[CaptainCrunch]

April 15th


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

1071 – Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to Robert Guiscard.

1395 – 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.

1450 – 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.

1632 – Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.

1642 – 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.

1715 – The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.

1736 – Foundation of the Kingdom of Corsica

1738 – Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel receives its premiere performance in London, England.




1755 – Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.

1783 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.

1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

1861 – President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War.

1865 – 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.




1892 – The General Electric Company is formed.

1896 – Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.




1900 – Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines.

1907 – Triangle Fraternity is founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

1912 – 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.




1920 – 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.

1922 – 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.




1923 – Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes.




1924 – Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

1936 – First day of the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.

1941 – In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, killing around one thousand people.




1942 – The George Cross is awarded "to the island fortress of Malta: Its people and defenders" by King George VI.

1945 – Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.




1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.




1955 – McDonald's restaurant dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois








1960 – 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.

1969 – The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.




1970 – During the Cambodian Civil War, massacres of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong river into South Vietnam.

1986 – 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.

1989 – 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.

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




2013 – Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.








2014 – 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.