Today in HistoryToday is Monday, April 17, the 107th day of 2006. There are 258 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE

In 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.

In 1964, Ford Motor Co. unveiled its new Mustang model at the New York World’s Fair.

In 1969, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

In 1970, the astronauts of Apollo 13 splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft.

In 1986, at London’s Heathrow Airport, a bomb was discovered in a bag carried by an Irish woman about to board an El Al jetliner; she had been tricked into carrying the bomb by her Jordanian boyfriend.

In 1996, seeking to calm Pacific security jitters, President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto signed a joint declaration establishing new US-Japan ties for a “stable and prosperous” Asia.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).