ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 106th day of 2017 and the 28th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in a sealed train after years in exile.

In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD.

In 1947, a fertilizer explosion during the loading of the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, left more than 500 dead.

In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous "Letter From Birmingham City Jail."

In 2007, a gunman killed 32 people in a shooting spree on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Anatole France (1844-1924), writer; Wilbur Wright (1867-1912), pilot/engineer; Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), filmmaker; Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), actor; Henry Mancini (1924-1994), composer; Pope Benedict XVI (1927- ); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1947- ), basketball player; Bill Belichick (1952- ), football coach; Ellen Barkin (1954- ), actress; Jon Cryer (1965- ), actor; Martin Lawrence (1965- ), actor; Selena (1971-1995), singer-songwriter; Gina Carano (1982- ), model/actress.

TODAY'S FACT: Charlie Chaplin's body was stolen in 1978 by grave robbers hoping to extort money from his family for its return. It was recovered 11 weeks later, and the perpetrators were arrested.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2003, Michael Jordan of the Washington Wizards played the final NBA game of his career, a season-ending 107-87 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion." -- Anatole France

TODAY'S NUMBER: 0 -- hits allowed by Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller on this day in 1940. Feller's performance remains the only Opening Day no-hitter in Major League Baseball history.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (April 10) and last quarter moon (April 19).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 105th day of 2017 and the 27th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1896, closing ceremonies for the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens.

In 1912, the R.M.S. Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

In 1923, insulin became available to the general public for the treatment of diabetes.

In 1924, Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

In 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring 264.

In 2014, the Boko Haram terrorist organization kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), artist/scientist; Henry James (1843-1916), author; A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), activist; Bessie Smith (1894-1937), blues singer; Roy Clark (1933- ), singer/actor; Elizabeth Montgomery (1933-1995), actress; Michael Kamen (1948-2003), composer; Evelyn Ashford (1957- ), runner; Emma Thompson (1959- ), actress; Arturo Gatti (1972-2009), boxer; Seth Rogen (1982- ), actor; Emma Watson (1990- ), actress; Maisie Williams (1997- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: Tokyo Disneyland, the first Disney park to be located outside the United States, opened on this day in 1983.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1947, Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming Major League Baseball's first African-American player.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived -- to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that -- this doubtless is the right way to live." -- Henry James

TODAY'S NUMBER: $10 -- amount offered in 1824 by tailor James Selby to anyone who could return his escaped indentured servant boys, William and Andrew Johnson. The boys were never captured. Andrew went on to have a successful career in politics and was sworn in as the 17th president on this day in 1865, after the death of Abraham Lincoln.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (April 10) and last quarter moon (April 19).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 104th day of 2017 and the 26th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot and fatally wounded President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died the next day.

In 1939, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" was published by Viking Press.

In 1986, the United States launched air strikes against Libya in retaliation for an April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen.

In 2003, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), educator; John Gielgud (1904-2000), actor; Rod Steiger (1925-2002), actor; Loretta Lynn (1932- ), singer-songwriter; Julie Christie (1941- ), actress; Pete Rose (1941- ), baseball player; Peter Capaldi (1958- ), actor; Brad Garrett (1960- ), actor; Greg Maddux (1966- ), baseball player; Adrien Brody (1973- ), actor; Anderson Silva (1975- ), mixed martial artist; Sarah Michelle Gellar (1977- ), actress; Rob McElhenney (1977- ), actor; Abigail Breslin (1996- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: The Human Genome Project has aided in the discovery of more than 1,800 disease genes to date.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2002, Tiger Woods won his second consecutive Masters Tournament title.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains." -- Anne Sullivan Macy

TODAY'S NUMBER: 2.25 -- weight (in pounds) of the heaviest hailstones ever recorded, which fell in the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh on this day in 1986, in a storm that killed 92.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (April 10) and last quarter moon (April 19).