Bay, a fire aboard the French freighter Grandcamp ignites ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials in the ship’s hold, causing a massive blast that destroys much of the city and takes nearly 600 lives.The port of Texas City, a small industrial...

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon. On April 20, astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke descended to the lunar surface from Apollo 16, which remained in orbit around the moon...

British author Kingsley Amis is born to a lower-middle-class clerk and his wife.
Amis’ mother encouraged him to write at an early age, and he later attended Oxford, where he was known as an outspoken radical. In World War II,he served with the Royal Corps of Signals and later joined...

On April 16, 1977, David Soul’s smash-hit single “Don’t Give Up On Us Baby” reaches the top of the U.S. pop charts. But the story of a tough-but-sensitive TV detective’s journey to crossover success began a full 10 years earlier.
Although the soft-rock style of “Don’t Give Up On Us Baby”...

On the streets of Dodge City, famous western lawman and gunfighter Bat Masterson fights the last gun battle of his life.
Bartholomew “Bat” Masterson had made a living with his gun from a young age. In his early 20s, Masterson worked as a buffalo hunter, operating out of the wild...

On this day in 1789, newly elected President George Washington leaves his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home and heads for New York,