30 - Scholars' estimate of Jesus' crucifixion by Roman troops in Jerusalem
    1712 - Nine whites were killed in a slave revolt in New York City. Planned by 27 slaves, the rebellion was begun by setting fire to an outhouse.  As whites came to put the fire out, they were shot. The state militia was called out to capture the rebels and the city of New York responded to the event by strengthening its slave codes. Twenty-one blacks were executed as participants, and six alleged participants committed suicide. New York outlawed slavery in 1799.
    1788 - Pioneers arrived at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory and opening the westward expansion of the new country.
    1790 - Birthday of William Ellery Channing at Newport, RI.  Well-known abolitionist and leader of the Unitarian movement in the US.  He stood for religious liberalism and influenced such people as Longfellow, Byrant, Emerson, Lowell and Holmes. Died at Bennington, VT in 1842.
    1798 – The Mississippi Territory was organized from disputed territory claimed by both the US and Spain. It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.
    1818 – General Andrew Jackson conquered St. Marks, FL from the Seminoles tribe. 
    1829 – Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saints movement, commenced the translation of the Book of Mormon, with Oliver Cowdery as his scribe.
    1857 - A late season freeze brought snow to every state in the Union. Even as far south as Houston, TX the mercury plunged to 21 degrees.
    1859 - Birthday of Walter Camp, college athlete, coach and administrator, at New Britain, CT. Camp played football and several other sports at Yale, but he gained prominence for helping to reshape the rules of rugby football into American football. Among his innovations were reducing the number of players on a side from 15 to 11, introducing the line of scrimmage, giving one team definite possession of the ball and proposing the downs system. He served as a volunteer coach at Yale and became a national figure as a promoter of football. He selected an All-American team from 1889 to his death. Died at New York, Mar 14, 1925.
    1860 – Will K. Kellogg, founder of The Kellogg Company, was born…wait for it…in Battle Creek, MI.
    1862 - In the Civil War, the Federal army under Grant defeated the Confederates under Albert Johnston at the Battle of Shiloh near Pittsburgh Landing, TN. Johnston was killed during the battle.
    1873 – Early baseball star and one of the game’s greatest managers, John McGraw, was born in Truxton, NY.  His total of 2,763 victories in that capacity ranks second overall behind only Connie Mack and he still holds the National League record with 2,669. McGraw is widely held to be "the best player to become a great manager" in the history of baseball. McGraw also held the MLB record for most ejections by a manager (132) until Bobby Cox broke the record in 2007.  He was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, three years after he died.
    1884 - Bronislaw Malinowski’s birthday at Krakow, Poland.  Leading British anthropologist, author and teacher. His pioneering anthropological fieldwork in Melanesia inspired his colleagues and students. In 1939, he became a visiting professor at Yale University. I wrote my college thesis about his findings as anthropologist.
    1890 - Birthday of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Minneapolis.  Author, conservationist, especially for the Florida Everglades, she wrote “The Everglades: River of Grass” (1947), probably the most influential book in Florida's history. It forced the establishment of the Central and South Florida Flood Control that kept the Everglades River system viable.  She died in Coconut Grove, FL in 1998.
    1891 – Nebraska introduced the 8 hour work day
    1893 – Allen Dulles was born in Watertown, NY.  A diplomat and lawyer, he became the first civilian Director of Civilian Intelligence and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the CIA during the early Cold War, he oversaw Operation Ajax, the Lockheed U-2 Program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion.  His older brother was John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State for President Eisenhower and after whom the airport and town are named.
    1897 – Walter Winchell was born in NYC.  After leaving school in the sixth grade, he began in vaudeville.  He began his career in journalism by posting notes about his acting troupe on backstage bulletin boards. Joining the “Vaudeville News” in 1920, Winchell left the paper for the “Evening Gazette” in 1924, and in turn was hired on June 10, 1929 by the “New York Daily Mirror” where he finally became the author of what would be the first syndicated gossip column, entitled “On-Broadway”.  He made his radio debut over WABC in New York, a CBS affiliate, on May 12, 1930.  His coverage of the Lindbergh kidnapping and subsequent trial received national attention. Within two years, he befriended J. Edgar Hoover. His newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, and he was read by 50 million people a day from the 1920s until the early 1960s. His Sunday-night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people from 1930 to the late 1950s.  In 1948, Winchell had the top-rated radio show when he surpassed Fred Allen and Jack Benny.   During the 1950s, Winchell favored Sen. Joe McCarthy, but he became unpopular as the public turned against McCarthy. He also had a weekly radio broadcast which was simulcast on ABC television until he ended that employment because of a dispute with ABC executives in 1955.  A dispute with Jack Paar effectively ended Winchell's career, signaling a shift in power from print to television.  During this time, NBC had given him the opportunity to host a variety show, which lasted only thirteen weeks. His readership gradually dropped, and when his home paper, where he had worked for thirty-four years, closed in 1963, he faded from the public eye.  He did, however, receive $25,000 per episode to narrate “The Untouchables” on the ABC television network for four seasons beginning in 1959.  Winchell died in LA in 1972.
    1908 - Orchestra conductor, arranger and composer Percy Faith was born in Toronto. He began by playing music for silent films in the city's movie houses, later turning to arranging and composing when his hands were severely burned in an accident. After a stint at the CBC, Faith moved to the US, where he became an arranger-conductor for Columbia Records. He worked with many pop singers, including Guy Mitchell and Tony Bennett, as well as recording with his own orchestra and chorus. His "Theme from a Summer Place" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960. Percy Faith died in Los Angeles in 1976.
    1915 - Billie Holiday’s birthday in Philadelphia, born Eleanora Fagan and nicknamed "Lady Day".   She is considered by many jazz critics to have been the greatest jazz singer ever recorded. In her 26-year career, despite having received no formal training, she demonstrated a unique style with sophisticated and dramatic phrasing. Among her best-known songs are "Lover Man," "God Bless the Child," "Don't Explain" and "Strange Fruit." Often coupled with saxophonist Lester Young, a fan wrote "Strange Fruit" as a poem, she set it to music, and sang at a time that considered this quite revolutionary. Some of her backing musicians included such famous jazzmen as Lester Young, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Wilson. A movie loosely based on Billie Holliday's autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues," was made in 1973 starring Diana Ross.  She died at New York, NY, July 17, 1959.  On this date in 1986, Holliday was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, nearly 27 years after her death.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr07.html
    1918 – Red Sox Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr was born in LA.    1919 - Birthday of pianist, arranger, and band leader Ralph Flanagan, born Ralph Elias Flenniken in Lorain, OH.
http://www.centrohd.com/biogra/f2/ralph_flanagan_b.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/artist/glance/-/44519/002-5217827-1679236
    1920 - Birthday of Indian musician Ravi Shankar.
http://www.ravishankar.org/bio.html
    1922 – The Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leased to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, and two locations in California, in what would become the center piece of the Teapot Dome Scandal that plagued the presidency of Warren G. Harding.  Before the Watergate, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".
    1923 – The first brain tumor operation under local anesthetic was performed at Beth Israel Hospital in NYC by Dr. K Winfield Ney.
     1928 – “Maverick” and “Rockford”, James Garner was born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, OK.  In addition to huge TV success, he played leading roles in more than fifty films.  Garner died of a heart attack in 2014 in LA.
    1928 - 44-yr old New York Ranger General Manager Lester Patrick replaced his injured goaltender in a Stanley Cup game, and beat the Montreal Maroons 2-1.
    1929 – Record heat prevailed across New England. Hartford, CT reported an afternoon high of 90 degrees.
    1931 – Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago.  He is an activist and former military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.  Ellsberg was charged with others of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg on May 11, 1973.  The release of these papers was politically embarrassing not only to those involved in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but also to the then incumbent Nixon administration.  As a response to the leaks, the Nixon staffers began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides, under the supervision of John Erlichman, created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.  On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Lewis Fielding's office was carried out by the Plumbers and they found Ellsberg's file but it did not contain the potentially embarrassing information they sought. Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding's home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg's trial in April 1973.
    1931 – Seals Stadium, first California home of the San Francisco Giants, opened in The Mission at Bryant & 16th.  It began as the home of San Francisco’s TWO minor league teams, the Seals and the Missions. It was demolished in late 1959 as the Giants moved to their home at Candlestick Park.
    1933 – Prohibition in the US was repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the
21st amendment.
    1933 – Wayne Rogers was born In Birmingham, AL.  Best known for playing Trapper John McIntyre in the first four seasons of M*A*S*H*.
    1935 – Bobby Bare was born in Ironton, OH.  Singer and songwriter, best known for “Detroit City” and “500 Miles Away from Home”.  Just before he was drafted, he wrote a song called "The All-American Boy” and did a demo for his friend, Bill Parsons, to learn and record. Instead of using the version Bill Parsons did later, the record company decided to use the original demo recorded by Bare. The record reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, but they made an error: the singles' labels all credited the artist as being "Bill Parsons." The same track, with the same billing error, peaked at No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1959.
    1935 – Sarazen’s Double Eagle. In the final round of the second Masters Tournament, Gene Sarazen reached the par-5 15th hole four shots out of the lead. His drive left him 220 years shot of the cup. Sarazen hit his 4-wood and knocked the ball over the pond protecting the green, onto the fringe and into the hole for a double-eagle two. Sarazen tied Craig Wood at 282, six under par, and defeated him the next day in a playoff.
    1935 – Amarillo, TX, reported dust obscuring visibility for twenty hours. Blowing dust was reported twenty-seven of thirty days in the month. On several days the visibility was reduced to near zero by the dust.
    1938 – Birthday of jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard in Indianapolis.
    1938 – Once and current California Governor Jerry Brown was born Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown Jr. in San Francisco.
    1939 – Birthday of Francis Ford Coppola in Detroit, MI. Winemaker, film maker, bon vivant, true Renaissance man who has evidently passed his talents on to his children.
    1940 - First postage stamp depicting an African-American showed the educator Booker Taliaferro Washington, whose likeness was on the 10-cent brown stamp placed first at sale at Tuskegee Institute, AL. The stamp was one of the Famous American Commemorative series issues of 1940. A three-cent deep blue stamp depicting the log cabin in which Washington lived had been issued on April 5, 1936.
    1943 – SWETT, JAMES ELMS, Medal of Honor
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Fighter Squadron 221, with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. Place and date: Solomon Islands area, 7 April 1943. Entered service at:  California. Born: 15 June 1920, Seattle, Wash. Other Navy award: Distinguished Flying Cross with 1 Gold Star. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and personal valor above and beyond the call of duty, as division leader of Marine Fighting Squadron 221 with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, in action against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the Solomon’s Islands area, 7 April 1943. In a daring flight to intercept a wave of 150 Japanese planes, 1st Lt. Swett unhesitatingly hurled his 4-plane division into action against a formation of 15 enemy bombers and personally exploded 3 hostile planes in midair with accurate and deadly fire during his dive. Although separated from his division while clearing the heavy concentration of antiaircraft fire, he boldly attacked 6 enemy bombers, engaged the first 4 in turn and, unaided, shot down all in flames. Exhausting his ammunition as he closed the fifth Japanese bomber, he relentlessly drove his attack against terrific opposition which partially disabled his engine, shattered the windscreen and slashed his face. In spite of this, he brought his battered plane down with skillful precision in the water off Tulagi without further injury. The superb airmanship and tenacious fighting spirit which enabled 1st Lt. Swett to destroy 7 enemy bombers in a single flight were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
    1945 - The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, was sunk with four destroyers by American planes 200 miles north of Okinawa while en route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.
    1945 – JAMES, WILLY F., Jr., Medal of Honor
Citation: For extraordinary heroism in action on 7 April 1945 near Lippoldsberg, Germany. As lead scout during a maneuver to secure and expand a vital bridgehead, Private First Class James was the first to draw enemy fire. He was pinned down for over an hour, during which time he observed enemy positions in detail. Returning to his platoon, he assisted in working out a new plan of maneuver. He then led a squad in the assault, accurately designating targets as he advanced, until he was killed by enemy machine gun fire while going to the aid of his fatally wounded platoon leader. Private First Class James’ fearless, self-assigned actions, coupled with his diligent devotion to duty exemplified the finest traditions of the Armed Forces.
    1945 – OKUTSU, YUKIO, Medal of Honor
Technical Sergeant Yukio Okutsu distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 7 April 1945, on Mount Belvedere, Italy. While his platoon was halted by the crossfire of three machine guns, Technical Sergeant Okutsu boldly crawled to within 30 yards of the nearest enemy emplacement through heavy fire. He destroyed the position with two accurately placed hand grenades, killing three machine gunners. Crawling and dashing from cover to cover, he threw another grenade, silencing a second machine gun, wounding two enemy soldiers, and forcing two others to surrender. Seeing a third machine gun, which obstructed his platoon’s advance, he moved forward through heavy small arms fire and was stunned momentarily by rifle fire, which glanced off his helmet. Recovering, he bravely charged several enemy riflemen with his submachine gun, forcing them to withdraw from their positions. Then, rushing the machine gun nest, he captured the weapon and its entire crew of four. By these single-handed actions he enabled his platoon to resume its assault on a vital objective. The courageous performance of Technical Sergeant Okutsu against formidable odds was an inspiration to all. Technical Sergeant Okutsu’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
    1946 – Syria’s independence from France was recognized.
    1947 – The first Tony Awards ceremony for Broadway plays was held in New York. The award was named after Antoinette (Tony) Perry, who died the previous year. Perry served as director of the wartime board of the American Theater Wing. Winners at the first presentation included Best Actresses Ingrid Bergman for “Joan of Lorraine” and Helen Hayes for “Happy Birthday”. Best Actors:  José Ferrer for “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Fredric March for “Years Ago”.  Patricia Neal as Best Supporting Actress for “Another Part of the Forest”, David Wayne for Best Supporting Actor in “Finian’s Rainbow”, and Elia Kazan as Best Director for “All My Sons”.
    1949 – The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. Adapted from James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Tales of the South Pacific,” the musical ran for 1,925 performances. Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza were the stars. “South Pacific” was made into a movie in 1958.
    1949 – John Oates of the duo Hall and Oates, was born in New York City. Beginning with their first record, “Whole Oats,” in 1972, Daryl Hall and Oates had great success with their energetic blend of rhythm-and-blues and rock ‘n’ roll.
    1951 – Singer/songwriter/musician Janis Ian was born Janis Eddy Fink in The Bronx.  She has won two Grammy Awards, the first in 1975 for her song “At Seventeen”, and the second in 2013 for Best Spoken Word, for her autobiography, “Society's Child”.
    1951 – Ben Hogan won the Masters with a 280.
    1953 – Top Hits
“Pretend” – Nat King Cole
“Till I Waltz Again with You” – Teresa Brewer
“I Believe” – Frankie Laine
“Your Cheatin’ Heart” – Hank Williams
    1954 – Birthday of football Hall of Famer Anthony Drew “Tony” Dorsett, Rochester, Pa.  He won the 1976 Heisman Trophy as a running back from the University of Pittsburgh and was drafted in the first round by the Dallas Cowboys with whom he established his Hall of Fame career.  In 1983, Dorsett broke a 99-yard touchdown run against the Vikings, which is the longest run from scrimmage in NFL history.  He is the first of only two players in history (with Marcus Allen) who has won the Heisman Trophy, won the Super Bowl, won the College National Championship, been enshrined in the College Hall of Fame, and been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall Of Fame.
    1954 – “Gee”, by The Crows, became the first rhythm and blues single to gain attention on pop music charts.
    1954 – President Eisenhower gave his speech on the domino theory regarding the spread of communism in Indochina: ”Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. 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. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.”
    1956 – Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” is released.
    1956 – The CBS Radio Network debuts the first regularly scheduled, nationally broadcast Rock and Roll show, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Party”, with Alan Freed as host.
    1956 – The Platters made their television debut on the Dorsey Brothers' “Stage Show”, broadcast on CBS.
    1957 – Cable cars resume clambering up and down Hyde Street for the first time in nearly three years. The new route is a combination of parts of the Washington and Jackson lines and the end of the Hyde line.
    1958 – The Platters’ “Twilight Time” is released.
    1958 - The Capitol label officially abandons issuing 78 rpm records.
    1958 – To welcome their new team, the Dodgers, for their first season in LA, the LA Memorial Coliseum erected a 42-foot screen in left field to cut down on home runs, since it is only 250 feet down the line
    1959 – Marty Robbins recorded “El Paso”.
    1961 – Top Hits
“Blue Moon” – The Marcels
“Apache” – Jorgen Ingmann
“On the Rebound” – Floyd Cramer
“Don’t Worry” – Marty Robbins
    1962 – The Rolling Stones began to take shape when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met guitarist Brian Jones at the Ealing Jazz Club. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts came into the picture in January of 1963.
    1962 - Elvis arrived in Hawaii to begin shooting the ocean shots for his latest film, “Blue Hawaii”. At his hotel, the Kaiser Hawaiian Village, he was mobbed by over a thousand fans and sprints away from them, losing several pieces of jewelry in the process. (His ring was returned the next day.)
    1962 - Bobby Rydell was ironically cast as Hugo Peabody in the film version of the hit Broadway musical “Bye Bye Birdie”.
    1964 – IBM launched System/360.
    1969 – Ted Williams made his debut as a major league manager as the New York Yankees defeated his Washington Senators 8-4 in Washington’s RFK Stadium before 45,000. The Senators finished the year in fourth place for the AL West with a record of 86-76. This was and has been considered one of the great managerial seasons on record as the Senators were woeful.  William’s managerial career lasted four seasons. His team won 273 games and lost 364.
    1969 – Top Hits
“Dizzy” – Tommy Roe
“Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In” – The 5th Dimension
“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” – Blood, Sweat & Tears
“Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass” – Buck Owens
    1969 – The Internet’s symbolic birthdate with the publication of RFC (Request for Comment) 1.  Request for Comments documents were invented by Steve Crocker in 1969 to help record unofficial notes on the development of ARPANET. RFCs have since become official documents of Internet specs, communications protocols, procedures, and events.  Today, it is the official publication channel for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and  to some extent, the global community of computer network researchers in general.  Oddly there is no mention of Al Gore’s role in all of this!!!
    1969 – Former Niners RB and Super Bowl hero Ricky Watters was born in Harrisburg, PA.
    1970 - Three weeks after moving hurriedly from Seattle, where they were called the Pilots, the Milwaukee Brewers made their American League debut, losing to the California Angels 12-0, at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Brewers finished fourth in the AL West in 1970 with a record of 65-97. They won their first division pennant in 1982 but lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
    1970 – John Wayne, a veteran of over 200 films, won his first and only Oscar. The Duke received the Academy Award for Best Actor for “True Grit”, which also starred Kim Darby and Glen Campbell. Estimates show movie-goers paid over $500 million to see John Wayne in his films which include: “The Big Trail”, “Reap the Wild Wind”, “The Long Voyage Home”, “Red River”, “The Quiet Man” and “The Sands of Iwo Jima”.  The only other film to earn him an Oscar nomination was “Midnight Cowboy”, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, becoming the first X- rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony.  B.J. Thomas' "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head," featured in the Redford/Newman film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, won Best Original Song.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0149147.html
    1973 - Vicki Lawrence got her number one single as “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” made it to the top of the pop charts.
    1977 - The Toronto Blue Jays, an American League expansion team, played their first regular season game, beating the Chicago white Sox, 9-5, at Toronto's Exhibition stadium. The Jays finished last in the AL East in 1977 with a record of 54-108. They won their first division title in 1985.
    1977 - AT&T celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the First Television Broadcast, a public broadcast to New York City from Washington, DC, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover. Could this have been the first C-SPAN?
http://www.newstream.com/cgi-bin/display_story.cgi?5472
    1977 - Top Hits
“Rich Girl” - Daryl Hall & John Oates
“Dancing Queen” - Abba
“Don't Give Up on Us” - David Soul
“Lucille” - Kenny Rogers
    1979 - Houston pitcher, Ken Forsch, tossed a no-hitter over the Atlanta Braves, 6-0. Forsch only walked two batters in the earliest no-hitter ever pitched in a baseball season. He and brother, Bob, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, were the only brothers to ever pitch no-hitters in the big leagues when Bob pitched a no-hitter on April 16, 1978.
    1979 - "Music Box Dancer", an instrumental by Canadian pianist Frank Mills, became the number-one single in the US, the first instrumental in several years to reach the top of the charts. In Mills' home country, the record only made it to #47.
    1979 - The two-day California Music Festival at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum opens. 110,000 people pour in and it makes $1.2 million. The promoters claim it's a financial loss though performers like Aerosmith, the Bootown Rats, Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent and Van Halen make appearances.
    1980 - President Jimmy Carter broke off diplomatic relations with Iran and ordered out all Iranian embassy staff because of the detention of United States embassy hostages in Tehran.
    1981 - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played their first concert outside North America, opening their new tour at the Congress Centre in Hamburg.
    1982 - Seven people die in the firestorm that engulfs the Caldecott Tunnel when an AC Transit bus collides with a gasoline truck in the westbound lanes at about 12:15 a.m. Steve Rutledge heroically saves lives by running back to the tunnel entrance and stopping cars that otherwise would have driven in the inferno. Rutledge's mother, June, dies in the explosion.
    1984 - Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers tied the record for the earliest no-hitter in a season when he beat Chicago 4-0. A national television audience watched as Morris struck out eight batters, and walked six, for the first no-hitter thrown in Comiskey Park, Chicago, in 17 years.
    1985 - Top Hits
“One More Night” - Phil Collins
“We are the World” - USA for Africa
“Crazy for You” - Madonna
“Country Girls” - John Schneider
    1986 - Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans becomes the first player to hit the first pitch on Opening Day for a home run. Jack Morris throws the gopher ball but gets the win as the Tigers edges Boston, 6-5.
    1987 - International Falls, MN, with record warm afternoon high of 71 degrees, was warmer than Miami, FL, where the high was a record cool 66 degrees.
    1988 - High winds in the Middle Atlantic Coast Region gusted to 172 mph atop Grandfather Mountain, NC. Twenty-nine cities in the southwest and north central U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date, including Yankton, SD with a reading of 91 degrees.
    1989 - Twenty-seven cities in the southwestern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Afternoon highs of 92 degrees in Downtown San Francisco and 104 degrees at Phoenix established records for April. Highs of 78 degrees at Ely, NV and 93 degrees at San Jose equaled April records.
    1990 - Farm Aid IV is held at the Indiana Hoosier Dome. Performers include Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Guns N' Roses and Jackson Browne. Elton John dedicates "Candle in the Wind" to AIDS patient Ryan White during the show. White dies later that night.
    1990 - Low pressure brought strong winds to the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. Winds gusted to 68 mph at Port Heiden two days in a row. Unseasonably warm weather prevailed across central Alaska. Yakutat reported a record high of 54 degrees. Unseasonably cold weather prevailed over central sections of the Lower Forty-eight states. A dozen cities from Kansas to Indiana and Alabama reported record low temperatures for the date. Evansville, IN equaled their record for April with a morning low of 23 degrees.
    1990 – In Iran-Contra, National Security Advisor John Poindexter was found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal (the conviction is later reversed on appeal).
    1997 - Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for music. He won for "Blood on the Fields," a three-hour work for big band and three singers.
    2003 - Syracuse wins the NCCA Mens’ basketball title at the Louisiana Superdome.  Syracuse won their first national championship in three tries under Jim Boeheim, defeating Kansas 81-78 in what would be Roy Williams’ final game as head coach of the team.  He left to become the head coach at North Carolina, a position he still holds as of the 2014-2015 season.  Carmelo Anthony of Syracuse was named the tournament's MVP.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/college/2003/n
caa_tourney/news/2003/04/07/championship_gamer_ap/
    2003 – US troops captured Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s regime fell two days later.
    2008 - Kansas Jayhawks defeated the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in overtime at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, to win their fifth national championship, and third NCAA championship. On August 20, 2009, the NCAA forced Memphis to vacate all of its wins from the 2007-08 season, as well as their trip to the Final Four and the NCAA Championship Game. The penalty, which was due to use of an ineligible player, widely believed to be Derrick Rose, was upheld by the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee on March 22, 2010.
    2008 - 66 year old Bob Dylan received an honorary Pulitzer Prize for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
    2008 - Olivia Newton-John began a walk across the entire length of China's Great Wall in order to raise funds for and awareness of the battle to cure breast cancer. The walk took three weeks and covered 141 miles.
    2014 - The UConn Huskies beat the University of Kentucky Wildcats 60-54 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Division I championship title

NBA Champions This Date
    1956 - Philadelphia Warriors
NCCA Champions This Date
    2003 - Syracuse
    2004 - UConn
    2008 - Kansas
    2014 - UConn