On This Day in History - April 14

On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at nearly full speed, despite being warned SIX times that there was sea ice. Flaws in the ship's design meant it sank in less than three hours. The chairman of the company that built Titanic had fifty years experience, and had been chairman for 17 years. The chief naval architect (who drowned on the Titanic) was a “genius” with 23 years experience, five years heading the drafting department. The designer of the Titanic's safety systems, which proved wholly inadequate, had forty years experience. The Titanic's captain had 45 years experience, 25 in command of ships, eight years as captain of the world's largest passenger liners.

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. While Lincoln was usually attended and guarded by three men, none were present to bar entrance to the President's box to assassin John Wilkes Booth; the policeman who was supposed to be on duty was drinking in a tavern. A US Army surgeon immediately rushed to Lincoln's side; neither he nor an additional six medical doctors (including the US Surgeon General) were able to save Lincoln.