TODAY IN HISTORY

Today

is Saturday, April 11, the 102nd day of 2020. There are 264 days left in the year.

On April 11, 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors.

In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of the French and was banished to the island of Elba. (Napoleon later escaped from Elba and returned to power in March 1815, until his downfall in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.)

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House, saying, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.” (It was the last public address Lincoln would deliver.)

In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany.

In 1961, former SS officer Adolf Eichmann went on trial in Israel, charged with crimes against humanity for his role in the Nazi Holocaust. (Eichmann was convicted and executed.)

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1970, Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon.

Ethel Kennedy is 92. Actor Joel Grey is 88. Actress Louise Lasser is 81. Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist Ellen Goodman is 79. Movie writerdirector John Milius is 76. Actor Peter Riegert is 73. Movie director Carl Franklin is 71. Actor Bill Irwin is 70. Country singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale is 63. Songwriter-producer Daryl Simmons is 63. Rock musician Nigel Pulsford is 59. Actor Lucky Vanous is 59. Country singer Steve Azar is 56. Singer Lisa Stansfield is 54. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is 54. Actor Johnny Messner is 51. Rock musician Dylan Keefe (Marcy Playground) is 50. Actor Vicellous Shannon is 49. Rapper David Banner is 46. Actress Tricia Helfer is 46. Rock musician Chris Gaylor (The All-American Rejects) is 41. Actress Kelli Garner is 36. Singer Joss Stone is 33. Actress-dancer Kaitlyn Jenkins is 28.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut, American author (born 1922, died this date in 2007).