Today in History

Thursday, April 18, 2024 Today is Thursday, April 18, the 109th day of 2024. There are 257 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000.

On this date:

In 1775, Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Massachusetts, warning colonists that British Regular troops were approaching.

In 1865, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham Station in North Carolina, bringing further closure to the Civil War, which had formally ended. In 1923, the first game was played at the original Yankee Stadium in New York; the Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-1.

In 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power as he became prime minister of Egypt.

In 1955, physicist Albert Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, at age 76.

In 1966, Bill Russell was named player-coach of the Boston Celtics, becoming the NBA’S first Black coach.

In 1978, the Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty, providing for the complete turnover of control of the waterway to Panama on the last day of 1999. In 1983, 63 people, including 17 Americans, were killed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by a suicide bomber. In 2002, police arrested actor Robert Blake in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, nearly a year earlier. (Blake was acquitted at his criminal trial and found liable for her death in a civil trial.)

In 2012, Dick Clark, the ever-youthful television host and producer who helped bring rock ‘n’ roll into the mainstream on “American Bandstand” and rang in the New Year for the masses at Times Square, died at age 82.

In 2013, the FBI released surveillance camera images of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing and asked for the public’s help in identifying them.

In 2015, a ship believed to be carrying migrants from Africa sank in the Mediterranean off Libya; about 500 are believed to have died.

In 2016, “Hamilton,” Lin-manuel Miranda’s hip-hop stage biography of America’s first treasury secretary, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In 2018, Cuba’s government selected 57-year-old First Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-canel Bermudez as the sole candidate to succeed President Raul Castro, a move that installed someone from outside the Castro family in the country’s highest office for the first time in nearly six decades; the 86-year-old Castro would remained head of the Communist Party.

In 2019, the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was made public; it outlined Russian interference in the 2016presidential election but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.

In 2022, Russia launched a long-feared, full-scale offensive to take control of Ukraine’s east, the country’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland, where Moscow-backed separatists had been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years. In 2023, Fox and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in a case that exposed how the top-rated network chased viewers by promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Clive Revill is 94. Actor Robert Hooks is 87. Actor Hayley Mills is 78. Actor James Woods is 77. Actor-director Dorothy Lyman is 77. Actor Cindy Pickett is

77. Actor Rick Moranis is 71. Actor Melody Thomas Scott is 68. Actor Eric Roberts is

68. Actor John James is 68. Rock musician Les Pattinson (Echo and the Bunnymen) is

66. Author-journalist Susan Faludi is 65. Actor Jane Leeves is 63. Ventriloquist-comedian Jeff Dunham is 62. Talk show host Conan O’brien is 61. Actor Eric Mccormack is 61. Actor Maria Bello is 57. Actor Mary Birdsong is 56. Actor David Hewlett is 56. Rock musician Greg Eklund (The Oolahs) is 54. Actor Lisa Locicero is 54. Actor Tamara Braun is 53. TV chef Ludovic Lefebvre is 53. Actor Fredro Starr is 53. Actor David

Tennant is 53. Rock musician Mark Tremonti is 50. R&B singer Trina (Trina and Tamara) is 50. Actor Melissa Joan Hart is 48. Actor Sean Maguire is 48. Actor Kevin Rankin is 48. Actor Bryce Johnson is 47. Reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian (kardash’-ee-uhn) is 45. Detroit Tigers first baseman and DH Miguel Cabrera is 41. Actor America Ferrera is 40. Actor Tom Hughes is 39. Actor Ellen Woglom (TV: “Marvel’s Inhumans”) is 37. Actor Vanessa Kirby is 36. Actor Alia Shawkat is 35. Actor Britt Robertson is 34. Actor Chloe Bennet is 32. Rock singer Nathan Sykes (The Wanted) is 31. Actor Moises Arias is 30.

Friday, April 19, 2024 Today is Friday, April 19, the 110th day of 2024. There are 256 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 19, 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; about 80people, including two dozen children and sect leader David Koresh, were killed. Then on the same date in 1995, Timothy Mcveigh, seeking to strike at the government he blamed for the Waco deaths, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Mcveigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.)

On this date:

In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord. In 1865, a funeral was held at the White House for President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated five days earlier; his coffin was then taken to the U.S. Capitol for a private memorial service in the Rotunda.

In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held; winner John J. Mcdermott ran the course in two hours, 55minutes and 10 seconds.

In 1912, a special subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee opened hearings in New York into the Titanic disaster. In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile uprising against Nazi forces. In 1977, the Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4

Actor Elinor Donahue is 87. Rock musician Alan Price (The Animals) is 82. Actor Tim Curry is 78. Pop singer Mark “Flo” Volman (The Turtles; Flo and Eddie) is 77. Actor Tony Plana is 72. Former tennis player Sue Barker is 68. Motorsports Hall of Famer Al Unser Jr. is 62. Actor Tom Wood is

61. Former recording executive Suge Knight is 59. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams is 57. Actor Kim Hawthorne (TV: “Greenleaf”) is 56. Actor Ashley Judd is 56. Singer Bekka Bramlett is

56. Latin pop singer Luis Miguel is 54. Actor Jennifer Esposito is 52. Actor Jennifer Taylor is 52. Jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux (Pay’-roo) is 50. Actor James Franco is 46. Actor Kate Hudson is 45. Actor Hayden Christensen is 43. Actor vis

43. Actor-comedian Ali Wong is 42. Actor Victoria Yeates is

41. Actor Kelen Coleman is 40. Actor Zack Conroy is 39. Actor Courtland Mead is 37. Retired tennis player Maria Sharapova is 37. NHL forward Patrik Laine is 26.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Today is Saturday, April 20, the 111th day of 2024. There are 255 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On April 20, 1999, the Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

On this date:

that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa in the Caribbean. In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he took the name Benedict XVI. In 2012, Levon Helm, drummer and singer for The Band, died in New York City at age 71. In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (JOH-HAHR’ tsahr-neye’-ehv), a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed; his older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan (Tam’-ehr-luhn), was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police. In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged; three were acquitted and the city’s top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.) In 2017, Fox News Channel’s parent company fired Bill O’reilly following an investigation into harassment allegations, bringing a stunning end to cable news’ most popular program. In 2018, Raul Castro turned over Cuba’s presidency to Miguel Mario Diaz-canel Bermudez, the first non-castro to hold Cuba’s top government office since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and his younger brother Raul. In 2022, Russia assaulted cities and towns along a boomerang-shaped front hundreds of miles long and poured more troops into Ukraine in a pivotal battle for control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories. In 2023, a Pennsylvania grand jury accused nine men with connections to the Jehovah’s Witnesses of child sexual abuse.

In 1812, the fourth vice president of the United States, George Clinton, died in Washington at age 72, becoming the first vice president to die while in office.

In 1861, Col. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army. (Lee went on to command the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil

War, and eventually became general-in-chief of the Confederate forces.)

In 1912, Boston’s Fenway Park hosted its first professional baseball game while Navin Field (later Tiger Stadium) opened in Detroit. (The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders 7-6 in 11 innings; the Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps 6-5 in 11 innings.)

In 1916, the Chicago Cubs played their first game at Wrigley Field (then known as Weeghman Park); the Cubs defeated the Cincinnati Reds 7-6.

In 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.

In 1972, Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon.

In 1986, following an absence of six decades spent in the West, Russian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in the Soviet Union to a packed audience at the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

In 2003, U.S. Army forces took control of Baghdad from the Marines in a changing of the guard that thinned the military presence in the capital.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his final Mass in the United States before a full house in Yankee Stadium, blessing his enormous U.S. flock and telling Americans to use their freedoms wisely.

In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and caused a blow-out that began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well was finally capped nearly three months later.)

In 2012, a judge ruled that George Zimmerman could be released on $150,000 bail while he awaited trial on a charge of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin during a February 2012 confrontation in a Sanford, Florida gated community. (Zimmerman was acquitted.)

In 2013, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the steep hills of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, leaving nearly 200 people dead.

In 2016, five former New Orleans police officers pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the deadly shootings on a bridge in the days following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said reports of accidental poisonings from cleaners and disinfectants were up about 20percent in the first three months of the year; researchers believed it was related to the coronavirus epidemic.

In 2022, Russian forces tightened the noose around die-hard Ukrainian defenders holed up at a Mariupol steel plant amid desperate new efforts to open an evacuation corridor for trapped civilians in the ruined city. In 2023, The giant new rocket from Elon Musk’s Spacex exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. Pat Roberts, R-kan., is

88. Actor George Takei is 87. Singer Johnny Tillotson is 86. Bluegrass singer-musician Doyle Lawson (Quicksilver) is

80. Actor Judith O’dea is 79. Rock keyboardist Craig Frost (Grand Funk Railroad, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band) is 76. Actor Jessica Lange is 75. Actor Veronica Cartwright is 75. Actor Clint Howard is 65. Actor Crispin Glover is 60. Actor Andy Serkis is 60. Olympic silver medal figure skater Rosalynn Sumners is 60. Actor William devry is 56. Country singer Wade Hayes is 55. Actor Shemar Moore is 54. Actor Carmen Electra is 52. Reggae singer Stephen Marley is 52. Rock musician Marty Crandall (The Shins) is 49. Actor Joey Lawrence is 48. Country musician Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band) is

46. Actor Clayne Crawford is

46. Actor Tim Jo is 40. Actor Carlos Valdes (TV: “The Flash”) is 35.