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…

On this day in 1860, the first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously leaves St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately 1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet’s arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting a new standard for speedy mail delivery. Although ultimately short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express captivated America’s imagination and helped win federal aid for a more economical overland postal system. It also contributed to the economy of the towns on its route and served the mail-service needs of the American West…