SUNDAY IN HISTORY

Today is Easter Sunday, April 16, the 106th day of 2017. There are 259 days left in the year.

Highlight in History:

On April 16, 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying a load of ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas; a nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire as a result and exploded the following day; the blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people.

On this date:

In 1789, President-elect George Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for his inauguration in New York.

In 1867, aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright was born in Millville, Indiana.

In 1917, following the abdication of Czar Nicholas II, Vladimir IlyichLenin returned to Russia after years of exile.

In 1940, Major League Baseball’s first (and, to date, only) opening day no-hitter took place as Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians pitched a no-no against the Chicago White Sox, 1-0, at Comiskey Park.

In 1945, during World War II, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed and sank theMVGoya, whichGermany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers; it’s estimated that up to 7,000 people died.

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

In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon with astronauts John W. Young, Charles M. Duke Jr. andKenMattingly on board.

In 2014, 304 people, mostly students, died when a South Korean ferry, the Sewol, sank while en route from Incheon to the resort island of Jeju; 172 people survived.

Ten years ago: In one of America’s worst school attacks, college senior SeungHui Cho killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life..

Five years ago: Atrial began in Oslo, Norway, for Anders Breivik, charged with killing 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage in July 2011.

One year ago: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Ecuador’s central coast near the town of Muisne killed more than 660 people.

Today’s Birthdays: Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is 90. Actor Peter Mark Richman is 90. Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 70. NFL coach Bill Belichick is 65. Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 52.

Thought for Today: “Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.” — Henry Miller, American author (1891-1980).