Today is Monday, April 24, the 114th day of 2017. There are 251 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On April 24, 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during re-entry; he was the first human spaceflight fatality.
On this date:
In 1792, Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle began composing "War Song for the Rhine Army," later known as "La Marseillaise" (lah mahr-say-YEHZ'), the national anthem of France.
In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress.
In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States. (The United States responded in kind the next day.)
In 1915, in what's considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.
In 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The rising was put down by British forces five days later.)
In 1932, in the Free State of Prussia, the Nazi Party gained a plurality of seats in parliamentary elections.
In 1947, novelist Willa Cather, author of "My Antonia," died in New York at age 73.
In 1953, British statesman Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
In 1962, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal, using NASA's Echo 1 balloon satellite to bounce a video image from Camp Parks, California, to Westford, Massachusetts.
In 1970, the People's Republic of China launched its first satellite, which kept transmitting a song, "The East Is Red."
In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.
In 1997, comedian Pat Paulsen died in Tijuana, Mexico, at age 69.
