Today’s Highlights

On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia after four years of Civil War in the United States.

On this date

1939: Marian Anderson performed a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after the Black singer was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

1940: During World War II, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

1942: During World War II, some 75,000 Philippine and American soldiers surrendered to Japanese troops, ending the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines. The prisoners of war were subsequently forced to march 65 miles to POW camps in what is now known as the Bataan Death March; thousands died or were killed en route.

1959: NASA introduced the “Mercury Seven,” its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald “Deke” Slayton.

1968: Funerals, private and public, were held for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Today’s birthdays

Satirist-musician Tom Lehrer is 97. Actor Michael Learned is 86. Drummer Steve Gadd is 80. Actor Dennis Quaid is 71. Model-actor Paulina Porizkova is 60. Actor Cynthia Nixon is 59. Actor Keshia Knight Pulliam is 46. Actor Kristen Stewart is 35. Actor Elle Fanning is 27.