Today is Wednesday, April 15, the 105th day of 2026. There are 260 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland just over two and a half hours after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage. More than 1,500 people died while 710 survived.
Also on this date:
In 1865, Abraham Lincoln died after being shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater the previous evening; Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president hours later.
In 1947, Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first Black major league player of the modern era, made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day at Ebbets Field. (The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, 5-3.)
In 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
In 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army robbed a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco; a member of the group was SLA kidnap victim Patricia Hearst, seen wielding a rifle. (Hearst later said she had been forced to participate in the robbery.)
In 1989, a crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, caused 97 deaths and over 760 injuries.
In 1997, a raging fire stoked by high winds swept through a sprawling pilgrims’ encampment near Mecca in Saudi Arabia, killing more than 300 people and injuring about 1,500 others during the annual Hajj pilgrimage to the Muslim religion’s birthplace.
In 2013, two bombs made from pressure cookers exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing two women and an 8-year-old boy and injuring more than 260. (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the bombing; his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a gun battle gunbattlee days after the bombing).
In 2019, fire swept across the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during renovation work on the landmark structure; the blaze collapsed the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its iconic rectangular towers. (The cathedral was restored and reopened to the public in December 2024.)
In 2025, the federal government announced it was freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University over Trump administration demands that the Ivy League school limit activism on campus. (A federal judge would rule for Harvard the following September, ordering the cuts reversed.)
Today’s Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Cooper is 70. Olympic track & field gold medalist Evelyn Ashford is 69. Actor-screenwriter Emma Thompson is 67. Singer Samantha Fox is 60. Olympic swimming gold medalist Dara Torres is 59. Singer Luis Fonsi is 48. Country singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton is 48. Actor Luke Evans is 47. Actor-writer Seth Rogen is 44. Actor Alice Braga is 43. Singer-songwriter Margo Price is 43. Actor Samira Wiley is 39. Actor Emma Watson is 36. Actor Maisie Williams is 29. Gymnast Jordan Chiles is 25. Country singer Sam Barber is 23. Actor Julia Butters is 17.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
