On This Day in History - April 14th - Almanac

Today is Friday, April 14, the 104th day of 2017 with 261 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Venus. Evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Jupiter.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, founder of the wave theory of light, in 1629; Anne Sullivan, the "miracle worker" who taught a blind and deaf Helen Keller, in 1866; English historian Arnold Toynbee in 1889; British actor John Gielgud in 1904; Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in 1907; actor Rod Steiger in 1925; actor Bradford Dillman in 1930 (age 87); country singer Loretta Lynn in 1932 (age 85); writer Erich von Daniken in 1935 (age 82); crusading New York police detective Frank Serpico in 1936 (age 81); actor Julie Christie in 1941 (age 76); Pete Rose, former baseball star and manager, in 1941 (age 76); actor Robert Carlyle in 1961 (age 56); actor Anthony Michael Hall in 1968 (age 49); actor Adrien Brody in 1973 (age 44); actor Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1977 (age 40); actor Abigail Breslin in 1996 (age 21).

On this date in history:

In 1775, the first slavery abolition society in North America was founded by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

In 1828, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. It was the first dictionary of American English to be published.

In 1861, the flag of the Confederacy was raised over Fort Sumter, S.C., as Union troops there surrendered in the early days of the Civil War.

In 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Lincoln died the next morning. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

In 1927, the first Volvo was produced in Sweden.

In 1931, King Alfonso XIII was deposed, ending 981 years of monarchical rule in Spain, and ushering in the Second Spanish Republic, the republican regime that governed Spain from 1931 to 1939.

In 1939, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.

In 1963, Police broke up an Easter Sunday anti-segregation protest march in Birmingham, Ala., that saw African Americans attend services at two white churches.

In 1994, in what was called a tragic mistake, two U.S. warplanes shot down two U.S. Army helicopters in northern Iraq's no-fly zone. All 26 people aboard were killed.

In 2003, U.S. military officials declared that the principal fighting in Iraq was over after Marines captured Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

In 2007, 32 people died in the collision of a truck and a bus carrying elementary schoolchildren on a highway in Turkey.

In 2008, Silvio Berlusconi swept back into power in a third term as prime minister of Italy in a new election that gave him control of both houses of Parliament.

In 2010, the devastating magnitude-7.1 Yushu earthquake staggered northwest China. Officials reported the death toll eventually surpassed 2,600, with many thousands of people injured.

In 2013, Nicolas Maduro was elected president of Venezuela.

In 2014, the Pulitzer Prize for public service went to The Washington Post and Guardian U.S. for their stories based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

A thought for the day: "If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance." -- Abraham Lincoln