THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Associated Press

Today is Friday, April 2,

the 92nd day of 2021. There are 273 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 2, 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

On this date:

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, because of advancing Union forces.

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declared war four days later.)

In 1932, aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and John F. Condon went to a cemetery in The Bronx, New York, where Condon turned over $50,000 to a man in exchange for Lindbergh’s kidnapped son. (The child, who was not returned, was found dead the following month.)

In 1968, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the groundbreaking science-fiction film epic produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, had its world premiere in Washington, D.C.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed into law a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. (The tax was repealed in 1988.)

In 1982, several thousand troops from Argentina seized the disputed Falkland Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain. (Britain seized the islands back the following June.)

In 1986, four American passengers, including an 8-monthold girl, her mother and grandmother, were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a TWA jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, Greece.

In 2002, Israel seized control of Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen forced their way into the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, where they began a 39-day standoff.

In 2003, during the Iraq War, American forces fought their way to within sight of the Baghdad skyline.

In 2005, Pope John Paul II died in his Vatican apartment at age 84.

In 2007, in its first case on climate change, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.