TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1947

Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1912

The British liner RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on its ill-fated maiden voyage.

1932

German President Paul Von Hindenburg was reelected in a runoff, with Adolf Hitler coming in second.

In 1963, the fast-attack nuclear submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) sank during deep-diving tests east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in a disaster that claimed 129 lives.

1971

A table tennis team from the United States arrived in China at the invitation of the communist government for a goodwill visit that came to be known as “ping-pong diplomacy.”

1972

The United States and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare.

1981

Imprisoned IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands was declared the winner of a by-election to the British Parliament. In 1992, comedian Sam Kinison was killed in a car crash outside Needles, California, at age 38.

1998

The Northern Ireland peace talks concluded as negotiators reached a landmark settlement to end 30 years of bitter rivalries and bloody attacks.

2005

Tiger Woods won his fourth Masters with a spectacular finish of birdies and bogeys. In 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, 60, was killed in a plane crash in western Russia that also claimed the lives of his wife and top Polish political, military and church officials. “Designing Women” co-star Dixie Carter, 70, died in Houston.