1930: BBC Radio announces that there is no news today.

 gypsyman wrote: 

 pigtail wrote: 
What?

 gypsyman wrote: 

Ford Mustang debuts at World's Fair, 1964 (also in Ford showrooms)  22,000 Mustangs sold 1st day.

Strangely, I was at that World's Fair....

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

1986: The longest war in history ends

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Indeed a foreshadowing of what would eventually become Tax Day.

I'm surprised nobody posted this:

R.M.S. Titanic, perhaps the most famous ship that ever sailed, hit an iceberg, and the next morning - April 15, 1912 - sank beneath the North Atlantic waves. She took 1,517 women, men and children to the bottom of the ocean with her, including some of the most famous names of her time.

President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, dies from an assassin’s bullet. Shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington the night before, Lincoln lived for nine hours before succumbing to the severe head wound he sustained.

 Proclivities wrote: 
Wow, what a great photo of her!

1947- Jackie Robinson made his Major League baseball debut, breaking the race barrier by becoming the first black player in the League.

 Proclivities wrote: 

Elizabeth Montgomery born - 1933.
 

1953: CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind control program MKULTRA

On this day in 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte stood in the hands of captors. Just three
years earlier he had been the self-proclaimed Emperor of France, de Facto ruler of
most of Europe and the proud father of a new-born son by his second wife. In
addition, even his enemies had conceded him a unique sense of governance - his
Napoleonic code stands to this day on two continents.
But he had an aggressive M & A department that told him to gamble all this for a
hostile takeover of Russia. It wasn't junk bonds that did him in. Instead it was junk
weather. When his victorious army found itself forthright but freezing, he was forced
to retreat. And even though he fought off old enemies in incredible ways - once they
touched French soil he abdicated to save his people.
So, here he was, a short Corsican kid with a great mind and a lousy stomach who had
come up just short of ruling the world in a way Alexander and Caesar never quite
made.
Unable to accept this fall from grandeur, he secretly asked his private doctors for
poison, that he might die rather than be humiliated. Once he had taken the potion,
he decided to move for the melodramatic. Why die in your room alone when you
could make a grand gesture.
He summoned his guards and demanded a meeting with his counterparts, the leaders
of his captors. Once in audience, he would speak of the great work he had done and
then die dramatically at the feet of these Lilliputians.
At the audience the medicine began to take its effect. But it was counterbalanced by
the medication for his ulcer. Before his magnificent speech began, he developed —
hiccups. So the nearly emperor of the world did not die defiantly at the feet of his
captors. Instead he hiccupped and stammered until he had to be helped -
incoherently and inaudibly back to his bed.
Doubly lost, he quietly went into exile at Elba, but a year later when the medication
wore off, he escaped and within 100 days, he had nearly recouped all his former
glory. But then came Waterloo - but that's another story, for another day.

On this day in 1916, a self-styled genius demonstrated a miracle product to a major
corporate entity. The product was so deliciously fascinating that its concept lives
today. Any tabloid will tell you that it's really true and that corporate America found
it and suppressed it. The product was that mysterious ingredient that you pop in a
tank of water and it can run an automobile. And through all these years the "big
guys" kept it hidden. Where were "60 Minutes" and "Geraldo" when we really
needed them?
Well, anyway, on this day in 1916, the developer showed this particular hot-shot
corporate type how you take said bucket of water, add said mysterious ingredient,
pour into said gas tank and run said car. The corporate type was amazed. His name
was Henry Ford and he gave the entrepreneur - one Louis Enricht a binder of a year's
salary and a free Model A to work on.
A few months later Ford read that Enricht had sold the rights (for several years salary)
to another guy. Trying not to be a bad sport - Ford asked for his Model A back.
Enricht sent it back without the motor. Rumors said that Enricht had refused to let his
new investors examine test engines either.
Scientists now believe that Enricht's magic ingredient was a form of acetone - which
would make your engine run while burning it out at the same time. Enricht
disappeared but the rumor of a magic pill for the gas tank has hung on through
several wars and a few energy crises.

1866: The ASPCA is founded

 aflanigan wrote: 
 yeah, I mean... c'mon  you'd think one could  at least be able to look at IT and tell the time ...
 

40 years ago:  The first cell phone call was made.

Forty Years Ago Today, Snarky Tech Journalists Made Fun of the First Cellphone