Today is Friday, April 24, the 115th day of 2020. There are 251 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 24, 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
On this date:
In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress.
In 1913, the 792-foot Woolworth Building, at that time the tallest skyscraper in the world, officially opened in Manhattan as President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button at the White House to signal the lighting of the towering structure.
In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.
In 1986, Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, for whom King Edward VIII had given up the British throne, died in Paris at age 89.
In 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three men and injured 29 others.)
In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI formally began his stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church; the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his installation homily that as pontiff he would listen to the will of God in governing the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics.
In 2009, Mexico shut down schools, museums, libraries and state-run theaters across its overcrowded capital in hopes of containing a deadly swine flu outbreak.
In 2013, in Bangladesh, a shoddily constructed eight-story commercial building housing garment factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people.
Today’s Birthdays: Movie director-producer Richard Donner is 90. Actress Shirley MacLaine is 86. Actress-singer-director Barbra Streisand is 78. Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is 78. Country singer Richard Sterban (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 77. Rock musician Doug Clifford (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 75. . Actor-playwright Eric Bogosian is 67. Rock singer-musician Jack Blades (Night Ranger) is 66. Actor Michael O’Keefe is 65. Rock musician David J (Bauhaus) is 63. Actor Glenn Morshower is 61. Rock musician Billy Gould is 57. Actor-comedian Cedric the Entertainer is 56.
Thought for Today: “I feel proud to be living in a country where people are not afraid to laugh at themselves and where political satire is tolerated by the government, if not the television network.” — Pat Paulsen, American comedian (born 1927, died this date in 1997).
