Today in History

Today is Thursday, April 7, the 98th day of 2016. There are 268 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 7, 1966, the U.S. Navy recovered a hydrogen bomb that the U.S. Air Force had lost in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain following a B-52 crash.

On this date:

In 1614, painter, sculptor and architect El Greco died in Toledo, Spain.

In 1788, an expedition led by Gen. Rufus Putnam established a settlement at present-day Marietta, Ohio.

In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

In 1927, the image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover were transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, which was annexed less than a week later.

In 1949, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" opened on Broadway.

In 1953, the U.N. General Assembly ratified Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden as the new secretary-general, succeeding Trygve Lie of Norway.

In 1962, nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion were convicted of treason.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter announced he was deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

In 1984, the Census Bureau reported Los Angeles had overtaken Chicago as the nation's "second city" in terms of population.

In 1994, civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; in the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu moderates were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

In 2001, NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft took off on a six-month, 286 million-mile journey to the Red Planet.

Ten years ago: A suicide attack in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad killed 85 people. Tornadoes in Tennessee killed a dozen people. Dena Schlosser, charged with killing her infant daughter Margaret by cutting off her arms in what her lawyers portrayed as a religious frenzy, was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a judge in McKinney, Texas. A British judge ruled that author Dan Brown did not steal ideas for "The Da Vinci Code" from a nonfiction work.

Five years ago: A man shot and killed 12 children at the Tasso da Silveira public school in Rio de Janeiro; the gunman, a onetime student at the school, shot and killed himself after being cornered by police. A powerful aftershock struck Japan near the same area that had been devastated by a mighty earthquake and tsunami nearly a month earlier; no giant wave or loss of life was reported.

One year ago: President Barack Obama, speaking at Howard University Medical School, announced commitments from Google, Microsoft and others to help the nation's health system prepare for a warmer, more erratic climate. Sen. Rand Paul launched his 2016 presidential campaign in his home state of Kentucky (he suspended his campaign in Feb. 2016). Michael Thomas Slager, a white South Carolina police officer, was charged with murder in the shooting death of black motorist Walter Lamer Scott after law enforcement officials saw a cellphone video taken by a bystander. The University of Connecticut's women's basketball team beat Notre Dame 63-53 for its 10th NCAA championship. Stan Freberg, 88, the spirited comic genius who was hailed as the father of the funny commercial, died in Santa Monica, California.

Today's Birthdays: Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 81. Country singer Bobby Bare is 81. Rhythm-and-blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 79. California Gov. Jerry Brown is 78. Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 77. Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 69. Singer John Oates is 68. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is 67. Singer Janis Ian is 65. Country musician John Dittrich is 65. Actor Jackie Chan is 62. College and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Tony Dorsett is 62. Actor Russell Crowe is 52. Christian/jazz singer Mark Kibble (Take 6) is 52. Actor Bill Bellamy is 51. Rock musician Dave "Yorkie" Palmer (Space) is 51. Former football player-turned-analyst Tiki Barber is 41. Actress Heather Burns is 41. Christian rock singer-musician John Cooper (Skillet) is 41. Actor Kevin Alejandro is 40. Rock musician Ben McKee (Imagine Dragons) is 31. Actor Ed Speleers is 28. Actor Conner Rayburn is 17.

Thought for Today: "Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master." -- P.T. Barnum, American showman (born 1810, died this date in 1891).

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