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Local

April 4, 1980: Firefighters from Alden, Bricelyn, Kiester, Walters and Wells joined forces to battle a fire that broke out at Golden Bubble Steak House and Ballroom near Wells.

April 1, 1980: Carla Peterson, a 1979 graduate of Albert Lea High School and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Peterson, was crowned Miss Minnesota USA at the state pageant.

Three grain cars overturned in a train derailment east of Hayward. The cars were filled with 80 tons of corn, according to Milwaukee road management.

March 31, 1980: Football fans packed into Albert Lea City Arena seeking an autograph from Ahmad Rashad, wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. Rashad was the featured guest at the Albert Lea Jaycess home and builders show.

 

National

2010: President Barack Obama signed a single measure sealing his health care overhaul and making the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process.

Obama, visiting a factory in Charlotte, North Carolina, hailed a new government report showing the most jobs created in nearly three years, saying, “We are beginning to turn the corner.”

2009: Obama asserted unprecedented government control over the auto industry, rejecting turnaround plans from General Motors and Chrysler and raising the prospect of controlled bankruptcy for either ailing auto giant.

2006: American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was released after 82 days as a hostage in Iraq.

2005: Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching right-to-die court fight.

2004: In a reversal, President George W. Bush agreed to let National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify publicly and under oath before an independent panel investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

2003: American troops entered a hospital in Nasiriyah (nah-sih-REE’-uh), Iraq, and rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed on March 23.

April 3, 1996: Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his remote Montana cabin.

1995: Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 23, was shot to death in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

1987: In his first speech on the AIDS epidemic, President Ronald Reagan told doctors in Philadelphia, “We’ve declared AIDS public health enemy no. 1.”

1984: Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his father, Marvin Gay Sr. in Los Angeles, the day before the recording star’s 45th birthday. (The elder Gay pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and received probation.)

March 30, 1981: Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr.; also wounded were White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and a District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty.

1980: President Jimmy Carter signed into law a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. (The tax was repealed in 1988.)

1976: The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her respirator. (Quinlan, who remained unconscious, died in 1985.)

Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

1970: President Richard M. Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971.

March 31, 1968: At the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address on Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned listeners by declaring, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what turned out to be his final speech, telling a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, that “I’ve been to the mountaintop” and “seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!” (About 20 hours later, King was felled by an assassin’s bullet at the Lorraine Motel.)

1954: The United States Air Force Academy was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1945: American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. (U.S. forces succeeded in capturing the Japanese island on June 22.)

1942: During World War II, Japanese forces began their final assault on Bataan against American and Filipino troops who surrendered six days later; the capitulation was followed by the notorious Bataan Death March.

1917: President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declared war four days later.)

1912: The just-completed RMS Titanic left Belfast to begin its sea trials eight days before the start of its ill-fated maiden voyage.

1882: Outlaw Jesse James was shot to death in St. Joseph, Missouri, by Robert Ford, a member of James’ gang.

April 2, 1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, because of advancing Union forces.

1860: The legendary Pony Express began carrying mail between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. (The delivery system lasted only 18 months before giving way to the transcontinental telegraph.)

1789: The U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in New York; Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first House speaker.