Oscar-winning actor known for playing intense, often violent
characters in "The Godfather," "Dog Day Afternoon" and
"Serpico" is 85 today.

Pacino has won and been nominated for many awards during
his acting career, including nine Oscar nominations. He won
a Best Actor award for “Scent of a Woman” in 1992.

1992

On April 25, 1950, the Boston Celtics made Chuck
Cooper an All-American forward from Duquesne
University, the first African American picked in
the NBA draft.      

     
With the selection, the first pick in the second round,
Cooper breaks the NBA’s color barrier and changes
the league for the better. Cooper died of cancer on 
February 5, 1984,

Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame on September 9, 2019.

Charles Henry Cooper (September 29, 1926 – February 5, 1984)    
    
      

On April 23, 1985, The Coca-Cola Company announced that it
is changing the formula of its signature soft drink for the first
time in 99 years. The short-lived, sweeter New Coke, as it was
called, debuted to a consumer backlash that pundits call the
marketing blunder of the century.

Coca-Cola, which had been the world’s bestselling soft drink,
had been facing increasing competition from rival cola Pepsi,
and the company wanted to re-energize the brand. In blind
taste tests, consumers generally preferred New Coke over
Pepsi and the original Coke.

But, consumers had a sentimental attachment to their beloved
brand and reacted very negatively to New Coke. The company
was flooded with up to 8,000 calls a day from dissatisfied
consumers and received some 40,000 complaint letters.

The soda company quickly got the message and brought back
the original formula less than three months after New Coke
launched.

On July 11, 1985, 79 days after the release of New Coke, Coke’s
original formula returned to market, rebranded as Coca-Cola
Classic. It quickly regained its status as the dominant cola.

On April 24, 1916, on Easter Monday in Dublin, the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization of Irish
nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launched the so-called
Easter Rising, an armed uprising against British rule.