Today is Saturday, April 21, the 111th day of 2018. There are 254 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On April 21, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, 25, the German ace known as the "Red Baron" who was believed to have downed 80 enemy aircraft during World War I, was himself shot down and killed while in action over France.
On this date:
In 1509, England's King Henry VII died; he was succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Henry VIII.
In 1649, the Maryland Toleration Act, providing for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.
In 1789, John Adams was sworn in as the first vice president of the United States.
In 1836, an army of Texans led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexicans at San Jacinto, assuring Texas independence.
In 1910, author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Connecticut, at age 74.
In 1930, fire broke out inside the overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, killing 332 inmates.
In 1942, the first edition of "The Stranger" (L'Etranger), Albert Camus' (al-BEHR' kah-MOOZ') highly influential absurdist novel, was published in Nazi-occupied Paris by Gallimard.
In 1955, the Jerome Lawrence-Robert Lee play "Inherit the Wind," inspired by the Scopes trial of 1925, opened at the National Theatre in New York.
In 1962, the Century 21 Exposition, also known as the Seattle World's Fair, began a six-month run.
In 1977, the musical play "Annie," based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,377 performances.
In 1986, a rediscovered vault in Chicago's Lexington Hotel that was linked to Al Capone was opened during a widely watched live TV special hosted by Geraldo Rivera; aside from a few bottles and a sign, the vault turned out to be empty.
In 1998, astronomers announced in Washington that they had discovered possible signs of a new family of planets orbiting a star 220 light-years away, the clearest evidence to date of worlds forming beyond our solar system.
