Today’s highlight

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.

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.

1959: NASA presented its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, 91, died in Phoenix, Arizona.

1968: Funeral services, private and public, were held for 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.

1996: In a dramatic shift of purse-string power, President Bill Clinton signed a line-item veto bill into law.

2003: Jubilant Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, beheading a toppled statue of their longtime ruler in downtown Baghdad and embracing American troops as liberators.

2010: Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement.

2022: Civilian evacuations moved forward in patches of battle-scarred eastern Ukraine, a day after a Russian missile strike killed at least 52 people at a train station where thousands clamored to leave.

Today’s birthdays

Satirical songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer is 95. Actor Michael Learned is 84. Actor Dennis Quaid is 69. Actor-model Paulina Porizkova is 58. Actor Cynthia Nixon is 57. Actor Keshia Knight Pulliam is 44. Rock musician Albert Hammond Jr. (The Strokes) is 43. R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan is 36. Actor Kristen Stewart is 33. Actor Elle Fanning is 25. Rapper Lil Nas X is 24. Classical crossover singer Jackie Evancho is 23.