Today in HistoryToday is Friday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2007. There are 262 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1919, in Amritsar, British troops shot dead 379 Indians protesting at the arrest of two Congress Party leaders.

In 1945, massive firebombing raids by Allied bombers destroyed a large part of Tokyo.

In 1975, Christian militiamen in Lebanon killed 22 Palestinians on a bus in the Ain er-Rummaineh suburb of Beirut. This attack is generally seen as the starting point of the 15-year Lebanese civil war.

In 1986, Pope John Paul II visited a Rome synagogue in the first recorded papal visit of its kind.

In 1994, Belgian paratroopers evacuated the last foreigners from the Rwandan capital Kigali as rebels tightened their grip around the city.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.” — Charles Louis de Montesquieu, French philosopher (1689-1755).