Today is Thursday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2007. There are 263 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

On this date:

1204 The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople.

1606, England's King James I decreed the design of the original Union Flag, which combined the flags of England and Scotland.

1770 Parliament repeals the Townsend Acts.

1776, North Carolina's Fourth Provincial Congress adopted the Halifax Resolves, which authorized the colony's delegates to the Continental Congress to support independence from Britain.

1782 The British navy wins its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.

1811 The first colonists arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington.

1861 Fort Sumter is shelled by Confederacy, starting America's Civil War.

1862, Union volunteers led by James J. Andrews stole a Confederate train near Marietta, Ga., but were later caught. (This episode inspired the classic Buster Keaton silent comedy "The General.")

1864 Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow, in Tennessee.

1877, the catcher's mask was first used in a baseball game, by James Tyng of Harvard in a game against the Lynn Live Oaks.

1892 Voters in Lockport, New York, became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines.

1911 Pierre Prier completes the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.

1914 First movie "palace" opens

1916 American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clash at Parrel, Mexico.

1927 The British Cabinet comes out in favor of voting rights for women.

1934, "Tender Is the Night," by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published in book form by Charles Scribner's Sons (it had been serialized in Scribner's Magazine).

1944 The U.S. Twentieth Air Force is activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan.

1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

1954 Bill Haley records "Rock Around the Clock."

1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.

1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing.

1963 Police use dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.

1966 Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American major league umpire.

1981, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight.

1983, Chicagoans went to the polls to elect Harold Washington the city's first black mayor.

1984 Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space.

1988 Harvard University won a patent for a genetically altered mouse. It was the first patent for a life form.

1989 In the U.S.S.R, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage.

1992 Euro Disneyland opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France.

1993 NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2000 More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Columbia and arrested 46 members of the "most powerful" heroin ring.

2000 Robert Cleaves, 71, was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Cleaves had repeatedly run over Arnold Guerreiro on September 30, 1998 with his car after the two had an argument.

2000 Israel's High Court ordered the release of eight Lebanese detainees that had been held for years without a trial.

2002 A first edition version of Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" sold for $64,780 at Sotheby's. A signed first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" sold for $66,630. A copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," signed by J.K. Rowling sold for $16,660. A 250-piece collection of rare works by Charles Dickens sold for $512,650.

2002 It was announced that the South African version of "Sesame Street" would be introducing a character that was HIV-positive.

2002 JCPenney Chairman Allen Questrom rang the opening bell to start the business day at the New York Stock Exchange as part of the company's centennial celebrations. James Cash (J.C.) Penney opened his first retail store on April 14, 1902.



Ten years ago:
Undaunted by a cache of explosives found on his travel route, Pope John Paul II plunged into a peace mission to Sarajevo, wading into crowds and declaring, "Never again war."


Five years ago:
Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law ignored growing demands for his resignation because of the sex scandal engulfing the church. (Law ended up resigning in December 2002.)

Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to the Middle East was marred by a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that claimed six victims; the White House put on hold Powell's scheduled meeting with Yasser Arafat.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez resigned under pressure from the country's divided military. (However, he was returned to office two days later.)


One year ago:
Jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial listened to a recording of terrified shouts and cries in the cockpit as desperate passengers twice charged panicked hijackers during the final half hour of doomed United Flight 93 on Sept. 11.

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a former Yale chaplain known for Vietnam-era peace activism, died in Strafford, Vt., at age 81.

Indian movie star Raj Kumar died in Bangalore at age 77.


Today's Birthdays:
1777 Henry Clay, the "Great Compromiser", American politician and statesman who ran unsuccessfully for president three times.
1791 Francis Preston Blair, Washington Globe newspaper editor.
1838 John Shaw Billings, American librarian, army physician.

Country singer Ned Miller is 82.
Actress Jane Withers is 81.
Opera singer Montserrat Caballe is 74.
Actor Charles Napier is 71.
Jazz musician Herbie Hancock is 67.
Actor Frank Bank ("Leave It to Beaver") is 65.
Rock singer John Kay (Steppenwolf) is 63.
Actor Ed O'Neill is 61.
Author Tom Clancy is 60.
Actor Dan Lauria is 60.
Talk show host David Letterman is 60.
Author Scott Turow is 58.
Singer David Cassidy is 57.
Rhythm-and-blues singer JD Nicholas (The Commodores) is 55.
Singer Pat Travers is 53.
Actor Andy Garcia is 51.
Movie director Walter Salles is 51.
Country singer Vince Gill is 50.
Actress Suzzanne Douglas is 50.
Rock musician Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) is 49.
Rock singer Art Alexakis (Everclear) is 45.
Country singer Deryl Dodd is 43.
Folk-pop singer Amy Ray (Indigo Girls) is 43.
Rock singer Nicholas Hexum (311) is 37.
Actor Nicholas Brendon is 36.
Actress Shannen Doherty is 36.
Rock musician Guy Berryman (Coldplay) is 29.
Actress Claire Danes is 28.
Actress Jennifer Morrison is 28.
Rock singer-musician Brendon Urie (Panic! at the Disco) is 20.

Tha's from the Associated Press, Right? Would be nice if next time you include some porn fact, even if you have to make it up.

Okay,

according to IAFD, on this date in 1987, Kara Mynor(Kara Bare) was born.

1987? dear god, i feel soooooooooooooooo old.