April 4
1818 - Congress adopted a U.S. flag which consisted of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state added to the Union.
1841 - President William Henry Harrison died from pneumonia, one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office.
1850 - The city of Los Angeles was incorporated.
1865 - President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by his son Tad, visited the vanquished Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, where he was greeted by a crowd that included former slaves.
1902 - British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships at Oxford University in England.
1917 - The U.S. Senate voted 82-6 in favor of declaring war against Germany (the House followed suit two days later by a vote of 373-50).
1933 - The Navy airship USS Akron crashed in severe weather off the New Jersey coast with the loss of 73 lives.
1945 - The Ohrdruf death camp was liberated from Nazi occupation.
1949 - Twelve nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
1968 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; his slaying was followed by a wave of rioting (Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago were among cities particularly hard hit.) Suspected gunman James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to assassinating King, then spent the rest of his life claiming he’d been the victim of a setup.
1973 - A ribbon cutting ceremony was held in New York City to mark the opening of the World Trade Center.
1975 - Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
1979 - Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed by the military.
1981 - Henry Cisneros became the first Hispanic elected mayor of a major U.S. city - San Antonio, Texas.
1983 - Sally K. Ride became the first U.S. woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
1988 - The Arizona Senate convicted Gov. Evan Mecham of two charges of official misconduct and removed him from office.
1991 - U.S. Senator John Heinz (R-Pennsylvania), and six others, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.
2003 - U.S. forces seized Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad.
2006 - The Iraq tribunal charged Saddam Hussein and six others, accusing them of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from a 1980s crackdown against Kurds.
2007 - Radio host Don Imus made offensive on-air remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. He was later fired by CBS Radio and cable network MSNBC.
2011 - Yielding to political opposition, the Obama administration gave up on trying avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian federal courts and said it would prosecute them instead before military commissions.
2015 - In North Charleston, South Carolina, Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black motorist, was shot to death while running away from a traffic stop; Officer Michael Thomas Slager, seen in a cellphone video opening fire at Scott, was charged with murder. (The charge, which lingered after a first state trial ended in a mistrial, was dropped as part of a deal under which Slager pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.)
2016 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in Evenwel v. Abbott, unanimously endorsed election maps that bolstered the growing political influence of America's Latinos, ruling that states could count everyone, not just eligible voters, in drawing voting districts.
Birthdays
21 - Aliyah Royale (actress)
25 - Austin Mahone (singer)
28 - Daniela Bobadilla (actress)
29 - Antonia Giesen (actress)
29 - Alexa Nikolas (actress)
30 - Jessica Serfaty (model)
30 - Jamie Lynn Spears (actress/singer)
38 - Amanda Righetti (actress)
38 - Eric Andre (actor)
42 - Natasha Lyonne (actress)
45 - James Roday (actor)
48 - Kelly Price (singer)
48 - David Blaine (magician)
49 - Lisa Ray (model)
49 - Jill Scott (singer)
51 - Barry Pepper (actor)
55 - Nancy McKeon (actress)
56 - Robert Downey Jr. (actor)
57 - David Cross (actor)
58 - Graham Norton (talk show host/comedian)
61 - Hugo Weaving (actor)
61 - Lorraine Toussaint (actress)
62 - Phil Morris (actor)
63 - Constance Shulman (actress)
65 - David E. Kelley (producer)
67 - Mary-Margaret Humes (actress)
70 - Steve Gatlin (country singer)
71 - Christine Lahti (actress)
76 - Walter Charles (actor)
77 - Craig T. Nelson (actor)
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Today in Sports History - April 4
1921 - The Ottawa Senators beat the Vancouver Millionaires in the 1921 Stanley Cup Finals. The Senators became the first NHL team to win back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.
1937 - Byron Nelson wins the Masters.
1938 - Henry Picard wins the Masters.
1948 - 84-year-old Connie Mack challenges 78-year-old Clark Griffith to a race from home to first base; it ends in a tie.
1974 - Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth's career home run record by hitting his 714th home run in a game against the Cincinnati Reds.
1983 - North Carolina State defeats Houston 54-52 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1986 - Wayne Gretzky set an NHL record with his 213th point of the season.
1987 - Denis Potvin (New York Islanders) became the first defenseman in NHL history to score 1,000 career points. His career total was 1,052.
1988 - Kansas defeats Oklahoma 83-79 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1989 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar plays in his final NBA game.
1993 - Texas Tech defeats Ohio State 84-82 to win the NCAA Women's Tournament.
1993 - WrestleMania IX is held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The main event saw Yokozuna defeat Bret "The Hitman" Hart to win the WWF Championship; Hulk Hogan then issued an open challenge and defeated Yokozuna to claim the championship for himself.
1994 - Arkansas defeats Duke 76-72 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1994 - Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes (Chicago Cubs) became the first player in the National League to hit three home runs on Opening Day.
1996 - The Boston Celtics beat the Orlando Magic 100-98. The loss was the Magic's first loss to an Eastern Conference team at home since April of 1994. The streak was 51 games long.
1996 - Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls) became the fourth player in NBA history to reach 2,000 career steals.
1998 - NFL Europe, formerly known as the World League of American Football, kicks off its season.
1998 - Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) became the second National League player to hit a home run in the first four games of a season. Willie Mays (San Francisco) had hit home runs in the first four games of the 1971 season.
1999 - The Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres played the first major league season opener to be held in Mexico. The Rockies beat the Padres 8-2. The game was also the first season opener to be held in a country other than the United States or Canada.
2003 - Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the 18th player in major league history to hit 500 career home runs.
2005 - North Carolina defeats Illinois 75-70 to win the NCAA Tournament.
2006 - Maryland defeats Duke 78-75 in overtime to win the NCAA Women's Tournament.
2011 - Connecticut defeated Butler 53-41 to win the NCAA Tournament.
2016 - Villanova defeated North Carolina 77-74 on a three-point shot at the buzzer to win the NCAA Tournament.
1818 - Congress adopted a U.S. flag which consisted of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state added to the Union.
1841 - President William Henry Harrison died from pneumonia, one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office.
1850 - The city of Los Angeles was incorporated.
1865 - President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by his son Tad, visited the vanquished Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, where he was greeted by a crowd that included former slaves.
1902 - British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships at Oxford University in England.
1917 - The U.S. Senate voted 82-6 in favor of declaring war against Germany (the House followed suit two days later by a vote of 373-50).
1933 - The Navy airship USS Akron crashed in severe weather off the New Jersey coast with the loss of 73 lives.
1945 - The Ohrdruf death camp was liberated from Nazi occupation.
1949 - Twelve nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
1968 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; his slaying was followed by a wave of rioting (Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago were among cities particularly hard hit.) Suspected gunman James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to assassinating King, then spent the rest of his life claiming he’d been the victim of a setup.
1973 - A ribbon cutting ceremony was held in New York City to mark the opening of the World Trade Center.
1975 - Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
1979 - Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed by the military.
1981 - Henry Cisneros became the first Hispanic elected mayor of a major U.S. city - San Antonio, Texas.
1983 - Sally K. Ride became the first U.S. woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
1988 - The Arizona Senate convicted Gov. Evan Mecham of two charges of official misconduct and removed him from office.
1991 - U.S. Senator John Heinz (R-Pennsylvania), and six others, including two children, were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.
2003 - U.S. forces seized Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad.
2006 - The Iraq tribunal charged Saddam Hussein and six others, accusing them of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from a 1980s crackdown against Kurds.
2007 - Radio host Don Imus made offensive on-air remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. He was later fired by CBS Radio and cable network MSNBC.
2011 - Yielding to political opposition, the Obama administration gave up on trying avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian federal courts and said it would prosecute them instead before military commissions.
2015 - In North Charleston, South Carolina, Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black motorist, was shot to death while running away from a traffic stop; Officer Michael Thomas Slager, seen in a cellphone video opening fire at Scott, was charged with murder. (The charge, which lingered after a first state trial ended in a mistrial, was dropped as part of a deal under which Slager pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.)
2016 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in Evenwel v. Abbott, unanimously endorsed election maps that bolstered the growing political influence of America's Latinos, ruling that states could count everyone, not just eligible voters, in drawing voting districts.
Birthdays
21 - Aliyah Royale (actress)
25 - Austin Mahone (singer)
28 - Daniela Bobadilla (actress)
29 - Antonia Giesen (actress)
29 - Alexa Nikolas (actress)
30 - Jessica Serfaty (model)
30 - Jamie Lynn Spears (actress/singer)
38 - Amanda Righetti (actress)
38 - Eric Andre (actor)
42 - Natasha Lyonne (actress)
45 - James Roday (actor)
48 - Kelly Price (singer)
48 - David Blaine (magician)
49 - Lisa Ray (model)
49 - Jill Scott (singer)
51 - Barry Pepper (actor)
55 - Nancy McKeon (actress)
56 - Robert Downey Jr. (actor)
57 - David Cross (actor)
58 - Graham Norton (talk show host/comedian)
61 - Hugo Weaving (actor)
61 - Lorraine Toussaint (actress)
62 - Phil Morris (actor)
63 - Constance Shulman (actress)
65 - David E. Kelley (producer)
67 - Mary-Margaret Humes (actress)
70 - Steve Gatlin (country singer)
71 - Christine Lahti (actress)
76 - Walter Charles (actor)
77 - Craig T. Nelson (actor)
=======================================
Today in Sports History - April 4
1921 - The Ottawa Senators beat the Vancouver Millionaires in the 1921 Stanley Cup Finals. The Senators became the first NHL team to win back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.
1937 - Byron Nelson wins the Masters.
1938 - Henry Picard wins the Masters.
1948 - 84-year-old Connie Mack challenges 78-year-old Clark Griffith to a race from home to first base; it ends in a tie.
1974 - Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth's career home run record by hitting his 714th home run in a game against the Cincinnati Reds.
1983 - North Carolina State defeats Houston 54-52 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1986 - Wayne Gretzky set an NHL record with his 213th point of the season.
1987 - Denis Potvin (New York Islanders) became the first defenseman in NHL history to score 1,000 career points. His career total was 1,052.
1988 - Kansas defeats Oklahoma 83-79 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1989 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar plays in his final NBA game.
1993 - Texas Tech defeats Ohio State 84-82 to win the NCAA Women's Tournament.
1993 - WrestleMania IX is held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The main event saw Yokozuna defeat Bret "The Hitman" Hart to win the WWF Championship; Hulk Hogan then issued an open challenge and defeated Yokozuna to claim the championship for himself.
1994 - Arkansas defeats Duke 76-72 to win the NCAA Tournament.
1994 - Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes (Chicago Cubs) became the first player in the National League to hit three home runs on Opening Day.
1996 - The Boston Celtics beat the Orlando Magic 100-98. The loss was the Magic's first loss to an Eastern Conference team at home since April of 1994. The streak was 51 games long.
1996 - Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls) became the fourth player in NBA history to reach 2,000 career steals.
1998 - NFL Europe, formerly known as the World League of American Football, kicks off its season.
1998 - Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) became the second National League player to hit a home run in the first four games of a season. Willie Mays (San Francisco) had hit home runs in the first four games of the 1971 season.
1999 - The Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres played the first major league season opener to be held in Mexico. The Rockies beat the Padres 8-2. The game was also the first season opener to be held in a country other than the United States or Canada.
2003 - Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the 18th player in major league history to hit 500 career home runs.
2005 - North Carolina defeats Illinois 75-70 to win the NCAA Tournament.
2006 - Maryland defeats Duke 78-75 in overtime to win the NCAA Women's Tournament.
2011 - Connecticut defeated Butler 53-41 to win the NCAA Tournament.
2016 - Villanova defeated North Carolina 77-74 on a three-point shot at the buzzer to win the NCAA Tournament.