April 14

1865 - President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington:  U.S. Civil War.

Lincoln was one of the greatest President's in U.S. history, and his death was a terrible loss for the entire nation - North and South...Ironically, there is little doubt the South suffered more in the Reconstruction period than was necessary, because Lincoln wasn’t around to smooth over the process.  Instead the South had to face the wrath of the North for much longer as a result of the hardliners in Congress who used the martyrdom of Lincoln to forward their goals.

The great man died the next day.

74 - After two years of defending the Fortress of Masada, the Jews committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Roman 10th Legion.

Suicide is a serious issue for the Jewish people, but the defenders of Masada fought the good fight for two year against overwhelming odds, and eventually would have been slaughtered if they continued to fight...Surrender was an option, but it is very likely the Romans would have executed them anyway.

Masada is one of the great siege-defense battles in history (even if unsuccessful), and the defenders were right to die on their terms rather than that of the Romans.

1775 - The Society for the 'Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage,' was founded in Philadelphia. It was the first American abolition society, and was organized by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

Most of the great men of this time knew slavery was wrong - even those who had them themselves...Unfortunately, they also knew the American Revolution, and later the re-founding of the new nation under the Constitution, would not have occurred if ending slavery had been on the agenda.

Reality dictated slavery had to be accepted for the time being, which is horrible but it should not be a mark against these great men.

"Don’t hate the good, because it’s not the better." - Hugh Hewitt

1861 - The Confederate flag was raised over Fort Sumter, South Carolina, when Union troops surrendered the fort in the early days of the Civil War.

An early loss, in what became a long, terrible conflagration...One which was worth fighting, and had to occur eventually.

1912 - The British liner 'Titanic' collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began sinking. Rescue ships picked up 706 survivors while 1,517 went down with the ship the following morning.

The 'Unsinkable Titanic' proved no match for the power of nature.

1945 - American planes firebombed Tokyo and damaged the Japanese Imperial Palace:  WWII.

This and other raids on Tokyo were an awesome display of power and destruction...Yet the Japanese refused to surrender.

The Japanese people are lucky they gave up after the two 'Atom Bombs,' because these types of raids would have become a regular occurrence if MacArthur and Nimitz were forced to invade Japan Proper.

1985 - Geraldo Rivera broke into the long sealed vault of racketeer Al Capone during a live TV special, only to find nondescript broken bottles.

Pretty typical reporting for Gerald.

1986 - Americans got first word of the U.S. air raid on Libya (because of the time difference, it was the early morning of April 15th where the attack occurred.) U.S. warplanes struck Libya in the biggest U.S. air strike since the Vietnam War. Libya claimed 40 of its people were killed.

It's too bad 41 weren't killed...That said, Qa'Daffy' got the point real quick not to mess around with Ronald Reagan.

1993 - A U.S. government-funded study said only 1.1 percent of men identified themselves as exclusively homosexual, a finding disputed by gay activists.

I’m sure this number is low, but have no doubt it isn’t very low.

The gay myth has been blown so out of proportion it is almost entirely unbelievable...The Gay Mob would do much better to be realistic about their numbers than to hyper-inflate them and lose all credibility.

1995 - The United Nations Security Council gave permission to Iraq, still under sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies. Iraq rejected the offer.

Saddam knew even bigger bribes would follow if he waited them out.