TODAY IN HISTORY

On April 2, 742, Charlemagne, king of the Franks and Lombards and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was born.

In 1513 Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida.

In 1792 Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

In 1805 storyteller Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark.

In 1840 novelist and political activist Emile Zola was born in Paris.

In 1860 the first Italian Parliament met at Turin.

In 1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va.

In 1872 Samuel F.B. Morse, developer of the electric telegraph, died at 80 in New York.

In 1875 automaker Walter Chrysler, founder of the Chrysler Corp., was born in Wamego, Kan.

In 1891 painter and sculptor Max Ernst was born in Bruhl, Germany.

In 1914 actor Alec Guinness was born in London.

In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”

In 1928 Joseph Bernardin, later a Roman Catholic cardinal and Chicago’s archbishop (1982-96), was born in Columbia, S.C.

In 1932, on behalf of aviator Charles Lindbergh, a reporter turned over $50,000 to an unidentified man in a New York cemetery as ransom for Lindbergh’s kidnapped son, Charles Jr. Never released, the infant was found murdered a few weeks later.

In 1939 singer Marvin Gaye was born in Washington.

In 1956 the daytime dramas “As the World Turns” and “The Edge of Night” premiered on CBS.

In 1974 French President Georges Pompidou died in Paris; he was 62.

In 1982 Argentinean troops seized the disputed Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic, from Britain. (Britain seized the islands back the following June.)

In 1984 Georgetown University’s John Thompson became the first black coach to win an NCAA men’s basketball championship as his Hoyas defeated Houston, 84-75.

In 1986 four American passengers were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a TWA jetliner en route from Rome to Athens.

In 1992 mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering; he died in prison.

In 1994 consumer reporter Betty Furness died in Hartsdale, N.Y.; she was 78.

In 1995 baseball owners accepted the players’ union offer to play without a contract, ending the longest and costliest strike in the history of professional sports.

In 1996 a federal appeals court rejected New York state laws banning doctorassisted suicide, saying it would be discriminatory to let people disconnect life support systems while refusing to let others end their lives with medication.

In 1999 the Labor Department reported that the nation’s unemployment rate fell to a 29-year low of 4.2 percent in March 1999.

In 2000 more than 600 people set out on a five-day, 120-mile protest march to Columbia, S.C., to urge state lawmakers to move the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome. Also in 2000 Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a debilitating stroke. (He died a month later.) Also in 2000 Connecticut won its second women’s NCAA national championship with a 71-52 victory over Tennessee.

In 2003 American forces fought their way to within sight of the Baghdad skyline; Iraqi soldiers discarded their military uniforms by the roadside to hide their identity.

In 2004 a judge in New York declared a mistrial in the grand-larceny case against two former Tyco executives after a juror apparently received an intimidating letter and phone call for supposedly siding with the defense. (The defendants are being retried.) Also in 2004 flags of seven new NATO members from former communist Europe rose at alliance headquarters in Brussels for the first time, marking the biggest expansion in its 55-year history.

In 2005 Pope John Paul II died in Vatican City; he was 84.

In 2006 journalist Jill Carroll arrived in Boston, tearfully embracing her parents and twin sister after 82 days as a hostage in Iraq.

In 2008 President George W. Bush suffered a painful diplomatic setback when NATO allies rebuffed his passionate pleas to put former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward membership.

Also in 2008 Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who had helped broker peace in Northern Ireland but couldn’t survive a scandal over his collection of cash from businessmen, announced he would resign.

In 2012 One Goh, a 43-year-old South Korean national, killed seven at Oikos University, a small religious college in Oakland, Calif. Also in 2012 , the University of Kentucky beat Kansas 67-59 to win its eighth NCAA men’s basketball championship.

In 2014 Army Spc. Ivan Lopez, a 34-year-old truck driver, killed three people and injured 16 others before committing suicide at Foot Hood, Texas.

In 2015 an al-Shabab attack killed 147 people at Garissa University College in Kenya.

In 2017 at least 290 people died and many more were injured and missing when an avalanche of water from three overflowing rivers swept through the small city of Mocoa in Colombia while people slept, destroying homes and sweeping away cars.