Today is Friday, April 11, the 101st day of 2013. There are 264 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of the French and was banished to the island of Elba. (Napoleon later escaped from Elba and returned to power in March 1815, until his downfall in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.)
On this date:
In 1689, William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, ending the War of the Spanish Succession.
In 1899, the treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect.
In 1914, the George Bernard Shaw play “Pygmalion” had its London premiere. Canadian film animator Norman McLaren was born in Stirling, Scotland.
In 1921, Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax, at 2 cents a package.
In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the notorious Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany.
In 1951, President Harry S. Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.
In 1963, Pope John XXIII issued his final encyclical, “Pacem in Terris” — “Peace on Earth.”
In 1970, Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon.
In 1974, a jury in Media, Pa., convicted former United Mine Workers of America president W.A. “Tony” Boyle of three counts of first-degree murder for ordering the killings in 1969 of union rival Joseph A. Yablonski, Yablonski’s wife and daughter. (The convictions were overturned, but Boyle was found guilty in a re-trial.) Palestinian gunmen killed 16 civilians, mostly women and children, in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.
In 1979, Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces seized control.
In 1989, Mexican officials began unearthing the remains of victims of a drug-trafficking cult near Matamoros; one of the dead was University of Texas student Mark Kilroy, who had disappeared while on spring break. (Several cult members were later convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.)
Associated Press
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