Sunday, April 24
.c The Associated Press
Today is Sunday, April 24, the 114th day of 2005. There are 251 days
left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1521 – Spanish rebels are defeated at Villalar, Spain, and leaders of
anti-Hapsburg movement are executed.
1617 – Concino Concini, Marquis d’Angre, is assassinated by order of
France’s King Louis XIII, and Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, takes
charge of government of France.
1671 – Defeated Cossack rebel leader Stenka Razin is captured by
loyalist Cossacks in Russia and turned over to the czar’s forces.
1704 – The first regularly issued American newspaper starts
publication.
1792 – Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes France’s national
anthem, La Marseillaise.
1877 – American Federal troops are ordered out of New Orleans, ending
the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
1898 – Spain declares war on United States after receiving U.S.
ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1915 – The Ottoman Turkish Empire begins the brutal mass deportation
of Armenians during World War I.
1916 – Some 1,600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter uprising by
seizing several key sites in Dublin. The rising is put down by British
forces several days later.
1953 – British statesman Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
1962 – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves the first
satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks,
California, and Westford, Massachusetts.
1967 – Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when parachute
straps of his spacecraft get entangled, and he plunges to earth.
1969 – Lebanon’s Premier Rashid Karami resigns amid dispute over
government’s restrictions on Palestinian guerrillas.
1970 – China launches its first satellite.
1971 – Soviet cosmonauts link up with unmanned satellite prior to
attempt to build world’s first orbiting space laboratory.
1975 – Terrorists from the German Red Army faction occupy the West
German Embassy in Stockholm, taking 12 people hostage and killing two
of them.
1975 – Thousands of Vietnamese refugees are flown to U.S. island of
Guam as communists move rapidly in their takeover of South Vietnam.
1980 – The United States launches an abortive attempt to free American
hostages in Iran, a mission that results in the deaths of eight
U.S. servicemen. President Jimmy Carter announces the failed mission
to the American people.
1986 – Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, for whom King Edward
VIII gave up the British throne, dies in Paris at age 89.
1989 – Rebels shell eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad, killing at
least 54 people.
1990 – The U.S. space shuttle Discovery takes the Hubble Space
Telescope into orbit.
1991 – South African government announces it will uphold agreement
with African National Congress to free all political prisoners by
April 30.
1992 – OPEC nations reject a demand by Iran for increased production.
1993 – Commandos break into a cockpit of a commandeered Indian
Airlines plane in Amritsar, India, shoot dead the lone hijacker and
free all 141 people aboard.
1994 – Cuban exiles are received by President Fidel Castro, the man
some have long wanted to overthrow.
1995 – The British government upgrades its talks with Sinn Fein, the
political ally of the IRA, by assigning a minister to negotiate.
1996 – The Palestinian parliament declares in Gaza City that it no
longer seeks Israel’s destruction and has abandoned armed struggle.
1997 – Islamist militants armed with sabers and axes strike two
villages in Algeria, butchering 47 people in a pre-election terror
wave that leaves an estimated 420 dead in a few weeks.
1998 – In front of a cheering crowd, 22 Rwandans convicted of genocide
are executed by firing squad in Kigali.
1999 – A car bomb explodes in one of London’s biggest Bangladeshi
communities, injuring seven people. A racist group claims
responsibility.
2000 – Iranian hard-liners close down 14 pro-democracy publications in
a strike against a major pillar of the reform movement.
2001 – A jury is chosen in the murder trial of a former Ku Klux
Klansman charged 38 years after the church bombing that killed four
black girls in Birmingham, Alabama.
2002 – Sweden’s National Food Administration reports that potentially
harmful amounts of a chemical suspected of causing cancer are produced
when certain starchy foods, such as french fries and bread, are baked
or fried at high temperatures.
2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela,
is convicted of fraud and theft by a regional court in Pretoria South
Afria and sentenced to five years in prison. Madikizela-Mandela was
charged with running fraudulent schemes to obtain about $125,000 in
bank loans and insurance payments.
2004 – A U.N. plan to reunite Cyprus collapses when Greek Cypriots
overwhelmingly reject it in a referendum. Turkish Cypriots vote
heavily in favor. The rejection of the plan, which had to be approved
by both communities, means that only Greek Cypriots will enjoy the
benefits of Cyprus’ joining the European Union on May 1.
Today’s Birthdays: Edmund Cartwright, English inventor of first power
loom (1743-1823); Anthony Trollope, English novelist (1814-1882);
Shirley MacLaine, U.S. actress-dancer-author (1934–); Sue Grafton,
U.S. mystery/crime novelist (1940–); Barbra Streisand,
U.S. actress-entertainer (1942–); Eric Bogosian, U.S. actor (1953–);
Cedric the Entertainer, U.S. comedian (1964–).
Thought For Today:
We are what we think. All that we are, arises with our thoughts. With
our thoughts, we make the world – Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
04/16/05 20:01 EDT