DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Sunday, April 3, the 93rd day of 2022. There are 272 days left in the year. On this date in:
1865: Union forces occupied the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
1936: Bruno Hauptmann was electrocuted in Trenton, New Jersey, for the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr.
1942: During World War II, Japanese forces began their final assault on Bataan against American and Filipino troops who surrendered six days later; the capitulation was followed by the notorious Bataan Death March.
1944: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Smith v. Allwright, struck down a Democratic Party of Texas rule that allowed only white voters to participate in Democratic primaries.
1948: President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, designed to help European allies rebuild after World
War II and resist communism.
1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what turned out to be his final speech, telling a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, that “I’ve been to the mountaintop” and “seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!” (About 20 hours later, King was felled by an assassin’s bullet at the Lorraine Motel.)
1973: The first handheld portable telephone was demonstrated for reporters on a New York City street corner as Motorola executive Martin Cooper called Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.
1974: Deadly tornadoes began hitting wide parts of the South and Midwest before moving into Canada; more than 300 fatalities resulted from what became known as the Super Outbreak.
1978: At the Academy Awards, Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” was named best picture of 1977; its co-star, Diane Keaton, won best actress while Richard Dreyfuss was honored as best actor for “The Goodbye Girl.”
1996: Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his remote Montana cabin.
2014: David Letterman announced during a taping of the “Late Show” on CBS that he would retire as host in 2015. (Stephen Colbert was named as his replacement a week later.)
2020: President Donald Trump announced new federal guidelines recommending that Americans wear face coverings when in public to help fight the spread of the coronavirus, but Trump immediately said he had no intention of following that advice himself.
Actor Marsha Mason is 80. Singer Wayne Newton is 80. Singer Tony Orlando is 78. Singer Richard Thompson is 73. Bassist Curtis Stone of Highway 101 is 72. Guitarist Mick Mars of Motley Crue is 66. Actor Alec Baldwin is 64. Actor David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”) is 63. Comedianactor Eddie Murphy is 61. Singer-guitarist Mike Ness of Social Distortion is 60. Singer Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) is 54. Actor Jennie Garth (“Beverly Hills 90210”) is 50. Actor Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation”) is 49. Guitarist Drew Shirley of Switchfoot is 48. Actor Matthew Goode (“Downton Abbey,” “The Good Wife”) is 44. Actor Cobie Smulders (“How I Met Your Mother”) is 40. Singer Leona Lewis is 37.