This day in history

[April 07, 2011]  (AP)  Today is Thursday, April 7, the 97th day of 2011. There are 268 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On April 7, 1862, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

On this date:

In 1788, an expedition led by Gen. Rufus Putnam established a settlement at present-day Marietta, Ohio.

In 1798, the Mississippi Territory was created by an act of Congress, with Natchez as the capital.

In 1927, the image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover were transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, which was annexed less than a week later.

In 1948, the World Health Organization was founded in Geneva.

In 1949, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" opened on Broadway.

In 1953, the U.N. General Assembly elected Dag Hammarskjold (dahg HAWM'-ahr-shoold) of Sweden to be secretary-general.

In 1969, the Supreme Court, in Stanley v. Georgia, unanimously struck down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter announced he was deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

In 1983, space shuttle astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson took the first U.S. space walk in almost a decade as they worked in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly four hours.

Ten years ago: NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft took off on a six-month, 286 million-mile journey to the Red Planet. In Cincinnati, Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black man wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants, was fatally shot by a white police officer, sparking three days of riots. Actress Beatrice Straight died in Los Angeles at age 86.

Five years ago: A suicide attack in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad killed 85 people. Tornadoes in Tennessee killed a dozen people. Dena Schlosser, charged with killing her infant daughter Margaret by cutting off her arms in what her lawyers portrayed as a religious frenzy, was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a judge in McKinney, Texas. A British judge ruled that author Dan Brown did not steal ideas for "The Da Vinci Code" from a nonfiction work.

One year ago: North Korea said it had convicted and sentenced an American man to eight years in a labor prison for entering the country illegally and unspecified hostile acts. (Aijalon Mahli Gomes (EYE'-jah-lahn MAH'-lee gohms) was freed in August 2010 after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter secured his release.) Space shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station, its astronauts overcoming a rare antenna breakdown that had knocked out radar tracking. Opponents seized Kyrgyzstan's (KEER'-gih-stanz) government headquarters after clashes between protesters and security forces that had left dozens of people dead.

Today's birthdays: Actor R.G. Armstrong is 94. Sitar player Ravi Shankar is 91. Actor James Garner is 83. Country singer Cal Smith is 79. Actor Wayne Rogers is 78. Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 76. Country singer Bobby Bare is 76. Rhythm-and-blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 74. California Gov. Jerry Brown is 73. Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 72. TV personality David Frost is 72. Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 64. Singer John Oates is 62. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is 62. Singer Janis Ian is 60. Country musician John Dittrich is 60. Actor Jackie Chan is 57. College and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Tony Dorsett is 57. Actor Russell Crowe is 47. Christian/jazz singer Mark Kibble (Take 6) is 47. Actor Bill Bellamy is 46. Rock musician Dave "Yorkie" Palmer (Space) is 46. Former football player-turned-analyst Tiki Barber is 36. Actress Heather Burns is 36. Actor Kevin Alejandro (TV: "Southland") is 35. Actor Conner Rayburn is 12.

Thought for today: "Verba movent, exempla trahunt." (Words move people, examples lead them.) -- Latin proverb

[Associated Press]

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