April 7 Birthday
On April 7, 1994, the Rwandan genocide began. The previous day, a surface-to-air missile had shot down the plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Within hours, Hutu militias — the Interahamwe — began killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The genocide was not spontaneous; it had been planned for months. Lists of targets had been distributed. Machetes had been imported in bulk. Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines broadcast the names and addresses of people to be killed, and told listeners to "cut the tall trees" and "exterminate the cockroaches." In 100 days, approximately 800,000 people were murdered — mostly with machetes and clubs. The international community did nothing. The UN peacekeeping force was ordered not to intervene. Belgium withdrew its troops after ten of its soldiers were killed. The genocide ended when the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, captured Kigali in July. Kagame has been president since 2000. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, at the age of eighty-three, in Dearborn. He had not run the company for years — his son Edsel had died of stomach cancer in 1943, and Henry, senile and erratic, resumed control. His grandson Henry Ford II took over in 1945 and began the process of modernizing the company. Ford transformed manufacturing with the assembly line, transformed labor with the $5 day, and transformed the landscape with the Model T — fifteen million were sold. He was also a virulent anti-Semite who published The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper that ran anti-Jewish articles that were later collected in The International Jew, a book that Hitler admired and kept on his desk. Ford accepted a medal from Nazi Germany in 1938. The World Health Organization was established on April 7, 1948, as a specialized agency of the United Nations. Its first priority was malaria, which killed 300 million people a year. The WHO eradicated smallpox in 1977 — the only human disease to be eliminated. It has not eradicated anything since, though polio is close. The WHO has been criticized for bureaucracy and political influence, but it remains the only global body with the authority to coordinate responses to pandemics. Its performance during COVID-19 was mixed — it was too slow to declare a pandemic but faster than most governments to warn of the threat. Francis Ford Coppola, born this day in 1939, directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, two of the greatest films ever made, within seven years of each other. Apocalypse Now nearly killed him — he had a seizure during filming, Martin Sheen had a heart attack, and a typhoon destroyed the sets. He financed the film himself, mortgaging his house. He has not made a film of comparable stature since. People born on April 7 fall under the zodiac sign of Aries. The birthstone is Diamond and the birth flower is Daisy. Historical events on April 7 include 1947: Henry Ford dies at age 83 in Dearborn, Michigan, 1948: World Health Organization established by United Nations, 1994: Rwandan genocide begins, 800,000 killed in 100 days. Famous people born on April 7 include Francis Ford Coppola (1939), David Frost (1939), Jackie Chan (1954).