TODAY HISTORY LESSON: APRIL 14
1471 The Earl of Warwick, who fought on both sides in the War of the Roses, is killed at the Battle of Barnet with the defeat of the Lancastrians.
1543 Bartolome Ferrelo returns to Spain after discovering a large bay in the New World (San Francisco).
1775 Benjamin Rush was among those who founded the first American antislavery society in Philadelphia PA
1799 Napoleon called for establishing Jerusalem for Jews
1828 The first edition of Noah Webster’s dictionary is published.
1836 Congress forms Territory of Wisconsin
1865 President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth.
1894 Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope is shown to the public for the first time.
1903 Dr Harry Plotz discovers a vaccine against typhoid (NYC)
1906 President Theodore Roosevelt denounces “muckrakers” in US press
1912 The passenger liner Titanic–deemed unsinkable–strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and begins to sink. The ship will go under the next day with a loss of 1,500 lives.
1935 Black Sunday: Severe dust storm ravages the US Midwest, led to the region being named “the Dust Bowl”
1939 John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath” published
1956 Ampex Corporation of Redwood City, CA, demonstrated the first commercial magnetic tape recorder for sound and picture
1959 The Taft Memorial Bell Tower is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1971 President Richard Nixon ends blockade against People’s Republic of China
1981 America’s first space shuttle, Columbia, returned to Earth after a three-day test flight. The shuttle orbited the Earth 36 times during the mission.
1983 President Ronald Reagan signs $165 billion Social Security rescue
1984 The Texas Board of Education began requiring that the state’s public school textbooks describe the evolution of human beings as “theory rather than fact”.
1986 U.S. President Reagan announced the U.S. air raid on military and terrorist related targets in Libya.
1988 Representatives from the U.S.S.R., Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. signed an agreement that called for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan starting on May 15. The last Soviet troop left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.
1993 Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promises to surrender after completion of his Seven Seals manuscript
2003 The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%
2003 Abu Abbas, the leader of the terrorist group Palestine Liberation Front when the group hijacked the liner Achille Lauro, was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq.
2010 An explosion in the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland results in a volcanic ash plume in the atmosphere over northern and central Europe. Air travel in the region is halted for several days.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
