Today in History, April 3rd:

1783 - Washington Irving is born.

1860 - The first successful United States Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California begins.

1904 - Iron Eyes Cody is born. (On an Indian reservation? No, in Sicily to Sicilian parents.)

1917 - Vladimir Lenin arrives in Russia from exile, marking the beginning of Bolshevik leadership in the Russian Revolution.

1922 - Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1924 - Doris Day and Marlon Brando are born. (Brando died in 2004, Doris Day is still alive.)

1942 - Wayne Newton is born.

1944 - Tony Orlando is born.

1948 - President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.

1958 - Alec Baldwin is born.

1959 - David Hyde Pierce (“Niles” from Frasier) is born.

1961 - Eddie Murphy is born.

1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.

1972 - Jennie Garth is born.

1973 - The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City, United States.

1986 - IBM unveils their first laptop computer.

1996 - Suspected “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his cabin in Montana, United States.

1996 - A United States Air Force airplane carrying United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown crashes in Croatia, killing all 35 on board.

2000 - United States v. Microsoft: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.

2004 - Islamic terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves.

2008 - ATA Airlines, once one of the 10 largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in 5 years and ceases all operations.