Today’s highlight
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
On this date
1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
1955: The Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing.
1963: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)
1981: Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 66, died in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1985: Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, became the first sitting member of Congress to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off.
1988: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.
2015: Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into presidential politics, announcing in a video her much-awaited second campaign for the White House.