Today in HistoryToday is Saturday, April 7, the 97th day of 2007. There are 268 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1862, Union forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

In 1945, American planes intercepted and effectively destroyed a Japanese fleet — Japan’s biggest battleship, the Yamato — that was headed for Okinawa on a suicide mission.

In 1994, civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. In the following 100 days, more than 800,00 of minority Tutsi and sympathetic Hutu intellectuals were slaughtered.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Vox populi, vox humbug.” (The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.) — Gen. William T. Sherman, Union military leader (1820-1891).