Apr 14, 1865 On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.  The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where…

The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.” As early as 1858, the ongoing conflict between North and South over the issue of slavery had led Southern leadership to discuss a unified separation from the United States. By 1860, the majority…

Nazi era French Resistance leader dies – CNN.com By Tim Lister , CNN 2012-04-11T20:42:05Z CNN.com A photo of Raymond Aubrac taken May 5, 2009, shows the French Resistance leader in Paris. (CNN) — One of the heroes of the French Resistance against Nazi occupation, Raymond Aubrac, has died in Paris at the age of 97. With his passing, France has lost one of its few remaining links to an era that brought both humiliation and inspiration. French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to Aubrac Wednesday. “These heroes of the shadows who saved France’s honor at a time when it seemed lost are disappearing one after the other,” he said. Foreign…

The Wright Brothers Patent the Miracle of Flight This Day in 1903 On March 23, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright filed the first patent for their “Flying Machine” which they would fly successfully on December 17 of the same year. Other inventors were making strides elsewhere around the world, but the Wrights achieved the first “controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight.” A diagram of the “Flying Machine” from the 1903 patent filing,  which was granted in 1906.  http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/03/wright-brothers-first-flight/254970/

The most deadly tornado to ever strike within the borders of the state of Oklahoma occurred on Wednesday, April 9, 1947 in the city of Woodward. The Woodward tornadic storm began in the Texas Panhandle during the afternoon of April 9, 1947, and produced at least six tornadoes along a 220 mile path that stretched from White Deer, TX (northeast of Amarillo) to St. Leo, KS (west of Wichita). The tornado that would strike Woodward began near Canadian, TX. Moving northeast, it continued on the ground continuously for about 100 miles, ending in Woods County, Oklahoma, west of Alva. The tornado was massive, up to 1.8 miles wide, and traveled…

The Titanic starts off on her first and last voyage, leaving Queenstown, now Cobh, Ireland, on April 10, 1912. Why the Titanic fascinates more than other disasters – CNN.com By Stephen D. Cox , Special to CNN 2012-04-06T12:25:02Z CNN.com Editor’s note: Stephen D. Cox is professor of literature at the University of California, San Diego, and author of “The Titanic Story: Hard Choices, Dangerous Decisions.” (CNN) — It was an eerie night on the North Atlantic. The ocean, which is almost never still, was so calm that some stars could be seen reflected in the water. Thousands of stars curtained the sky — backdrop to the immense human drama taking…

According to historical records, the first ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to 776 BC. They were dedicated to the Olympian gods and were staged on the ancient plains of Olympia. They continued for nearly 12 centuries, until Emperor Theodosius decreed in 393 A.D. that all such “pagan cults” be banned. Olympia Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic Games, is in the western part of the Peloponnese which, according to Greek mythology, is the island of “Pelops”, the founder of the Olympic Games. Imposing temples, votive buildings, elaborate shrines and ancient sporting facilities were combined in a site of unique natural and mystical beauty. Olympia functioned as a…

Apr 4, 1968: Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old. In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on…

Image credit: Courtesy Tom Preston The mystery of the origins of an 87-year-old urn that washed up on the coast of Oregon may have been solved. An Oregon funeral home has been searching for the descendents of the 1925 urn. Alex Reed, 17, of Warrenton, Ore., found the copper-colored urn engraved with, “William George Kennedy, 1870-1925″ wedged between rocks on the coast. The urn is dented in several places and the top is bent to the right. Reed asked for help from the funeral home and a team of volunteers began to search for Kennedy’s descendents. Now, they think they may have found one of Kennedy’s great granddaughters in England…