Today is Thursday, April 14, the 104th day of 2011. There are 261 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight:
On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington; the president died nine hours later.
On this date:
In 1775, the first American society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Philadelphia.
In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” was published.
In 1910, President William Howard Taft became the first U.S. chief executive to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game as the Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics 3-0.
In 1912, the British liner RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began sinking.
In 1931, King Alfonso XIII of Spain went into exile, and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed.
In 1949, at the conclusion of the so-called “Wilhelmstrasse Trial,” 19 former Nazi Foreign Office officials were sentenced by an American tribunal in Nuremberg to prison terms ranging from four to 25 years.
In 1956, Ampex Corp. demonstrated the first successful videotape recorder at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention in Chicago.
In 1960, the musical “Bye Bye Birdie” opened on Broadway.
In 1981, the first test flight of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ended successfully with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In 1986, Americans got word of a U.S. air raid on Libya.
Associated Press
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