• On this day in 858, Benedict III ended his reign as Catholic Pope.
A picture of the Riverside Edition of Chaucer's works, including The Canterbury Tales, which was the required textbook for the Chaucer class which I took at Rutgers.
• In 1397 on this day, Geoffrey Chaucer told the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this same date in 1387 as when the book's pilgrimage to Canterbury begins.
• Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find the Indies on this day in 1492.
German Priest & Theologian Martin Luther
• 1521 - Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
• Giovanni Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, found New York Bay on this day in 1524.
• In 1534 on this day, Sir Thomas More was confined in Tower of London.
1555 - Siena surrenders for Spanish troops
1596 - Archduke Albrecht of Austria occupies Calais
1629 - 1st commercial fishery established
1704 - 1st successful US newspaper; published in Boston by John Campbell
1711 - Charles VI becomes Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his brother Joseph I
1747 - French troops occupy Zeeuws-Flanders, Netherlands
1758 - Francis Williams, 1st US black college graduate, publishes poems
1793 - Battle of Warsaw
1797 - Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico in what would be one of the largest invasions to Spanish territories in America.
French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
• The Bayonne Decree was issued by Napoleon I of France on this day in 1808, which ordered the seizure of US ships.
• On this day in 1815, a volcanic eruption at Tambora on Sumbawa Island, on the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, killed 80,000 people. Heavy eruptions of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia are letting up by this day in 1815. The volcano, which began rumbling on April 5, killed almost 100,000 people directly and indirectly. The eruption was the largest ever recorded and its effects were noted throughout the world. There had been no signs of volcanic activity there for thousands of years prior to the 1815 eruption. On April 10, the first of a series of eruptions that month sent ash 20 miles into the atmosphere, covering the island with ash to a height of 1.5 meters. Five days later, Tambora erupted violently once again. This time, so much ash was expelled that the sun was not seen for several days. Flaming hot debris thrown into the surrounding ocean caused explosions of steam. The debris also caused a moderate-sized tsunami. In all, so much rock and ash was thrown out of Tambora that the height of the volcano was reduced from 14,000 to 9,000 feet. The worst explosions were heard hundreds of miles away. The eruptions of Tambora also affected the climate worldwide. Enough ash had been thrown into the atmosphere that global temperatures were reduced over the next year; it also caused spectacularly colored sunsets throughout the world. The eruption was blamed for snow and frost in New England during June and July that summer. Ten thousand people were killed by the eruptions, most on Sumbawa Island. In subsequent months, more than 80,000 people died in the surrounding area from starvation due to the resulting crop failures and disease.
1817 - 1st US school for deaf (Hartford, Conn)
1824 - Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54° 40'N
Flag of Guatemala
• Guatemala became a republic on this day in 1839.
1853 - Thorbecke government resigns
Explorer of the New World Christopher ColumbusExplorer of the New World Christopher Columbus 1853 - US Marine Hospital at Presidio (SF) forms
1861 - Indianola TX - "Star of West" taken by Confederacy
• On this day in 1861 during the American Civil War, Virginia became the 8th state to secede from the Union.
1863 - R Grierson's: La Grange, TN to Baton Rouge, LA
1864 - Battle of Plymouth, NC
1864 - Bread revolt in Savannah, Georgia
1864 - Grant suspends prisoner-of-war exchanges
• Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln's assassination on this day in 1865.
1869 - 1st pro baseball games-Cin Reds 24, Cin amateurs 15
1875 - Snooker invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain
1892 - 1st Sunday NL baseball game, Reds beat Cards 5-1
• In 1895 on this day, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, officially ending the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95).
1900 - 7 high chiefs of American Samoa sign Instrument of Cession
1905 - US Supreme court judges maximum work day unconstitutional
1905 - The Supreme Court of the United States decides Lochner v. New York which held that the "right to free contract" was implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
A picture of Ellis Island (above) taken from the Jersey side. On the bottom is the same picture, but altered to lend it (hopefully) a vintage look and feel.
• On this day in 1907, 11,745 immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, New York.
1912 - 1st unofficial gold record (Al Jolson's "Ragging The Baby To Sleep")
1920 - American Professional Football Association forms (NFL)
1923 - Longest NL opening game, Phillies & Dodgers tie 5-5 in 14
1924 - Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures & Louis B Mayer Co merged to form MGM
Baseball Great Babe RuthBaseball Great Babe Ruth 1925 - NY Yankee Babe Ruth has ulcer surgery
1925 - Paul Painlevé follows Edouard Herriot on as French premier
1927 - Japan's Wakarsoeki government falls/Baron Tanaka becomes premier
1930 - Abkhazian ASSR forms in Georgian SSR
• Emperor Haile Selassie officially abolished slavery in Ethiopia on this day in 1932.
1933 - Chicago Bears win their 1st NFL Game beating NY Giants 23-21
1934 - New Fenway Park opens, Washington Senators beat Red Sox 6-5
1935 - Provincial-National elections (Musserts NSB achieves 7.9%/44 chairs)
1937 - Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd & Petunia Pig, debut
1939 - Joe Louis KOs Jack Roper in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
1939 - SN Behrman's "No Time for Comedy" premieres in NYC
1939 - Stalin signs British-France-Russian anti-Nazi pact
1941 - British troop land in Iraq/Yugoslavia; surrender to nazis
1941 - Office of Price Administration forms (handled rationing)
• In 1941 on this day during World War II, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Nazi Germany at Belgrade, ending 11 days of futile resistance against the invading German Wehrmacht. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner. Only 200 Germans died in the conquest of Yugoslavia. On March 27, 1941, two days after the Yugoslav government signed a controversial pact with the Axis powers, Yugoslav air officers, aided by the British secret services, toppled the country's pro-Axis regime. In response, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler launched a massive invasion of the country that began on April 6 with the bombing of Belgrade. The Yugoslav defenders, made up of various politically unstable nationalities, were routed by the hordes of German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops invading their country. On April 17, Yugoslavia surrendered and was divided, with the exception of the puppet state of Croatia, between the four invading Axis powers. The occupying troops aggravated the traditional religious and national differences in the region, and the Serbs were especially brutalized. However, by the end of the year, two separate effective resistance movements had sprung up, one led by Colonel Dragolyub Mihailovich, which was loyal to the Yugoslav government-in-exile, and another led by Josip Broz Tito, which was made up of members of the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
Soviet Union Premier Joseph StalinSoviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin 1942 - 12 Lancasters bomb MAN factory in Augsburg
1942 - Operations begin to destroy Sobibor Concentration Camp
1942 - POW French General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein.
1943 - Admiral Yamamoto flies from Truk to Rabaul
1943 - SS-lt-general Jurgen Stoop arrives in Warsaw
1945 - 8th Air Force bombs Dresden
1945 - German occupiers flood Wieringermeer Neth
• On this day in 1945 at the tail end of World War II in Europe, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini fled from Salò to Milan.
1945 - US troops lands in Mindanao
• On this day in 1945 during World War II, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Boris T. Pash commandeers over half a ton of uranium at Strassfut, Germany, in an effort to prevent the Russians from developing an A-bomb. Pash was head of the Alsos Group, organized to search for German scientists in the postwar environment in order to prevent the Russians, previously Allies but now a potential threat, from capturing any scientists and putting them to work at their own atomic research plants. Uranium piles were also rich "catches," as they were necessary to the development of atomic weapons.
• Syria declared independence from French rule on this day in 1946.1The last French troops left Syria.
1956 - Bulgaria premier Tchervenkov resigns
1956 - Premium Savings Bonds introduced in Great Britain
1956 - USSR's Cominform (Parliament) dissolves
1958 - Brussells (Belgium) World Fair opens
1960 - American Samoa sets up a constitutional government
• On this day1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by 1,400 Cuban exiles began in an ultimately doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. This was a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees which landed in Cuba and attempted to topple the communist government of Castro's Cuba. The attack was an utter failure. Fidel Castro had been a concern to U.S. policymakers since he seized power in Cuba with a revolution in January 1959. Castro's attacks on U.S. companies and interests in Cuba, his inflammatory anti-American rhetoric, and Cuba's movement toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union led U.S. officials to conclude that the Cuban leader was a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. In March 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train and arm a force of Cuban exiles for an armed attack on Cuba. John F. Kennedy inherited this program when he became president in 1961. Though many of his military advisors indicated that an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles had little chance for success, Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the attack. On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry, who would rise up and overthrow Castro's government. The plan immediately fell apart--the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro's military, the tiny Cuban air force sank most of the exiles' supply ships, the United States refrained from providing necessary air support, and the expected uprising never happened. Over 100 of the attackers were killed, and more than 1,100 were captured. The failure at the Bay of Pigs cost the United States dearly. Castro used the attack by the "Yankee imperialists" to solidify his power in Cuba and he requested additional Soviet military aid. Eventually that aid included missiles, and the construction of missile bases in Cuba sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows over the issue. Further, throughout much of Latin America, the United States was pilloried for its use of armed force in trying to unseat Castro, a man who was considered a hero to many for his stance against U.S. interference and imperialism. Kennedy tried to redeem himself by publicly accepting blame for the attack and its subsequent failure, but the botched mission left the young president looking vulnerable and indecisive.
• In 1961 on this day, American President John F. Kennedy waited for word on the progress of the covert plan (the Bay of Pigs invasion) to overthrow Cuba's government on this day in 1961. Kennedy had authorized Operation Zapata, the attempt to overthrow Cuba's communist leader, Fidel Castro, on April 15. The failed coup became what many have called the worst foreign-policy decision of Kennedy's administration. When Kennedy entered the White House in January 1961, he inherited from his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, an ongoing conflict with the leftist regime in Cuba. Aided by Soviet-bloc weaponry, Castro led a brutal clampdown on human rights and dissent after taking power in 1959. That same year, Eisenhower had implemented a trade embargo on Cuban goods and, in 1960, broke off diplomatic relations with the island nation. Before he left office, Eisenhower had approved, but did not launch, a covert plan devised by his vice president, Richard Nixon, and the CIA to overthrow Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro. When Kennedy assumed the presidency, he retained Eisenhower's CIA and military advisors who had helped plan the mission. At their urging, Kennedy made the final decision to send approximately 1,200 CIA-trained Cuban exiles to land at the bay on Cuba's southern coast called Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). The attempted coup failed miserably, largely due to faulty intelligence. Kennedy and the CIA leaders in charge of the mission (all inherited from Eisenhower) believed that Cuba's people and its military would spontaneously rise up to help the exile army overthrow Castro, a grave miscalculation. Instead, Castro's forces captured most of the exile army, executed some and held the rest prisoner until private American groups raised funds for their ransom. The CIA and JFK's administration blamed each other for the plan's failure. The CIA cited JFK's failure to order prolonged offensive air strikes against Cuba's air force at the same time as the land operation, while JFK and his advisors blamed the CIA for keeping information from the president, including several analysts' conclusions that the plan's success was dubious. The ensuing tension between the president and his military and intelligence advisors prompted JFK to rely even more heavily on the advice of his brother, Robert F. Bobby Kennedy, who was also his attorney general, when making future foreign-policy decisions. A former special assistant to JFK, Arthur Schlesinger, has since recorded Bobby Kennedy's recollections of the Bay of Pigs invasion. In a memorandum written in June 1961, Bobby Kennedy concluded that the mission broke down from the incompetency of the CIA and a complete lack of communication. He also noticed that the disaster weighed heavily on his brother, who was concerned about how it would reflect upon his leadership and the nation's credibility. In an oral history interview, Bobby Kennedy recounted that he and his brother had been through a lot of things together, and he was more upset [by the Bay of Pigs failure] than any other.
1964 - 1st game at Shea Stadium, NY Mets lose to Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3
1964 - Ford Mustang formally introduced ($2,368 base)
1964 - Jerrie Mock becomes 1st woman to fly solo around the world
1966 - 100th international soccer match between Netherlands-Belgium (3-1)
1966 - Carol Mann wins LPGA Raleigh Ladies Golf Invitational
Actress Elizabeth TaylorActress Elizabeth Taylor 1967 - Shortwave Radio NY Worldwide goes back on the air after a week off
1967 - Surveyor 3 launched; soft lands on Moon, April 20
1968 - "Fade Out-Fade In" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 72 perfs
1968 - A's 1st game in Oakland-Alameda Stadium, lose 4-1 to Balt Orioles
1969 - Bernadette Devlin elected to British house of commons
1969 - Alexander Dubcek forced to resign as first secretary of Czechoslovakia's Communist Party
Old flag of Czechoslovakia, which is still the current flag of the Czech Republic, or Czechia.
• On this day in 1969, Alexander Dubcek, the communist leader an architect of Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring who launched a broad program of liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia, was forced to resign as First Secretary by the Soviet forces occupying his country. The staunchly pro-Soviet Gustav Husak was appointed Czechoslovak leader in his place, reestablishing an authoritarian communist dictatorship in the Soviet satellite state. The trend toward liberalization in Czechoslovakia began in 1963, and in 1968 reached its apex after Dubcek replaced Antonin Novotny as first secretary of the party. He introduced a series of far-reaching political and economic reforms, including increased freedom of speech and an end to state censorship. Dubcek's effort to establish "communism with a human face" was celebrated across the country and the brief period of freedom became known as the "Prague Spring." On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union answered Dubcek's reforms with the invasion of Czechoslovakia by 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops. Prague was not eager to give way, but scattered student resistance was no match for Soviet tanks. Dubcek's reforms were repealed, and the leader was replaced with the staunchly pro-Soviet Gustav Husak, who reestablished an authoritarian communist regime in the country. In 1989, as communist governments folded across Eastern Europe, Prague again became the scene of demonstrations for democratic reforms. In December 1989, Husak's government conceded to demands for a multiparty parliament. Husak resigned, and for the first time in two decades Dubcek returned to politics as chairman of the new parliament, which subsequently elected playwright Vaclav Havel as president of Czechoslovakia. Havel had come to fame during the Prague Spring, and after the Soviet crackdown his plays were banned and his passport confiscated.
1969 - Mont Expos Bill Stoneman no-hits Phillies, 7-0
Bust of Robert F. Kennedy
• Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating Senator & Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy on this day in 1969.
1969 - The Band (formerly The Hawks), perform their 1st concert
1970 - Apollo 13 limps back safely, Beech-built oxygen tank no help
• On this day in 1970, Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after a very tense few days. All of the astronauts on board survived. With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth. On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth, "Houston, we've had a problem here," and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, as well as providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13's course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1970 - Paul McCartney's 1st solo album "McCartney" is released
1971 - Egypt, Libya & Syria form federation (FAR)
1971 - People's Republic Bangladesh forms, under sheik Mujib ur-Rahman
1972 - 1st Boston Women's Marathon won by Nina Kuscsik of NY in 3:10:26
1972 - 76th Boston Marathon won by Olavi Suomalainen of Finland in 2:15:39
Musician & member of the Beatles Paul McCartneyMusician & member of the Beatles Paul McCartney 1972 - Revised Dutch constitution proclaimed
1972 - Kiteman attempting to throw out 1st ball in Phillie Vet crashes into centerfield seats
1973 - 2nd Boston Women's Marathon won by Jacqueline Hansen of CA in 3:05:59
1973 - 77th Boston Marathon won by Jon Anderson of Oreg in 2:16:03
1973 - German counter-terrorist unit GSG 9 founded.
1974 - Bundy victim Susan Rancourt disappears from CWU, Ellensburg, WA
• Muslim fundamentalists assaulted the military academy in Heliopolis, Egypt, on this day in 1974.
• On this day in 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured and occupied Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, The day was then celebrated as Kampuchea National Day when the country was temporarily renamed Kampuchea.
1975 - Penguins 6-Isles 4-Quarterfinals-Penguins hold 3-0 lead
1976 - NL greatest comeback, trailing 12-1 Phils win 18-16 in 10, Mike Schmidt hits 4 consecutive HRs
1977 - "I Love My Wife" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 864 performances
1977 - Christian-democrats win Belgium parliamentary election
1977 - Sandra Palmer wins LPGA Women's International Golf Tournament
1978 - 63,500,000 shares traded on NY stock exchange (record)
1978 - 7th Boston Women's Marathon won by Gayle Barron of Ga in 2:44:52
1978 - 82nd Boston Marathon won by Bill Rodgers of Mass in 2:10:13
1978 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Carl Sagan for "Dragons of Eden"
1979 - Brian Clark's "Whose Life is it Anyway?" premieres in London
1981 - Isle Potvin's 3 playoff power-play goals tie NHL record vs Oilers
1981 - Ranger's Anders Hedberg is 2nd to score on a Stanley Cup penalty shot
🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
• In 1982 on this day, Canada formally adopted its constitution, finalizing official self-rule.
1982 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1983 - 1st National Coin Week begins
1983 - Grete Waltz runs female world record marathon (2:25:29)
1983 - In Warsaw, police route 1,000 Solidarity supporters
The flag of India
• 1983 - India entered space age launching SLV-3 rocket
1983 - Lynn Adams wins LPGA Combanks Orlando Golf Classic
1983 - Nolan Ryan strikes out his 3,500th batter
NHL all-time top scorer Wayne GretzkyNHL all-time top scorer Wayne Gretzky 1983 - Islanders tie NHL record with 3 shorthanded playoff goals vs Rangers Rangers 7-Isles 6-Patrick Div Finals-Isles hold 2-1 lead Wayne Gretzky scores 7 goals in one Stanley Cup playoff game
1984 - Braves pitcher Pascual Perez suspended due to cocaine usage
• 1984 - During Libyan Embassy demonstration in London, British police officer Yvonne Fletcher shot dead
1986 - IBM produces 1st megabit-chip
1986 - Netherlands & Scilly Islands sign peace treaty (war of 1651)
1986 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Larry McMurtry for "Lonesome Dove"
1987 - Julius Erving becomes 3rd NBA player to score 30,000 points
1987 - Richard Wilbur appointed as US poet laureate
1987 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1988 - Ethiopian Belayneh Densimo runs world record marathon (2:06:50)
1988 - Nancy Lopez wins LPGA AI Star/Centinela Hospital Golf Classic
1989 - 18th Boston Women's Marath won by Ingrid Kristiansen of Nor in 2:24:33
1989 - 93rd Boston Marathon won by Abebe Mekonen of Ethiopia in 2:09:06
1989 - Maximum NY State unemployment benefits raised to $245 per week
• 1989 - Polish labor union granted legal status
• 1989 - Soviet-US agreement allows Soviets to fight US pros
1990 - Gas explosion on passenger train in Kumrahar India, 80 die
1991 - Dow Jones closes above 3,000 for 1st time (3,004.46)
1991 - Railroad workers go on strike in US
Victim of Police Violence Rodney KingVictim of Police Violence Rodney King 1993 - Police officers found guilty of violating Rodney Kings civil rights
1993 - STS-56 (Discovery) lands
1994 - "Little More Magic" closes at Belasco Theater NYC after 30 perfs
1994 - "Twilight - Los Angeles 1992" opens at Cort Theater NYC for 72 perfs
1994 - 55th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Lee Trevino wins
1994 - Aruba government of Oduber falls
1994 - Val Skinner wins LPGA Atlanta Women's Golf Championship
1995 - 24th Boston Women's Marathon won by Uta Pippig of Germany in 2:25:11
1995 - 99th Boston Marathon won by Cosmas Ndeti of Kenya in 2:09:22
1997 - John Bell, 115, recieves new pacemaker
1997 - NJ Devil Martin Brodeur is 2nd NHL goalie to score in a playoff game
• 2002 - Four Canadian Forces soldiers are killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire from two United States Air Force F-16s, the first deaths in a combat zone for Canada since the Korean War.
2012 - The St Cuthbert Gospel, Europe's oldest intact book, purchased by the British Library for 9 million pounds
2013 - 5 people are killed in Wana, Pakistan, by a United States drone attack
2013 - 15 people are killed and 100 are injured after a fertilizer plant explodes in West, Texas
2013 - North Korea blocks a South Korean supply delegation from the Kaesong joint industrial zone
2013 - Same-sex marriage is legalized in New Zealand
1492 - Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find a passage to Asia and the Indies. 1524 - New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano. 1535 - Antonio Mendoza was appointed first viceroy of New Spain. 1629 - Horses were first imported into the colonies by the American Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1704 - John Campbell published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper. It was known as the Boston "News-Letter." 1758 - Frances Williams published a collection of Latin poems. He was the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere. 1808 - Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships. 1810 - Pineapple cheese was patented by Lewis M. Norton. 1824 - Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54' 40'. 1860 - New Yorkers learned of a new law that required fire escapes to be provided for tenement houses. 1861 - Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union. 1864 - U.S. Civil War General Grant banned the trading of prisoners. 1865 - Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination. 1875 - The game "snooker" was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain. 1895 - China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was the end of the first Sino-Japanese War. In the treaty China ceded Taiwan to Japan. 1916 - The American Academy of Arts and Letters obtained a charter from the U.S. Congress. 1917 - A bill in Congress to establish Daylight Saving Time was defeated. It was passed a couple of months later. 1935 - "Lights Out" debuted on NBC Radio. It ran until 1952. 1941 - Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter lift-off from water near Stratford, CT. 1941 - The office of Price Administration was established in the U.S. to handle rationing. 1947 - Jackie Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers) performed a bunt for his first major league hit. 1961 - About 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack. 1964 - Jerrie Mock became first woman to fly an airplane solo around the world. 1964 - The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model. 1967 - "The Joey Bishop Show" debuted on ABC-TV. 1967 - The U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali's request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army. 1969 - Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek was deposed. 1970 - Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank. 1975 - Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was the end of the five-year war. 1983 - In Warsaw, police routed 1,000 Solidarity supporters. 1983 - In New York, a transit strike that began on March 7 ended. 1984 - In London, demonstrators outside the Libyan Embassy were fired upon from someone inside. Eleven people were injured and an English Police woman was killed. 1985 - The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its new 22-cent, "LOVE" stamp. 1985 - In Lebanon, the cabinet resigned as Shiites took W. Beirut. 1987 - In Sri Lanka, Tamil guerrillas killed 122 people in a road ambush. 1989 - In Poland, courts gave Solidarity legal status. 1993 - A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King. Two other officers were acquitted. 1996 - Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents. 1999 - In India, the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee collapsed after losing a vote of confidence. 2002 - At the National Maritime Museum in London, the exhibit "Skin Deep - A History of Tattooing" opened.
1790 Benjamin Franklin, U.S. patriot, diplomat, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died in Philadelphia. 1895 The Sino-Japanese War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. 1937 Daffy Duck made his debut in Porky's Duck Hunt. 1961 Supported by the U.S. government, 1,500 exiles made the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. 1964 Geraldine Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world. 1969 Sirhan Sirhan was convicted for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy. 1970 The Apollo 13 astronauts safely splashed down after their near-disastrous flight. 1975 Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, ending the five year Cambodian war.
