1962 – Walter Cronkite takes over as the lead news anchor of the CBS Evening News, during which time he would become "the most trusted man in America"

1941 – Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians throws the only Opening Day no-hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, beating the Chicago White Sox 1-0

1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers

1981 – STS-1 – The first operational space shuttle, Columbia (OV-102) completes its first test flight.

1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press.

1976 – The Apple I is created.

1970 – Apollo 13 is launched.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I thought about that the other day - kind of disquieting in a way.  My father saw Ruth and Gehrig play; when Henry Aaron broke the record, my father was a few months younger than I am now.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Weird to think that, at the time Aaron broke the record, lots of people were around to see Ruth set the record. As a kid, that 714 seemed like one of those legendary numbers from the Old Tyme Baseball Leagues of Yore, ...ancient history. Now 39 years is no older than my memories of The Big Red Machine or Roberto Clemente.

1970 – Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.

1925 – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in New York City, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

1866 – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by Henry Bergh.

1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

1974 – At Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth's 39-year-old record.

1911 – Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity.

1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.

1969 – The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.

1967 – Film critic Roger Ebert published his very first film review in the Chicago Sun-Times.

2008: Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement and Egyptian activities .