TODAY IN HISTORY

SUNDAY APR 17, 2022

1961

Some 1,500Cia-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro, whose forces crushed the incursion by the third day.

1521

Martin Luther went before the Diet of Worms to face charges stemming from his religious writings.

1961

“The Apartment” won the Academy Award for best picture of 1960; Burt Lancaster was named best actor for “Elmer Gantry,” while the best actress award went to Elizabeth Taylor for “Butterfield 8.”

1964

Ford Motor Co. unveiled the Mustang at the New York World’s Fair.

1969

A jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

1970

Apollo 13astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft while en route to the moon.

1972

The Boston Marathon allowed women to compete for the first time; Nina Kuscsik was the first officially recognized women’s champion, with a time of 3:10:26.

1973

Federal Express began operations as 14 planes carrying 186packages took off from Memphis International Airport, bound for 25U.S. cities.

1975

Cambodia’s five-year war ended as the capital Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, which instituted brutal, radical policies that claimed an estimated 1.7 million lives until the regime was overthrown in 1979.

1986

At London’s Heathrow Airport, a bomb was discovered in the bag of Anne-marie Murphy, a pregnant Irishwoman about to board an El Al jetliner to Israel; she’d been tricked into carrying the bomb by her Jordanian fiance, Nezar Hindawi. The bodies of kidnapped American Peter Kilburn and Britons Philip Padfield and Leigh Douglas were found near Beirut; they had been slain in apparent retaliation for the U.S. raid on Libya.