April 6

You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

Psalm 139:16 (NLT)

 April is:

• Mathematics Education Month - Mathematics is everybody's heritage, everybody's future. Sponsor: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
  
  
• Minnesota Authors Month - Sponsor: Minnesota Independent Publishers
  
  
• Month of the Young Child - Focuses on the educational needs of young children. Sponsor: Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children

Today is:

• Red Nose Day USA - On the first Friday in April, wear a red nose to Show your concern for saving children from sudden infant death syndrome. Contact SIDS. Sponsor: SIDS Alliance.
  
  
• Animated Cartoon Birthday - The first animated cartoon was copyrighted in 1906.
  
  
• First credit union law in the U.S. (1909) - St. Canadian Credit Union of Manchester, New Hampshire was chartered. Sponsor: National Association.
  
  
• Twinkies Day - In 1930, James Dewar invented the original junk food, Hostess Twinkies. Contact; Continental Baking Company, Hostess Division.

Born on this Day

• 0121: Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome
  

• 1483: Raphael (who died the same day in 1520)
  

• 1810: Philip Henry Gosse, invented the institutional aquarium
  

• 1823: Newspaper editor Joseph Medill
  

• 1866: Muckraker Lincoln Steffens
  

• 1874: Magician Harry Houdini
  

• 1890: Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, pioneer aircraft manufacturer
  

• 1892: Donald Wills Douglas, founded an aircraft company.
  

• 1892: Author, journalist and world traveler Lowell Thomas, who introduced the world to the exploits of British officer T.E. Lawrence, was born in Woodington, Ohio. His radio signoff: "So long until tomorrow."
  

• 1927: Jazz musician Gerry Mulligan
  

• 1928: Geneticist James Watson
  

• 1929: Composer-conductor Andre Previn
  

• 1931: Actor Ivan Dixon
  

• 1937: Country singer Merle Haggard
  

• 1937: Actor Billy Dee Williams
  

• 1938: Actor Roy Thinnes
  

• 1942: Director Barry Levinson
  

• 1944: Singer Michelle Phillips
  

• 1944: Heisman Trophy winner John Huarte
  

• 1944: Musician John Stax (The Pretty Things)
  

• 1947: Actor John Ratzenberger
  

• 1952: Actress Marilu Henner
  

• 1953: Figure skater Janet Lynn
  

• 1955: Actor Michael Rooker
  

• 1962: Musician Stan Cullimore (The Housemartins)
  

• 1969: Actress Ari Meyers ("Kate and Allie")
  

• 1972: Actor Jason Hervey ("The Wonder Years")
  

• 1976: Actress Candace Cameron ("Full House")           
     

Events in History on this day
  

• 0648 BC: Earliest total solar eclipse chronicled by the Greeks (BCE)
  

• 1199: Death of Richard I "Lionheart" King of England
  

• 1203: Death of St. William of Aebelholt
  

• 1249: St. Louis IX, King of France, taken prisoner by the Muslims
  

• 1282: Welsh Parliament declares war on England
  

• 1286: Othon de Grandson returns to Gascony
  

• 1291: Acre besieged by Islam
  

• 1327: Petrarch meets Laura
  

• 1348: Death of Laura de Noves, Petrarch's inspiration, of plague
  

• 1415: Decree of Sacrosancta
  

• 1490: Death of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary
  

• 1528: Death of Albrecht Durer
  

• 1759: Handel presided over his last "Messiah" in London's Covent Garden. He would die a week and a day later.
  

• 1789: The U.S. Senate formally organized after achieving a quorum.
  

• 1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, New York.
  

• 1862: The Civil War Battle of Shiloh began as the Confederates attacked Union forces in Tennessee.
  

• 1868: Brigham Young marries number 27, his final wife.
  

• 1896: The first modern Olympic games formally opened in Athens, Greece. The first gold medal was won by American James Connolly, who covered 44 feet, 11 and three-quarter inches in the triple jump.
  

• 1906: First animated cartoon is copyrighted.
  

• 1909: Explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the first men to reach the North Pole. (The claim, disputed by skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.)
  

• 1916: Charlie Chaplin, age 26, signed a movie contract with the Mutual Film Corporation. The contract for $675,000 a year would make him the highest-paid film star in the world.
  

• 1917: Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany.
  

• 1926: Four planes take off on 1st successful around-the-world flight.
  

• 1930: Bakery executive James Dewar invented a cream-filled sponge cake in order to use small baking pans that would otherwise remain in storage except for each year's brief strawberry shortcake season. The Twinkie was born.
  

• 1935: Harold "Bunny" Levitt dunked 499 consecutive free throws. On his 500th try, he missed. Then he threw 371 more shots without a miss. The Harlem Globetrotters offered $1,000 to anyone who could beat his record.
  

• 1938: Du Pont researchers Roy Plunkett and Jack Rebok accidentally created the chemical compound that was later marketed as Teflon.
  

• 1945: During World War II, the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day.
  

• 1947: The first Tony Awards were presented at a dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria on Easter Sunday. The Tonys are named for Antoinette Perry, a stage actress dedicated to the theater.
  

• 1955: Winston Churchill stepped down as British prime minister for the last time and was succeeded by Anthony Eden.
  

• 1956: Paramount Pictures signed Elvis Presley to a three-picture contract five days after his first screen test.
  

• 1958: Golf great Arnold Palmer won his first major, pro golf tournament by capturing the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Palmer defeated the defending champion, Dough Ford. Palmer was 28 years old and had been a pro since 1954.
  

• 1963: The United States and Britain signed an agreement under which the Americans would sell "Polaris" A-three missiles to the British.
  

• 1965: The United States launched the "Early Bird" communications satellite from Cape Kennedy, Florida. This was the world's first commercial communications satellite. It became operational on June 28.
  

• 1968: Federal troops and National Guardsmen were ordered out in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, as rioting continued over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
  

• 1971: Igor Stravinsky died in New York. Stravinsky lived long enough to see musicologists name him one of the greatest figures of 20th century music. Since his death Stravinsky's reputation has grown even larger, because the newest generation of composers seems more influenced by him.
  

• 1983: Declaring that rock-and-roll bands attracted "the wrong element," Interior Secretary James Watt declined to invite the Beach Boys to perform in Washington at a Fourth of July celebration - a decision he later reversed.
  

• 1984: The space shuttle Challenger blasted off for the fifth time on a week-long mission. (Among the crew was pilot Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, who died in the Challenger disaster in 1986.)
  

• 1985: William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital as he moved into an apartment in Louisville, Kentucky.
  

• 1985: Gaafar Nimeiri, the president of Sudan, was overthrown in a coup.
  

• 1987: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 24-hundred for the first time.
  

• 1987: Sugar Ray Leonard upset Marvelous Marvin Hagler to become middleweight champion. Los Angeles 1987: Dodgers executive Al Campanis said on ABC's "Nightline" that blacks "may not have some of the necessities" to hold managerial jobs in major-league baseball.
  

• 1988: Tirza Porat, a 15-year-old girl, was killed in a West Bank melee, becoming the first Israeli civilian to die in the occupied territories since the start of the Palestinian uprising. (Although Arabs were initially blamed, the army concluded Tirza had been shot accidentally by a Jewish settler.)
  

• 1989: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London, holding day-long talks that were characterized as argumentative, but friendly.
  

• 1990: Secretary of State James A. Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze concluded three days of talks in Washington, after which Shevardnadze personally delivered to President Bush a letter from Soviet President Gorbachev.
  

• 1991: Iraq's Parliament accepted a permanent cease-fire in the Gulf War
  

• 1992: The Supreme Court limited some undercover "sting" operations as it ruled that a Nebraska farmer had been entrapped by postal agents into buying mail-order child pornography.
  

• 1992: Science-fiction author Isaac Asimov died in New York at age 72.
  

• 1992: Ethnic warfare erupted in Bosnia-Herzegovina as the European Community recognized the former Yugoslav republic as an independent state.
  

• 1992: Elvis Presley fans began to vote in the nation's first-ever election for postage stamp art. Over 1 million postcard ballots showed the younger Elvis winning over the older by a 3-1 margin.
  

• 1993: A year after ethnic warfare erupted in Bosnia, the president of the Muslim-led government, Alija Izetbegovic, tried to rally his people with a televised address that likened the nationalism that had torn his country apart to Nazism.
  

• 1994: Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun announced his retirement after 24 years. Justice Blackmun wrote the Roe vs. Wade opinion on the constitutionality of abortion.
  

• 1994: The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed in a mysterious plane crash near Rwanda's capital – widespread violence erupted in Rwanda over claims the plane had been shot down.
  

• 1994: A Palestinian suicide-bomber killed seven Israelis in an attack on a bus in Afula.
  

• 1995: The Senate unanimously approved a $16 billion package of cuts in social programs.
  

• 1995: Senator Alfonse D'Amato apologized for lampooning O.J. Simpson trial judge Lance Ito for his earlier mocking.
  

• 1996: A stolen truck carrying illegal immigrants overturned in Temecula, California, killing eight people. Actress 1996: Greer Garson died in Dallas at age 92.
  

• 1996: President Clinton was on hand at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to greet the arrival of 33 flag-draped caskets carrying the remains of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and other victims of a plane crash in Croatia.
  

• 1996: Actress Greer Garson died in Dallas at age 92. She is best known for her 1942 film "Mrs. Miniver," for which she won an Academy Award.
  

• 1997: NASA officials announced they were cutting short the 16-day mission of space shuttle "Columbia" by 12 days because of a deteriorating and potentially explosive power generator on board the spacecraft.
  

• 1997: A blizzard shut down much of the northern Plains.
  

• 1997: Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke died at age 84.
  

• 1998: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 9,000 points for the first time.
  

• 1998: Energy Secretary Federico Pena announced his resignation.
  

• 1998: Country singer Tammy Wynette died at her Nashville, Tenn., home at age 55.
  

• 1999: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic declared a unilateral cease-fire in his campaign to crush rebels in Kosovo; Western leaders called the move a sham and pledged to press ahead with airstrikes.

• 2000: The father of Elian Gonzalez, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, arrived in the United States to press for the return of his six-year-old son to Cuba. 
  

• 2000: A private company mapping the human genetic blueprint announced it had decoded all of the DNA pieces that make up the genetic pattern of a single human being. 
  

• 2001: Algerian Ahmed Ressam is convicted of terrorism for bringing a car loaded with explosives into the United States as part of an alleged plan to bomb buildings during millennium celebrations.
  
   

Today's Daily Miscellany

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