Today is April 12. On this date in:
1861
The Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
1862
Union volunteers stole a Confederate locomotive near Marietta, Georgia, and headed toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, on a mission to sabotage as much of the rail line as they could; the raiders were caught.
1877
The catcher’s mask was first used in a baseball game by James Tyng of Harvard in a game against the Lynn Live Oaks.
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.
1954
Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock.”
1955
The Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
1961
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the Earth once before making a safe landing.
1963
Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit.
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.
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.
2018
Police in Philadelphia arrested two black men at a Starbucks; they had been asked to leave after one was denied access to the restroom. (Starbucks apologized and, weeks later, closed thousands of stores for part of the day to conduct anti-bias training.)
Source link
