TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 14
1543 Bartolome Ferrelo returns to Spain after discovering a large bay in the New World (San Francisco).
1775 The first abolitionist society in United States is organized in Philadelphia.
1792 France declares war on Austria, starting French Revolutionary Wars
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.
1902 Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium
1903 Dr Harry Plotz discovers 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 sandstorm ravages the US Midwest, creating the “Dust Bowl”
1953 The Viet Minh invade Laos with 40,00 troops in their war against French colonial forces.
1971 President Richard Nixon ends blockade against People’s Republic of China
1973 Acting FBI director L Patrick Gray resigns after admitting he destroyed evidence in the Watergate scandal
1978 Korean Air Lines Boeing 707, fired on by Soviets, crashes in Russia
1983 President Ronald Reagan signs $165 billion Social Security rescue
1986 US aircraft attacks 5 terrorist locations in Libya
1988 The Soviet Union agrees to withdraw from Afghanistan
1992 UN-imposed embargo against Libya takes effect
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.
2003 The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%
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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
