On This Day in History - April 4th - Almanac

Today is Wednesday, April 4, the 94th day of 2018 with 271 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn. Evening stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include social reformer Dorothea Dix in 1802; inventor Linus Yale, developer of the cylinder lock, in 1821; baseball Hall of Fame member Tris Speaker in 1888; actor Bea Benaderet in 1906; blues musician Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield, in 1913; author Maya Angelou in 1928; actor Anthony Perkins in 1932; former baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1938; South African musician Hugh Masekela in 1939; golf Hall of Fame member JoAnne Carner in 1939 (age 79); author Kitty Kelley in 1942 (age 76); actor Craig T. Nelson in 1944 (age 74); actor Christine Lahti in 1950 (age 68); actor Hugo Weaving in 1960 (age 58); Irish television talk show host Graham Norton in 1963 (age 55); actor David Cross in 1964 (age 54); actor Robert Downey Jr. in 1965 (age 53); singer Jill Scott in 1972 (age 46); magician David Blaine in 1973 (age 45); actor James Roday in 1976 (age 42); actor Heath Ledger in 1979; actor Natasha Lyonne in 1979 (age 39); actor Eric Andre in 1983 (age 35); singer/actor Jamie Lynn Spears in 1991 (age 27).

On this date in history:

In 1841, President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after serving one month in office. He was the ninth President of the United States, and the first to die in office. He was succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, the first person to occupy the office without being elected to it.

In 1850, the city of Los Angeles was incorporated.

In 1887, Susanna Madora Salter was elected as the first female mayor in the United States -- in Argonia, Kan.

In 1933, the USS Akron, a U.S. Navy airship, is destroyed during a major storm off the coast of New Jersey. The tragedy claimed the lives of 73 of the 76 crewmen and passengers.

In 1949, representatives of 12 nations gathered in Washington to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the NATO alliance.

In 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tenn. He was 39.

In 1975, Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off on its inaugural mission.

In 1991, Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and six others were killed in the midair collision of a chartered airplane and a helicopter that was inspecting the plane's landing gear near Philadelphia.

In 1994, Netscape is founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark under its original name, the Mosaic Communications Corporation.

In 2005, the president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, officially resigned. He had been driven out by a coup a month earlier.

In 2013, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago film critic Roger Ebert died after a long battle with cancer. He was 70.

In 2013, a British judge told Mick Philpott, 56, he had "no moral compass" and sentenced him to life in prison for setting a fire that killed six of his children.

In 2014, the United Nations announced that the millionth refugee from war-torn Syria had entered Lebanon.

In 2017, Syrian government forces kill dozens of civilians in a chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

A thought for the day: "There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all." -- Lou Gehrig