On This Day in History - April 3rd - Almanac

Today is Friday, April 3, the 94th day of 2020 with 272 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include historian/story writer Washington Irving in 1783; author/naturalist John Burroughs in 1837; actor Leslie Howard in 1893; dancer Sally Rand in 1904; actor Iron Eyes Cody, born Espera Oscar de Corti, in 1904; newspaper columnist Herb Caen in 1916; actor Doris Day in 1922; actor Marlon Brando in 1924; astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom in 1926; former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1930; anthropologist Jane Goodall in 1934 (age 86); actor Marsha Mason in 1942 (age 78); entertainer Wayne Newton in 1942 (age 78); singer Tony Orlando in 1944 (age 76); musician Richard Thompson in 1949 (age 71); actor Alec Baldwin in 1958 (age 62); actor David Hyde Pierce in 1959 (age 61); actor/comedian Eddie Murphy in 1961 (age 59); singer Sebastian Bach in 1968 (age 52); Olympic skier Picabo Street in 1971 (age 49); actor Jennie Garth in 1972 (age 48); actor Adam Scott in 1973 (age 47); actor Cobie Smulders in 1982 (age 38); dancer/actor Sofia Boutella in 1982 (age 38); actor/singer Chrissie Fit in 1984 (age 36); singer Leona Lewis in 1985 (age 35); actor Amanda Bynes in 1986 (age 34); rapper Young M.A, born Katorah Marrero, in 1992 (age 28); actor/model Paris Jackson in 1998 (age 22); actor Elsie Fisher in 2003 (age 17).

On this date in history:

In 1860, the Pony Express postal service began, with riders leaving St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento at the same time.

In 1865, as the Civil War drew to a close, Richmond, Va., and nearby Petersburg surrendered to Union forces.

In 1882, outlaw Jesse James was shot to death by Robert Ford, a former gang member who hoped to collect the reward on James' head.

In 1936, Richard Bruno Hauptmann was executed for killing the 20-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh.

In 1944, in a case out of Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that barring African Americans from voting violated the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, aimed to help European countries recover from World War II.

In 1989, Richard M. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago, the post his father, Richard J. Daley, had occupied for 21 years (1955-76). The new Mayor Daley was re-elected five times.

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council passed a cease-fire resolution to end the Persian Gulf War.

In 1995, owners and players of Major League Baseball approved an agreement ending a 232-day strike that forced the cancellation of hundreds of games and the 1994 World Series.

In 1996, the FBI raided a Montana cabin and arrested Theodore Kaczynski, a former college professor, accusing him of being the "Unabomber" whose mail bombs had killed three people and injured 23 since the 1970s. Kaczynski was sentenced to life in prison.

In 1996, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and 32 other Americans died when their plane crashed into a mountain in Croatia.

In 2000, the Department of Justice ruled that Microsoft had become a monopoly and in the process, had violated U.S. antitrust law. Four months later the court ordered the breakup of the technology company.

In 2010, Apple released the first generation of its iPad and within a month had sold more than 1 million devices.

In 2014, longtime late-night TV host David Letterman announced he would retire in 2015.

In 2016, the so-called Panama Papers, an unprecedented leak of millions of documents, revealed that politicians, prominent world leaders, and celebrities hid millions in secret offshore tax shelters to skirt tax laws.

In 2019, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected after a record-setting 63 seconds into a loss against the Denver Nuggets.

A thought for the day: "Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart." -- American writer Washington Irving