Tomorrow starts the 9 days of anniversaries for some of the darkest days in America.

[El Supremo]

April 12
1861 - The Civil War began as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
1945 - FDR died.

April 13
1970 - Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst.

April 14
1865 - President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth.
1912 - The British liner Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began to sink.

April 15
1861 - President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops three days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

April 16
1947 - America's worst harbor explosion occurred in Texas City, Texas.

April 17
1961 - About 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched an invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the southwestern coast of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

April 18
1906 - A major earthquake struck San Francisco and set off raging fires. More than 3,000 people died.

April 19
1775 - The American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
1993 - A 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended when fire destroyed the structure after federal agents smashed their way in. Dozens of people, including sect leader David Koresh, were killed.
1995 - A truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 500.

April 20
1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.

[joeybee12]

1. Didn't our illegal invasion of Iraq begin in April of 2003? nt

[El Supremo]

3. No. March 19th

I know it well because we had a big blizzard in Denver also that day.

[liberal N proud]

2. NASA should have known not to tempt fate

Apollo 13 on the 13th (was it a Friday too).

History has a strange way of grouping non-related events that makes the mind go wow!

[Renew Deal]

4. Don't forget April 20

1889 – Adolf Hitler, German politician, Chancellor of Germany, (d. 1945)
1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.

[El Supremo]

5. I should not have left out Columbine.

It was not on the NY Times site where I got this info.

My bad.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

6. Seems to me like an excellent example of the Availability Heuristic

Pretty much any date one cares to name, is the anniversary of something momentous. It stands to reason that some of those things will be bad.

But look at this:

April 12:
1955 -- Jonas Salk's polio vaccine declared safe and effective.

April 13:
1943 -- The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated; 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth.
1997 -- Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win The masters tournament.

April 14:
1939 -- The Grapes of Wrath is published.
1988 -- The Soviet Union pledges to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

April 15:
1783 -- Prelininary articles of peace ending the American War of Independence are ratified.
1923 -- Insulin becomes available for use by diabetics.
1945 -- The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.

April 16:
1862 -- A bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia becomes law.
1945 -- Colditz POW camp is liberated.

April 17:
1964 -- Ford Motor Company unveils the Mustang.
1970 -- Apollo 13 returns safely to earth.

April 18:
1775 -- Paul Revere's famous ride.
1783 -- Fighting ceases in the American Revolution.
1923 -- Yankee Stadium opens.
1942 -- Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Tokyo.

April 19:
1892 -- The first autmobile in America is driven.
1943 -- The Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
1987 -- The Simpsons premieres on the Tracy Ullman show.

April 20:
1862 -- Louis Pasteur completes his first tests of pasteurization.
1912 -- Fenway Park opens.

It all depends on which examples you want to look at.

[Hannah Bell]

7. "april is the cruelest month"

[El Supremo]

8. TS Elliot 1922,

Can you post it here?

[Dawson Leery]

9. kick

[Strelnikov_]

10. In the event I forget

Jaime Brockett - Legend of the USS Titanic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XFYMjkFYPg&feature=related

[WinkyDink]

11. We could---should---extend this backwards to April 4.

1968.