Paradise Driver

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Today is Sunday, April 4th.

The 95th day of 2004.

There are 271 days left in the year.

This is Palm Sunday



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Today's Highlight in History:



On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.



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On this date:



In 1507, Future German reformer Martin Luther, at age 21, was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic church.



In 1541, Spanish ecclesiastic reformer and mystic Ignatius Loyola, 50, was elected the first General of the Jesuit Order, which he had helped establish the previous year.



In 1581, After circumnavigating the world, Francis Drake was knighted on board The Golden Hind at Deptford in London by Queen Elizabeth I.



In 1687, James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence allowing full liberty of worship in England. The document allowed peaceable meetings of nonconformists and forgave all penalties for ecclesiastical offenses.



In 1812, The Territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state and will later become known as Louisiana.



In 1818, Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.



In 1828, Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder in Amsterdam.



In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.



In 1850, Los Angeles (El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula) is incorporated as a city, the same year that California is admitted (September 9, 1850) to the United States. It's the only city in the West with four distinct seasons:

- floods

- fire

- earthquakes

- smog



In 1887, Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of an American community -- Argonia, Kan.



In 1896, The Yukon gold rush began with the announcement of a strike in the Northwest Territory of Canada.



In 1897, Campbell's Soup was introduced.



In 1902, British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University.



In 1905, 370,000 people were killed in an earthquake which struck the province of Lahore, then part of British India. The earthquake measured 8.6 on the Richter scale and demolished the towns of Kangra and Dharmsala.



In 1915, American blues musician Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) was born in Rolling Fork, MI. He died in 1983.



In 1917, The U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on the Allied side.



In 1932, Professor C.G. King of the University of Pittsburgh isolated Vitamin C after five years of research.



In 1941, In North Africa, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel captured the British held town of Benghazi.



In 1944, German Holocaust victim Anne Frank, 14, wrote in her diary:

'I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift...of expressing all that is in me.'



In 1945, During World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.



In 1945, Hungary was liberated from Nazi occupation.



In 1949, 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.



In 1958, The 1st march against nuclear weapons was held in Aldermaston England



In 1964, The Beatles hold the top five spots on Billboard's "Hot 100", setting an all-time record.



In 1965, German theologian Jurgen Moltmann revealed in a letter to Karl Barth:

'Polemics always makes one a little one-sided.'



In 1967, Johnny Carson quit "The Tonight Show." He returned three weeks later after getting a raise of $30,000 a week.



In 1968, James Brown made a national TV appeal for calm following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.



In 1969, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, often at odds with television censors, was canceled due to its controversial political humor.



In 1971, The final episode of "Hogan's Heroes" aired.



In 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth's home-run record by hitting his 714th round-tripper in Cincinnati.



In 1975, More than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed shortly after take-off from Saigon.



In 1981, Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican-American elected mayor of a major U.S. city: San Antonio, Texas.



In 1983, The space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage. It was later destroyed when it disintegrated during re-entry while over eastern Texas on February 1, 2003; its seven-person crew perished in the disaster.



In 1984, President Reagan proposed an international ban on chemical weapons.



In 1984, In George Orwell's 1949 novel "1984", Winston Smith begins his secret diary, writing "Down With Big Brother".



In 1986, The final episode of "Knight Rider" aired.



In 1992, Small-town billionaire Sam Moore Walton, whose Wal-Mart retail store chain helped make him one of the world's richest men, died.



In 2002, President Bush urged Israel to pull its troops back from Palestinian cities and dismissed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a failed leader who had "betrayed the hopes of his people." Bush ordered Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region to seek a cease-fire.



Ten years ago (1994):



On Wall Street, stocks plummeted in violent spasms of selling that sent the Dow industrial down more than 40 points to a six-month low.



The University of Arkansas won the NCAA basketball championship, defeating Duke 76-72.



Netscape Comminications was founded as Mosiac Comminications.



Five years ago (1999):



NATO warplanes and missiles attacked an army headquarters, oil refineries and other targets in and around Belgrade.



The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 8-2 in baseball's first season opener held in Mexico.



One year ago (2003):



U.S. forces seized Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad.



Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the 18th player to hit 500 career homers, connecting for a solo shot in a 10-9 loss to Cincinnati.



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Today's Birthdays:



Singer-actress Frances Langford is 90.



Composer Elmer Bernstein is 82.



Actress Elizabeth Wilson is 79.



Author-poet Maya Angelou is 76.



Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is 72.



Recording executive Clive Davis is 72.



Actor Michael Parks is 66.



Bandleader Hugh Masekela is 65.



Author Kitty Kelley is 62.



Actor Craig T. Nelson is 60.



Actor Walter Charles is 59.



Actress Caroline McWilliams is 59.



Actress Christine Lahti is 54.



Country singer Steve Gatlin (The Gatlin Brothers) is 53.



Writer-producer David E. Kelley is 48.



Actor Phil Morris is 45.



Actress Lorraine Toussaint is 44.



Actor Hugo Weaving is 44.



Rock musician Craig Adams (The Cult) is 42.



Actor Robert Downey Jr. is 39.



Actress Nancy McKeon is 38.



Actor Barry Pepper is 34.



Country singer Clay Davidson is 33.



Singer Jill Scott is 32.



Rock musician Magnus Sveningsson (The Cardigans) is 32.



Magician David Blaine is 31.



Singer Kelly Price is 31.



Rhythm and blues singer Andre Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 30.



Actress Alicia Silverstone is 28.



Actor Heath Ledger is 25.



Actress Natasha Lyonne is 25.



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Thought for Today:

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live." -

- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968 ).

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