ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC
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Today is the 117th day of 2020 and the 39th day of spring.
TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, was killed by Union troops in Virginia.
In 1937, German planes bombed the city of Guernica in Spain.
In 1986, a reactor ruptured at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union, spreading radioactive material over much of Europe.
In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing gay couples to form civil unions.
TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), artist; Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), landscape architect; Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), philosopher; Charles Richter (1900-1985), seismologist; Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), author; I.M. Pei (1917-2019), architect; Carol Burnett (1933- ), actress/comedian; Giancarlo Esposito (1958- ), actor; Jet Li (1963- ), actor; Kevin James (1965- ), actor/comedian; Tom Welling (1977- ), actor; Channing Tatum (1980- ), actor; Aaron Judge (1992- ), baseball player.
TODAY'S FACT: The United States has 98 operational nuclear reactors, more than any other nation.
TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1941, the organ, now a staple at Major League Baseball stadiums, made its debut at Wrigley Field, during a game in which the Chicago Cubs lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2.
TODAY'S QUOTE: "One can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction." -- Bernard Malamud, "Dublin's Lives"
TODAY'S NUMBER: 64,000 -- square miles contaminated by radioactive material from the Chernobyl disaster, an area approximately the size of Wisconsin.
TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (April 22) and first quarter moon (April 30).