Today is Wednesday, April 24, the 115th day of 2024. There are 251 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.)
On this date:
In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.
In 1960, rioting erupted in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Black protesters staging a “wade-in” at a whites-only beach were attacked by a crowd of hostile white people.
In 1961, in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the White House issued a statement saying that President John F. Kennedy “bears sole responsibility for the events of the past few days.”
In 1962, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks, California, and Westford, Massachusetts.
In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during re-entry; he was the first human spaceflight fatality.
In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.
In 1990, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI formally began his stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church; the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his installation homily that as pontiff he would listen to the will of God in governing the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics.
In 2013, in Bangladesh, a shoddily constructed eight-story commercial building housing garment factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people.
In 2017, two inmates received lethal injections on the same gurney about three hours apart as Arkansas completed the nation’s first double execution since 2000, just days after the state ended a nearly 12-year hiatus on administering capital punishment.
In 2018, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was arrested at his home near Sacramento, California, after DNA linked him to crimes attributed to the so-called Golden State Killer; authorities believed he committed 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. (DeAngelo would plead guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of murder and be sentenced to life in prison without parole.)
In 2019, avowed racist John William King was executed in Texas for the 1998 slaying of James Byrd Jr., who was chained to the back of a truck and dragged along a road outside Jasper, Texas; prosecutors said Byrd was targeted because he was Black.
In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert about the dangers of using a malaria drug that President Donald Trump had repeatedly promoted for coronavirus patients. The parent company of Lysol and another disinfectant warned that its products should not be used as an internal treatment for the coronavirus, a day after Trump wondered aloud about that prospect during a White House briefing.
In 2021, the United States formally declared that the systematic killing and deportation of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide,” a term that the White House had avoided using for decades for fear of alienating ally Turkey.
In 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won reelection to a second term. The victory for the 44-year-old centrist spared France and Europe from the seismic upheaval of a shift of power to firebrand populist, far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Shirley MacLaine is 90. Actor-singer-director Barbra Streisand is 82. Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is 82. Country singer Richard Sterban (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 81. Rock musician Doug Clifford (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 79. R&B singer Ann Peebles is 77. Former Irish Taoiseach (TEE’-shuk) Enda Kenny is 73. Actor-playwright Eric Bogosian is 71. Rock singer-musician Jack Blades (Night Ranger) is 70. Actor Michael O’Keefe is 69. Rock musician David J (Bauhaus) is 67. Actor Glenn Morshower is 65. Rock musician Billy Gould is 61. Actor-comedian Cedric the Entertainer is 60. Actor Djimon Hounsou (JEYE’-mihn OHN’-soo) is 60. Rock musician Patty Schemel (Hole) is 57. Actor Stacy Haiduk is 56. Rock musician Aaron Comess (Spin Doctors) is 56. Actor Aidan Gillen is 56. Actor Melinda Clarke is 55. Actor Rory McCann is 55. Latin pop singer Alejandro Fernandez is 53. Country-rock musician Brad Morgan (Drive-By Truckers) is 53. Rock musician Brian Marshall (Creed; Alter Bridge) is 51. Actor Derek Luke is 50. Actor-producer Thad Luckinbill is 49. Actor Eric Balfour is 47. Actor Rebecca Mader is 47. Country singer Rebecca Lynn Howard is 45. Country singer Danny Gokey is 44. Actor Reagan Gomez is 44. Actor Austin Nichols is 44. Actor Sasha Barrese is 43. Contemporary Christian musician Jasen Rauch (Red) is 43. Singer Kelly Clarkson is 42. Rock singer-musician Tyson Ritter (The All-American Rejects) is 40. Country singer Carly Pearce is 34. Actor Joe Keery is 32. Actor Jack Quaid is 32. Actor Doc Shaw is 32. Actor Jordan Fisher is 30. Golfer Lydia Ko is 27.
