1775 – The first abolitionist society in US organized in Philadelphia
1828 – First American Dictionary: its author, Noah Webster, registered its copyright for publication
1836 – US Congress formed the Territory of Wisconsin
1841 – First detective story was published; Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in Rue Morgue”
1858 – Abolitionist John Brown met Harriet Tubman at a Constitutional Convention in Chatham, Ontario
1860 – First Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco from St Joseph, Missouri
1863 – William Bullock patented the continuous-roll printing press
1865 – US President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington; he died the following morning
1865 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family were attacked in his home by Lewis Powell as part of the same conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln
1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight in El Paso, Texas.
1894 – First public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope (moving pictures)
1902 – J. C. Penney opened his first store, The Golden Rule Store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming
1903 – Dr. Harry Plotz discovered a vaccine against typhoid (NYC)
1912 – RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm off Newfoundland
1918 – Douglas Campbell became the first US ace pilot after shooting down 5th German plane
1927 – The first Volvo car premiered in Gothenburg, Sweden
1928 – Maddus Airlines began first regular passenger flights between San Francisco and Los Angeles
1935 – Black Sunday: Severe dust storm ravaged the US Midwest, led to the region being named “the Dust Bowl”
1939 – John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath” was published
1940 – RCA demonstrated its new electron microscope in Philadelphia
1941 – First massive German raid in Paris, 3,600 Jews rounded up
1943 – A JN-25 decrypt by American intelligence detailing a forthcoming visit by Marshal Admiral Yamamoto to Balalae Island resulted in his plane being shot down four days later
1944 – First Jews transported from Athens arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp
1944 – General Eisenhower became the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force
1956 – Ampex Corp demonstrated the first commercial videotape recorder
1958 – Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard burned up during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere
1960 – American record company Motown, founded by Berry Gordy Jr., was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation
1961 – First live television broadcast from Soviet Union
1963 – George Harrison was impressed by unsigned group “Rolling Stones”
1973 – Acting FBI director L Patrick Gray resigned after admitting he destroyed evidence in the Watergate scandal
1994 – US F-15 accidentally shot two US helicopters down over Iraq, 26 died
1994 – Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promised to surrender after completion of his Seven Seals manuscript
2000 – Metallica filed a lawsuit against P2P sharing phenomenon Napster. This lawsuit led the movement against file-sharing programs.
2012 – Beastie Boys inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Adam Yauch too ill to attend
2015 – Archaeologists announced they had found (at Lomekwi in Kenya) 3.3 million-year old stone tools, the oldest ever discovered and which pre-date the earliest humans
2018 – Beyoncé was the first black woman to headline the Coachella Music Festival, her performance on this day was the most-watched performance ever on YouTube
2019 – 11 tornadoes hit US southern states killing eight in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana
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