April 3
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Featured Event
© Eugene Comstock/stock.adobe.com
The Pony Express begins delivering letters
On this day in 1860, the Pony Express launched, setting a new standard for delivering mail. Horseback riders left St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, simultaneously to deliver mail across the country. Ten days later, the westbound rider arrived in Sacramento to fanfare and celebration—the Pony Express was now the fastest way to deliver mail across the country. Young men (often under the age of 18) were hired to ride cross-country through unforgiving terrain to safely deliver their cargo. When it was finally retired in October 1861, it had not made a profit. The telegraph became the new standard of communication shortly thereafter, but the Pony Express had made its mark, helping to deliver news of Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s election and creating folk heroes like William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© 2007 Index Open
Born this day in 1929 in what is now Dhaka, Bangladesh, civil engineer Fazlur R. Khan was known for his innovations in high-rise building construction, and his works include Chicago’s Willis Tower.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 3
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2016
Revelations found in more than 11 million documents from a law firm based in Panama, originally leaked to a German newspaper, were made public after a year of reporting by hundreds of journalists from around the world. The Panama Papers caused widespread anger by showing how wealthy clients of the firm systematically concealed their riches and avoided paying taxes.
John Youngbear/AP Images
1996
Federal agents in Montana apprehended Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, who had killed 3 people and injured more than 20 with explosives sent through the U.S. postal system between 1978 and 1995. [Ted Kaczynski might have been inspired by The Secret Agent. Read about that book and others tied to terrible crimes.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1973
The first handheld mobile telephone call was made by an employee of Motorola, who called AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about gadgets and technology.]
Marion S. Trikosko, News & World Report, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-DIG-ppmsc-01269)
1968
At an event for the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “Mountaintop Speech.” The following day he was assassinated.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
1961
Comedian and actor Eddie Murphy was born in Brooklyn, New York. [Sort fact from fiction in our film quiz.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-13033)
1948
U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall’s post-World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.
NARA
1946
The Japanese army general Homma Masaharu was executed for forcing the Bataan Death March in 1942. [Test your knowledge of World War II.]
NATO photos
1930
Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor of West Germany (1982–90) and of reunified Germany (1990–98), was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. [How much do you know about German history?]
© 1951 Warner Brothers, Inc.; photograph from a private collection
1924
Stage and motion-picture actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska. [Take our quiz about movie actors.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1922
Doris Day, whose performances in movie musicals of the 1950s and sex comedies of the early 1960s made her a leading Hollywood star, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. [Take our quiz about A-list actors.]
Keystone—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1922
Joseph Stalin became secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a position that provided the power base for his dictatorship. [How much do you know about Russian history?]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1882
While adjusting a picture on the wall of his home in St. Joseph, Missouri, American outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford. [Test your knowledge of famous outlaws.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1879
Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about European history.]