Today in history: April 16
In 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas, and more events that happened on this day in history.
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1789: George Washington
In 1789, President-elect George Washington left Mount Vernon, Virginia, for his inauguration in New York.
1867: Wilbur Wright
In 1867, aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright was born in Millville, Indiana (his brother Orville was born five years later in Dayton, Ohio).
1947: Grandcamp
In 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas; a nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day; the blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people.
1962: Bob Dylan
In 1962, Bob Dylan debuted his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” at Gerde’s Folk City in New York.
1963: “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which the civil rights activist responded to a group of local clergymen who had criticized him for leading street protests; King defended his tactics, writing, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
1977: Alex Haley
In 1977, Alex Haley, author of the best-seller “Roots,” visited the Gambian village of Juffure, where, he believed, his ancestor Kunte Kinte was captured as a slave in 1767.
2007: Virginia Tech
In 2007, in one of America’s worst school attacks, a college senior killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life.
2010: Goldman Sachs & Co.
In 2010, the U.S government accused Wall Street’s most powerful firm of fraud, saying Goldman Sachs & Co. had sold mortgage investments without telling buyers the securities were crafted with input from a client who was betting on them to fail. (In July 2010, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but did not admit wrongdoing.)
2011: Afghanistan
Ten years ago: A Taliban sleeper agent walked into a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in the eastern Afghan province of Laghman and detonated a vest of explosives hidden underneath his uniform; six American troops, four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed.
2016: Ecuador
Five years ago: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Ecuador’s central coast near the town of Muisne (MWIHZ’-nee) killed more than 660 people.
2016: Pope Francis
Five years ago: In an extraordinary gesture, Pope Francis brought 12 Syrian Muslims to Italy aboard his plane after an emotional visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, which was facing the brunt of Europe’s migration crisis.
2020: Donald Trump
One year ago: President Donald Trump gave governors a road map for easing coronavirus restrictions, laying out a “phased and deliberate approach” to restoring normal activity in places that had strong testing in place and were seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases.
2020: Unemployment
One year ago: The Labor Department said the wave of layoffs that had engulfed the economy since the virus struck had caused another 5.2 million people to seek unemployment benefits, raising the total number of laid-off workers to 22 million; it was the worst run of U.S. job losses on record.
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