Today is the 106th day of 2014 and the 28th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in a sealed train after years in exile.

In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD.

In 1947, a fertilizer explosion during the loading of the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, left more than 500 dead.

In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail."

In 2007, a gunman killed 32 people and injured 23 in a shooting spree on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Anatole France (1844-1924), writer; Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), pilot/engineer; Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), actor/director; Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), actor; Pope Benedict XVI (1927- ); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1947- ), basketball player; Bill Belichick (1952- ), football coach; Ellen Barkin (1954- ), actress; Jon Cryer (1965- ), actor; Martin Lawrence (1965- ), actor; Selena (1971-1995), singer-songwriter; Gina Carano (1982- ), model/actress; Jonathan Vilma (1982- ), football player.

TODAY'S FACT: Charlie Chaplin did not use dialogue in his movies until making "The Great Dictator" in 1940, 13 years after the first "talkie" appeared in theaters.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2003, Michael Jordan of the Washington Wizards played the final NBA game of his career, a season-ending 107-87 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -- Anatole France

TODAY'S NUMBER: 0 -- hits allowed by Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller on this day in 1940. Feller's performance remains the only Opening Day no-hitter in Major League Baseball history.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (April 15) and last quarter moon (April 22).

Today is the 105th day of 2014 and the 27th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1912, the R.M.S. Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

In 1924, Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

In 1959, the new Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, arrived in Washington, D.C., for an 11-day tour of the United States.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States for the first time since becoming the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring 264.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), artist/scientist; Henry James (1843-1916), author; A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), activist; Bessie Smith (1894-1937), blues singer; Elizabeth Montgomery (1933-1995), actress; Michael Kamen (1948-2003), composer; Evelyn Ashford (1957- ), runner; Emma Thompson (1959- ), actress; Arturo Gatti (1972-2009), boxer; Seth Rogen (1982- ), actor; Emma Watson (1990- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: After hitting the iceberg, the R.M.S. Titanic stayed partially afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes before sinking completely beneath the surface.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1947, Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming Major League Baseball's first African-American player.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." -- Henry James

TODAY'S NUMBER: 24 -- hours after Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland that U.S. stores were completely sold out of Rand McNally maps of Europe.

TODAY'S MOON: Full moon (April 15).

Today is the 104th day of 2014 and the 26th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot and fatally wounded President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

In 1939, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" was published by Viking Press.

In 1986, the United States launched air strikes against Libya in retaliation for an April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.

In 2003, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), educator; John Gielgud (1904-2000), actor; Rod Steiger (1925-2002), actor; Loretta Lynn (1932- ), singer-songwriter; Julie Christie (1941- ), actress; Pete Rose (1941- ), baseball player; Richard Jeni (1957-2007), comedian; Brad Garrett (1960- ), actor; Greg Maddux (1966- ), baseball player; Adrien Brody (1973- ), actor; Anderson Silva (1975- ), mixed martial artist; Sarah Michelle Gellar (1977- ), actress; Rob McElhenney (1977- ), actor; Abigail Breslin (1996- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: The lowest point on Earth is called Challenger Deep, located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, nearly 36,000 feet (about 6.8 miles) below sea level.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2002, Tiger Woods won his second consecutive Masters title.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create ... this is man." -- John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 2.25 -- weight (in pounds) of the heaviest hailstones ever recorded, which fell in the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh on this day in 1986, killing 92.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (April 7) and full moon (April 15).