Today’s Highlights

On April 3, 1996, Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was arrested at his remote Montana cabin by FBI agents.

On this date

1936: Bruno Richard Hauptmann was electrocuted in Trenton, New Jersey, for the kidnap-murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr.

1948: President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Marshall Plan, designed to help European allies rebuild after World War II and resist communism.

1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what was to be his final speech, telling a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. ... I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”

1973: The first handheld portable telephone was demonstrated for reporters on a New York City street corner as Motorola executive Martin Cooper called Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

1974: An outbreak of tornadoes began hitting wide parts of the South and Midwest before jumping across the border into Canada; 148 tornadoes caused more than 300 fatalities in what became known as the 1974 Super Outbreak.

Today’s birthdays

Conservationist Jane Goodall is 91. Actor Marsha Mason is 83. Singer Wayne Newton is 83. Singer Tony Orlando is 81. Singer-songwriter Richard Thompson is 76. Actor Alec Baldwin is 67. Actor David Hyde Pierce is 66. Actor-comedian Eddie Murphy is 64. Celebrity chef Cat Cora is 58. Olympic skiing gold medalist Picabo Street is 54.