Pope John Paul II waves from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square after the noon blessing Sunday, June 9, 1996. (AP Photo/Bruno Mosconi)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 2, 2025
Today in history:
On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, the Polish pope born Karol Józef Wojtyła, died in his Vatican apartment at age 84. The first non-Italian pope in over 450 years, John Paul II became one of the most influential leaders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries while playing a crucial role in the fall of communism in Europe.
In 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.
In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after Union troops broke through Confederate lines in the Third Battle of Petersburg.
In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declared war four days later.)
In 1982, Argentine troops seized the disputed Falkland Islands from the United Kingdom, sparking the Falklands War.
In 1992, mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering; he was later sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Gotti died in prison in 2002.)
In 2007, in its first case on climate change, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
In 2012, a gunman killed seven people at Oikos University, a Christian school in Oakland, California. (The gunman, One Goh, died in 2019 while serving a life prison sentence.)
In 2020, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 1 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
John Joseph Gotti Jr., also known as “Dapper Don” and “Teflon Don”, was a prominent figure in the Gambino crime family and organized crime in the United States.