This Day in History for April 8

1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, breaking Babe Ruth's record.

On this date:
In 1513, explorer Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain.

In 1935, the Works Progress Administration was approved by Congress.

In 1946, the League of Nations assembled in Geneva for the last time.

In 1950, ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky died in London.

In 1970, the Senate rejected President Nixon's nomination of G. Harold Carswell to the US Supreme Court.

In 1973, artist Pablo Picasso died at his home near Mougins, France, at age 91.

In 1975, Frank Robinson, major league baseball's first black manager, got off to a winning start as his team, the Cleveland Indians, defeated the New York Yankees, 5-to-3.

In 1981, General Omar N. Bradley died in New York at age 88.

In 1992, tennis great Arthur Ashe announced at a New York news conference that he had AIDS. (Ashe died in February 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49.)

In 1994, Kurt Cobain, singer and guitarist for the grunge band Nirvana, was found dead in Seattle from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound; he was 27.