This Week In History
April 3 - In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which allocated more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European countries.
April 4 - In 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39.
April 5 - In 1875, circus owner P.T. Barnum was elected mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
April 6 - In 1909, explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the first people to reach the North Pole. The claim, disputed by skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.
April 7 - In 1943, the National Football League made helmets mandatory.
April 8 - In 1960, the Netherlands and West Germany signed an agreement to return German land annexed by the Dutch at the end of World War II in exchange for 280 million German marks. (70 million USD)