What Happened on April 14?

April 14 is the night the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912 and President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865 — plus the day Noah Webster published the first major American dictionary in 1828.

• 1828 — Noah Webster publishes An American Dictionary of the English Language

  Webster's two-volume dictionary defined 70,000 words with American spellings and usage — establishing 'color' instead of 'colour' and giving the new nation its own standard English. Read the full story →

• 1865 — President Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theatre

  Actor John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln during a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington — Lincoln died the next morning, just days after the Civil War's effective end. Read the full story →

• 1865 — Major Robert Anderson raises the U.S. flag over Fort Sumter again

  Exactly four years after evacuating the fort, Anderson returned to Charleston Harbor to ceremonially raise the same flag he had lowered when the Civil War began. Read the full story →

• 1912 — The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic

  At about 11:40 p.m. ship's time, lookouts spotted an iceberg ahead; Titanic scraped the ice, opening fatal holes in the hull — the ship sank hours later with more than 1,500 lives lost. Read the full story →

• 1935 — 'Black Sunday' — the worst dust storm of the Dust Bowl

  A massive wall of dust rolled across the Great Plains, turning day into night from Oklahoma to Kansas — the most terrifying storm of the 1930s Dust Bowl era. Read the full story →

Famous birthdays

Sarah Michelle Gellar (1977) · Abigail Breslin (1996) · Adrien Brody (1973) · Anthony Michael Hall (1968)

Days & observances

National Dolphin Day · National Look Up at the Sky Day · National Ex-Spouse Day · Pan American Day