Today is Friday, April 15, the 106th day of 2016 with 260 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Neptune, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include Italian painter and inventor Leonardo da Vinci in 1452; British polar explorer James Clark Ross in 1800; distiller Joseph E. Seagram in 1841; author Henry James in 1843; painter Thomas Hart Benton in 1889; former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1894; singer Bessie Smith in 1894; actor Marian Jordan, “Molly” in the long-running “Fibber McGee and Molly” radio show, in 1898; former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in 1912; businessman Alfred S. Bloomingdale in 1916; Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago, in 1922; country singer Roy Clark in 1933 (age 83); actor Elizabeth Montgomery in 1933; actor Claudia Cardinale in 1938 (age 78); musician Dave Edmunds in 1944 (age 71); actor Amy Wright in 1950 (age 66); newspaper columnist Heloise Cruse Evans (“Hints from Heloise”) in 1951 (age 65); actor Emma Thompson in 1959 (age 57); actor Seth Rogen in 1982 (age 34); actor Emma Watson in 1990 (age 26).
On this date in history:
In 1817, the first U.S. public school for the deaf, Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now the American School for the Deaf), was founded at Hartford, Conn.
In 1865, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died of an assassin’s bullet fired the night before at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as chief executive.
In 1912, the luxury liner Titanic sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland after striking an iceberg the previous night. Approximately 1,500 lives were lost in the tragedy.
In 1924, the first Rand McNally road atlas was published.
In 1931, Spanish Republicans formed a new government as King Alfonso sailed into exile.
In 1947, Major League Baseball’s color line was officially broken with the debut of Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on Opening Day. Robinson, who went on to become one of the game’s great stars, walked and scored a run in the Dodgers’ 5-3 victory over the Boston Braves.
In 1955, the first franchised McDonald’s was opened in Des Plaines, Ill., by Ray Kroc, who got the idea from a hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif., run by the McDonald brothers.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon asked Congress for legislation to prohibit dumping of polluted dredge waste into the lakes.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered airstrikes against the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi in response to the bombing of a Berlin discotheque which killed two American serviceman.
In 1998, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who presided over a reign of terror in Cambodia in the late 1970s, died at a jungle outpost near the Cambodia-Thailand border.
In 1999, astronomers announced they discovered evidence of a planetary system in the constellation Andromeda. At the time it was the only known planet system other than the one around the sun.
In 2009, Tea Party protests, largely critical of President Barack Obama and his policies, had their biggest turnout to date on April 15, tax day — in many cities.
In 2010, in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center, President Barack Obama outlined long-range space goals, including a manned flight to Mars by the mid-2030s.
In 2013, two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 260.
In 2014, after sending a distress signal, a South Korean ferry capsized off the country’s southern coast, an accident that killed about 300 people.
A thought for the day: “Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.” — Walter Bagehot
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