What to remember about April 17th…
- 1790 American patriot and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (b. 1706)
- 1820 Father of modern baseball Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr. is born (d. 1892); inventor of baseball “diamond” and author of Knickerbocker Rules
- 1897 In Aurora, Texas an unidentified flying object supposedly crashes leaving “pilot” dead; supposedly buried in local cemetery
- 1941 11 days after invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, leaders sign armistice and surrender to Germany
- 1961 CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees land on Cuba to overthrow Castro and oppressive communist regime; Bay of Pigs attack fails
- 1964 Ford Mustang debuts at World’s Fair in New York
- 1968 Jordanian Sirhan Bishara Sirhan convicted for the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy
- 1970 Apollo 13 spacecraft returns safely to Earth 4 days after explosion cripples the ship and forces mission to be aborted
- 1975 Troops of communist Khmer Rouge capture Phnom Penh; Cambodia falls to insurgents; 2 million will die in killing fields
- 2012 Retiring space shuttle Discovery is flown on the back of converted 747 to join Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to become an exhibit
