On this date in history:

In 1817, the oldest, permanent U.S. school for the deaf, Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now the American School for the Deaf), was founded at Hartford, Conn.

In 1865, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died of an assassin's bullet fired the night before at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as chief executive.

In 1912, the luxury liner Titanic sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland after striking an iceberg the previous night. Approximately 1,500 people died in the tragedy.

In 1931, Spanish Republicans formed a new government as King Alfonso sailed into exile.

In 1944, the Soviet army captured the Polish city of Tarnopol from German occupation. When Nazi Germany took the city in 1941, it murdered thousands of Jews, and in 1944, the Soviets killed some 4,500 Germans and destroyed much of the city.

In 1947, Major League Baseball's color line was officially broken with the debut of Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on opening day. Robinson, who went on to become one of the game's great stars, walked and scored a run in the Dodgers' 5-3 victory over the Boston Braves.

In 1955, the first franchised McDonald's was opened in Des Plaines, Ill., by Ray Kroc, who got the idea from a hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif., run by the McDonald brothers.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon asked Congress for legislation to prohibit dumping of polluted dredge waste into the lakes.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered airstrikes against the Libyan regime of Moammar Gadhafi in response to the bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two U.S. serviceman.

In 1998, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who presided over a reign of terror in Cambodia in the late 1970s, died at a jungle outpost near the Cambodia-Thailand border.

In 2009, Tea Party protests, largely critical of President Barack Obama and his policies, had their biggest turnout to date on April 15, tax day -- in many cities.

In 2013, two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 260.

In 2014, after sending a distress signal, a South Korean ferry capsized off the country's southern coast, an incident that killed about 300 people.

In 2017, the bombing of a convoy of buses carrying evacuees killed at least 126 people in Aleppo, Syria, including dozens of children.

In 2019, a devastating fire collapsed the roof and spire of Notre Dame Cathedral, but fire officials said they managed to avoid the total destruction of one of Paris' most recognizable landmarks.

In 2021, a former employee at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis opened fire at the building, killing eight people and himself. It was the state's most deadly mass shooting.

In 2023, Atiq Ahmed, a former Indian politician, and his brother, Ashram Ahmed, were shot dead on live TV while flanked by police on the way to a nearby hospital for a checkup after he was jailed for a kidnapping plot.

Copyright 2024 by United Press International