Today in HistoryToday is Thursday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2007. There are 263 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1606, King James I decreed the design of the original Union Flag, which combined the flags of England and Scotland.

In 1961, the Soviet Union put the first man into space. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched in the spacecraft Vostok I for a single orbit of the Earth in an 108-minute flight.

In 1994, the entire Rwandan cabinet fled Kigali as the radio urged civilians to support the armed forces in repelling advancing rebels.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“The world is quite right. It does not have to be consistent.” — Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American economist-feminist (1860-1935).