Today in History: April 7

2001: NASA launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars in October and transmitted photos and other data back to scientists on Earth.

1994: Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, was assassinated by Hutu soldiers—a day after the deaths of Juvénal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi—as Rwanda entered a period of anarchy and mass killings.

1990: John Poindexter is found guilty in the Iran-Contra scandal.

1983: Specialist Story Musgrave and Don Peterson make first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

1980: The United States breaks relations with Iran.

1971: President Nixon pledges a withdrawal of 100,000 more men from Vietnam by December.

1963: American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, a dominating figure in world golf from the 1960s to the '80s and the winner of 73 PGA tour events in his career, won the Masters Tournament at age 23 on this day in 1963.

1963: Yugoslavia proclaims itself a Socialist republic.

1947: American industrialist Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan.

1945: The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world's largest battleship, is sunk during the battle for Okinawa.

1943: British and American armies link up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa, forming a solid line against the German army.

1939: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made Albania a protectorate of his country, installing Italy's Victor Emmanuel III as king, while Albanian King Zog I went into exile.

1933: President Franklin Roosevelt signs legislation ending Prohibition in the United States.

1927: The first public demonstration of a one-way videophone occurred between Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, in Washington, D.C., and officials of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City.

1922: U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company in return for cash gifts in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

1915: Billie Holiday, one of the greatest American jazz singers from the 1930s to the '50s, was born.

1914: The British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.

1862: General Ulysses S. Grant defeats Confederates at Battle of Shiloh, Tenn.

1798: The territory of Mississippi is organized.

1712: A slave revolt breaks out in New York City.

1652: The Dutch establish a settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.

1449: Felix V, the last antipope, abdicated.