This Day Trivia - april 15

Holidays

Income Tax day

Events

1992 Leona Helmsley The "Hotel Queen" starts her four-year prison term for tax evasion.

1989 Tiananmen Square Mourners of the death of pro-reform leader Hu Yaobang begin gathering in the square. Eventually more than a million people would gather, leading to martial law and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

1989 At a soccer game in England, 95 people are crushed and killed by fans pushing into the stadium.

1984 Rose is a Rose comic strip, by Pat Brady, premiers.

1972 Vietnam War U.S. resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after a 4-year lull in the war.

1968 Chicago Race Riots Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley instructs the police to shoot to kill arsonists and to maim looters, in response to the race riots.

1955 McDonald's Ray Kroc opens his first McDonalds. It was the ninth restaurant in the chain. He eventually bought out the McDonald brothers.

1949 First black U.S. Navy aviator Jesse Leroy Brown is commissioned an ensign. The following year, he became the first black U.S. naval aviator killed in the Korean War.

1947 First black to play in a major-league baseball game Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Source: Famous First Facts

1946 Mark Trail comic strip premiers.

1912 Sinking of the Titanic At 2:20 a.m. the four-story "unsinkable" ship sinks killing 1,517 of the 2,238 people aboard. She had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic shortly before midnight while on her maiden voyage.

1770 The eraser is discovered English chemist Joseph Priestley discovers that a piece of latex can be used to remove pencil marks.

Births

1959 Emma Thompson British Oscar-winning actress. Film: Howard's End (1992, Oscar).

1951 Heloise (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans), American newspaper columnist, "Hints from…"

1942 Kenneth Lay d. 2006 American businessman, founder and chairman of Enron. He was found guilty of 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of Enron.

1933 Roy Clark American country singer.

1933 Elizabeth Montgomery American actress. TV: Bewitched (Samantha; she also played cousin Serena under the pseudonym Pandora Spocks).

1922 Michael Ansara American actor. TV: Broken Arrow (Cochise).

1922 Harold Washington d. 1987 American politician, first black mayor of Chicago (1983).

1916 Alfred Bloomingdale d. 1982 launched Diner's Club credit card co. (1950).

1903 John Williams d. 1983 British Tony-winning actor. Film: Dial M For Murder (1954, reprising his Tony-winning role as Chief Inspector Hubbard). TV: Family Affair (1967, Giles French - filling in for the ailing Sebastian Cabot). He also starred in the commercial for 120 Musical Masterpieces which became the longest-running national U.S. commercial (1971-84).

1894 Bessie Smith d. 1937 American blues singer, the most successful blues singer of the 1920s and '30s. After her death from a car accident, it was rumored that she died because white hospitals wouldn't admit her. However, later interviews with the ambulance driver and attending physician dispelled these rumors. The rumors were started by a record executive, probably to increase sales of her records. Source biography: Bessie

1452 Leonardo da Vinci d. 1519 Italian artist. Works: The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. He is also the discover of capillary action (1490) and inventor of roller bearings (1496).

Deaths

1990 Greta Garbo b. 1905 (Greta Gustafsson), Swedish-born actress. Film: Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1937).

1980 Raymond Bailey b. 1904 American actor. TV: The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71, Milburn Drysdale).

1980 Jean-Paul Sartre b. 1905 French philosopher, dramatist. He and his lover Simone de Beauvoir founded "Existentialism."

1888 Father Damien b. 1840 (Joseph Damien de Veuster), Belgian-born Roman Catholic missionary. He dedicated his life to the lepers of Hawaii.

1865 Abraham Lincoln b. 1809 16th U.S. President (1861-65), assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, making Vice-Pres. Andrew Johnson president. Lincoln was the first actual person to have their portrait on a U.S. coin (1909 penny).