Today in history
Today is Saturday, April 15, the 105th day of 2017. There are 260 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first black major league player, made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day at Ebbets Field. (The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, 5-3.)
On this date
In 1817, America’s oldest existing school for the deaf opened in Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died nine hours after being shot the night before by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington; Andrew Johnson became the nation’s 17th president.
In 1892, General Electric Co., formed by the merger of the Edison Electric Light Co. and other firms, was incorporated in Schenectady, New York.
In 1912, the British luxury liner RMS Titanic foundered in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland more than 2 ½ hours after hitting an iceberg; 1,514 people died, while less than half as many survived.
In 1920, a paymaster and a guard were shot and killed during a robbery at a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts; Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were accused of the crime, convicted and executed amid worldwide protests that they hadn’t received a fair trial.
In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp BergenBelsen. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died on April 12, was buried at the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park, New York.
In 1959, Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived in Washington to begin a goodwill tour of the United States. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles resigned for health reasons (he was succeeded by Christian A. Herter).
In 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army held up a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco; a member of the group was SLA kidnap victim Patricia Hearst, who by this time was going by the name “Tania” (Hearst later said she’d been forced to participate).
In 1989, 96 people died in a crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. Students in Beijing launched a series of pro-democracy protests; the demonstrations culminated in a government crackdown at Tiananmen Square.
In 1997, Jackie Robinson’s number 42 was retired 50 years after he became the first black player in major league baseball.
In 2002, retired Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White died at age 84.
In 2013, two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing two women and an 8-year-old boy and injuring more than 260. (Suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM’-ehrluhn tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) died in a shootout with police; his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’ehv), was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.)
Ten years ago: Riot police beat and detained dozens of anti-Kremlin demonstrators in St. Petersburg, Russia, on a second day of protests against the government of President Vladimir Putin.