The Week in History for April 16-22

April16

1862: During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. The Confederacy conscripted all white men between the ages of 18 to 35.

1889: Comedian and movie director Charles Chaplin was born in London.

1962: Bob Dylan debuted his song ''Blowin' in the Wind'' at Gerde's Folk City in New York

1972: Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon with astronauts John W. Young, Charles M. Duke Jr. and Ken Mattingly on board.

2002: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned two major provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act, saying the government had gone too far in trying to ban ''virtual'' child pornography.

April 17

1492: A contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to Asia.

1937: The animated cartoon character Daffy Duck made his debut in the Warner Bros. cartoon ''Porky's Duck Hunt,'' directed by Tex Avery.

1961: Some 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro, whose forces crushed the incursion by the third day.

1968: Six of the eight North Central Airline flights out of Aberdeen would be 100-passenger DC-9 jets beginning at the end of April. Convair 440 planes handled the other flights.

1969: A jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

1970: Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft while en route to the moon.

2018: Former first lady Barbara Bush, wife of President George H.W. Bush, died in Houston at age 92.

April 18

1775: Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming.

1906: A devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000.

1934: The first laundromat (called a ''washateria'') opened in Fort Worth, Texas.

1945: Famed American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, 44, was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa.

1966: Construction of the new St. Otto's Catholic Church in Webster was underway. The round church had an 86-foot diameter. Cost of the new structure was about $230,000.

1972: Headliner for the South Dakota State Fair was Charley Pride.

April 19

1775: The American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1943: During World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile battle against Nazi forces.

1951: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Harry S. Truman, bid farewell in an address to Congress in which he quoted a line from a ballad: ''Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.''

1968: Students from the rural schools of Brown County were preparing to present their annual music program that weekend at the arena.

1984: The intersection at North Second Street and Fifth Avenue would undergo reconstruction that summer. It was one of the highest accident areas in the state.

1993: South Dakota Gov. George S. Mickelson and seven others died in a plane crash near Dubuque, Iowa. Mickelson was born in Mobridge.

1993: The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; dozens of people, including sect leader David Koresh, were killed.

1995: A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Bomber Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)

2013: USA Today founder and Eureka native Al Neuharth died at his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla. He was 89.

April 20

1812: The fourth vice president of the United States, George Clinton, died in Washington at age 72, becoming the first vice president to die while in office.

1836: Congress voted to establish the Wisconsin Territory.

1889: Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria.

1992: The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness took place at London's Wembley Stadium.

1966: The last issue of Waubay's weekly newspaper, The Waubay Clipper, was published and distributed. The Clipper was established on May 1, 1890.

1979: South Dakota farmers were expected to double their sunflower plantings that year if they could obtain the seed.

1999: The Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months.

April 21

1836: Texans led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexicans at San Jacinto, assuring Texas' independence.

1910: Author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Conn.

1980: Rosie Ruiz, the first woman to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon, was disqualified when officials discovered she had jumped into the race about a mile from the finish.

2004: Five suicide attackers detonated car bombs against police buildings in Basra, Iraq, killing at least 74 people.

2016: Music icon Prince died at Paisley Park, his home and studio in Chanhassen, Minn. He was 57 years old.

April 22

1864: Congress authorized the use of the phrase ''In God We Trust'' on U.S. coins.

1937: Thousands of college students in New York City staged a ''peace strike'' opposing American entry into another possible world conflict.

1952: An atomic test in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb was dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.

1966: Telephone Company representatives called all Aberdeen one-and two-party customers in preparation for the establishment of Nationwide Direct Dialing. The changeover to direct dial long distance calling was to be made early morning on May 1.

1986: Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Holum Expo building, a multi-purpose livestock facility at the Brown County Fairgrounds, was planned to take place later in the week.

1994: Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at a New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke; he was 81.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: The Week in History for April 16-22