April 14: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1775 - The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
2. 1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
3. 1846 - The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
4. 1865 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth (died April 15th).
5. 1927 - The first Volvo car premieres in Gothenburg, Sweden.
6. 1939 - The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press.
7. 1956 - In Chicago, Illinois, videotape is first demonstrated.
8. 1958 - The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.
9. 1981 - STS-1 - The first operational space shuttle, Columbia (OV-102) completes its first test flight.
10. 2003 - The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
11. Famous Birthdays: Adam Tanner (Austrian mathematician), Christiaan Huygens (Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist), Abraham Darby (a leading hand in the Industrial revolution), Thomas Schelling (American economist and educator, Nobel Prize laureate), Alan MacDiarmid (New Zealand chemist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: April 13

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: April 15

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.