Today in history:
On April 29, 1992, a jury in Simi Valley, California, acquitted four Los Angeles police officers charged with assault and using excessive force in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King; the verdicts were followed by six days of rioting in Los Angeles which destroyed hundreds of businesses and resulted in over 60 deaths.
Also on this date:
In 1916, the Easter Rising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British forces.
In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the Dachau concentration camp.
In 1991, a powerful tropical cyclone made landfall in Bangladesh, creating a storm surge that resulted in more than 138,000 deaths.
In 1997, the Chemical Weapons Convention, a worldwide treaty banning the use of chemical weapons and mandating the destruction of existing chemical weapons, went into effect.
In 2008, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama denounced his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for what he termed “divisive and destructive” remarks on race.
In 2011, Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton were married in an opulent ceremony at London’s Westminster Abbey.
