ON APRIL 14 ...
In 1759, composer George Frideric Handel died in London; he was 74.
In 1775 the first American society for the abolition of slavery was organized by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
In 1828 the first edition of Noah Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
In 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington. (Lincoln died the following morning.)
In 1890 the First International Conference of American States met in Washington, where delegates agreed to form the International Union of American Republics, a forerunner of the Organization of American States.
In 1902 James Cash Penney opened his first store, called “The Golden Rule,” in Kemmerer, Wyo.
In 1904 British actor Sir John Gielgud was born in London.
In 1910 President William Howard Taft set a precedent by throwing out the first ball at the baseball season’s opener in Washington.
In 1912 the British luxury liner Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland on its debut voyage to New York. (Early the next morning, it had sunk with the loss of 1,500 lives.)
In 1939 the John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath” was first published.
In 1956 Ampex Corp. demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder, or VCR, at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention in Chicago.
In 1968 the Mart Crowley play “The Boys in the Band” opened in New York.
In 1981 the first test flight of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ended successfully with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In 1986 Americans got first word of a U.S. air raid on Libya. (Because of the time difference, it was the early morning of April 15 where the attack occurred.) Also in 1986 French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris; she was 78.
In 1988 Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and the Soviet Union signed agreements providing for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan and creation of a nonaligned Afghan state.
In 1994 two American F-15 warplanes inadvertently shot down two U.S. helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 people, including 15 Americans.
In 1997 Atty. Gen. Janet Reno rejected Republican calls to seek an independent counsel to investigate campaign fund-raising. Also in 1997 James McDougal, who had agreed to cooperate with Whitewater prosecutors investigating President and Mrs. Clinton, drew a threeyear prison sentence for 18 felony fraud and conspiracy counts.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr told Congress that the Watergate-era law that gave him the power to probe actions of executive branch officials was flawed and should be abolished. Also in 1999 NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees; Yugoslav officials said 75 people were killed. Also in 1999 British entertainer Anthony Newley died in Jensen Beach, Fla.; he was 67.
In 1999
In 2000, on Wall Street, stocks plummeted in heavy trading, with the Dow industrials down 617 points and the Nasdaq composite index falling 355 points, capping one of the worst weeks ever for U.S. stocks.
In 2002 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to office two days after being ousted and arrested by his country’s military. Also in 2002 Tiger Woods became only the third player to win back-to-back Masters titles; he closed with a 1-under 71 to claim a three-stroke victory over Retief Goosen.
In 2004, in a historic policy shift, President George W. Bush endorsed Israel’s plan to hold on to part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement with the Palestinians; he also ruled out Palestinian refugees returning to Israel, bringing strong criticism from the Palestinians.
In 2006 Kobe Bryant broke the Los Angeles Lakers’ single-season scoring record, getting 50 points to eclipse Elgin Baylor’s long-standing total of 2,719 points in a 110-99 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
In 2007 a car bomb exploded near one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in Karbala, Iraq, killing 47 people.
In 2013 Nicolas Maduro narrowly defeated Venezuelan rival Henry Capriles in an election to serve out the term of the late President Hugo Chavez. Also in 2013 golfer Adam Scott won the second playoff hole to become the first Australian to win the Masters.
In 2014 Boko Haram militants abducted more than 270 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, and later threatened to sell the students into slavery.
the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu was hit by a magnitude-6.5 earthquake that left 10 dead and more than 800 injured; a series of aftershocks culminated April 16 in a magnitude-7.3 quake that killed 19 and left thousands homeless. Also in 2016 Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force released recommendations for reforming the Chicago Police Department, calling for sweeping changes in oversight, training and philosophy that would include acknowledging the force’s “history of racial disparity and discrimination.”