Today is the 107th day of 2015 and the 29th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1861, Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.

In 1941, Yugoslavia surrendered to Nazi Germany.

In 1961, a group of CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

In 1964, the Ford Mustang debuted at the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York.

In 1970, the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft landed safely in the Pacific Ocean.

In 2014, NASA's Kepler space observatory announced the discovery of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star about 490 light-years from Earth.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: J.P. Morgan (1837-1913), financier/banker; Senor Wences (1896-1999), ventriloquist; Thornton Wilder, (1897-1975), playwright/novelist; William Holden (1918-1981), actor; Roddy Piper (1954- ), wrestler; Nick Hornby (1957- ), author/screenwriter; Sean Bean (1959- ), actor; Boomer Esiason (1961- ), football player/sportscaster; Henry Ian Cusick (1967- ), actor; Redman (1970- ), rapper/actor; Jennifer Garner (1972- ), actress; Rooney Mara (1985- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: More Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than any other state.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1951, 19-year-old Mickey Mantle made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." -- Thornton Wilder, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 11,747 -- immigrants processed at the Ellis Island immigration center on this day in 1907, the most ever in a single day.

TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter moon (April 11) and new moon (April 18).

Today is the 106th day of 2015 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 Hofmann 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, Virginia.

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.

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: "Perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express." -- Charlie Chaplin

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 last quarter moon (April 11) and new moon (April 18).

Today is the 105th day of 2015 and the 27th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1896, closing ceremonies for the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens.

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

In 1923, insulin became available to the general public for the treatment of diabetes.

In 1924, Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

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

In 2014, the Boko Haram terrorist organization kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria.

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; Roy Clark (1933- ), singer/actor; 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; Maisie Williams (1997- ), 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: "If one is strong, one loves the more strongly." -- Henry James, "The Portrait of a Lady"

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: Between last quarter moon (April 11) and new moon (April 18).