Today is the 99th day of 2023 and the 21st day of spring.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War.

In 1940, Germany launched Operation Weseruebung, invading Norway and Denmark.

In 1959, NASA announced the selection of the first astronauts, whom the media dubbed the “Mercury Seven.”

In 2003, Iraqis celebrating the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed a 20-foot statue of Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdaus Square.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), poet; Curly Lambeau (18981965), football player/coach; Paul Robeson (1898-1976), athlete/actor/singer; Hugh Hefner (1926-2017), publisher; Carl Perkins (1932-1998), singer- songwriter; Peter Gammons (1945- ), sportswriter; Dennis Quaid (1954- ), actor; Joe Scarborough (1963- ), TV personality; Jeffrey Zucker (1965- ), TV executive; Cynthia Nixon (1966), actress; Keshia Knight Pulliam (1979- ), actress; Jay Baruchel (1982- ), actor; Kristen Stewart, (1990- ), actress; Elle Fanning (1998- ), actress.

TODAY’S FACT: The “Mercury Seven” were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1965, the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, hosted the first Major League Baseball game to be played indoors. The Astros defeated the New York Yankees in the exhibition game by a score of 2-1.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.” -- Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays”