Today in History: Thursdays, April 18, 2013

历史上的今天：2013年4月18日，星期四

April 18th, 1906 A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco, flattening buildings and setting off raging fires. Estimates of the final death toll range between three-thousand and six-thousand in one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit an American city.

1775,In Massachusetts, several post riders set out to warn colonists of the British attack that starts the American Revolution.

One patriotic myth growing out of that movement begins with a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem called “Paul Reverie’s Ride.”

1983,A suicide bomber kills 63 people including 17 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon's capital, Beirut.

1955,Physicist Albert Einstein, considered the greatest scientist of the 20th Century, dies in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 76.

And 1999,Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky plays his last NHL game at New York's Madison Square Garden. Gretzky, nicknamed “The Great One” for setting so many records, says it's time to move on.

“It's hard. This is a great game, but it's a hard game. I’m ready.”

Today in History, April 18th, Ed Donahue, the Associated Press.