Today is Saturday, April 7, the 97th day of 2018. There are 268 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On April 7, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference in which he spoke of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences." (This became known as the "domino theory," although Eisenhower did not use that term.)
On this date:
In 1788, an expedition led by Gen. Rufus Putnam established a settlement at present-day Marietta, Ohio.
In 1798, the Mississippi Territory was created by an act of Congress, with Natchez as the capital.
In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
In 1927, the image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover were transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.
In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, which was annexed less than a week later.
In 1948, the World Health Organization was founded in Geneva.
In 1953, the U.N. General Assembly ratified Dag Hammarskjold (dahg HAWM'-ahr-shoold) of Sweden as the new secretary-general, succeeding Trygve Lie (TRIHG'-vuh lee) of Norway.
In 1962, nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion were convicted of treason.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter announced he was deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.
In 1983, space shuttle astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson went on the first U.S. spacewalk in almost a decade as they worked in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly four hours.
In 1994, civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; in the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu moderates were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.
In 1998, British pop star George Michael was arrested on suspicion of committing a lewd act in a restroom at Will Rogers Park in Beverly Hills, California; Michael later pleaded no contest, was fined $810 and ordered to perform 80 hours of community service.
