April 17th
Today in America's Present Past
1524 | Explorer Giovanni Verrazano is the first European to discover New York Harbor.
1741 | Founder Samuel Chase was born.
1758 | Civil Rights: Poet Francis Williams, America’s first African American college graduate, publishes poems.
1790 | Founder Benjamin Franklin died.
1820 | Baseball inventor Alexander Cartwright was born.
1837 | Entrepreneur J. P. Morgan was born.
1840 | Novelist Hannah Webster Foster died.
1843 | Entrepreneur Samuel Morey died.
1849 | SCOTUS: Justice William R. Day was born.
1861 | Civil War: Virginia secedes from the Union.
1864 | Civil War: Battle of Plymouth, North Carolina.
1865 | Civil War: In Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator.
1870 | Journalist Ray Stannard Baker was born in Lansing, Michigan.
1876 | Author Orestes Augustus Brownson died.
1905 | SCOTUS: The Court decides Lochner v. New York.
1941 | POTUS: Democrat President Roosevelt created the Office of Price Administration forms (handled rationing).
1967 | Civil Rights: A Long, hot summer of riots continues in Massillon, Ohio.
1969 | Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1972 | Actress Jennifer Gardner was born.
1987 | Poet Richard Wilbur was appointed as an American poet laureate.
1990 | Activist Ralph Abernathy died.
1991 | Poet Jack Yellen died.
2003 | Physician Robert Atkins died.
2016 | Actress Doris Roberts died.
2018 | POTUS: First Lady Barbara Bush died.