Today in History:
On April 23, 2005, the recently created video-sharing website YouTube uploaded its first clip, “Me at the Zoo,” which showed YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of an elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.
On this date:
In 1616 (Old Style calendar), William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon on what has traditionally been regarded as the 52nd anniversary of his birth in 1564.
In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States, which responded in kind two days later.
In 1940, about 200 people died in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Mississippi.
In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)
In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
In 1971, hundreds of Vietnam War veterans opposed to the conflict protested by tossing their medals and ribbons over a wire fence in front of the U.S. Capitol.
In 1988, a federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.
In 1992, McDonald’s opened its first fast-food restaurant in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
In 1993, labor leader Cesar Chavez died in San Luis, Arizona, at age 66.
In 1998, James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then insisted he’d been framed, died at a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital at age 70.
In 2007, Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first freely elected president, died in Moscow at age 76.
In 2013, France legalized same-sex marriage after a wrenching national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation’s heartland and triggered huge demonstrations.
In 2018, a man plowed a rental van into crowds of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people and leaving 16 others hurt; (Alek Minassian was later convicted of 10 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2020, at a White House briefing, President Donald Trump noted that researchers were looking at the effects of disinfectants on the coronavirus, and wondered aloud whether they could be injected into people.
In 2021, U.S. health officials lifted an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweighed a rare risk of blood clot.