Today in History.....April 10

On this day in …

* 1790, US Patent system forms

* 1816, Congress ok's second U.S. Bank. One of Alexander Hamilton's pet projects, the initial edition of the bank stirred opposition from states' rights advocates and lost its charter in 1811. Its successor, officially dubbed the Second Bank of the United States, opened in Philadelphia in 1817. Despite its twenty-year charter and
$35 million in federal funding, the bank floundered and the nation was plunged into a yearlong financial panic during 1819.

* 1865, one day after surrendering to Union General Ulysses S.
Grant, General Robert E. Lee addresses his army for the last time

* 1906, O. Henry's second short story collection, The Four Million, is published. The collection includes one of his most beloved stories, The Gift of the Magi, about a poor but devoted couple who each sacrifice their most valuable possession to buy a gift for the other

* 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on its ill-fated maiden voyage

* 1919, Emiliano Zapata, a leader of peasants and indigenous people during the Mexican Revolution, is ambushed and shot to death in Morelos by government forces

* 1930, synthetic rubber first produced

* 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria

* 1941, the German and Italian invaders of Yugoslavia set up the Independent State of Croatia (also including Bosnia and Herzegovina) and place nationalist leader Ante Pavelic's Ustase, pro-fascist insurgents, in control of what is no more than a puppet Axis regime.
The Ustase began a relentless persecution of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and antifascist Croats. As many as 350,000 to 450,000 victims were massacred, and the Jasenovac concentration camp would become infamous as a slaughterhouse.

* 1942, the day after the surrender of the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese, the 75,000 Filipino and American troops captured on the Bataan Peninsula begin a forced march to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. During this infamous trek, known as the "Bataan Death March," the prisoners were forced to march 85 miles in six days, with only one meal of rice during the entire journey. By the end of the march, which was punctuated with atrocities committed by the Japanese guards, hundreds of Americans and many more Filipinos had died.

* 1953, first color feature in 3-D, The House of Wax, opens.
Starring Vincent Price, the movie had to be viewed through special glasses

* 1970, Paul McCartney announces Beatles breakup

* 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare

* 1981, the long-awaited maiden launch of the space shuttle Columbia was scrubbed because of a computer malfunction

* 1996, President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have outlawed partial birth abortions

* 1998, the Northern Ireland peace talks concluded as negotiators reached a landmark settlement to end 30 years of bitter rivalries and bloody attacks.

* 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Texas to meet with President Bush