The Boston Marathon Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on April 15, 2013, when two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than 260 other people. After an intense manhunt, police captured one of the bombing suspects, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose older brother and fellow suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died following a shootout with law enforcement. Investigators concluded that the Tsarnaevs, who spent part of their childhoods in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, planned and carried out the attack on their own and were not connected to any terrorist groups. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/boston-marathon-bombings
1250 – Kublai is acclaimed the Great Khan by a Mongol Great Council
1250 – Pope Innocent IV refuses Jews of Cordova, Spain their request to build a synagogue
1385 – At war with Castile, John I of Portugal instructs his ambassadors to negotiate an alliance with Richard II of England and to raise loans to pay his troops
1450 – Battle of Formigny: French defeat the English decisively in the Hundred Years’ War, paving the way for the capture of English strongholds in Normandy
1528 – Pánfilo the Narváez, Spanish conquistador arrives in Florida with 350 men to a hostile reception from native indians
1581 – Portuguese assembly the Cortes of Tomar recognizes Philip II of Spain as King of Portugal after a succession crisis
1632 – Battle of Rain; Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat Count Tilly of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years’ War.
1715 – Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.
1776 – Duchess of Kingston found guilty of bigamy
1784 – The first balloon was flown in Ireland.
1794 – “Courrier Francais” became the first French daily newspaper to be published in the U.S.
1813 – U.S. troops under James Wilkinson attacked the Spanish-held city of Mobile that would be in the future state of Alabama.
1817 – The American Asylum [now American School for the Deaf (ASD)], 1st permanent US school for deaf founded by Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, Dr. Mason Cogswell, and teacher Laurent Clercn (West Hartford, Connecticut,)
1858 – At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeated Spanish loyalists.
1861 – U.S. President Lincoln mobilized the Federal army.
1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died from injuries inflicted by John Wilkes Booth.
1871 – “Wild Bill” Hickok became the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.
1892 – General Electric Company formed by merger of Thomas Edison’s General Electric Company with Thomson-Houston Electric Company, arranged by J. P. Morgan and incorporated in NY
1900 – An early 50 mile race is won by an electric car in over 2 hrs
1902 – Rioting and arson continue in Russia with peasants plundering estates to find food.
1902 – Russian minister of interior and head of secret police, Sipyengin, is assassinated by the ‘Terror Brigade’ of the Socialist Revolutionaries
1912 – With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.
1917 – The British defeated the Germans at the battle of Arras.
1921 – Black Friday in Britain: leaders of transport and rail unions announce a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners; despite widespread feeling decision a breach of solidarity and a betrayal of the miners
1923 – Insulin became generally available for people suffering with diabetes.
1934 – In the comic strip “Blondie,” Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead welcomed a baby boy, Alexander. The child would be nicknamed, Baby Dumpling.
1940 – French and British troops landed at Narvik, Norway.
1945 – The German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen is liberated, British and Canadian troops found about 53,000 prisoners inside the camp. Tens of thousands died before and after the liberation.
1947 – In 1947, at age 28, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American in Major League Baseball, officially breaking the color barrier in the sport.
1948 – The Arabs were defeated in the first Jewish-Arab battle.
1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.
1952 – The first B-52 prototype was tested in the air.
1953 – In Buenos Aires, six people were killed by a bomb at a rally addressed by President Peron.
1953 – Pope Pius XII gave his approval of psychoanalysis but warned of possible abuses.
1953 – Charlie Chaplin surrendered his U.S. re-entry permit rather than face proceedings by the U.S. Justice Department. Chaplin was accused of sympathizing with Communist groups.
1955 – Ray Kroc starts the McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants.
1957 – Saturday mail delivery restored in the US after Congress gives the Post Office $41 million
1959 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro began a U.S. goodwill tour.
1960 – The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was organized at Shaw University.
1962 – US national debt above $300,000,000,000
1967 – Richard Speck was found guilty of murdering eight student nurses.
1970 – Libyan leader Gadaffi launches “Green Revolution”
1971 – North Vietnamese troops ambush a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops are on a rescue mission.
1974 – Military coup in Niger, president Diori Hamani deposed
1981 – Janet Cooke says her Pulitzer award-winning story about an 8-year-old heroin addict is a lie, Washington Post relinquishes Pulitzer Prize on fabricated story
1983 – In Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, the Tokyo Disneyland themepark opened.
1984 – Ten members of a family were found murdered in their home in New York City. An infant was found crawling among the corpses.
1986 – The United States launches retaliatory air strikes against Libya, Around 40 Libyans died in Operation El Dorado Canyon, including an infant girl. The attack was the United States’ response to the bombing of a Berlin discotheque on April 5, in which 3 people had died.
1987 – In Northhampton, MA, Amy Carter, Abbie Hoffman and 13 others were acquitted on civil disobedience charges related with a CIA protest.
1989 – Students in Beijing launched a series of pro democracy protests upon the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang. The protests led to the Tienanmen Square massacre.
1989 – In Sheffield, England, 96 people were killed and hundreds were injured at a soccer game at Hillsborough Stadium when a crowd surged into an overcrowded standing area. Ninety-four died on the day of the incident and two more later died from their injuries.
1991 – New York State raises maximum unemployment benefits to $280 per week
1994 – The World Trade Organization was established.
1997 – Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage; the official death toll is 343.
1998 – Pol Pot died at the age of 73. The leader of the Khmer Rouge regime thereby evaded prosecution for the deaths of 2 million Cambodians.
1999 – In Algeria, former Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president. All of the opposition candidates claimed that the vote was fraudulent and withdrew from the election.
1999 – In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, a panel of two Lahore High Court judges convicted former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of corruption.
2000 – Giant Sequoia National Monument proclamation signed by President Bill Clinton in California, preserving one-third of all giant sequoia groves, the world’s largest tree
2000 – 600 anti-IMF (International Monetary Fund) protesters were arrested in Washington, DC, for demonstrating without a permit.
2010 – Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe.
2010 – In Prospect Harbor, ME, the Stinson Seafood plant stopped sardine processing after 135 years in operation.
2011 – “Black Friday” for online poker in the US: indictment United States v. Scheinberg shuts down sites, accusing companies of fraud and money laundering
2012 – 400 Islamist Militants escape from a Pakistan prison after an insurgent attack
2012 – US Secret Service inappropriate conduct scandal begins with at least 11 people implicated
2013 – Boston Marathon bombings: 3 people are killed and 183 injured after two explosions near the finish line
2017 – Suicide car bomb targets buses carrying Syrian evacuees at Rashidin, 126 killed including 70 children
2019 – Measles cases jump 300% in first three months of 2019, according to World Health Organization, largest rise in Africa (700%) with 800 deaths in Madagascar
2019 – Paris cathedral Notre Dame catches fire, toppling its spire and destroying its roof
2021 – “The failed response in Brazil has caused a humanitarian catastrophe” reports Dr. Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders, as country records a quarter of world’s COVID-19 deaths in last week
2021 – A shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, leaves eight dead and five injured
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
