TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Friday, April 16, the 106th day of 2021. There are 259 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 16, 2007, in one of America’s worst school attacks, a college senior killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life.

On this date:

In 1945, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed and sank the MV Goya, which Germany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers; it’s estimated that up to 7,000 people died.

In 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas; a nearby ship, the High Flyer, carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day; the blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people.

In 1962, Bob Dylan debuted his song ìBlowin’ in the Windî at Gerde’s Folk City in New York.

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”î in which he defended his tactics, writing, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”î

Today’s Birthdays: Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is

94. Singer Bobby Vinton is 86. Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 74. NFL coach Bill Belichick is 69. Actor Ellen Barkin is 67. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is 59. Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 56. Actor Jon Cryer is 56. Actor Peter Billingsley is 50. Actor Lukas Haas is 45. Actor-singer Kelli O’Hara is 45. Actor Claire Foy (“The Crown”î ) is

37. Figure skater Mirai Nagasu is 28.