This Day in HistoryApril 7

1915

Billie Holiday, one of the greatest American jazz singers from the 1930s to the '50s, was born.

1922

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company in return for cash gifts in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

1927

The first public demonstration of a one-way videophone occurred between Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, in Washington, D.C., and officials of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City.

1939

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made Albania a protectorate of his country, installing Italy's Victor Emmanuel III as king, while Albanian King Zog I went into exile.

1939

American director Francis Ford Coppola—whose films include the classics The Godfather (1972), The Godfather, Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979)—was born.

1947

American industrialist Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan.

2001

NASA launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars in October and transmitted photos and other data back to scientists on Earth.

2012

American television journalist Mike Wallace, who was noted for his aggressive, bruising style during interviews on the long-running TV newsmagazine program 60 Minutes, died in Connecticut.