Today in History

Thursday, April 11, 2024 Today is Thursday, April 11, the 102nd day of 2024. There are 264 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On this date:

In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of the French and was banished to the island of Elba. (Napoleon later escaped from Elba and returned to power in March 1815, until his downfall in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.) In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House, saying, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.” (It was the last public address Lincoln would deliver.) In 1899, the treaty ending the Spanish-american War was declared in effect.

In 1913, Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, during a meeting of President Woodrow Wilson’s Cabinet, proposed gradually segregating whites and Blacks who worked for the Railway Mail Service, a policy that went into effect and spread to other agencies. In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany. In 1947, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers played in an exhibition against the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field, four days before his regular-season debut that broke baseball’s color line.

In 1961, former SS officer Adolf Eichmann went on trial in Israel, charged with crimes against humanity for his role in the Nazi Holocaust. (Eichmann was convicted and executed.) In 1970, Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon. (The mission was aborted when an oxygen tank exploded April 13. The crew splashed down safely four days after the explosion.)

In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. In 1996, 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff, who hoped to become the youngest person to fly cross-country, was killed along with her father and flight instructor when their plane crashed after takeoff from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In 2012, George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. (He was acquitted at trial.)

In 2013, comedian Jonathan Winters, 87, died in Montecito, California.

In 2017, David Letterman’s mother, Dorothy Mengering, a Midwestern homemaker who became an unlikely celebrity on her son’s late-night talk show, died at age 95.

In 2018, Pope Francis admitted he made “grave errors” in judgment in Chile’s sex abuse scandal; during a January visit to Chile, Francis had strongly defended Bishop Juan Barros despite accusations by victims that Barros had witnessed and ignored their abuse.

In 2020, the number of U.S. deaths from the coronavirus eclipsed Italy’s for the highest in the world, topping 20,000. In 2022, Mimi Reinhard, a secretary in Oskar Schindler’s office who typed up the list of Jews he saved from extermination by Nazi Germany, died at age 107.

Today’s Birthdays: Ethel Kennedy is 96. Actor Joel Grey is 92. Actor Louise Lasser is

85. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman is

83. Movie writer-director John Milius is 80. Actor Peter Riegert is 77. Movie director Carl Franklin is 75. Actor Bill Irwin is

74. Country singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale is 67. Songwriter-producer Daryl Simmons is 67. Rock musician Nigel Pulsford (Bush) is 63. Actor Lucky Vanous is 63. Country singer Steve Azar is 60. Singer Lisa Stansfield is 58. Actor Johnny Messner is 55. Rock musician Dylan Keefe (Marcy Playground) is 54. Actor Vicellous

(vy-say’-luhs) Shannon is 53. Rapper David Banner is 50. Actor Tricia Helfer is 50. Rock musician Chris Gaylor (The All-american Rejects) is 45. Actor Kelli Garner is 40. Singer Joss Stone is 37. Actor-dancer Kaitlyn Jenkins is 32.

Friday, April 12, 2024

Today is Friday, April 12, the 103rd day of 2024. There are 263 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 12, 1861, the U.S. Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

On this date:

In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.

In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing.

In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)

In 1981, former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 66, died in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 1985, Sen. Jake Garn, R-utah, became the first sitting member of Congress to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off.

In 1988, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form. In 1990, in its first meeting, East Germany’s first democratically elected parliament acknowledged responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, and asked the forgiveness of Jews and others who had suffered. In 1992, after five years in the making, Euro Disneyland (now called Disneyland Paris) opened in Marne-la-vallee, France, amid controversy as French intellectuals bemoaned the invasion of American pop culture. In 2015, Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into presidential politics, announcing in a video her much-awaited second campaign for the White House. In 2018, the Screen Actors Guild issued new guidelines calling for an end to auditions and professional meetings in private hotel rooms and residences in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In 2020, Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday isolated in their homes by the coronavirus. St. Peter’s Square was barricaded to keep out crowds. Pope Francis celebrated Easter Mass inside the largely vacant basilica, calling for global solidarity in the face of the pandemic.

In 2022, actor and standup comic Gilbert Gottfried died at age 67.

Today’s Birthdays: Playwright Alan Ayckbourn (Ayk’-bohrn) is

85. Jazz musician Herbie Hancock is 84. Rock singer John Kay (Steppenwolf) is 80. Actor Ed O’neill is 78. Actor Dan Lauria is 77. Talk show host David Letterman is 77. Author Scott Turow is 75. Actor-playwright Tom Noonan is 73. R&B singer JD Nicholas (The Commodores) is 72. Singer Pat Travers is 70. Actor Andy Garcia is 68. Movie director Walter Salles (Sal’ihs) is 68. Country singer Vince Gill is 67. Model/tv personality J Alexander is 66. Rock musician Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) is 66. Rock singer Art Alexakis (Everclear) is 62. Country singer Deryl Dodd is 60. Folk-pop singer Amy Ray (Indigo Girls) is 60. Actor Alicia Coppola is 56. Rock singer Nicholas Hexum (311) is 54. Actor Retta is 54. Actor Nicholas Brendon is 53. Actor Shannen Doherty is 53. Actor Marley Shelton is 50. Actor Sarah Jane Morris is

47. Actor Jordana Spiro is 47. Rock musician Guy Berryman (Coldplay) is 46. Actor Riley Smith is 46. Actor Claire Danes is 45. Actor Jennifer Morrison is 45. Actor Matt Mcgorry is

38. Actor Brooklyn Decker is

37. Contemporary Christian musician Joe Rickard (Red) is

37. Rock singer-musician Brendon Urie (Panic! at the Disco) is

37. Actor Saoirse (Sur’-shuh) Ronan is 30.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

Today is Saturday, April 13, the 104th day of 2024. There are 262 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History: On April 13, 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first Black performer to win an Academy Award for best actor or best actress with his performance in “Lilies of the Field.”

On this date:

In 1743, the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born in Shadwell in the Virginia Colony. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, Fort Sumter in South Carolina fell to Confederate forces. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of the third American president’s birth.

In 1953, “Casino Royale,” Ian Fleming’s first book as well as the first James Bond novel, was published in London by Jonathan Cape Ltd.

In 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.)

In 1997, Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament.

In 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.)

In 2005, a defiant Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks in backto-back court appearances in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta.

In 2009, at his second trial, 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).

In 2011, A federal jury in San Francisco convicted baseball slugger Barry Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice, but failed to reach a verdict on the three counts at the heart of allegations that he’d knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone and lied to a grand jury about it. (Bonds’ conviction for obstruction was ultimately overturned.)

In 2012, Jennifer Capriati was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

In 2016, the Golden State Warriors became the NBA’S first 73-win team by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 125-104, breaking the 1996 72-win record of the Chicago Bulls. Kobe Bryant of the Lakers scored 60 points in his final game, wrapping up 20years in the NBA. In 2017, Pentagon officials said U.S. forces in Afghanistan had struck an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan with “the mother of all bombs,” the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S. military.

In 2020, Charles Thacker Jr., a crew member on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, died at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam, becoming the first active-duty military member to die from the coronavirus.

In 2013, all 108 passengers and crew survived after a new Lion Air Boeing 737 crashed into the ocean and snapped in two while attempting to land on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. In 2018, President Donald Trump announced that the United States, France and Britain had carried out joint airstrikes in Syria meant to punish President Bashar Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons.

In 2021, U.S. health officials recommended a “pause” in use of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots, setting off a chain reaction worldwide and dealing a setback to the global vaccination campaign. (Officials lifted the pause on vaccinations 11 days later.)

In 2023, Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was arrested in connection with the disclosure of highly classified military documents about the Ukraine war and other top national security issues. (In March of 2024, Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information in a deal with prosecutors and accepted an 11-year prison sentence.)

Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-colo., is 91. Actor Edward Fox is 87. R&B singer Lester Chambers is 84. Movie-tv composer Bill Conti is 82. Rock musician Jack Casady is 80. Singer Al Green is 78. Actor Ron Perlman is 74. Actor William Sadler is 74. Singer Peabo Bryson is 73. Bandleader/rock musician Max Weinberg is 73. Bluegrass singer-musician Sam Bush is 72. Rock musician Jimmy Destri (Blondie) is 70. Comedian Gary Kroeger is 67. Actor Saundra Santiago is 67. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-PA., is

64. Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is 61. Actor Page Hannah is 60. Actor-comedian Caroline Rhea (RAY) is 60. Rock musician Marc Ford (The Black Crowes) is 58. Reggae singer Capleton is 57. Actor Ricky Schroder is 54. Rock singer Aaron Lewis (Staind) is

52. Actor Bokeem Woodbine is 51. Singer Lou Bega is 49. Actor-producer Glenn Howerton is 48. Actor Kyle Howard is

46. Actor Kelli Giddish is 44.