Today in History

Today is Tuesday, April 7, the 98th day of 2020. There are 268 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 7, 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

On this date:

In 1798, the Mississippi Territory was created by an act of Congress, with Natchez as the capital.

In 1915, jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, also known as "Lady Day," was born in Philadelphia.

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 1947, auto pioneer Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan, at age 83.

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

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference in which he spoke of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." (This became known as the "domino theory," although Eisenhower did not use that term.)

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 1964, IBM introduced its System/360, the company's first line of compatible mainframe computers that gave customers the option of upgrading from lower-cost models to more powerful ones.

In 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.

In 1983, space shuttle astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson went on the first U.S. spacewalk in almost a decade as they worked in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly four hours.

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 2006, a British judge ruled that author Dan Brown did not steal ideas for "The Da Vinci Code" from a nonfiction work.

Ten years ago: North Korea said it had convicted and sentenced an American man to eight years in a labor prison for entering the country illegally and unspecified hostile acts. (Aijalon Mahli Gomes was freed in August 2010 after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter secured his release.) Opponents seized Kyrgyzstan's government headquarters after clashes between protesters and security forces that had left dozens of people dead. Space shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station, its astronauts overcoming a rare antenna breakdown that had knocked out radar tracking.

Five years 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. Republican Sen. Rand Paul launched his 2016 presidential campaign in his home state of Kentucky (he suspended his campaign in February 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. (Slager pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison; prosecutors agreed to drop state murder charges that remained after a jury couldn't agree whether he had committed a crime.) 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.

One year ago: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned amid President Donald Trump's frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border; Trump tweeted that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would take over as acting head of Homeland Security. White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, on "Fox News Sunday," declared that Democrats would "never" see President Donald Trump's tax returns. Baylor won the NCAA women's basketball championship game, 82-81 over Notre Dame, after Chloe Jackson drove for a tiebreaking layup with 3.9 seconds left.

Today's Birthdays: Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 85. Country singer Bobby Bare is 85. Rhythm-and-blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 83. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown is 82. Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 81. Actress Roberta Shore is 77. Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 73. Singer John Oates is 72. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is 71. Singer Janis Ian is 69. Country musician John Dittrich is 69. Actor Jackie Chan is 66. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett is 66. Actor Russell Crowe is 56. Christian/jazz singer Mark Kibble (Take 6) is 56. Actor Bill Bellamy is 55. Rock musician Dave "Yorkie" Palmer (Space) is 55. Rock musician Charlie Hall (The War on Drugs) is 46. Former football player-turned-analyst Tiki Barber is 45. Actress Heather Burns is 45. Christian rock singer-musician John Cooper (Skillet) is 45. Actor Kevin Alejandro is 44. Retired baseball infielder Adrian Beltre is 41. Actress Sian Clifford is 38. Rock musician Ben McKee (Imagine Dragons) is 35. Christian rock singer Tauren Wells is 34. Actor Ed Speleers is 32. Actor Conner Rayburn is 21.

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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