On April 15th...

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1450 The French defeated the English at the Battle of Formigny.

1452 Artist Leonardo da Vinci was born.

1534 Thomas Cromwell was appointed Chief Secretary to King Henry VIII.

1632 Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeated Count Tilly of the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Rain.

1684 Empress Catherine of Russia was born.

1689 French King Louis XIV declared war on Spain.

1697 Charles XII succeeded Charles XI as King of Sweden.

1716 Prussian troops occupied the Swedish-controlled German port of Wismar.

1741 Portrait painter Charles Willson Peale was born.

1755 Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London.

1788 Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Prussia signed a peace treaty.

1814 Historian John Lothrop Motley was born.

1817 The first American school for the deaf opened in Hartford, Connecticut.

1843 Novelist Henry James was born.

1844 Architect Charles Bulfinch died.

1850 The city of San Francisco, California, was incorporated.

1861 A Federal Army of 75,000 volunteers was mobilized by U. S. President Abraham Lincoln.

1865 President Abraham Lincoln died, one day after being shot by John Wilkes Booth.

1877 The first telephone was installed, in Boston-Somerville, Massachusetts.

1878 Harley Procter introduced Ivory Soap.

1881 Hugh Hammond Bennett, the "father of soil conservation" was born.

1889 Painter Thomas Hart Benton was born.
1889 Joseph de Veuster (Father Damien), missionary to the lepers of Hawaii, died.

1892 General Electric Company was incorporated in New York.

1896 The first modern Olympic Games closed in Athens, Greece.

1900 Exposition Universelle opened in Paris, France.

1912 The ocean liner *Titanic* sank after having struck an iceberg.
1912 North Korean leader Kim Il Sung was born.

1923 The first sound on film public performance was given at the Rialto Theater in New York City, New York.

1924 Rand-McNally published its first road atlas.

1925 Painter John Singer Sargent died.

1933 Singer Roy Clark was born.

1937 The Detroit Red Wings beat the New York Rangers for the Stanley Cup.

1939 Albert Lebrun was elected President of France.

1943 The first production B-29 was completed at Boeing in Wichita, Kansas.

1944 Musician Dave Edmunds was born.

1945 The British Army liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.
1945 U.S. troops liberated the concentration camp at Colditz.

1947 Jackie Robinson became the first black to play in a major league baseball game.

1949 Actor Wallace Beery died.

1952 The Detroit Red Wings swept the Montreal Canadiens in 4 games to win the Stanley Cup.

1955 The *first McDonald's franchise* opened in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1957 The U. S. Post Office restored Saturday mail delivery.
1957 Hussein Fakhri Khalidi became Premier of Jordan.

1958 Fire in New York's Museum of Modern Art killed a workman and caused an estimated $32,000 structural damage.

1959 John Foster Dulles resigned as U.S. Secretary of State due to poor health.
1959 Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta and four others were released from prison.

1961 "Music Man" closed at the Majestic Theater in New York City, New York, after 1,375 performances.

1964 The Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened.

1965 The NFL changed the penalty flag from white to bright gold.

1967 Richard Speck was found guilty of murdering 8 student nurses in Chicago, Illinois
1967 Approximately 400,000 marched in New York City, New York, in protest of the Vietnam War.

1974 A military coup in Niger overthrew President Diori Hamani.

1975 The *San Diego Chicken* made his first appearance.

1977 "Batcolumn," by Claes Oldenburg, was dedicated in Chicago, Illinois.

1979 Fuzzy Zoeller won the Masters Golf Tournament.

1983 Tokyo Disneyland opened.

1984 Ben Crenshaw won the Masters Golf Tournament.

1985 Geoff Smith and Lisa Larsen Weidenbach won the Boston Marathon.

1986 The United States launched "Operation El Dorado Canyon" against Libya.
1986 J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., Governor of Virginia during that state's fight against school integration, died.

1989 Ninety-six persons were crushed to death at Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield, England.
1989 Hu Yaobang, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, died.

1990 "In Living Color" premiered on Fox-TV.
1990 Actress Greta Garbo died.

1991 Ibrahim Hussein and Wanda Panfil won the Boston Marathon.
1991 Magic Johnson set an NBA record for career assists with 9,898.
1991 The Sacramento Kings lost their 35th consecutive road game, setting a new NBA record.

1992 The National Assembly of Vietnam adopted the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1992 Jay Leno made his final appearance as the permanent guest host on "The Tonight Show."

1994 The Cleveland Indians played their first game at Jacobs Field, and lost to Kansas City.

1996 Moses Tanui and Uta Pippig won the Boston Marathon.

1997 Fire swept through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage, killing 343 persons.
1997 Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson's #42 for all teams.

1998 Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died.

2002 Air China Flight CA129 crashed into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128 persons.
2002 Rodgers Rop and Margaret Okayo won the Boston Marathon.
2002 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White died.

2010 Benjamin Hooks, former director of the NAACP, died.

2013 Two bomb explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed 3 persons and injured 183.

2017 Suicide car bombs targeted buses carrying Syrian evacuees at Rashidin, killing 126 persons, including 70 children.
2017 Physicist and inventor Leonard Reiffel died.

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This page was last updated on December 17, 2018.