7th April: Today In History

Today is Friday, April 7th, the 97th day of 2017. There are 268 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1917:  American entertainer and songwriter George M. Cohan, galvanized by America’s entry into World War I the day before, wrote his rousing call to arms, “Over There.”

1788:  An expedition led by Gen. Rufus Putnam established a settlement at present-day Marietta, Ohio.

1862:  Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

1927:  The image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover were transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

1939:  Italy invaded Albania, which was annexed less than a week later.

1947:  Auto pioneer Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan, at age 83.

1957:  Shortly after midnight, the last of New York’s electric trolleys completed its final run from Queens to Manhattan.

1962:  Nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion were convicted of treason.

1967:  “The Death of a President,” William Manchester’s detailed reconstruction of the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was published in book form by Harper & Row after being serialized in Look magazine.

1978:  President Jimmy Carter announced he was deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

1984:  The Census Bureau reported Los Angeles had overtaken Chicago as the nation’s “second city” in terms of population.

1994:  Civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; in the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu moderates were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

2001:  NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft took off on a six-month, 286 million-mile journey to the Red Planet.

Birthdays:

Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 82.

Country singer Bobby Bare is 82.

Rhythm-and-blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 80.

California Gov. Jerry Brown is 79.

Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 78.

Actress Roberta Shore is 74.

Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 70.

Singer John Oates is 69.

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is 68.

Singer Janis Ian is 66.