8th April: Today In History

Today is Saturday, April 8th, the 98th day of 2017. There are 267 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1952: President Harry S. Truman seized the American steel industry to avert a nationwide strike. (The Supreme Court later ruled that Truman had overstepped his authority, opening the way for a seven-week strike by steelworkers.)

1820:  The Venus de Milo statue was discovered by a farmer on the Greek island of Milos.

1864:  The United States Senate passed, 38-6, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery. (The House of Representatives passed it in Jan. 1865; the amendment was ratified and adopted in Dec. 1865.)

1904:  Longacre Square in Manhattan was renamed Times Square after The New York Times.

1913:  The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for popular election of U.S. senators (as opposed to appointment by state legislatures), was ratified. President Woodrow Wilson became the first chief executive since John Adams to address Congress in person as he asked lawmakers to enact tariff reform.

1935:  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which provided money for programs such as the Works Progress Administration.

1946:  The League of Nations assembled in Geneva for its final session.

1961:  A suspected bomb exploded aboard the passenger liner MV Dara in the Persian Gulf, causing it to sink; 238 of the 819 people aboard were killed.

1973:  Artist Pablo Picasso died in Mougins (MOO’-zhun), France, at age 91.

1974:  Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, breaking Babe Ruth’s record.

1987:  Al Campanis, vice president of player personnel for the Los Angeles Dodgers, resigned after saying on ABC’s “Nightline” that blacks might lack some of the “necessities” for becoming baseball managers.

1990:  Ryan White, the teenage AIDS patient whose battle for acceptance had gained national attention, died in Indianapolis at age 18. The cult TV series “Twin Peaks” premiered on ABC.

1992:  Tennis great Arthur Ashe announced at a New York news conference that he had AIDS, having contracted the virus during a 1983 heart operation (Ashe died in Feb. 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49).

Birthdays:

Comedian Shecky Greene is 91.

Actor-turned-diplomat John Gavin is 86.

Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh is 80. 

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is 79.

Basketball Hall-of-Famer John Havlicek is 77.

“Mouseketeer” Darlene Gillespie is 76.

Rhythm-and-blues singer J.J. Jackson is 76.

Singer Peggy Lennon (The Lennon Sisters) is 76.

Songwriter-producer Leon Huff is 75.

Actor Hywel Bennett is 73.