Once Upon A Time – April 12 – 1961 – Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Becomes 1st Person To Orbit Earth

1204 4th Crusade occupies and plunders Constantinople1811 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington1872 Jesse James’ gang robs a bank of $1,500 in Columbia, Kentucky, 1 dead1927 Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in Shanghai1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1)Historical Events Today
Today in Film & TV
1932 “Grand Hotel” directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Greta Garbo and John Barrymore premieres in New York, includes the line “I want to be alone” (Best Picture/Production 1932)Today in Music
1954 Bill Haley and the Comets record “Rock Around Clock”Today in Sport
1980 US Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of the Moscow Olympic gamesDo you know this fact about today?
1937 Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.1988 Harvard University patents a genetically engineered mouse (1st for animal life)