April 14th

Today's Highlight in History:
On April 14th, 1865, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington. (Lincoln died the following morning.)

On this date:
In 1759, composer George Frideric Handel died in London.

In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of the English Language" was published.

In 1902, J.C. Penney opened his first store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

In 1912, the British liner "Titanic" collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began sinking.

In 1931, King Alfonso the 13th of Spain went into exile, and the Spanish Republic was proclaimed.

In 1939, the John Steinbeck novel "The Grapes of Wrath" was first published.

In 1956, Ampex Corporation demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder.

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.

In 1986, Americans got first word of a US air raid on Libya (because of the time difference, it was the early morning of April 15th where the attack occurred.)

In 1994, the chiefs of the nation's seven largest tobacco companies spent more than six hours being grilled by the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee about the effects of smoking.

Ten years ago: Lithuanian officials, facing a Kremlin deadline to back away from their declaration of independence, acknowledged that an economic blockade threatened by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev could result in huge layoffs.

Five years ago: The UN Security Council gave permission to Iraq, still under sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell two billion dollars' worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies (however, Iraq rejected the offer). Actor-singer Burl Ives died in Anacortes, Washington, at age 85.

One year ago: Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr told Congress the Watergate-era law that gave him the power to probe actions of executive branch officials was flawed and should be abolished. NATO mistakenly bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees; Yugoslav officials said 75 people were killed. British entertainer Anthony Newley died in Jensen Beach, Florida, at age 67.

"If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).