Today is Saturday, April 11, the 102nd day of 2020. There are 264 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 11, 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors.
On this date:
In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of the French and was banished to the island of Elba. (Napoleon later escaped from Elba and returned to power in March 1815, until his downfall in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.)
In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House, saying, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.” (It was the last public address Lincoln would deliver.)
In 1921, Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax, at 2 cents a package.
In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany.
In 1951, President Harry S. Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1970, Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan returned to the White House from the hospital, 12 days after he was wounded in an assassination attempt. Race-related rioting erupted in the Brixton district of south London.
Today’s Birthdays: Ethel Kennedy is 92. Actor Joel Grey is 88. Actress Louise Lasser is 81. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman is 79. Movie writer-director John Milius is 76. Actor Peter Riegert is 73. Movie director Carl Franklin is 71. Actor Bill Irwin is 70. Country singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale is 63. Songwriter-producer Daryl Simmons is 63.
Thought for Today: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut, American author (born 1922, died this date in 2007).
