TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, APRIL 20, the 110th day of 2017. There are 255 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1861, Col. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army. (Lee went on to command the Army of Northern Virginia and eventually became generalin-chief of the Confederate forces.)
In 1792, France declared war on Austria, marking the start of the French Revolutionary Wars.
In 1889, Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria. In 1912, Boston’s Fenway Park hosted its first professional baseball game. (The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders 7-6 in 11 innings.)
In 1914, the Ludlow Massacre took place when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 (accounts vary) strikers, women and children died.
In 1916, the Chicago Cubs played their first game at Wrigley Field (then known as Weeghman Park); the Cubs defeated the Cincinnati Reds 7-6.
In 1972, Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon.
In 1987, the United States deported Karl Linnas to the Soviet Union, where he had been convicted in absentia of Nazi war crimes and faced a death sentence. (Linnas, who maintained his innocence, died of heart disease in Leningrad the following July.)
In 1999, the Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.
In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and caused a blowout that began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well was finally capped nearly three months later, on July 15.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Leslie Phillips is 93. Actor George Takei is 80. Actor Ryan O’Neal is 76. Actresses Jessica Lange and Veronica Cartwright are 68. Actor William deVry is 49. Actor Shemar Moore is 47. Actress Carmen Electra and reggae singer Stephen Marley are 45. Rock musician Marty Crandall is 42. Country musician Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band) and actor Clayne Crawford are 39. Actor Tim Jo is 33.