Today in HistoryToday is Monday, April 24, the 114th day of 2006. There are 251 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1792, the national anthem of France, La Marseillaise, was composed by Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

In 1800, the US Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress.

In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States after rejecting America’s ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.

In 1915, the Ottoman Turkish Empire began the brutal mass deportation of Armenians during the First World War.

In 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. The rising was put down by British forces several days later.

In 1980, the United States launched an abortive attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight US servicemen.

In 1986, Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, for whom King Edward VIII had given up the British throne, died in Paris at age 89.

In 1996, the main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Never practice what you preach. If you’re going to practice it, why preach it?” — Lincoln Steffens, American journalist-reformer (1866-1936).