This Day Trivia - april 2

Holidays

Reconciliation Day (as declared by Ann Landers).

Events

2005 First African-American to win a major motorsport event James "Bubba" Stewart wins the 250cc THQ AMA Supercross Series race.

1992 John Gotti The boss of the nation's largest crime family is convicted of murder and racketeering. He is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

1987 IBM withdraws the IBM PC from the market and introduces the PS/2 Models 30, 50, and 80.

1986 IBM withdraws the Portable PC from the market and introduces the new Convertible Laptop PC.

1982 Argentina invades Great Britain's Falkland Islands

1978 Dallas: The long-running primetime soap opera debuts on CBS.

1956 Television Both The Edge of Night and As the World Turns debut on TV.

1935 Radar Sir Robert Watson-Watt is granted a patent for the radar. He is considered the inventor of the radar, although others had also done research on it.

1922 First Airline Steward Jack Sanderson begins work for Daimler Airways.

1917 World War I Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany. It would do so four days later.

1902 First full-time movie theater in the U.S Tally's "Electric Theatre" opens in Los Angeles, California. It only lasted six months.

1866 Civil War Pres. Johnson declares the war ended, except in Texas.

1792 U.S. Mint and coin denominations are established by Congress.

1792 First U.S. coin to contain "E Pluribus Unum" is authorized. They were first minted in 1795. Source: Famous First Facts

1513 Juan Ponce de Leon sets anchor near present-day St. Augustine, making him the first European known to have visited what is now the United States. He named the land Florida and claimed it for the King of Spain.

Births

1965 Rodney King Los Angeles police punching bag. The acquittal of four officers charged in the incident led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

1954 Ron Palillo American actor. TV: Welcome Back Kotter (Arnold Dingfilder Horshack).

1948 Emmylou Harris American Grammy-winning singer.

1941 Dr. Demento (Barret 'Barry' Eugene Hansen), American radio personality, specializing in off-beat music.

1939 Marvin Gaye d. 1984 (Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr.), American Grammy-winning Motown singer. He was shot and killed by his father. Music: How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You (1965), I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1969, #1), Let's Get It On (1973, #1), and (Sexual) Healing (1982, Grammy).

1938 Whirlaway d. 1953 American racehorse, 1941 Triple Crown Winner.

1935 Sharon Acker Canadian actress. TV: The New Adventures of Perry Mason (Della Street).

1920 Jack Webb d. 1982 (John Randolph Webb), American actor. TV: Dragnet. (Sgt. Joe Friday - He carries a badge).

1914 Sir Alec Guinness d. 2000 English Oscar-winning actor. Film: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Oscar), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Star Wars (1977, Obi-Wan Kenobi).

1912 Herbert Mills d. 1989 American singer, with the Mills Brothers, the most popular vocal group of all time.

1911 Charles "Honi" Coles d. 1992 American Tony-winning tap dancer. Broadway: Hello Dolly. Film: Dirty Dancing and Cotton Club. He was inducted into the Tap Dance Hall of Fame (2003).

1908 Buddy Ebsen d. 2003 (Christian Ebsen Jr.), American actor. TV: The Beverly Hillbillies (Jed Clampett) and Barnaby Jones (title role). He was originally cast as the "Tin Man" in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but had to quit because he was allergic to the silver makeup.

1891 Max Ernst d. 1976 German-born Surrealist artist, and leader of the Cologne Dadaists.

1875 Walter Percy Chrysler d. 1940 American auto executive, founder of the Chrysler Automobile Company.

1867 Eugene Sandow d. 1925 German strongman, "Father of Modern Bodybuilding." He organized the first bodybuilding contest (1901). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) was one of the judges.

1834 Frederic Auguste Bartholdi d. 1904 French sculptor, designed the Statue of Liberty, using his mother as the model.

1805 Hans Christian Andersen d. 1875 Danish poet, novelist. Writings: The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes, and The Emperor's New Clothes.

1725 Casanova d. 1798 (Giovanni Jacopo), Italian lover, adventurer, considered history's greatest romantic.

1618 Francesco Maria Grimaldi d. 1663 Italian mathematician, physicist. He discovering that the distance covered by a falling object was proportional to the square of the time of the fall and coined the word 'diffraction.'

742 Emperor Charlemagne d. 814 (Charles the Great), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans, introduced (789) the royal foot as a unit of length.

Deaths

2005 John Paul II b. 1920 (Karol Wojtyla), 264th Pope (1978-2005), the first Polish Pope. He reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church for almost 27 years, making his the second-longest pontificate.

1998 Rob Pilatus b. 1965 German-American model, dancer, singer, half of the Milli Vanilli duo. Their album Girl You Know It's True won the Grammy for Best New Artist, which was taken back after it was revealed they didn't sing on it. Pilatus died of a drug overdose. Music: Greatest Hits (2007).

1994 Betty Furness b. 1916 American actress, pioneer in TV consumer reporting. TV: Today.

1987 Buddy Rich b. 1917 (Bernard Rich), American jazz drummer. He was the second-highest-paid child performer of the 1930s and although he never had a formal lesson and claims to never practice, he is considered the greatest drummer that ever lived.

1966 C.S. Forester b. 1899 (Cecil Scott Forester), novelist, created Horatio Hornblower.

1928 Theodore William Richards b. 1868 American Nobel-winning Chemist, known for his research in atomic weights.

1872 Samuel F.B. Morse b. 1791 (Samuel Finley Breese Morse), American inventor of the telegraph and Morse code.