Today in History: April 14, Abraham Lincoln is fatally shot at Ford’s Theatre
Today is Sunday, April 14, the 105th day of 2024. There are 261 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight 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 Theatre in Washington.
On this date:
In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
In 1902, James Cash Penney opened his first store, The Golden Rule, in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
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 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.
In 1935, the “Black Sunday” dust storm descended upon the central Plains, turning a sunny afternoon into total darkness.
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 1960, Tamla Records and Motown Records, founded by Berry Gordy Jr., were incorporated as Motown Record Corp.
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 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.
In 1999, NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees; Yugoslav officials said 75 people were killed.
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.)
In 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.
In 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.
In 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 is 84. Retired MLB All-Star Pete Rose is 83. Rock musician Ritchie Blackmore is 79. Actor John Shea is 76. Actor Peter Capaldi is 66. Actor-turned-race car driver Brian Forster is 64. Actor Brad Garrett is 64. Actor Robert Carlyle is 63. Rock singer-musician John Bell (Widespread Panic) is 62. Actor Robert Clendenin is 60. Actor Catherine Dent is 59. Actor Lloyd Owen is 58. Baseball Hall of Famer Greg Maddux is 58. Rock musician Barrett Martin is 57. Actor Anthony Michael Hall is 56. Actor Adrien Brody is 51. Classical singer David Miller (Il Divo) is 51. Rapper Da Brat is 50. Actor Antwon Tanner is 49. Actor Sarah Michelle Gellar is 47. Actor-producer Rob McElhenney is 47. Roots singer JD McPherson is 47. Actor Claire Coffee is 44. Actor Christian Alexander is 34. Actor Nick Krause is 32. Actor Vivien Cardone is 31. Actor Graham Phillips is 31. Actor Skyler Samuels is 30. Actor Abigail Breslin is 28.
