Today is Monday, April 25, the 116th day of 2016. There are 250 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On April 25, 1816, Romantic poet Lord Byron, beset by financial problems and personal turmoil (including a failed marriage), left his native England at age 28, never to return. (Byron died eight years later in Greece.)
On this date
In 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
In 1862, during the Civil War, a Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut captured the city of New Orleans.
In 1901, New York Gov. Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. signed an automobile registration bill which imposed a 15 mph speed limit on highways.
In 1945, delegates from some 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
In 1983, 10-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, received a reply from Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov to a letter she’d written expressing concern about possible nuclear war; Andropov reassured Samantha that the Soviet Union did not want war, and he invited her to visit his country, a trip Samantha made in July.
The Associated Press