Today:
1. 1865: President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
2. 1912: The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg.
3. 1912: Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in Major League Baseball when he debuts with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African American player in the modern era.
4. 1947: Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald’s franchise restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, which eventually grows into one of the world’s largest fast-food chains.
5. 1955: Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald’s franchise restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, which eventually grows into one of the world’s largest fast-food chains.
6. 1986: The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of airstrikes against Libya in response to the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen, which the U.S. attributed to Libya.
7. 1989: The disaster at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, during an FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, leads to the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans due to overcrowding and poor crowd control.
8. 1989: The Soviet Union’s Soyuz spacecraft lands safely back on Earth with three cosmonauts aboard after spending over 5 months in space, setting a record for the longest continuous stay in space at that time.
9. 2013: Two pressure cooker bombs explode near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others in a terrorist attack.
10. 2013: A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, kills 15 people, injures hundreds, and causes extensive damage to nearby buildings and homes.