TODAY HISTORY LESSON: APRIL 15
1250 Pope Innoncent III refuses Jews of Cordova Spain to build a synagogue
1689 French king Louis XIV declares war on Spain
1738 Bottle opener invented
1813 U.S. troops under James Wilkinson lay siege to the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.
1858 At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists.
1861 In response to the attack on Fort Sumter three days earlier, President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops.
1865 Abraham Lincoln dies from John Wilkes Booth’s assassination bullet.
1877 Boston-Somerville installs the world’s 1st telephone in Massachusetts
1912 With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.
1920 A paymaster and guard were murdered in Braintree, Mass. Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of the crime.
1923 Insulin becomes generally available for people suffering with diabetes.
1945 The German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen is liberated
1948 Arab forces are defeated in battle with Israeli forces.
1952 President Harry Truman signs the official Japanese peace treaty.
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 acquired McDonald’s and opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill., today the official McDonald’s Corporate Museum.
1959 Cuban leader Fidel Castro begins a U.S. goodwill tour.
1962 US national debt above $300,000,000,000
1970 Libyan leader Qadhafi launches “Green Revolution”
1975 1st appearance of the San Diego Chicken
1989 A small group of students initiates pro-democracy protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing
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.
1990 “In Living Color” premieres on FOX-TV
1994 The World Trade Organization is founded. The WTO coordinates and strives to liberalize international trade. It has been criticized for ignoring and escalating the negative social and environmental side-effects of globalization.
1997 America OnLine, begins service in Japan
2000 600 anti-IMF (International Monetary Fund) protesters were arrested in Washington, DC, for demonstrating without a permit.
2013 Two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing 3 and injuring at least 170 others.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
