This day in history
Today is Friday, April 12, the 103rd day of 2024. There are 263 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Playwright Alan Ayckbourn is 85. Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock is 84. Rock singer John Kay of Steppenwolf is 80. Actor Ed O’Neill is 78. Actor Dan Lauria is 77. Talk show host David Letterman is 77. Author Scott Turow is 75. Actorplaywright Tom Noonan is 73. R&B singer JD Nicholas of The Commodores is 72. Singer Pat Travers is 70. Actor Andy Garcia is 68. Movie director Walter Salles is 68. Country singer Vince Gill is 67. Rock singer Art Alexakis of Everclear is 62. Folk-pop singer Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls is 60. Rock singer Nicholas Hexum of 311 is 54. Actor Shannen Doherty is 53. Rock bassist Guy Berryman of Coldplay is 46. Actor Claire Danes is 45. Actor Jennifer Morrison is 45. Actor Matt McGorry is 38. Actor Brooklyn Decker is 37. Rock singer-musician Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco is 37. Actor Saoirse Ronan is 30.
ºIn 1861, the Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
ºIn 1908, wind-driven sparks from a fire at the Boston Blacking Co. in Chelsea, near Everett, started a conflagration that would kill 19 people, leave 14,000 homeless, and consume about 1,500 buildings, including about a dozen churches, eight schools, and city hall.
ºIn 1934, the weather observatory atop Mt. Washington recorded winds of 231 miles per hour, the highest ever recorded in the world. The record would remain for 62 years, until Typhoon Olivia hit Australia. The New Hampshire mark still stands as the record for the fastest surface wind measured in the Northern and Western Hemispheres.
ºIn 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
ºIn 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
ºIn 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the Earth once before making a safe landing.
ºIn 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)
ºIn 1981, former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 66, died in Las Vegas.
ºIn 1985, Senator Jake Garn, Republican of Utah, became the first sitting member of Congress to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off.
ºIn 1988, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.
ºIn 1989, counter-cultural icon and Worcester native Abbie Hoffman died.
ºIn 1990, in its first meeting, East Germany’s first democratically elected parliament acknowledged responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust and asked the forgiveness of Jews and others who had suffered.
ºIn 1992, after five years in the making, Euro Disneyland (now called Disneyland Paris) opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France, amid controversy as French intellectuals bemoaned the invasion of American pop culture.
ºIn 2015, Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into presidential politics, announcing in a video her much-awaited second campaign for the White House.
ºIn 2018, the Screen Actors Guild issued new guidelines calling for an end to auditions and professional meetings in private hotel rooms and residences in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
ºIn 2020, Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday isolated in their homes by the coronavirus. St. Peter’s Square was barricaded to keep out crowds. Pope Francis celebrated Easter Mass inside the largely vacant basilica, calling for global solidarity in the face of the pandemic.