| April 14, 1865 | April 14, 1912 |
| • President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, shouted, "Sic Semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is Avenged", as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. | • Just before midnight in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic hits an iceberg, rupturing five watertight compartments along her starboard side. Hours later the massive vessel sank, and more than 1,500 people died in the icy North Atlantic waters. |
| April 15, 1924 | April 15, 1967 |
| • Rand McNally releases its first comprehensive road atlas. Today Rand McNally is the world's largest maker of atlases in print and electronic media. | • Massive parades to protest Vietnam policy are held in New York. Police estimated that 100,000 to 125,000 people listened to speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., Stokley Carmichael and Dr. Benjamin Spock. Prior to the march, nearly 200 draft cards were burned by young men in Central Park. |
| April 16, 1917 | April 16, 1947 |
| • Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns after a decade of Exile to take the riens of the Russian Revolution. | • A massive explosion occurs during the loading of fertilizer onto the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, killing 600 people. The blast was heard 150 miles away and was so powerful that the ship's anchor was found 2 miles away. |
| April 17, 1961 | April 17, 1964 |
| • About 1,500 CIA trained Cuban exiles launched the diastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. | • Ford introduces the Mustang on the first day of the New York World's Fair in Flushing, Queens. The base price for the Ford Mustang was $2,368, but buyers purchased an average of $1,000 worth of options. |
| April 18, 1775 | April 18, 1942 |
| • Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming. | • An air squadron from the USS Hornet led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle raided Tokyo and other Japanese cities. |
| April 19, 1993 | April 19, 1995 |
| • The 51 day siege at the Branch Dividian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; dozens of people, including leader David Koresh, were killed. | • Just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, collapsing the north face of the nine story building. The terrorist attack killed 168 people, including 19 children in the building's day care center. |
| April 20, 1902 | April 20, 1906 |
| • Scientists Marie, and Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium. | • Firefighters halt the spread of flames in San Francisco after an earthquake two days earlier caused a substantial part of the city to burn. Nearly 700 people lost thier lives and 200,000 were left homeless. |
| April 21, 1649 | April 21, 1918 |
| • The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland Assembly. | • In the skies over France, Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as the "The Red Baron", is killed by Allied fire. Richthofen downed 80 enemy aircraft before his death at age 25 and is regarded to this day as the ace of Aces. |
| April 22, 1970 | April 22, 1980 |
| • Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world's environmental problems, is celebrated for the first time. In July of that year, the Environmental Protection Agency was established to regulate and enforce national pollution legislation. | • In protest of the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted 1,604 to 797 to boycott the summer Olympic Games to be held in Moscow later in the year. |
| April 23, 1014 | April 23, 1945 |
| • Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, was assassinated by a group of retreating Norsemen shortly after his Irish forces decisively defeated the Vikings allied against him. | • With Soviet troops converging on Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes command of the city's defense and announces he will never leave. In the West, British troops reach the Elbe River opposite Hamburg. |