[Faithful]

On April 2 :

1513 .... Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida.

1792 .... Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

1805 .... Author Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark.

1860 .... The first Italian Parliament met at Turin.

1865 .... Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va.

1872 .... Samuel F.B. Morse, developer of the electric telegraph, died at age 80.

1932 .... Aviator Charles Lindbergh, through an intermediary, paid $50,000 ransom in a New York cemetery to a man who promised to return his kidnapped son. (The child was found dead the following month. The ransom money was eventually traced to Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for the crime.)

1968 .... The science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey" had its world premiere in Washington, D.C.

1974 .... French President Georges Pompidou died in Paris.

1982 .... Argentina seized the disputed Falkland Islands from Britain.

1992 .... Mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering.

2002 .... Israel seized control of Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen forced their way into the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, beginning a 39-day standoff.

2005 .... Pope John Paul II, who helped topple communism in Europe and left a deeply conservative stamp on the Roman Catholic Church that he led for 26 years, died in his Vatican apartment at age 84.

2007 .... In its first case on climate change, the Supreme Court declared in a 5-4 ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.