April 16 historic events
73 Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt.
Moshe Dayan initiated the practice of holding the swearing-in ceremony on top of Masada for soldiers who have completed their IDF basic training. The ceremony ends with the declaration: “Masada shall not fall again.” The soldiers climb the Snake Path at night and are sworn in with torches lighting the background (wikipedia).
1789 President-elect George Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for his inauguration in New York.
1862 American Civil War: A bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia becomes law.
1917 Lenin returns to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland.
Germany was complicit in allowing and facilitating his return, thereby causing misery to countless hundreds of millions (probably billions) over the remainder of the twentieth century.
1941 Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians throws the only Opening Day no-hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, beating the Chicago White Sox 1-0.
Now you know the answer to a baseball trivia question: How did a team have a no-hitter thrown against them, but nobody’s batting average went down?
1945 The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) Prisoner of War camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).
1945 More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.
The shipwreck which cost more loss of life than any other in history – the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, in which nearly 10,000 died – was also the result of being torpedoed by a Soviet sub.
1947 America’s worst harbor explosion occurred in Texas City, Texas, when the French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up, devastating the town. Another ship, the Highflyer, exploded the following day. The explosions and resulting fires killed more than 500 people and left 200 others missing.
1947 Financier and presidential confidant Bernard Baruch coins the term “Cold War” to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Baruch said in a speech at the South Carolina statehouse, “Let us not be deceived. We are today in the midst of a cold war.”
1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.
1972 Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The second-to-last of the six successful manned lunar landings.
1990 The “Doctor of Death”, Jack Kevorkian, goes through with his first assisted suicide.
1992 The House ethics committee listed 303 current and former lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts.
Insert punch line here.
2007 Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 and injures 23 before committing suicide.
2008 Democratic senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama participate in the final Democratic primary debate of 2008 in Philadelphia.
2009 President Barack Obama issued a statement saying CIA officials who’d used harsh interrogation tactics during the Bush administration would not be prosecuted.
It would probably be inappropriate to suggest that the new 2013 administration return the favor and not prosecute the architects of the ruinous foreign policies currently being enacted and followed.
Correction: “Robert Ismay” in yesterday’s post should have been “J. Bruce Ismay”.
Thanks to the many readers who noticed the error, but were too kind to embarrass yours truly by pointing it out.
Gut Shabbos.