Wednesday, April 13

This Day In History

• 1598   King Henry IV of France signed the Edict of Nantes, granting rights to the Protestant Huguenots.
• 1742   George Frideric Handel's ''Messiah'' was first performed publicly, in Dublin, Ireland.
• 1743   Thomas Jefferson, statesman and third president of the United States, was born in Virginia.
• 1870   The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in New York City.
• 1943   President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial.
• 1963   Pete Rose got his first major-league hit for the Cincinnati Reds. Twenty one years later to this day, ?Charlie Hustle? collected his 4,000th hit. Rose was playing for Montreal when he achieved the feat. (See 1984.)
• 1964   Sidney Poitier became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for ''Lilies of the Field.''
• 1972   The first strike in the history of major-league baseball ended. Players had walked off the field 13 days earlier.
• 1981   Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an 8-year-old heroin addict named ''Jimmy.'' Cooke relinquished the prize two days later, admitting she had fabricated the story.
• 1986   Pope John Paul II visited a Rome synagogue in the first recorded papal visit of its kind.
• 1990   The Soviet Union accepted responsibility for the World War II murders of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, a massacre the Soviets had previously blamed on the Nazis.
• 1997   Tiger Woods, 21, became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first person of African heritage to claim a major golf title.
• 1998   NationsBank and BankAmerica announced a $62.5 billion merger.
• 1999   Jack Kervorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, Mich., to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder of a man whose assisted suicide in 1998 was videotaped and shown on ''60 Minutes.''
• 2002   Venezuela's interim president, Pedro Carmona, resigned a day after taking office in the face of protests by thousands of supporters of the ousted president, Hugo Chavez.

Happy Birthday To

• 1743   Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. President [1801-1809]; married to Martha Skelton [one son, five daughters]; nickname: Man of the People; died July 4, 1826)
• 1852   F.W. (Frank Winfield) Woolworth (merchant: created the five and ten cent store [1879 in Lancaster, PA]: headed F.W. Woolworth & Co. with over 1,000 stores, funded NY?s Woolworth Building; died Apr 8, 1919)
• 1866   Butch Cassidy (Old West outlaw: leader of The Wild Bunch gang; legend has it that he was killed [w/Sundance Kid: Harry Longabaugh] in a Bolivian shootout Nov 3, 1908; other legend has it that he and Sundance faked their deaths [that another pair of outlaws was actually killed] and lived happily ever after, under aliases, in the U.S.)
• 1899   Alfred M. Butts (architect, inventor: game of Scrabble; died Apr 4, 1993)
• 1906   Samuel Beckett (author, critic, playwright: Waiting for Godot, The Unnameable, Eleutheria, Malone Dies, Malloy, Endgame; died Dec 22, 1989)
• 1906   Bud (Lawrence) Freeman (jazz musician: tenor sax: China Boy, Easy to Get, I?ve Found a New Baby, The Eel, Mr. Toad; died Mar 15, 1991)
• 1919   Madalyn Murray O?Hair (author: Why I Am an Atheist; murdered: missing since Aug 1995, her body was found near Camp Wood TX Jan 28, 2001)
• 1923   Don Adams (Donald James Yarmy) (Emmy Award-winning actor: Get Smart [1966-1967, 1967-1968]; Back to the Beach, The Nude Bomb)
• 1939   Paul Sorvino (actor: Law and Order, Reds, Oh! God, The Day of the Dolphin, Dick Tracy, Goodfellas, A Touch of Class)
• 1945   Tony Dow (actor: Leave It to Beaver, Back to the Beach, High School U.S.A., Death Scream)
• 1970   Rick Schroder (actor: NYPD Blue, Crimson Tide, Texas, Lonesome Dove, Hansel and Gretel, Earthling, The Champ, Silver Spoons)