Today in History.....April 6

On this day in …

* 1862, the Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee

* 1909, explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the first men to reach the North Pole. (The claim, disputed by skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.)

* 1917, Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany

* 1945, during World War II, the Japanese warship "Yamato" and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day

* 1965, the United States launched the Early Bird communications satellite

* 1985, William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital as he moved into an apartment in Louisville, Ky.

* 2000, the father of Elian Gonzalez, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, arrived in the United States to press for the return of his 6-year-old son to Cuba. ALSO: A private company mapping the human genome announced it had decoded all of the DNA pieces that make up the genetic pattern of a single human being

* 2001, Algerian national Ahmed Ressam, a practitioner of that "religion of peace", was convicted twice in the same day --- first in France for belonging to a group supporting Islamic terror, then in Los Angeles on other terror charges

* 2005, Iraq's new government finally began to take shape as lawmakers elected as president Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who promised to represent all ethnic and religious groups