Today in History

Thursday, April 25, 2024 Today is Thursday, April 25, the 116th day of 2024. There are 250 days left in the year. Today’s Highlights in History:

In 404B.C., the Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta.

On this date:

In 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (veh-spoo’-chee). In 1859, ground was broken for the Suez Canal.

In 1862, during the Civil War, a Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut captured the city of New Orleans.

In 1898, the United States Congress declared war on Spain; the 10-week conflict resulted in an American victory.

In 1901, New York Gov. Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. signed an automobile registration bill which imposed a 15 mph speed limit on highways.

In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli (guh-lih’-puh-lee) Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

In 1945, during World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe (El’-beh) River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany’s defenses. Meanwhile, delegates from some 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize the United Nations. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.)

In 1992, Islamic forces in Afghanistan took control of most of the capital of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government. In 2002, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the Grammy-winning trio TLC died in an SUV crash in Honduras; she was 30.

In 2013, President Barack Obama consoled a rural Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people, telling mourners during a memorial service at Baylor University they were not alone in their grief.

In 2018, Danish engineer Peter Madsen was convicted of murder for luring a Swedish journalist onto his homemade submarine before torturing and killing her; Madsen was later sentenced to life in prison.

In 2019, former Vice President Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race, declaring the fight against Donald Trump to be a “battle for the soul of this nation.” In 2021, “Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao’s portrait of itinerant lives on open roads across the American West, won Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards; Zhao was honored as best director.

In 2022, Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, promising a more lenient touch to policing content on the social media platform where he – then the world’s richest person – had made a habit of promoting his interests and attacking his critics to his tens of millions of followers. In 2023, President Joe Biden formally announced that he would be running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” and extend the run of America’s oldest president for another four years.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Al Pacino is 84. Rock musician Stu Cook (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 79. Singer Bjorn Ulvaeus (ABBA) is 79. Actor Talia Shire is 79. Actor Jeffrey Demunn is 77. Rock musician Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 74. Country singer-songwriter Rob Crosby is 70. Actor Hank Azaria is 60. Rock singer Andy Bell (Erasure) is 60. Rock musician Eric Avery (Jane’s Addiction) is 59. Country musician Rory Feek (Joey + Rory) is 59. TV personality Jane Clayson is 57. Actor Renee Zellweger is 55. Actor Gina Torres is 55. Actor Jason Lee is 54. Actor Jason Wiles is 54. Actor Emily Bergl is 49. Actor Marguerite Moreau is 47. Actor Melonie Diaz is 40. Actor Sara Paxton is 36. Actor/producer Allisyn Snyder is 28. Actor Jayden Rey is 15.

Friday, April 26, 2024 Today is Friday, April 26, the 117th day of 2024. There are 249 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 26, 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere. (Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.)

On this date:

In 1607, English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Virginia, on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere. In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Virginia, and killed. In 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-semitic mob in 1915.) In 1933, Nazi Germany’s infamous secret police, the Gestapo, was created.

In 1964, the African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania. In 1968, the United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3megaton nuclear device called “Boxcar.”

In 1977, the legendary nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.

In 1984, bandleader Count Basie, 79, died in Hollywood, Florida.

In 1994, voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.

In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions. In 2009, the United States declared a public health emergency as more possible cases of swine flu surfaced from Canada to New Zealand; officials in Mexico City closed everything from concerts to sports matches to churches in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.

In 2012, former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court as he was found guilty of arming Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers and smuggled across the border. (Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison.)

In 2013, singer George Jones, believed by many to be the greatest country crooner of all time, died in Nashville at age

81.

In 2018, comedian Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (Cosby was later sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021, ruling that the prosecutor in the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.)

In 2022, Russia pounded eastern and southern Ukraine as the U.S. promised to “keep moving heaven and earth” to get Kyiv the weapons it needed to repel the new offensive, despite Moscow’s warnings that such support could trigger a wider war.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor-comedian Carol Burnett is 91. R&B singer Maurice Williams is 86. Songwriter-musician Duane Eddy is 86. Actor Nancy Lenehan is 71. Actor Giancarlo Esposito is 66. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Duran Duran) is 64. Actor Joan Chen is 63. Rock musician Chris Mars (The Replacements) is 63. Actor-singer Michael Damian is 62. Actor Jet Li (lee) is 61. Actor-comedian Kevin James is 59. Author and former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey is 58. Actor Marianne Jean-baptiste is 57. Rapper T-boz (TLC) is

54. Former first lady Melania Trump is 54. Actor Shondrella Avery is 53. Actor Simbi Kali is 53. Country musician Jay Demarcus (Rascal Flatts) is 53. Rock musician Jose Pasillas (Incubus) is

48. Actor Jason Earles is 47. Actor Leonard Earl Howze is 47. Actor Amin Joseph is

47. Actor Tom Welling is 47. Actor Pablo Schreiber is 46. Actor Nyambi Nyambi is 45. Actor Jordana Brewster is

44. Actor Stana Katic is 44. Actor Marnette Patterson is

44. Actor Channing Tatum is

44. Americana/roots singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt is 40. Actor Emily Wickersham is 40. Actor Aaron Meeks is 38. New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is 32.

Saturday, April 27, 2024

Today is Saturday, April 27, the 118th day of 2024. There are 248 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History: On April 27, 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.

On this date:

In 1810, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote one of his most famous piano compositions, the Bagatelle in A-minor. In 1813, the Battle of York took place in Upper Canada during the War of 1812 as a U.S. force defeated the British garrison in present-day Toronto before withdrawing.

In 1865, the steamer Sultana, carrying freed Union prisoners of war, exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee; death toll estimates vary from 1,500to 2,000.

In 1941, German forces occupied Athens during World War II.

In 1973, acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray resigned after it was revealed that he’d destroyed files removed from the safe of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt.

In 1978, 51construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a cooling tower at the Pleasants Power Station site in West Virginia fell 168 feet to the ground.

In 1992, Russia and 12other former Soviet republics won entry into the International

Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In 1994, former President Richard M. Nixon was remembered at an outdoor funeral service attended by all five of his successors at the Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California.

In 2010, former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was extradited from the United States to France, where he was later convicted of laundering drug money and received a seven-year sentence. In 2011, powerful and deadly tornadoes raked the South and Midwest; more than 60 tornadoes crossed parts of Alabama, leaving about 250 people dead and thousands of others injured in the state. In 2012, the space shuttle Enterprise, mounted atop a jumbo jet, sailed over the New York City skyline on its final flight before becoming a museum piece aboard the USS Intrepid.

In 2015, rioters plunged part of Baltimore into chaos, torching a pharmacy, setting police cars ablaze and throwing bricks at officers hours after thousands attended a funeral for Freddie Gray, a Black man who died from a severe spinal injury he’d suffered in police custody; the Baltimore Orioles’ home game against the Chicago White Sox was postponed because of safety concerns. In 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made history by crossing over to South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in; it was the first time a member of the Kim dynasty had set foot on southern soil since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

In 2019, a gunman opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of Passover, killing a woman and wounding the rabbi and two others. (John Earnest, a white supremacist, has been sentenced to both federal and state life prison terms.) In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour for federal contractors, providing a pay bump to hundreds of thousands of workers.

In 2022, Russia cut off natural gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria and threatened to do the same to other countries, using its most essential export as an attempt to punish and divide the West for its united support of Ukraine. In 2023, Jerry Springer, the onetime mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show featured a three-ring circus of dysfunctional guests willing to bare all — sometimes literally — as they brawled and hurled obscenities before a raucous audience, died at 79.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Anouk Aimee (AH-NOOK’ Em’ee) is 92. Rock musician Jim Keltner is 82. Rock singer Kate Pierson (The B-52’s) is 76. R&B singer Herb Murrell (The Stylistics) is 75. Actor Douglas Sheehan is 75. Rock musician Ace Frehley is 73. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is

73. Pop singer Sheena Easton is 65. Actor James Le Gros (groh) is 62. Rock musician Rob Squires (Big Head Todd and the Monsters) is 59. Singer Mica (Mee’-shah) Paris is

55. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is 55. Actor David Lascher is

52. Actor Maura West is 52. Actor Sally Hawkins is 48. Rock singer Jim James (My Morning Jacket) is 46. Rock musician Patrick Hallahan (My Morning Jacket) is 46. Rock singer-musician Travis Meeks (Days of the New) is

45. Country musician John Osborne (Brothers Osborne) is

42. Actor Francis Capra is 41. Actor Ari Graynor is 41. Rock singer-musician Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy) is 40. Actor Sheila Vand is 39. Actor Jenna Coleman is 38. Actor William Moseley is 37. Singer Lizzo is 36. Actor Emily Rios is 35.