 You're welcome back to the breakfast and plus TV Africa. It's now time for Today in History, and I'm going back to the year 2019, on the 21st of April. This day in history, it was an Easter Sunday, and churches were packed, people who had come out for the Easter services. And sadly, there was a bombing. We saw videos of a suspected bomber carrying a backpack, checking out from a hotel and entering into the church. And we saw that three churches there were bombed and as well as three luxury hotels in the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. They were targeted and they say it was a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide bombings on that Easter Sunday. The government eventually closed facilities for security and the next day, April 22nd, the police found a van belonging to the attackers, you know, near one of the blasts and they found on the same day a suspect he was arrested with more than 40 swords, with knives, several uniforms, you know, similar to those one by the army were recovered from a mosque on Slave Island. You know, on that day, a curfew was imposed and the Sri Lankan police eventually identified nine suicide bombers. Over 250 people were killed, some sources say over 300 people were killed. It was just such a very dark day, you know, in the history of that country, lots of people mourning who had gone to church, you know, to Mac Easter, you know, just ended up losing their lives because of this very dastardly, you know, terror attack. Suicide bombs will never, just never ever make any sense to me. Neither would terrorism or of course, you know, someone waking up in the morning and deciding to go blow up dozens of others for reasons best known to them, you know, might just be to instill fear in others, maybe because you hate a particular religion, makes absolutely no sense to me. And it also makes me remember a couple of years ago when we used to have similar stories here in Nigeria of charge bombings and mosque bombings in northern Nigeria. Luckily, we've moved on from, you know, that phase and we no longer hear things like that. But rest in peace to those lives and everyone who, you know, passed on in Sri Lanka was affected by those bombings in 2019. All right, also on this day, we're moving back to 2016 and it is to speak on the death of one of the world's most famous voices. If you remember the hit song Purple Rain, it was done by Prince and it was on this day in 2016 that he passed on. In the morning of April 21st, 2016, Prince, who of course had created more than 30 albums and won seven Grammy Awards over a 40-year career, was found dead in his Minnesota home and recording studio. Because of his death was, you know, as we've also said on this program many times, was as accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl. Too many times that I'm comfortable with, we've spoken about people who have passed on, we spoke about Whitney Houston here and her daughter, who of course also passed on from a drug overdose. He was at that time 57 years old and of course it threw the whole world into mourning. The black community, everybody really, who loved Prince and what he stood for and his music was thrown into mourning. President Obama said at that time that few artists had influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly or even touched quite so many people with their talent as much as Prince did. In the years before his death, he had been taking prescription pain medication for chronic hip pain and it is believed that he was also struggling with an opioid addiction. Throughout his career, he defied and transcended the whole of music genres that were possible and he was just an entirely phenomenal artist. I'm also gonna quickly share some of the awards that he won in the time that he was or some of his achievements. He sold over 150 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best selling music artists of all time. He was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016. After his death, he was supposed to be honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Minnesota. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brits Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Music Awards and an Academy Award and many, many, many others. His song, remember the song I just mentioned, Poppa Rain in 1984, was also one of his greatest albums ever and also received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1999 and 82. So sad, you know, when we talk about Prince. His real name was actually Prince, by the way. Full name, Prince, Rogers, Nelson, multi-instrumentalist, American singer, songwriter, dancer, producer, director, actor. I mean, he even wrote a couple of songs for other artists, including Jack O'Cann. You know Jack O'Cann? You know Jack O'Cann? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he also, you know, I remember, you know, was also, you know, people, a lot of people tried to figure out his sexuality. Yeah, that. That part. I wanted to say something. But we also have a Prince here in Nigeria in the music industry. Yes. The tick banana corona. That's the Prince that we have here. So we celebrate our own also, the Prince. Yes. All right, anyway, that's all we have for you today. Today in history, 2016, the death of Prince. Let me just mention, the Poppa Rain you mentioned, I think the Global Society of Color or the Global Authority of Color, they actually created a color for him, a shade of purple, you know, after he did Poppa Rain, yeah. It's interesting. Quite interesting, yeah. All right. And she shared with you about a bomb blast that happened in Sri Lanka in the year 2019. And those are our top big, you know, issues that we're sharing with you today in history, April 21st. Stay with us when we come back. We're moving into our first major conversation for today. What is the state of the Nigerian nation as it stands? And of course, the Igbo perspective is what we're gonna be looking at with the publicity secretary of Honez and Igbo worldwide that comes up right after the short break.