Today's Highlight in History:
On April 17th, 1961, about 1500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous¹ Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow² the government of Fidel Castro.
On this date:
In 1492, a contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward³ ocean passage to Asia.

In 1790, American statesman Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84.

In 1861, the Virginia State Convention voted to secede⁴ from the Union.

In 1941, Yugoslavia surrendered to Germany in World War Two.

In 1964, Ford⁵ Motor Company unveiled its new "Mustang" model.

In 1969, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating⁶ Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

In 1969, Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek was deposed⁷.

In 1970, the astronauts of Apollo 13 splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured⁸ oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft.

In 1975, Phnom Penh fell to Communist insurgents⁹, ending Cambodia's five-year war.

In 1998, photographer Linda McCartney, wife of Paul McCartney, died in Tucson, Arizona, at age 56.

Ten years ago: President Bush warned the Soviet¹⁰ Union against carrying out an economic blockade of Lithuania, hinting at "appropriate responses." The Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy, the civil rights activist¹¹ and top aide to Reverend Martin Luther King Junior, died in Atlanta at age 64.

Five years ago: An Air Force jet exploded and crashed in a wooded area in eastern Alabama, killing¹² eight people, including an assistant Air Force secretary and a two-star general. President Clinton signed an executive order stripping the classified label from most national security documents that were at least 25 years old.

One year ago: General Wesley Clark, NATO's commander, bluntly told Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to change his policies in Kosovo or see his military machine destroyed. The first of three bombs to explode in London within a two-week period went off in Brixton, a racially mixed neighborhood, injuring 39 people.