Today in history: April 2

Today is World autism Day

2005: The bishop of Rome and the head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978, Pope John Paul II, who was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first from a Slavic country, died in Vatican City this day in 2005.

1982: Argentine troops seized the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), precipitating the Falkland Islands War with Britain.

1963: Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King begins the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, Alabama.

1958: The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics is renamed NASA.

1944: Soviet forces enter Romania, one of Germany's allied countries.

1932: Charles Lindbergh pays over $50,000 ransom for his kidnapped son.

1931: Virne "Jackie" Mitchell becomes the first woman to play for an all-male pro baseball team. In an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, she strikes out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

1917: President Woodrow Wilson presents a declaration of war against Germany to Congress.

1917: Jeannette Pickering Rankin is sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1914: The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announces plans to divide the country into 12 districts.

1914: British actor Sir Alec Guinness was born.

1910: Karl Harris perfects the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber.

1865: In the face of advancing Union forces, Confederate troops evacuated Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

1801: The British navy defeats the Danish at the Battle of Copenhagen.

1796: Haitian revolt leader Toussaint L'Ouverture takes command of French forces at Santo Domingo.

1792: The United States authorizes the minting of the $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle & 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins as well as the silver dollar, dollar, quarter, dime & half-dime.

1681: King Charles II of England officially proclaimed the charter he had granted in March to William Penn for the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in North America.

1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, in search of the mythical Fountain of Youth in the Americas, landed on the coast of Florida near the present-day city of St. Augustine.