1513 – Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain.

1525 – Albert von Brandenburg, the leader of the Teutonic Order, assumes the title “Duke of Prussia” and passed the first laws of the Protestant church, making Prussia a Protestant state.

1789 – The U.S. House of Representatives held its first meeting.

1832 – About 300 American troops of the 6th Infantry left Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, to confront the Sauk Indians in the Black Hawk War.

1834 – In New York City, Cornelius Lawrence became the first mayor to be elected by popular vote in a city election.

1839 – The first Intercollegiate Rodeo was held at the Godshall Ranch, Apple Valley, CA.

1864 – The U.S. Senate passed the 13th Amendment (S.J. Res. 16) by a vote of 38 to 6.

1873 – Alfred Paraf patented the first successful oleomargarine.

1911 – The first squash tournament was played at the Harvard Club in New York City.

1913 – The Seventeenth amendment was ratified, requiring direct election of senators.

1935 – The Works Progress Administration was approved by the U.S. Congress.

1939 – Italy invaded Albania.

1942 – The Soviets opened a rail link to the besieged city of Leningrad.

1943 – Wendell Wilkie’s “One World” was published for the first time.

1946 – The League of Nations assembled in Geneva for the last time.

1947 – The first illustrated insurance policy was issued by the Allstate Insurance Company.

1952 – U.S. President Truman seized steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.

1953 – The bones of Sitting Bull were moved from North Dakota to South Dakota.

1962 – Bay of Pigs invaders got thirty years imprisonment in Cuba.

1974 – Hank Aaron hits 715th home run breaking Babe Ruth’s record.

1975 – Frank Robinson of the Cleveland Indians became first black manager of a major league baseball team.

1985 – India filed suit against Union Carbide for the Bhopal disaster.

1985 – Phyllis Diller underwent a surgical procedure for permanent eyeliner to eliminate the need for eyelid makeup.

1986 – Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel, CA.

1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigned over remarks he had made. While on ABC’s “Nightline” Campanis said that blacks “may not have some of the necessities” to hold managerial jobs in major-league baseball.

1988 – Former U.S. President Reagan aid Lyn Nofzinger was sentenced to prison for illegal lobbying for Wedtech Corp.

1990 – In Nepal, King Birendra lifted the 30-year ban on political parties.

1992 – In Britain, the last issue of “Punch Magazine” was published.

1994 – Smoking was banned in the Pentagon and all U.S. military bases.

1998 – The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. presented new evidence in an appeal for new federal investigation of the assassination of her husband.

2000 – 19 U.S. troops were killed when a Marine V22 Osprey crashed during a training mission in Arizona.

2001 – Microsoft Corp. released Internet Explorer 6.0.

2002 – Ed McMahon filed a $20 million lawsuit against his insurance company, two insurance adjusters, and several environmental cleanup contractors. The suit alleged breach of contract, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress concerning a toxic mold that had spread through McMahon’s Beverly Hills home.

2002 – Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama for her play “Topdog/Underdog.”

Source: on-this-day.com

The 13th Amendment:

· After the decisive battle of Antietam in September, 1862, when the Union beat the Confederate troops, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in the rebelling states were free as of January 1, 1863. Lincoln’s speech changed the tone of the Civil War from a battle about the rights of states versus the rights of the central government. The Civil War became about ending slavery once and for all. Lincoln realized that the Emancipation Proclamation was symbolic. He began lobbying Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution to end slavery.

· April 8, 1864 – The Senate passed the Thirteenth Amendment

· June 15, 1864 – The House of Representatives initially defeated the 13th Amendment by a vote of 93 in favor, 65 opposed, and 23 not voting, which is less that two-thirds majority needed to pass a Constitutional Amendment.

· January 31, 1865 – The House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment by a vote of 119 to 56.

· February 1. 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signed a Joint Resolution submitting the proposed 13th Amendment to the states.

· December 18, 1865 – Secretary of State William Seward issued a statement verifying the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

· The first bill introducing the anti-slavery 13th Amendment was introduced into the House of Representatives by James Mitchell Ashley (Ohio), on December 14, 1864, nearly a year after President Lincoln issued the final executive order for the Emancipation Proclamation.

· The Senate Judiciary Committee drafted the final language for the 13th Amendment. The language of the amendment is simple. It is written in two sections.

· Section I of the 13th Amendment states; “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

· Section II of the 13th Amendment states; “Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

On April 7, 1994, violence fuels the launch of what would become the worst episode of genocide since World War II: the massacre of an estimated 500,000 to 1 million innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Following the first wave of massacres, Rwandan forces manage to discourage international intervention with the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers. The Tutsis, a minority group that made up about 10 percent of Rwanda’s population, received no assistance from the international community, although the United Nations later conceded that a mere 5,000 soldiers deployed at the outset would have stopped the wholesale slaughter.

The immediate roots of the 1994 genocide dated back to the early 1990s, when President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, began using anti-Tutsi rhetoric to consolidate his power among the Hutus. Beginning in October 1990, there were several massacres of hundreds of Tutsis. Although the two ethnic groups were very similar, sharing the same language and culture for centuries, the law required registration based on ethnicity. The government and army began to assemble the Interahamwe (meaning “those who attack together”) and prepared for the elimination of the Tutsis by arming Hutus with guns and machetes. In January 1994, the United Nations forces in Rwanda warned that larger massacres were imminent.

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Source: history.com

Citation Information

Article Title

Violence erupts in Rwanda, foreshadowing genocide AuthorHistory.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY URL

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/civil-war-erupts-in-rwanda

Date April 7, 2023 Publisher A&E Television Networks Last Updated

April 7, 2022

Original Published Date

November 24, 2009

Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington becomes the first Black American to be honored with a postage stamp. It will take nearly four decades for a Black woman to receive a similar honor: Harriet Tubman in 1978.

history.com

On April 7, 1961, President John F. Kennedy sends a letter to Congress in which he recommends the U.S. participate in an international campaign to preserve ancient temples and historic monuments in the Nile Valley of Egypt. The campaign, initiated by UNESCO, was designed to save sites threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

JFK believed that America’s participation in the project would reflect “the interests of the United States,” as well as the country’s interest in ancient Egyptian culture “from which many of our own cultural traditions have sprung” and the U.S.’s “deep friendship for the people who live in the valley of the Nile.” Kennedy possessed a personal interest in the sciences and history and, from the beginning of his presidency, set out to promote American scholarship in these areas. His administration also wanted to develop diplomatic ties with the Arab nations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Citation Information

Article Title: JFK lobbies Congress to help save historic sites in Egypt

Author: History.com Editors

Website Name: HISTORY

URL: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-lobbies-congress-to-help-save-historic-sites-in-egypt Date April 7, 2023

Publisher A&E Television Networks

Last Updated April 5, 2022

Original Published Date November 16, 2009