Today is Tuesday, April 14, the 105th day of 2020. There are 261 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington.
On this date:
In 1759, German-born English composer George Frideric Handel died in London at age 74.
In 1902, James Cash Penney opened his first store, The Golden Rule, in Kemmerer, Wyo.
In 1912, the British liner RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40 p.m. ship’s time and began sinking. (The ship went under two hours and 40 minutes later with the loss of 1,514 lives.)
In 1935, the “Black Sunday” dust storm descended upon the central Plains, turning a sunny afternoon into total darkness.
In 1939, the John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath” was first published by Viking Press.
In 1965, the state of Kansas hanged Richard Hickock and Perry Smith for the 1959 “In Cold Blood” murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife, Bonnie, and two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated Harry Blackmun to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The choice of Blackmun, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate a month later, followed the failed nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.)
In 1981, the first test flight of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, ended successfully with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Today’s Birthdays: Country singer Loretta Lynn is 88. Actress Julie Christie is 80. Retired MLB All-Star Pete Rose is 79. Rock musician Ritchie Blackmore is 75. Actor John Shea is 72. Actor Peter Capaldi is 62. Actor-turned-race car driver Brian Forster is 60. Actor Brad Garrett is 60. Actor Robert Carlyle is 59. Rock singer-musician John Bell (Widespread Panic) is 58. Actor Robert Clendenin is 56. Actress Catherine Dent is 55. Actor Lloyd Owen is 54. Baseball Hall of Famer Greg Maddux is 54.
Thought for Today: “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.” — Everett Dirksen, American politician (1896-1969).
