TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1970

Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst. (The astronauts managed to return safely.)

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1743

The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born in Shadwell in the Virginia Colony.

1861

At the start of the Civil War, Fort Sumter in South Carolina fell to Confederate forces.

1943

President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of the third American president’s birth.

1964

Sidney Poitier became the first Black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award for his performance in “Lilies of the Field.”

1997

Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first player of partly African heritage to claim a major golf title.

1999

Right-to-die advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, Michigan, to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder in the lethal injection of a Lou Gehrig’s disease patient. (Kevorkian ended up serving eight years.)

2005

A defiant Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks in back-to-back court appearances in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta.

2009

Music producer Phil Spector was found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of second-degree murder in the shooting of actor Lana Clarkson (he was later sentenced to 19 years to life in prison; he died in prison in January 2021).