Today is Saturday, April 24, the 114th day of 2021. There are 251 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 24, 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.
On this date:
In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
In 1960, rioting erupted in Biloxi, Miss., after Black protesters staging a “wade-in” at a whites-only beach were attacked by a crowd of hostile whites.
In 1962, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks, California, and Westford, Massachusetts.
In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during re-entry; he was the first human spaceflight fatality.
In 1974, comedian Bud Abbott, 78, died in Woodland Hills, Calif.
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.
In 2019, avowed racist John William King was executed in Texas for the 1998 slaying of James Byrd Jr., who was chained to the back of a truck and dragged along a road outside Jasper, Texas; prosecutors said Byrd was targeted because he was Black.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Shirley MacLaine is 87. Actor-singer-director Barbra Streisand is 79. Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is 79. Country singer Richard Sterban (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 78. Rock musician Doug Clifford (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 76. Actor Michael O’Keefe is 66. Actor-comedian Cedric the Entertainer is 57. Country singer Rebecca Lynn Howard is 42. Actor Jack Quaid is 29. Golfer Lydia Ko is 24.
