Move over Friday the 13th…
Bad things happen everyday. But why do some of the worst things in our history happen to take place on April 14th. There are other notorious no good, awful days out there, but April 14th takes the cake. Let’s find out why.
April 14th, 1865
As President Abraham Lincoln is watching an evening performance of “Our American Cousin” with his wife at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth approached the President from behind and shot him. Dr. Charles Leale performs a quick medical examination and Lincoln is carried to a bedroom in a nearby home. Booth and his accomplice David Herold flee into southern Maryland.
That same day, Secretary of State William H. Seward is nearly killed from a vicious knife attack. Vice President Andrew Johnson was a target as well, but his assailant backed out of the plan.
April 14th, 1912
At 11:40pm the mighty Titanic struck a large iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. Within minutes of hitting the iceberg the Titanic began taking on thousands of tons of water through the crack in its hull. Thomas Andrews, who designed the ship rushes to look at the damage and moments later he warns the captain that it’s going to sink.
Lifeboats began to be lowered at 12:30am and the ship lost electricity at 2:10am. Seven minutes later the Titanic broke in half and by 2:19am the front of the ship began to submerge. By 2:24am the entirety of the Titanic was underwater where it remains today.
April 14th, 1935
As the Great Depression gripped the United States and years of drought crippled farms, Black Sunday became the final blow to a suffering country. Winds picked up and sent a mountain of blackness across the High Plains.
The Dust Bowl, as it would come to be called hit Oklahoma first and turned day into night. By 7:00pm that evening the wall of dust covered Oklahoma and parts of Texas and would soon cover Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico.
April 14th, 1944
The Bombay docks explosion took place at the Victoria Dock of Bombay, British India. The British freighter SS Fort Stikine had just pulled up and was carrying cotton bales, gold, ammunition and right around 1,400 tons of explosives.
Somehow, the cargo area caught fire and the ship was completely destroyed in two giant, individual blasts. Debris from the ship hit other ships, causing them to sink and the entire area around the docks caught fire. By the time the fire was put out, somewhere between 800 and 1,300 people were deceased. Nearly 80,000 people were made homeless and a reported 71 firemen lost their lives.
April 14th, 1972
1972 was a dangerous year in Ireland. January 30th of that year came to be known as the infamous “Bloody Sunday”. On April 14th, The Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded 23 bombs at locations all over Northern Ireland causing panic and chaos all throughout the area.
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican paramilitary organization that was fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland. The IRA was designated as a terrorist organization in the UK and an illegal organization in the Republic of Ireland. In 1997 the IRA declared a ceasefire and by 2005 stated it would complete the process of disarmament.
April 14th, 1986
It was on this date that a severe hailstorm hit the Gopalganj and Pirojpur districts in Southern Bangladesh. Nearly 100 people were killed and thousands were injured and left homeless.
The heaviest hailstone that has been authenticated by official authorities fell during the hailstorm weighing in at 2.25 pounds. Houses and crops were destroyed and storms continued to pound the area for days, sinking boats and causing fires.
April 14th, 1999
Initially NATO and the United States claimed that their target was a military convoy and that Yugoslav armed forces might have attacked civilians. Two days later it was acknowledged that the NATO aircraft had bombed civilian vehicles on accident.
NATO expressed “deep regret” for the murder of 73 Albanian refugees, 16 of which were children. At the time, several thousand Kosovo Albanians were traveling in tractors and cars when the bombs hit.
April 14th, 2013
At 6:38am, a fire broke out in a hotel within the Fancheng District of the city of Xiangyang, China. It took firefighters nearly two hours to extinguish the fire and by then between 11 and 14 people had died.
42 of the hotel’s 50 rooms were occupied at the time. It was believed that the fire started in the Internet cafe on the floor below the hotel.
April 14th, 2017
On the morning Sinhalese New Year, a massive section of the Meethoramulla garbage dump, sometimes called Garbage Mountain, collapsed on surrounding houses and killed 32 people.
In the Colombo District of Sri Lanka, Garbage Mountain reportedly held over two millions pounds of rubbish and stood almost 160 feet tall. In total, nearly 1800 people were affected. The garbage was sent to two different sites after the incident.
April 14th, 2019
Between April 13th and April 15th, a line of weather that began in Texas and curled up through the eastern United States, caused massive damage. On the 14th, eleven strong tornadoes touched down and when the storm system was done, nine people had lost their lives and thousands were homeless or without power.
So I’m not sure what your plans are for this April 14th but you may want to consider just staying inside. It would seem we’re due for another event soon.
Is it possible that this date is cursed because of something that happened in the 16th century? A mass sighting of celestial phenomena or unidentified flying objects occurred on April 14th of 1561 above Nuremberg within the Holy Roman Empire. Witnesses reported an aerial battle of extraterrestrial origin.
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