Thursday, April 01st
The 091st day of 2010.
There are 274 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
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On April 1, 1945, American forces invaded Okinawa during World War II. (Go to article.)
On April 1, 1884, Florence Blanchfield, an American nurse who was the first woman to become a fully ranked officer of the U.S. Army, was born. Following her death on May 12, 1971, her obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On April 1, 1864, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about April Fool's Day. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
1789 The U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in New York City; Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first speaker.
1853 Cincinnati, Ohio, became the first U.S. city to pay its firefighters a regular salary.
1873 Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Russia.
1918 Britain's Royal Air Force was established.
1933 Nazi Germany began persecuting Jews with a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.
1960 The first weather satellite, TIROS-1, was launched from Cape Canaveral.
1970 President Richard Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and TV.
1984 Singer Marvin Gaye, 44, was shot to death by his father.
1987 In his first major speech on the epidemic, President Ronald Reagan told doctors in Philadelphia, "We've declared AIDS public health enemy No. 1."
1999 A New Jersey man was arrested and charged with originating the "Melissa" e-mail virus, which infected more than 1 million computers worldwide.
2001 Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested on corruption charges after a 26-hour armed standoff with police at his Belgrade villa.
2003 American troops rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, where she had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed nine days earlier.
2008 The Pentagon made public a legal memo dated March 14, 2003, that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President George W. Bush's wartime authority trumped any international ban on torture.
2009 Benjamin Netanyahu took office as Israel's prime minister for a second time.
Current Birthdays
Jimmy Cliff turns 62 years old today.
AP Photo/Peter Kramer Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff turns 62 years old today.
82 Jane Powell
Actress
78 Debbie Reynolds
Actress
72 Ali MacGraw
Actress
71 Rudolph Isley
R&B singer (The Isley Brothers)
71 Phil Niekro
Baseball Hall of Famer
63 David Eisenhower
Grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
61 Gil Scott-Heron
Jazz keyboardist
60 Samuel Alito
Supreme Court justice
58 Annette O'Toole
Actress
57 Barry Sonnenfeld
Director
39 Method Man
Rapper
37 Rachel Maddow
Broadcast journalist
28 Sam Huntington
Actor
26 Hillary Scott (Lady Antebellum)
Country singer
Historic Birthdays
Florence Blanchfield
4/1/1884 - 5/12/1971
American nurse and army officer
(Go to obit.)
79 William Harvey
4/1/1578 - 6/3/1657
English physician; developed theory of blood circulation
61 Jean-Etienne Portalis
4/1/1746 - 8/25/1807
French lawyer; helped draft Napoleonic Code
83 Otto von Bismarck
4/1/1815 - 7/30/1898
German statesman; first chancellor of German Empire (1871-90)
58 Jorge Isaacs
4/1/1837 - 4/17/1895
Colombian poet and novelist
59 Edwin Austin Abbey
4/1/1852 - 8/1/1911
American-English painter and illustrator
50 Edmond Rostand
4/1/1868 - 12/2/1918
French dramatist; wrote "Cyrano de Bergerac"
69 Sergey Rachmaninoff
4/1/1873 - 3/28/1943
Russian composer and piano virtuoso
56 Edgar Wallace
4/1/1875 - 2/10/1932
English novelist, playwright, and journalist
47 Lon Chaney
4/1/1883 - 8/26/1930
American silent film actor
60 Whittaker Chambers
4/1/1901 - 7/9/1961
American journalist; accuser in the Alger Hiss case
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