FRIDAY
735 B.C., According to the Roman historian Varro, Romulus founded the city of Rome.
1832, Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, America’s first national park, was established by an act of Congress.
1902, Scientists Marie & Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium.
1912, the first game was played at Boston’s Fenway Park. The Red Sox won in 11 innings over the New York Highlanders, 7-6.
1932, Child actress Shirley Temple, then three-and-a-half years old, made her film debut with the release ofStand Up And Cheer.
1949, Willie Shoemaker won his first race as a jockey aboard Shafter V at Golden Gate Fields in Albany, California.
1951, Singer Luther Vandross was born. He died in July 2005 at age 54.
1961, The Federal Communications Commission gave approval for FM stations to begin “stereo” broadcasting.
1971, the Supreme Court upheld using busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
1973, four months after his death, Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in a special election.
1989, The Oliver North case went to the jury in his Iran-Contra trial.
1990, Former junk bond financier Michael Milken agreed to plead guilty to six felonies and pay $600 million in penalties to settle the largest securities fraud case in history.
1990, Pete Rose, already banished from baseball for gambling, pled guilty to two felony counts alleging he concealed nearly $300,000 in income from the Internal Revenue Service.
1992, Defending champion Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya became the sixth three-time winner of the Boston Marathon, while Russia’s Olga Markova won the women’s division.
1992, Madonna signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Time Warner to form an entertainment company that would make her the highest paid female pop star in the world.
1998, a federal jury in Chicago ruled that anti-abortion organizers had violated racketeering laws by using threats and violence to shut down clinics.
1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, 13 people were killed when two student gunmen open fire in the school’s library and cafeteria. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris then killed themselves.
SATURDAY
1789, John Adams became the first vice president of the United States.
1828, Noah Webster‘s Dictionary Of The English Language was first published.
1836, an army of Texans led by Sam Houston defeated Mexican forces at San Jacinto, assuring Texas independence.
1862, Congress establishes the U.S. Mint in Denver, Colorado.
1895, Woodville Latham demonstrated the first use of a moving picture projected onto a screen, in New York City.
1910, Author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Connecticut.
1913, The zipper was patented by Swedish engineer Gideon Sunback. He improved on an 1813 design called a clasp-locker, which often jammed. Zippers were first used in World War I, and appeared on civilian clothes in the 1920s.
1918, Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, the German ace known as “The Red Baron,” was killed in action during World War I. He is credited with having shot down 80 Allied planes.
1970, Elton John makes his solo concert debut, opening for T. Rex in London.
1971, Singer Selena is born. She is tragicly murdered by a member of her business team in 1995.
1972, Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke explored the surface of the moon in an electric car. The car is still up there, along with some expensive tools and film that they forgot to bring home.
1974, Queen plays their first American concert at Regis College in Denver.
1977, The musical play Annie opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,377 performances.
1977, Fleetwood Mac releases “Dreams,” their first chart topping single.
1986, a vault in Chicago’s Lexington Hotel that was linked to Al Capone was opened during a live TV special hosted by Geraldo Rivera. The vault was empty, except for a few bottles and a sign.
1987, Special occasion stamps were offered for the first time by the U.S. Postal Service. “Happy Birthday,” “Get Well,” and other messages were offered.
1992, Robert Alton Harris became the first person executed by the state of California in 25 years, as he was put to death in the gas chamber for the 1978 murder of two teenaged boys.
1995, the FBI arrested former soldier Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City two days earlier. McVeigh was arrested in the Oklahoma jail where he’d been since the bombings two days earlier on traffic and weapons charges.
1997, the ashes of 1960s guru Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were sent into outer space orbit on a Spanish satellite.
SUNDAY
1509, King Henry VIII ascended the throne of England after the death of his father, King Henry VII.
1864, Congress voted to put the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.
1914, Babe Ruth made his professional pitching debut, playing for the Baltimore Orioles. He shut out Providence, 6-0.
1915, New York Yankees uniforms featured pinstripes for the first time.
1954, the televised Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.
1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson opened the New York World’s Fair, which attracted 50 million visitors over two summers.
1966, The Troggs release “Wild Thing.”
1970, the first Earth Day was observed.
1978, At the One Love Peace Concert, Bob Marley unites Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley with his political rival Edward Seaga onstage.
1987, a divided Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment does not discriminate against African-Americans.
1990, pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon freed American hostage Robert Polhill after 39 months in captivity.
1993, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in Washington, D.C.
1998, A young woman charged — along with her high school sweetheart — with murdering their newborn at a Delaware motel pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Amy Grossberg was later sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, while Brian Peterson, her boyfriend, received a lesser sentence of two years because he’d cooperated with authorities.
1999, At Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., investigators found a powerful bomb made from a propane tank, heightening suspicions that gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 people before killing themselves, intended to destroy the school, and may have had help in assembling their arsenal.
2000, in a pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez from his relatives’ home in Miami. Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
