The Elephant Man Died, The Apollo 13 Mission Failed

April 11th, Jack Nickalus won his 3rd masters, the Beatles were on the charts again, Eddie and Valerie got married.

1890 - JOSEPH MERRICK the ELEPHANT MAN . . . died at age 27.

1947 - JACKIE ROBINSON became the FIRST BLACK PLAYER in Major League Baseball, in an exhibition game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

1966 - Exactly 19 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier, EMMETT ASHFORD became the FIRST BLACK UMPIRE in the Major Leagues.

1966 - 26-year-old JACK NICKLAUS won his THIRD Masters tournament and became the first man to win them back-to-back.

1970 - APOLLO 13 blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon.  The astronauts managed to return safely.

1970 - THE BEATLES' "Let It Be" hit #1 on the singles chart and stayed there for two weeks.

1980 - The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically PROHIBITING SEXUAL HARASSMENT.

1981 - EDDIE VAN HALEN married  VALERIE BERTINELLI.

1983 - "Gandhi" beat "E.T." for Best Picture at the Oscars, one of EIGHT Oscars for the movie.  More importantly, at those same awards, the monster jam "UP WHERE WE BELONG" from "An Officer and a Gentleman" won the Oscar for Best Song.

1986 - KELLOGG'S stopped giving tours of its breakfast food plant in BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN, after 80 years because spies from other cereal companies were stealing their secrets.

1992 - CHRISTOPHER REEVE and DANA MOROSINI were married.  (--They were together until Chris died in October of 2004.  Dana died of lung cancer in March of 2006.)

1999 - JEAN VANDER PYL, who was the voice of ROSIE THE ROBOT on "The Jetsons" and both WILMA AND PEBBLES on "The Flintstones", passed away at age 79.

1999 - The Justice Department reported that "more than one-third of the women in state prisons and jails said they were physically or sexually abused as children."