April 15

1715 – The massacre of a colonial delegation to the Yamasee tribe at their main village of Pocotaligo, triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.

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

1861 – After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to quell hostilities in South Carolina that soon become war between the state.

1865 – President Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.

1892 – The General Electric Company is formed in Schenectady, New York.

1896 – The Games of the first modern Olympiad in Athens, Greece end.

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

1912 – RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,224 passengers and crew on board survive.

1920 – During a robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, 2 security guards are murdered. A few weeks later, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested and charged with the crimes.

1922 – Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal made a week earlier, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.

1947 – Jackie Robinson starts as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees in an pre-season game at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn.

1952 – The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.

1969 – A North Korean MiG-21 shoots down a U.S  Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star, call sign Deep Sea 129, of squadron VQ-1, Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One, over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board.

1986 – The U.S.  launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a discotheque bombing in West Germany that killed 3 U.S. servicemen.

2013 – Near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, 2 pressure cooker improvised bombs explode, killing 3 people and injuring 264 others.

2019 – The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is seriously damaged by a large fire.

2021 – A former employee, fired the previous October, returns to a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, then shoots and kills 9 people,  wounding 7 more, before committing suicide