Today in History
Published 8:41 pm Sunday, April 11, 2010
Today is Monday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2010. There are 263 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
ON THIS DATE
In 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
In 1877, the catcher’s mask was first used in a baseball game, by James Tyng of Harvard in a game against the Lynn Live Oaks.
In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
In 1960, Candlestick Park in San Francisco first opened, with Vice President Richard Nixon throwing the ceremonial first pitch before a game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, which the Giants won, 3-1.
In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once.
In 1981, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight.
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 2000, Attorney General Janet Reno met in Miami with the U.S. relatives of Elian Gonzalez, after which she ordered them to bring the 6-year-old boy to an airport the next day so he could be taken to a reunion with his father in Washington. Elian was seized by federal agents 10 days after Reno’s order to turn him over.
In 2005, President George W. Bush visited soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, marking the two-year anniversary of the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
In 2009, American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates by U.S. Navy snipers who shot and killed three of the hostage-takers. Angel Cabrera became the first Argentine to win the Masters. In Hameenlinna, Finland, the United States won its second straight women’s World Hockey Championship title, beating Canada 4-1. Actress Marilyn Chambers, 56, who’d starred in the explicit 1972 movie “Behind the Green Door,” was found dead at her home in Canyon Country, Calif.
Associated Press
