On this day, April 14
1828 The first edition of Noah Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington.
1902 James Cash Penney opened his first store, The Golden Rule, in Kemmerer, Wyo.
1910 President William Howard Taft became the first U.S. chief executive to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game as the Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0.
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.)
1935 The “Black Sunday” dust storm descended upon the central Plains, turning a sunny afternoon into total darkness. 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. 1960 Tamla Records and Motown Records, founded by Berry Gordy Jr., were incorporated as Motown Record Corp. 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.
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.
1999 NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees; Yugoslav officials said 75 people were killed.
2007 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.
2012 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.
2013 Adam Scott became the first Australian to win the Masters, beating Angel Cabrera on the second hole of a playoff on a rainy day at Augusta National.
2017 Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, already serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder, was acquitted in Boston in a 2012 double slaying prosecutors said was fueled by his anger over a drink spilled at a nightclub. (Five days later, Hernandez hanged himself in his prison cell.)
2018 Czech filmmaker Milos Forman, whose American movies “Amadeus” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” won a deluge of Academy Awards including Oscars for best director, died in Connecticut at age 86.
2021 A white former suburban Minneapolis police officer, Kim Potter, was charged with second-degree manslaughter for killing 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright in a shooting that ignited days of unrest. 2022 The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, a guided-missile cruiser that became a potent target of Ukrainian defiance in the opening days of the invasion, sank after it was heavily damaged. Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the Moskva with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Julie Christie, 84. Retired MLB All-Star Pete Rose, 83. Rock musician Ritchie Blackmore, 79. Actor John Shea, 76. Actor Peter Capaldi, 66. Actor-turned-race car driver Brian Forster, 64. Actor Brad Garrett, 64. Actor Robert Carlyle, 63. Rock singer-musician John Bell (Widespread Panic), 62. Actor Robert Clendenin, 60. Actor Catherine Dent, 59. Actor Lloyd Owen, 58. Baseball Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, 58. Rock musician Barrett Martin, 57. Actor Anthony Michael Hall, 56. Actor Adrien Brody, 51. Classical singer David Miller (Il Divo), 51. Rapper Da Brat, 50. Actor Antwon Tanner, 49. Actor Sarah Michelle Gellar, 47. Actorproducer Rob McElhenney, 47. Roots singer JD McPherson, 47. Actor Claire Coffee, 44. Actor Christian Alexander, 34. Actor Nick Krause, 32. Actor Vivien Cardone, 31. Actor Graham Phillips, 31. Actor Skyler Samuels, 30. Actor Abigail Breslin, 28.