History Events on April 15

Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.

#Battle_of_Formigny

Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.

#Battle_of_Rain

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

#Thomas_Hopkins_Gallaudet

Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.

#Jackie_Robinson

Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.

#Samuel_Johnson

Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel receives its premiere performance in London, England.

#Serse

Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.

#1896_Summer_Olympics

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.

#John_B._Kendrick

During the Cambodian Civil War, massacre of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong river into South Vietnam.

#Cambodian_Civil_War

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.

#John_Wilkes_Booth

The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris in France is seriously damaged by a large fire.

#Notre-Dame_de_Paris

The General Electric Company is formed.

#General_Electric

The Lateran Council condemned the Council of Hieria and anathematized its iconoclastic rulings.

#Lateran_Council_(769)

Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes.

#Insulin

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 civil rights movement in the 1960s.

#Shaw_University

Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde at the Battle of the Terek River. The Golden Horde capital city, Sarai, is razed to the ground and Timur installs a puppet ruler on the throne.

#Timur

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.

#Bergen-Belsen_concentration_camp

Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.

#American_Revolutionary_War

Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to Robert Guiscard.

#Bari

Hillsborough disaster: A human crush occurs at Hillsborough Stadium, home of Sheffield Wednesday, in the FA Cup Semi-final, resulting in the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans.

#Hillsborough_disaster

Foundation of the Kingdom of Corsica.

#Kingdom_of_Corsica_(1736)

In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, killing around one thousand people.

#Belfast_Blitz

McDonald's restaurant dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.

#McDonald's

President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War.

#Abraham_Lincoln

Philippine-American War: Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines.

#Philippine-American_War

Irish Confederate Wars: A Confederate Irish militia is routed in the Battle of Kilrush when it attempts to halt the progress of a Royalist Army.

#Irish_Confederate_Wars

The George Cross is awarded "to the island fortress of Malta: Its people and defenders" by King George VI.

#George_Cross

Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in China.

#Hu_Yaobang

In the worst massacre of the South Sudanese Civil War, at least 200 civilians were gunned down after seeking refuge in houses of worship as well as hospitals.

A wave of bombings across Iraq kills at least 75 people.

Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.

Marrakesh Agreement relating to foundation of World Trade Organization is adopted.

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.

The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.

First flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.

First day of the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.

Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

Two security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed for the crime, amid much controversy.

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.

Triangle Fraternity is founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.