TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018

On this day in history: 1096 - Peter the Hermit gathered his army in Cologne. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. 1606 - England adopted the original Union Jack as its flag. 1770 - The British Parliament repealed the Townsend Acts. 1782 - The British navy won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.

1895 - The Spotswood Sewer Disaster occurs in Melbourne, killing 6.

1911 - Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.

1927 - The British Cabinet came out in favour of women voting rights.

1929 - Missing aviator Charles Kingsford-Smith is located, but would-be rescuers Bobby Hitchcock and Keith Anderson die in the process.

1961 - Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth.

1982 - The British Navy began enforcing a blockade around the Falkland Islands.

1982 - Three CBS employees were shot to death in a New York City parking lot.

1984 - Israeli troops stormed a bus that had been hijacked the previous evening by four Arab terrorists. All the passengers were rescued and 2 of the hijackers were killed.

1988 - The Chinese government named a new array of younger leaders to ensure economic reform.

1989 - In the USSR, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage.

1992 - Disneyland Paris opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France. 1993 - NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2000 - More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Colombia and arrested 46 members of the “most powerful” heroin ring. 2000 - Israel’s High Court ordered the release of eight Lebanese detainees that had been held for years without a trial.

2014 - The Great Fire of Valparaíso ravages the Chilean city of Valparaíso, killing 16, displacing nearly 10,000, and destroying over 2,000 homes.