On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy."
On April 2, 1891, Max Ernst, the German painter and sculptor influential in the Surrealist movement, was born. Following his death on April 1, 1976, his obituary appeared in The Times.
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On This Date
| 1513 | Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. |
|---|---|
| 1805 | Author Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark. |
| 1860 | The first Italian Parliament met at Turin. |
| 1865 | Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va. |
| 1917 | President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy." |
| 1968 | The science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey" had its world premiere in Washington, D.C. |
| 1982 | Argentina seized the disputed Falkland Islands from Britain. |
| 1992 | Mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering. |
| 2002 | Israel seized control of Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen forced their way into the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, beginning a 39-day standoff. |
| 2007 | The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. |
| 2009 | A 19-count federal racketeering indictment was returned against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who denied doing anything illegal. |
| 2011 | Highly radioactive water leaked into the sea from a crack at Japan's stricken nuclear power plant. |
Historic Birthdays
| 71 |
Charlemagne 4/2/742 - 1/28/814 King of the Franks, King of the Lombards and Charles I of the Holy Roman Empire |
|---|---|
| 73 |
Giovanni Casanova 4/2/1725 - 6/4/1798 Italian writer, soldier and adventurer |
| 60 |
Catharine Macaulay 4/2/1731 - 6/22/1791 English historian and radical political writer |
| 75 |
August Hoffmann von Fallersleben 4/2/1798 - 1/19/1874 German patriotic poet, philologist and literary historian |
| 65 |
Erastus B. Bigelow 4/2/1814 - 12/6/1879 American industrialist; founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 70 |
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi 4/2/1834 - 10/4/1904 French sculptor of Statue of Liberty |
| 85 |
Nicholas Butler 4/2/1862 - 12/7/1947 American educator and reformer; won Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931 |
| 65 |
Walter Chrysler 4/2/1875 - 8/18/1940 American businessman; founder of Chrysler Corporation |
| 82 |
Kurt Adler 4/2/1905 - 2/9/1988 Austrian-born American conductor and administrator of the San Francisco Opera |