29th April: Today In History

Today is Saturday, April 29th, the 119th day of 2017. There are 246 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1992:  Ajury in Simi Valley, California, acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King; the verdicts were followed by several days of rioting in Los Angeles resulting in 55 deaths.

1429:  Joan of Arc entered the besieged city of Orleans to lead a French victory over the English.

1798:  Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation” was rehearsed in Vienna, Austria, before an invited audience.

1817:  Representatives of the United States and Britain concluded the Rush-Bagot Agreement, which limited the number of naval vessels allowed in the Great Lakes.

1861:  The Maryland House of Delegates voted 53-13 against seceding from the Union. In Montgomery, Alabama, President Jefferson Davis asked the Confederate Congress for the authority to wage war.

1916:  The Easter Rising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities.

1945:  During World War II, American soldiers liberated the Dachau (DAH’-khow) concentration camp. Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun inside his “Fuhrerbunker” and designated Adm. Karl Doenitz (DUHR’-nihtz) president.

1957:  The SM-1, the first military nuclear power plant, was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

1967:  Aretha Franklin’s cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” was released as a single by Atlantic Records.

1977:  Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, participated in a Christian unity service in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

1987:  Ronnie DeSillers, a 7-year-old liver recipient whose story had prompted thousands of Americans, including President Ronald Reagan, to lend support, died at a Pittsburgh hospital while awaiting a fourth transplant.

1997:  Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees (he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and dishonorably discharged). A worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons went into effect. Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev (sihb-BLEE’-yehv) went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk. Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist Mike Royko died in Chicago at age 64.

2011:  Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton were married in an opulent ceremony at London’s Westminster Abbey.

Birthdays:

Actor Keith Baxter is 84.

Bluesman Otis Rush is 82.

Conductor Zubin Mehta is 81.

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff is 79.

Pop singer Bob Miranda (The Happenings) is 75.

Country singer Duane Allen (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 74.

Singer Tommy James is 70.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., is 67.

Movie director Phillip Noyce is 67.

Country musician Wayne Secrest (Confederate Railroad) is 67.