Soviet aircraft forced a Korean Air Lines passenger jet to land
in the Soviet Union after the jet veers into Russian airspace.
Two people were killed and several others injured when the jet
made a rough landing on a frozen lake about 300 miles south
of Murmansk.
The jet was on a flight from Paris to Seoul when the incident
occurred.
On April 20, 1999, two teenage gunmen killed 13 people in a
shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Colorado, south of Denver.
At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris,
18, dressed in trench coats, began shooting students outside
the school before moving inside to continue their rampage. By
11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 fellow students and
a teacher and wounded another 23 people. Shortly after noon,
the two teens turned their guns on themselves and died by
suicide
.
The event prompted a national debate on gun control and school
safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what
motivated the teen gunmen. In the days immediately following
the shootings, it was speculated that Klebold and Harris
purposely chose jocks, minorities and Christians as their
victims.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur delivered his farewell address to
Congress on this day in history, April 19, 1951, uttering
the famous line, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade
away."
Eight days before the speech, MacArthur had been relieved
of his duties as general of the U.S. Army by President Harry
S. Truman — putting an end to his 52 year storied military
career.
MacArthur’s speech is available on the Library of
Congress website.
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964)
President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur
at President Truman’s arrival at the Wake Island Conference (1950).
ED DANAHUE
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001)
The domestic terrorist who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.
On April 18, 1906, at 5:13 a.m., an earthquake estimated at close
to 8.0 on the Richter scale struck San Francisco, California,
killing an estimated 3,000 people as it topples numerous
buildings.
The quake was caused by a slip of the San Andreas Fault over a
segment about 275 miles long, and shock waves could be felt
from southern Oregon down to Los Angeles.
San Francisco’s brick buildings and wooden Victorian structures
were especially devastated. Fires immediately broke out and–
because broken water mains prevented firefighters from stopping
them–firestorms soon developed citywide.
