TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

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.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

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.

1865

During the Civil War, Union forces routed Confederate soldiers in the Battle of Five Forks in Virginia.

1933

Nazi Germany staged a daylong national boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

1945

American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II.

1954

The United States Air Force Academy was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1972 The first Major League Baseball players’ strike began; it lasted 12days.

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.

1992

The National Hockey League Players’ Association went on its first-ever strike, which lasted 10days.

2008

The Pentagon made public a legal memo dated March 14, 2003that 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.