From the ArcaMax Publishing, History & Quotes Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/quotes/s-71431-454755
In 1502, Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on his fourth and
final voyage to the New World.
In 1926, Cmdr. Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett were the first to fly
over the North Pole.
In 1961, in a speech to TV bigwigs at the National Association of
Broadcasters convention, new Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Newton Minow referred to television as "a vast wasteland."
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened its hearing on the
possible impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
In 1978, the body of former Italian minister Aldo Moro, who had been
kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists, was found shot to death in the
back of a car in Rome.
In 1979, the United States and Soviet Union reached a basic accord on
the SALT 2 nuclear arms treaty.
In 1980, a Liberian freighter rammed a bridge in Florida's Tampa Bay,
collapsing part of the span and dropping 35 people to their deaths. A
new $240 million Sunshine Skybridge opened seven years later, on April
30, 1987.
In 1987, 183 people died when a Polish airliner bound for New York
crashed near Warsaw. The dead included 38 Americans.
In 1991, William Kennedy Smith, nephew of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass., was charged with the March 30 rape and assault of a woman at
the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was acquitted.
In 1992, Miss Namibia, a 6-foot-tall model and masseuse, was crowned
Miss Universe, the first from her country to win the beauty pageant.
In 1993, thousands of war veterans, politicians and anti-government
demonstrators gathered across Moscow and the former Soviet Union to
celebrate the World War II victory over Germany at Stalingrad.
In 1996, U.S. scientists announced they had found a protein without
which the AIDS virus cannot fuse to human cells.
In 2001, at least 123 people were killed during a stampede at a soccer
match in Accra, Ghana.
In 2003, U.S. and British intelligence officials interrogated a
mid-level Iraqi intelligence agent who appeared to have detailed
knowledge of assassination techniques using chemical and biological
weapons.
Also in 2003, a well-connected Los Angeles socialite, Katrina Leung,
who also allegedly acted as a double-agent for China, was formally
charged with passing sensitive documents on to Chinese intelligence
officers.
In 2004, President Akhmad Kadyrov of Chechnya was assassinated in an
explosion at a stadium in Grozny where Russia's World War II victory
was being celebrated. Thirty-one others also died in the blast.
In 2005, a federal appeals court ruled that U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney did not have to reveal how the White House energy policies were
developed.
Also in 2005, the federal bankruptcy court gave United Airlines
permission to terminate its pension plans.