Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

April 15

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

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

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

1955
First McDonald's is opened by Ray Kroc.

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.

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     d. 2006
Kenneth Lay, 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     d. 1987
Harold Washington, American politician, first black mayor of Chicago (1983).

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

1903
John Williams, British actor. TV: Family Affair (Mr. French).

1894     d. 1937
Bessie Smith, 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     d. 1519
Leonardo da Vinci, 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).

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

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

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

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

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

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