TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, April 25, the 115th day of 2018. There are 250 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 25, 1898, the United States Congress declared war on Spain; the 10-week conflict resulted in an American victory.
On this date:
In 404 B.C., the Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta.
In 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
In 1792, French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine.
In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.
In 1983, 10-yearold Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, received a reply from Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov to a letter she’d written expressing her concerns about nuclear war; Andropov gave assurances that the Soviet Union did not want war, and invited Samantha to visit his country, a trip she made in July.
Ten years ago: Three New York police detectives were acquitted in the 50-shot killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man; as news of the verdict spread, many in a crowd outside the courthouse began weeping, while others were enraged, swearing and screaming “Murderers! Murderers!” or “KKK!”
Five years ago: President Barack Obama consoled a Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people, telling mourners at a memorial service at Baylor University they were not alone in their grief.
One year ago: A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” that did not cooperate with U.S. immigration officials, saying the president had no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Al Pacino is 78. Actress Talia Shire is 73. Actor Jeffrey DeMunn is 71. Rock musician Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 68. Actor Hank Azaria is 54. Actress Renee Zellweger is 49. Actor Jason Lee is Actress Melonie Diaz is 34. Actress Allisyn Ashley Arm is 22.
Thought for Today: “There is nothing in the universe that I fear but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.”— Mary Lyon, American educator (1797-1849).