actor Olivia Hussey is 70. Actor Clarke Peters is 69. Rapper Afrika Bambaataa is 64. Actor Sean Bean is 62. Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason is 60. Actor Joel Murray is 59. Singer Maynard James Keenan (Tool) is 57. Actor Lela Rochon is 57. Actor Leslie Bega is 54. Actor Henry Ian Cusick is 54. Actor Kimberly Elise is 54. Singer Liz Phair is 54. Director-producer Adam McKay is 53. Rapperactor Redman is 51. Actor Jennifer Garner is 49. Singer Victoria Beckham is 47. Actor Lindsay Korman is 43. Actor Nicholas D’Agosto is 41. Actor Charlie Hofheimer is 40. Actor Rooney Mara is 36. Actor Dee Dee Davis is 25.