April 17

And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long. 

Psalm 35:28

April is:

• Knuckles Down Month - This month celebrates the spring-time game of marbles. For a book and information packet, send $10.00 to the ne Marble Lady. Sponsor: The Marble Lady, Cathy Runyan, 78 12 NW Hampton Road, Kansas City, MO 64152; 816-587-8687.
  
  
• Listening Awareness Month - Develop your listening skills during this month. Sponsor: Effective Listeners Association
  
  
• Mathematics Education Month - Mathematics is everybody's heritage, everybody's future. Sponsor: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Today is:

• Patriot's Day - Massachusetts and Maine celebrate this holiday commemorating the 1775 Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. Celebrated the third Monday in April.
  
  
• Mustang' Birthday - The Ford Mustang was unveiled on this date in 1964.
  
  
• Verrazano Day - In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni Verrazano discovered New York harbor.
  
• National Stress Awareness Day - Stress is one of the major causes of illness. On the day after income taxes are due, we need a reminder to take a break from stress. Sponsor: The Health Resources Network.
  
  
• National Youth Service Day - Encourages young people to become active in their communities. (Generally held on the second to last Tuesday in April. Sponsor: Youth Service America.

Born on this Day

• 1622: Poet Henry Vaughan
  

• 1676: Frederick I, king of Sweden
  

• 1741: Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  

• 1894: Nikita S Khrushchev, Soviet premier (1958-64) during the Cold War.
  

• 1897: Novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder(Our Town and The Bridge of San Luis Rey)
  

• 1923: Harry Reasoner, American broadcast journalist
  

• 1923: Actor Lon McCallister
  

• 1934: Rock promoter Don Kirshner
  

• 1958: Composer-musician Jan Hammer
  

• 1951: Actress Olivia Hussey
  

• 1955: Rock singer-musician Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks)
  

• 1959: Actress Teri Austis
  

• 1964: Actress Lela Rochon
  

• 1967: Singer Liz Phair  
     

Events in History on this day
  

• 0858: Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope
  

• 1492: A contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to Asia.
  

• 1521: MartLuther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
  

• 1524: Giovanni da Verrazano reached present-day New York harbor.
  

• 1535: Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
  

• 1758: Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latpoems.
  

• 1790: American statesman BenjamFrankldied Philadelphia at age 84.
  

• 1808: Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.
  

• 1824: Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54' 40'.
  

• 1861: Virginia become eighth state to secede from the Union.
  

• 1864: General Grant bans the trading of prisoners.
  

• 1865: Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator the Lincoln assassination.
  

• 1875: The game "snooker" is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
  

• 1895: China and Japan sign peace treaty of Shimonoseki.
  

• 1941: Yugoslavia surrendered to Germany World War Two.
  

• 1946: The last French troops leave Syria.
  

• 1947: Jackie Robinson bunts for his first major league hit.
  

• 1961: About 1500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.
  

• 1964: Ford Motor Company unveiled its new "Mustang" model.
  

• 1964: Jerrie Mock of Columbus, Ohio, became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world.
  

• 1969: A jury Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
  

• 1969: Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek was deposed.
  

• 1970: The astronauts of Apollo 13 splashed down safely the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft.
  

• 1975: Phnom Penh fell to Communist insurgents, ending Cambodia's five-year war.
  

• 1983: Warsaw, police route 1,000 Solidarity supporters
  

• 1989: The House Ethics Committee released its report accusing Speaker Jim Wright of violating House rules on the acceptance of gifts and outside income -- charges denied by the Texas Democrat.
  

• 1990: President Bush warned the Soviet Union against carrying out an economic blockade of Lithuania, hinting at "appropriate responses."
  

• 1990: The Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, the civil rights activist and top aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died in Atlanta at age 64.
  

• 1991: Congress voted to put a quick end to a day-old nationwide strike by 235,000 rail workers (President George Bush signed the legislation early the next day). 
  

• 1991: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 3,000 for the first time, ending the day at 3,004.46. 
  

• 1993: A federal jury Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King; two other officers were acquitted.
  

• 1994: Bosnian Serb tanks entered the Muslim enclave of Gorazde; the UN Security Council issued a nonbinding statement that condemned the Serbs' escalating military activities, but made no threat of force to back its condemnation.
  

• 1995: An Air Force jet exploded and crashed in a wooded area in eastern Alabama, killing eight people, including an assistant Air Force secretary and a two-star general.
  

• 1995: President Clinton signed an executive order stripping the classified label from most national security documents that were at least 25 years old.
  

• 1996: Seeking to calm Pacific security jitters, President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto signed a joint declaration establishing new U.S.-Japan ties for a "stable and prosperous" Asia. 
  
  1996: A jury in Los Angeles opted to spare Erik and Lyle Menendez the death penalty, recommending that the brothers instead serve life in prison without parole for gunning down their wealthy parents. 
  

• 1998: A Thai military team collected evidence from the body of Pol Pot, former chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge guerrillas, to lay to rest doubts that one of the century's worst tyrants was truly dead.
  

• 1999: The first of three bombs to explode in London within a two-week period went off in Brixton, a racially mixed neighborhood, injuring 39 people.
  

• 1999: Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's commander, warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to change his policies in Kosovo or see his military machine destroyed.
  

• 2000: World finance officials in Washington closed out the most tumultuous meetings in the history of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank with renewed pledges to hasten debt relief for poor countries and increase support for fighting the AIDS epidemic. 
  

• 2000: Kenya's Elijah Lagat won the Boston Marathon; Catherine Ndereba became the first female Kenyan winner. 
  
  
  

Today's Daily Miscellany

Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com

Looking for more quotations?
Past quotes from the Daily Miscellany can be found here!