April 15, 2022, the 105th day of the year, with 260 days left.
Date of April 15th Highlight in History: On April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland more than 2 1/2 hours after colliding with an iceberg; 1,514 passengers perished, while only half that many survived.
On this date in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died nine hours after being assassinated the night before at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth; Andrew Johnson became the nation’s 17th president.
The Edison Electric Light Co. and other enterprises merged to become General Electric Co. in Schenectady, New York, in 1892.
During WWII, British and Canadian forces freed the Nazi detention camp Bergen-Belsen in 1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was laid to rest on April 12 at the Roosevelt family residence in Hyde Park, New York.
On opening day at Ebbets Field in 1947, Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first Black major league player in the modern era, made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. (The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 5-3.)
Ray Kroc established the first franchised McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.
Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army held up a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco in 1974; one of the group’s members was SLA abduction victim Patricia Hearst, who was now going by the name “Tania” (Hearst subsequently alleged she’d been compelled to participate).
In 1989, 96 soccer fans were killed in a crush at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. Students in Beijing began a series of pro-democracy rallies, which culminated in a government crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
Pol Pot, the deadly Khmer Rouge commander, died in 1998 at the age of 72, eluding punishment for the killings of 2 million Cambodians.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators attended “tea parties” around the country in 2009, fueled by conservative pundits and bloggers, to tap into the collective frustration caused by a terrible economy, government expenditures, and bailouts.
Two pressure-cooker bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line in 2013, killing two adults and an 8-year-old boy and wounding over 260 others. Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM’-ehr-luhn tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) was killed in a gunfight with police, while his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv), was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. (A federal appeals court overturned the death penalty, but the Supreme Court reinstated it in March 2022.)
As the soaring Paris landmark underwent restorations in 2019, a fire raged across the top of Notre Dame Cathedral; the inferno toppled the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its prominent rectangular towers, although fire authorities claimed the church’s structure had been salvaged.
In 2020, the government stated that the nation’s industrial production fell by the most since the United States demobilized at the end of World War II in March when companies shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. In an unprecedented step, the Treasury Department announced that President Donald Trump’s name would appear on the stimulus cheques that the IRS would be mailing to tens of millions of Americans.
Ten years ago: North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, delivered his first public statement since assuming power following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December of the previous year, presenting himself as a solid military commander unafraid of other countries. Passengers and staff of the cruise liner MS Balmoral prayed near the site where the Titanic sunk 100 years ago in the North Atlantic.
Five years ago: North Korea showcased its intercontinental ballistic missiles in central Pyongyang to commemorate the 1912 birthday of the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, with his grandson, Kim Jong Un, gazing on with glee.
Eight people were shot and killed at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis one year ago by a former FedEx employee who later committed himself. The White House announced the expulsion of ten Russian diplomats and the imposition of penalties on dozens of individuals and corporations to hold the Kremlin accountable for meddling in the 2020 presidential election and the SolarWinds cyber-attack on federal government entities. The defense rested its case in the Minneapolis murder trial of former Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd without calling Chauvin to the stand.
Claudia Cardinale, an actress, is 84 on 15th April 2022. Jeffrey Archer, an author, and politician, is 82 years old. Dave Edmunds, a rock singer-guitarist, is 79 years old. Michael Tucci, the actor, is 76 years old. Lois Chiles, an actress, is 75 years old. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a writer and producer, is 75 years old. Amy Wright, an actress, is 72 years old. Heloise is a 71-year-old columnist. Sam McMurray, the actor, is 70 years old. Emma Thompson is a 63-year-old actress and screenwriter. Jeff Parker, a bluegrass musician, is 61 years old. Samantha Fox, a singer, is 56 years old. Dara Torres, an Olympic gold, silver, and bronze medalist, is 55 years old. Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) is 54 years old. Flex Alexander, an actor, is 52 years old. Danny Pino, an actor, is 48 years old. Douglas Spain is a 48-year-old actor. Chris Stapleton, a country singer-songwriter, is 44 years old. Luke Evans is a 43-year-old actor. Patrick Carney (The Black Keys) is 42 years old. Zach Carothers (Portugal, The Man) is a rock musician who is 41 years old. Seth Rogen, the actor-writer, is 40 years old. Alice Braga is a 39-year-old actress. Margo Price, an Americana singer-songwriter, is 39 years old. DeMar Hamilton (Plain White T’s) is a rock musician who is 38 years old. Samira Wiley is a 35-year-old actress. Leonie Elliott is a 34-year-old actress. Emma Watson is a 32-year-old actress. Maisie Williams is a 25-year-old actress.
