ON THIS DAY APRIL 14

193 Lucius Septimius Severus crowned Emperor of Rome.

1828 First American dictionary is published: its author Noah Webster registers the copyright.

1841 First detective story published is published with Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in Rue Morgue.

1863 American inventor William Bullock patents continuous-roll printing press.

1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington. He dies a day later. 1894 First public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope what would later be called moving pictures.

1896 US Patent Office issues Patent No. 558 393 to Dr John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan. for “flaked cereal, and process of making same”.

1910 US President William Howard Taft begins tradition of throwing ceremonial first pitch on opening day of the US baseball season.

1912 RMS Titanic, the world’s largest and supposedly unsinkable ocean liner, hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland. It sinks in the early hours of April 15.

1914 US head of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Stacy G Carkhuff, patents a non-skid tyre pattern. 1931 Spain becomes a republic with the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII.

1936 French singer Édith Piaf questioned after nightclub owner and her patron Louis Leplée is murdered in Paris.

1939 John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath published.

1958 Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard burns up during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

1971 US President Richard Nixon ends blockade against People’s Republic of China. 1986 Desmond Tutu elected Anglican Archbishop of Capetown.

2002 At he 66th US Masters Tournament, Augusta National, Tiger Woods becomes the third player to claim back-to-back Masters, 3 strokes ahead of Retief Goosen of South Africa.

2022 Russian ship Moskva, flagship of its Black Sea fleet, sinks in the Black Sea during the invasion of Ukraine.