TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Easter Sunday, April 1, the 91st day of 2018. There are 274 days left in the year. This is April Fool’s Day.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 1, 1918, Britain’s Royal Air Force came into being toward the end of World War I as the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were merged into a single, independent entity.
On this date:
In 1789, the U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in New York; Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first House speaker.
In 1865, during the Civil War, Union forces routed Confederate soldiers in the Battle of Five Forks in Virginia.
In 1954, the United States Air Force Academy was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In 1983, tens of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators linked arms in a 14-mile human chain spanning three defense installations in rural England, including the Greenham Common U.S. Air Base.
In 1984, recording star Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his father, Marvin Gay (cq), Sr. in Los Angeles, the day before his 45th birthday. (The elder Gay pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and received probation.)
In 1988, the scientific bestseller “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes” by British physicist Stephen Hawking was first published in the United Kingdom and the United States by Bantam Books.
In 1992, the National Hockey League Players’ Association went on its first-ever strike, which lasted 10 days.
In 2003, American troops entered a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed on March 23.
Ten years ago: The Pentagon made public a legal memo dated March 14, 2003 that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President George W. Bush’s wartime authority trumped any international ban on torture. (The memo was rescinded in December 2003.)
Thought for Today: “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”—Stephen Hawking (1942-2018).