This Day in History: April 12, 2024
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1861
The Civil War began when Fort Sumter was attacked.
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1862
James J. Andrews led the raiding party that stole the Confederate locomotive "The General," inspiring the 1926 Buster Keaton movie.
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1945
President Franklin Roosevelt died.
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1955
The polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was called "safe, effective, and potent."
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1961
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human in space and also the first human to orbit the earth in a spacecraft.
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1981
The first space shuttle, Columbia, took its first test flight.
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1983
Harold Washington was elected Chicago’s first African-American mayor.
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1999
Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright found President Clinton in contempt of court for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
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