On This Day:
Sunday April 13, 2014 This is the 103rd day of the year, with 262 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: butterflies There are thousands of species of the butterfly, which constitute the subfamily Papilionoidea and belong to the order Lepidoptera along with moths and skippers. Butterflies have bodies, legs, and wings covered with dustlike scales that come off when they are handled; unlike moths, they are usually brightly colored and are active during the day. Butterflies also have club-tipped antennae, which they use for smelling, and hold their wings vertically over the back when at rest. They use their feet for tasting and breathe through their bodies because they don't have lungs. The changing process a butterfly goes through during its life cycle is called metamorphosis. A lepidopterist is someone who studies or collects butterflies. The word butterfly derives from German and came into English through Dutch around 1000, but its origin is unknown.
Holidays Feast day of St. Guinoch, St. Martin I, pope, Saints Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice, St. Hermenegild, and St. Martius.
Chad: National Day.
United States: Thomas Jefferson's Birthday.
Sri Lanka: Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
Events 1598 - Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.
1796 - The first elephant was brought to the United States.
1870 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in New York City.
1919 - British forces killed hundreds of Indian nationalists in the Amritsar Massacre.
1923 - The Illinois state legislature was the first to vote to allow women to serve on juries.
1941 - During World War II, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a five-year neutrality agreement. In early 1945, Joseph Stalin, at the urging of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, agreed to declare war against Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.
1943 - President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial.
1964 - Sidney Poitier became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for "Lilies of the Field."
1970 - Apollo 13, very close to its destination, the Moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst. The rest of the trip was spent getting the astronauts safely back to Earth.
1992 - The Great Chicago Flood took place as the city's century-old tunnel system and adjacent basements filled with water from the Chicago River.
1997 - In his first year as a professional golfer, Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first player of African heritage to claim a major golf title.
Births 1519 - Catherine de Medici, consort of Henri II of France and the mother of three other kings of France.
1743 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America (1801-1809), author of the Declaration of Independence.
1771 - Richard Trevithick, English engineer.
1852 - F.W. Woolworth, American merchant, founder of chain stores.
1899 - Alfred Butts, American who invented the board game Scrabble.
1906 - Samuel Beckett, American author, critic, playwright.
1909 - Eudora Welty, American writer.
1946 - Al Green, American singer and pastor.
1963 - Garry Kasparov, Russian chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion.
Deaths 1605 - Boris Godunov, Russian czar.
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