Today is Tuesday, April 6, the 96th day of 2010. There are 269 days left in the year.

On this date

In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee as Confederate forces launched a surprise attack against Union troops, who beat back the Confederates the next day.

In 1896, the first modern Olympic Games formally opened in Athens, Greece.

In 1909, American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuit men became the first men to reach the North Pole.

In 1994, the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda, Cyprien Ntaryamira and Juvenal Habyarimana, were killed when a rocket brought down their plane as it landed in Rwanda. The assassinations unleashed genocide in Rwanda of at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu.

In 2000, the father of Elian Gonzalez, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, arrived in the United States to press for the return of his six-year-old son to Cuba.

Thought for Today

"Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves." — Gene Fowler, American journalist and author (1890-1960).