Today in history
On April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
In 1836, Congress voted to establish the Wisconsin Territory.
In 1912, Boston’s Fenway Park hosted its first professional baseball game while Navin (NAY’vihn) Field (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 1914, the Ludlow Massacre took place when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 (accounts vary) strikers, women and children died.
In 1938, “Olympia,” Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, was first shown in Nazi Germany.
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, 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 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.
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 2005, President George W. Bush signed a bill making it harder for debt-ridden people to wipe clean their financial slates by declaring bankruptcy. In his first Mass as pontiff, Pope Benedict
XVI pledged to work for unity among Christians and to seek “an open and sincere dialogue” with other faiths. Ecuador’s Congress voted to remove embattled President Lucio Gutierrez from office and swear in Vice President Alfredo Palacio to replace him.
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.)
Ten years ago: ago: Airliners began taking to the skies of Europe again after five days of being grounded by a drifting volcanic ash. Civil rights activist Dorothy Height died in Washington D.C. at age 98. Keli McGregor, 48, president of baseball’s Colorado Rockies, was found dead in a hotel room of natural causes.
Five years ago: The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for an examination of the deadly toll of domestic violence, while The New York Times collected three awards and the Los Angeles Times two. Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia won the 119th Boston Marathon, finishing in 2:09:17; Caroline Rotich of Kenya won the women’s race in 2:24:55.
One year ago: SpaceX’s new capsule for astronauts was destroyed in an explosion during a ground test at Cape Canaveral in Florida; the accident, later blamed on a leaky valve, marked a serious setback in the company’s effort to launch NASA astronauts into orbit later in the year. Community members in suburban Denver marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting with a remembrance ceremony and volunteer projects.