Today is Thursday, April 16, the 107th day of 2020. There are 259 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 16, 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.”
On this date:
In 2003, the Bush administration lowered the terror alert level from orange to yellow, saying the end of heavy fighting in Iraq had diminished the threat of terrorism in the United States.
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.
Today’s Birthdays: Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is 93. Actor Peter Mark Richman is 93. Singer Bobby Vinton is 85. Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II is 80. Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 73. Former Massachusetts first lady Ann Romney is 71. NFL coach Bill Belichick is 68. Rock singer and former politician Peter Garrett is 67. Actress Ellen Barkin is 66. Actor Michel Gill is 60. Rock musician Jason Scheff (Chicago) is 58. Singer Jimmy Osmond is 57. Rock singer David Pirner (Soul Asylum) is 56. Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 55. Actor Jon Cryer is 55. Rock musician Dan Rieser is 54. Actor Peter Billingsley is 49. Actor Lukas Haas is 44. Actress-singer Kelli O’Hara is 44. Actress Claire Foy (TV: “The Crown”) is 36. Figure skater Mirai Nagasu is 27. Actress Sadie Sink is 18.
Thought for Today: “We think too much and feel too little.” — Charles Chaplin, English actor-comedian-director (born this date in 1889, died in 1977).
