Today in history
On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford's Theater in Washington.
In 1775, the first American society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Philadelphia.
In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster's “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
In 1912, the British liner RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40 p.m. ship's time and began sinking. (The ship went under two hours and 40 minutes later with the loss of 1,514 lives.)
In 1935, the “Black Sunday” dust storm descended upon the central Plains, turning a sunny afternoon into total darkness.
In 1939, the John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath” was first published by Viking Press.
In 1949, the “Wilhelmstrasse Trial” in Nuremberg ended with 19 former Nazi Foreign Office officials sentenced by an American tribunal to prison terms ranging from four to 25 years.
In 1956, Ampex Corp. demonstrated the first practical videotape recorder at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention in Chicago.
In 1965, the state of Kansas hanged Richard Hickock and Perry Smith for the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife, Bonnie, and two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon. The murders were detailed in the Truman Capote non-fiction novel “In Cold Blood.”
In 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated Harry Blackmun to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The choice of Blackmun, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate a month later, followed the failed nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.)
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 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.) French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris at age 78.
In 1994, two U.S. Air Force
F-15 warplanes mistakenly shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 people, including 15 Americans. Turner Classic Movies made its cable debut; the first film it aired was Ted Turner's personal favorite, “Gone with the Wind.”
Ten years ago: Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally in Moscow against Russian President Vladimir Putin's government. A car bomb exploded near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in Karbala, Iraq, killing 47 people. Entertainer Don Ho died in Honolulu at age 76.
Five years ago: In Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the RMS Titanic was built, thousands attended a choral requiem at the Anglican St. Anne's Cathedral or a nationally televised concert at the city's Waterfront Hall to mark the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking. Eleven Secret Service agents were placed on administrative leave as a deepening scandal involving prostitutes overshadowed President Barack Obama's diplomatic mission to Latin America.
“Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.” — George Macaulay Trevelyan, English historian (1876-1962).