1865 – Just after the effective end of the American Civil War, U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a production at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning. 1903 – Dr Harry Plotz discovers vaccine against typhoid (NYC) 1912 – RMS Titanic hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland 1935 – Black Sunday: Severe sandstorm ravages the US Midwest, creating the “Dust Bowl” 1981 – 1st Space Shuttle, Columbia 1, returns to Earth. 1986 – A force of U.S. warplanes based in Britain bombed several sites in Libya, killing or wounding several of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s children and narrowly missing Qaddafi himself. 2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%. 2004 – Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, formally accepted the apology offered by Pope John Paul II in 2001 for the sacking of Constantinople (now Istanbul) by Crusader armies in the early 13th century. 2010 – Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland began sending ash plumes into the skies, disrupting air traffic for days across northern and central Europe. 2014 – The Islamic sectarian movement Boko Haram kidnapped more than 275 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, sparking worldwide condemnation.
Births & Deaths: 1924 – American architect Louis Sullivan, the father of modern American architecture, died in Chicago. Film: 1894 – 1st public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope.
Music: 2000 – Metallica file a lawsuit against P2P sharing phenomenon Napster. This law-suit eventually leads the movement against file-sharing programs. Sport: 2002 – 66th US Masters Tournament, Augusta National GC: Tiger Woods becomes the 3rd player to claim back-to-back Masters, 3 strokes ahead of Retief Goosen of South Africa.
