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History
Today is Tuesday, April 23, the 113th day of 2002. There are 252 days left in the year.
Highlight in History:
April 23, 1564, is believed to be the birthdate of English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare; he died 52 years later, also on April 23.
On this date:
In 1348, King Edward III of England established the Order of the Garter.
In 1789, President-elect Washington and his wife moved into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York.
In 1791, the 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan, was born in Franklin County, Pa.
In 1896, the Vitascope system for projecting movies onto a screen was demonstrated in New York City.
In 1899, Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg.
In 1940, about 200 people died in a dance hall fire in Natchez, Miss.
In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
In 1985, the Coca-Cola Co. announced it was changing the secret flavor formula for Coke (negative public reaction forced the company to resume selling the original version).
In 1995, sportscaster Howard Cosell died in New York at age 77.
In 1998, James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and then insisted he’d been framed, died at a Nashville hospital at age 70.
Ten years ago:
Fighting erupted in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo just hours after the warring parties signed a truce amid sniper fire. McDonald’s opened its first fast-food restaurant in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
Five years ago:
Doctors at the University of Southern California announced that a child was born in late 1996 to a 63-year-old woman on hormone therapy. Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, again apologizing for racial comments about Masters winner Tiger Woods, withdrew from the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic. The military confirmed that two pieces of wreckage found on a snowy Rocky Mountain peak were from the Air Force warplane that had vanished on a training mission over Arizona.
One year ago:
USS Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle was given a letter of reprimand as punishment for the submarine collision that killed nine people aboard a Japanese fishing vessel off Hawaii.
Today’s Birthdays:
Actress Janet Blair is 81. Actress-turned-diplomat Shirley Temple Black is 74. Actor Alan Oppenheimer is 72. Actor David Birney is 63. Actor Lee Majors is 63. Actress Sandra Dee is 60. Irish nationalist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is 55. Actress Blair Brown is 54. Writer-director Paul Brickman is 53. Actress Joyce DeWitt is 53. Actor James Russo is 49. Actress Judy Davis is 47. Actress Jan Hooks is 45. Actress Valerie Bertinelli is 42. Actor Craig Sheffer is 42. Rock musician Gen is 38. U.S. Olympic gold medal skier Donna Weinbrecht is 37. Actress Melina Kanakaredes is 35. Rock musician Stan Frazier (Sugar Ray) is 34. Country musician Tim Womack (Sons of the Desert) is 34. Actor Scott Bairstow is 32. Actor Camryn Walling (“The Agency”) is 12.
