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Almanac

By Staff | Apr 12, 2020

Today is Sunday, April 12, the 103rd day of 2020. There are 263 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

On this date:

In 1776, North Carolina’s Fourth Provincial Congress authorized the colony’s delegates to the Continental Congress to support independence from Britain.

In 1912, Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, died in Glen Echo, Maryland, at age 90.

In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

In 1954, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission opened a hearing on whether Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, should have his security clearance reinstated amid questions about his loyalty (it wasn’t). Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock” in New York for Decca Records.

In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.

In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing.

In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)

In 1981, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight. Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 66, died in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 1988, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.

In 1990, in its first meeting, East Germany’s first democratically elected parliament acknowledged responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, and asked the forgiveness of Jews and others who had suffered.

In 2006, jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui (zak-uh-REE’-uhs moo-SOW’-ee) trial listened to a recording of shouts and cries in the cockpit as desperate passengers twice charged hijackers during the final half hour of doomed United Flight 93 on 9/11.

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.

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama opened a 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington, boosted by Ukraine’s announcement that it would give up its weapons-grade uranium. The musical “Next to Normal” won the Pulitzer for drama; Paul Harding’s “Tinkers” was the surprise fiction winner.

Five years ago: Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into presidential politics, announcing in a video her much-awaited second campaign for the White House.

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