TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, April 23.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On April 23, 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
ON THIS DATE
In 1616 (Old Style calendar), English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-avon on what has traditionally been regarded as the 52nd anniversary of his birth in 1564.
In 1789, President-elect George Washington and his wife, Martha, moved into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York.
In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States, which responded in kind two days later.
In 1940, about 200 people died in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Mississippi.
In 1943, U.S. Navy Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy assumed command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War
II. (On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others survived.)
In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)
In 1987, 28 construction workers were killed when an apartment complex being built in Bridgeport, Connecticut, suddenly collapsed.
In 1988, a federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.
In 1993, labor leader Cesar Chavez died in San Luis, Arizona, at age 66.
In 1998, James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then insisted he’d been framed, died at a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital at age 70.
In 2005, the recently created video-sharing website Youtube uploaded its first clip, “Me at the Zoo,” which showed Youtube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of an elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.
Ten years ago: Former Sony Corp. president and chairman Norio Ohga, credited with developing the compact disc, died in Tokyo at age 81.
Five years ago: A confident Donald Trump told supporters in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that he was not changing his pitch to voters, a day after his chief adviser assured Republican officials their party’s frontrunner would show more restraint while campaigning.
One year ago: New data showed unemployment in the U.S. swelling to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with 1 in 6 American workers thrown out of a job by the coronavirus; more than 4.4 million laid-off workers had applied for unemployment benefits in the preceding week. At a White House briefing, President
Donald Trump noted that researchers were looking at the effects of disinfectants on the coronavirus, and wondered aloud whether they could be injected into people.