25th April: Today In History

Today is Tuesday, April 25th, the 115th day of 2017. There are 250 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1507:  A world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (vehs-POO’-chee).

404 B.C:  The Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta.

1792:  French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine.

1862:  During the Civil War, a Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut captured the city of New Orleans.

1915:  During World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli (guh-LIHP’-uh-lee) Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

1917:  Legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia.

1945:  During World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe (EL’-beh) River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany’s defenses. Delegates from some 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.

1959:  The St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping.

1964:  Vandals sawed off the head of the “Little Mermaid” statue in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1974:  The “Carnation Revolution” took place in Portugal as a bloodless military coup toppled the Estado Novo regime.

1983, 10-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, received a reply from Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov to a letter she’d written expressing her concerns about nuclear war; Andropov gave assurances that the Soviet Union did not want war, and invited Samantha to visit his country, a trip she made in July.

1990:  The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.)

2002:  Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the Grammy-winning trio TLC died in an SUV crash in Honduras; she was 30.

Birthdays:

Actor Al Pacino is 77.

Ballroom dance judge Len Goodman (TV: “Dancing with the Stars”) is 73.

Rock musician Stu Cook (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 72.

Singer Bjorn Ulvaeus (BYORN ul-VAY’-us) (ABBA) is 72.

Actress Talia Shire is 72.

Actor Jeffrey DeMunn is 70.

Rock musician Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 67.

Country singer-songwriter Rob Crosby is 63.