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Local history on this date: April 9
50 years ago: April 9, 1976
The Altoona Chamber of Commerce sponsored a seminar on law enforcement careers for Altoona Area and Bishop Guilfoyle High School students with Pennsylvania State Policeman Dana Weller instructor in three sessions at Altoona High with about 500 students attending.
25 years ago: April 9, 2001
Pennsylvania State Police that week began posting wanted criminals on the internet at a startup cost of $2.3 million called the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System.
10 years ago: April 9, 2016
B&S Logging of Huntingdon was hired by the state to cut down ash trees at Prince Gallitzin State Park that had been infected by an insect called an emerald ash borer. They had to remove more than 200 trees.
-- Compiled by Tim Doyle
World history on this date: April 9
Today is Thursday, April 9, the 99th day of 2026. There are 266 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. (Remaining Confederate units elsewhere would formally surrender by early June of 1865, closing out the bloodiest conflict on American soil without further major combat.)
Also on this date:
– In 1939, Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after the Black singer was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
– In 1940, during World War II, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.
– In 1942, during World War II, some 75,000 Philippine and American soldiers surrendered to Japanese troops, ending the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines. The prisoners were subsequently forced to march 65 miles to POW camps in what is now known as the Bataan Death March; thousands died or were killed en route.
– In 1959, NASA introduced the "Mercury Seven," its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald "Deke" Slayton.
– In 1968, funerals, private and public, were held for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and at Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
– In 2003, Baghdad fell to American troops during the Iraq War after six days of fighting.
– In 2005, Britain's Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall.
– In 2023, a five-story residential building exploded and collapsed near the port of Marseille in France, leaving at least six people dead and others missing. The predawn collapse occurred in the old quarter of central Marseille, France's second-largest city.
-- The Associated Press