Happy EXTORTION DAY! ——–> Extortion:
The obtaining of property from another induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Extortion
1452 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (d. 1519) was born.
1469 – Guru Nanak, Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, founder of the religion of Sikhism and the 1st Sikh Guru… Born
1621 – John Carver, first governor of Plymouth Colony Born
1632 – Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years’ War.
1642 – Irish Confederate Wars: A Confederate Irish militia is routed in the Battle of Kilrush when it attempts to halt the progress of a Parliamentarian army.
1755 – Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.
1783 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.
1802 – William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a “long belt” of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.
1861 – President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War
1865 – President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth. Vice President Andrew Johnson, becomes President upon Lincoln’s death.
1892 – The General Electric Company is formed. (JP Morgan)
1894 – Elizabeth Mae “Bessie” Smith, Empress of Blues (over 200 songs) Born
1894 – Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, Kalinovka, Dmitriyevsky Uyezd, Kursk Governorate, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953-64) Born
1896 – Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.
1912 – Kim Il-sung, North Korean politician, Eternal President of North Korea (d. 1994) was birthed.
1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive.
1912 – Victims of the RMS Titanic disaster
- Thomas Andrews, Irish businessman and shipbuilder (b. 1873)
- John Jacob Astor IV, American colonel, businessman, and author (b. 1864)
- Archibald Butt, American general and journalist (b. 1865)
- Jacques Futrelle, American journalist and author (b. 1875)
- Benjamin Guggenheim American businessman (b. 1865)
- Henry B. Harris, American Theatrical Producer (b. 1866)
- Wallace Hartley, English violinist and bandleader (b. 1878)
- James Paul Moody, English sixth officer (b. 1887)
- William McMaster Murdoch, Scottish sailor and first officer (b. 1873)
- Jack Phillips, English telegraphist (b. 1887)
- Edward Smith, English captain (b. 1850)
- Ida Straus, German-American businesswoman (b. 1849)
- Isidor Straus, German-American businessman and politician (b. 1845)
- John Thayer, American cricketer (b. 1862)
- Henry Tingle Wilde, English chief officer (b. 1872)
- William Thomas Stead English journalist (b. 1849)
1921 – Black Friday: Mine owners announce more wage and price cuts, leading to the threat of a strike all across England.
1922 – U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.
1923 – Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes.
1923 – Robert DePugh, American activist, founded the Minutemen Organization (d. 2009) was born.
1924 – Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
1927 – The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, begins.
1931 – Joe Masseria, Mafia Boss, (b. 1886) died.
1933 – Elizabeth Montgomery, actress (Samantha/Serena-Bewitched), born in Los Angeles, California
1933 – Roy Clark, Meherrin, Virginia, American country singer (Hee Haw, The Tonight Show) Born
1935 – Roerich Pact signed in Washington, D.C.
1936 – First day of the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.
1936 – Aer Lingus (Aer Loingeas) is founded by the Irish government as the national airline of the Republic of Ireland.
1940 – The Allies begin their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which is occupied by Nazi Germany.
1941 – In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom killing one thousand people.
1942 – The George Cross is awarded “to the island fortress of Malta: Its people and defenders” by King George VI.
1944 – Dave Edmunds, Wales, singer/guitarist (Rockpile-Baby I Love You) Born
1945 – The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.
1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s color line.
1959 – Fidel Castro , Prime Minister of Cuba, flew to Washington for an 11-day visit to promote Cuba to Americans.
1960 – At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ella Baker leads a conference that results in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the principal organizations of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
1964 – The first Ford Mustang rolls off the show room floor, two days before it is set to go on sale nationwide.
1968 – Ed O’Brien, English guitarist and songwriter (Radiohead) was born.
1969 – The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
1970 – During the Cambodian Civil War, massacres of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong River into South Vietnam.
1977 – Roman Polanski the director of China Town and Rosemary’s baby pleads innocence to charge of drug rape of 13 yr old girl
1980 – Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialist philosopher and writer (Nobel 1964), dies in Paris at 74
1982 – Seth Rogen, Canadian actor and writer, Born
1982 – 5 murderers, of Egyptian pres Sadat, executed
1984 – The inaugural World Youth Day is held in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City.
1986 – Jean Genet, French criminal/novelist/dramatist, dies at 75
1986 – The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen.
1990 – Emma Watson, Paris, France, English actress (Hermione Granger-Harry Potter Series) Born
1990 – Greta Garbo, actress (Anna Karenina, Camille), dies at 84
1998 – Pol Pot, Cambodian politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (b. 1925) died.
2001 – Joey Ramone, American singer-songwriter (Ramones and Sniper) (b. 1951) died.
2007 – Brant Parker, American cartoonist (b. 1920) Dies
2010 – Jack Herer, American author and cannabis activist (b. 1939) Dies
2013 – Two bombs (+2 fake bombs) explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
2014 – More than 200 female students are declared missing after a mass kidnapping in Borno State, Nigeria.