Thursday 15th of April 1452

Artist, scientist, engineer, mathematician, inventor and polymath Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is born in Vinci, Toscana, Italy.

Sunday 15th of April 1764

Courtisane and official chief mistress of King Louis XV Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson aka Madame de Pompadour dies of tuberculosis at the age of 43 in Versailles, Île-de-France, France.

Thursday 15th of April 1802

32-year-old Romantic poet William Wordsworth is inspired to write 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' by a long belt of daffodils during a country walk with his sister Dorothy in Ullswater, Glencoyne, Cumbria, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 15th of April 1829

20-year-old Writer of mystery and the macabre Edgar Allan Poe is discharged from the US Army in Fort Moultrie, Charleston, South Carolina, United States.

Wednesday 15th of April 1863

Victim of Henri Désiré Landru aka Le Barbe-Bleue de Gambais Marie-Angélique Guillin is born as Pelletier in Bellavilliers, Basse-Normandie, France.

Saturday 15th of April 1865

16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln dies of a gunshot wound in the head inflicted by John Wilkes Booth during the play 'Our American Cousin' in Ford's Theatre the evening before at the age of 56 in Petersen House, 516 10th Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia, United States.

Wednesday 15th of April 1874

Physician John Irving Bentley is born in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, United States.

On 5 December 1966 Bentley died of Spontaneous Human Combustion.

Monday 15th of April 1889

Catholic priest and missionary Father Damiaan aka The Apostle of the Lepers dies of leprosy at the age of 49 in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, United States.

In January 1936 Damiaan's body was returned to Belgium. He was buried in Leuven. After his beatification in June 1995 the remains of his right hand were returned to Hawaii and re-interred in his original grave on Molokai.

Sunday 15th of April 1894

First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev is born in Kalinovka, Kursk Oblast, Russia.

Sunday 15th of April 1894

Blues singer Bessie Smith aka aka the Empress of the Blues is born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States.

Friday 15th of April 1904

Painter Arshile Gorky is born as Vostanik Manuk Adoian in Khorgom, Van Ili, Turkey.

Wednesday 15th of April 1908

Actress Lita Grey is born as Lillita Louise MacMurray in Hollywood, California, United States.

Monday 15th of April 1912

Between 1.490 and 1.635 die in RMS Titanic and iceberg collision in the North Atlantic Ocean.

On her maiden voyage, the RMS Titanic carried 2.224 passengers and crew.

Monday 15th of April 1912

First Supreme Leader of North Korea Il-sung Kim is born as Kim Sŏng-ju in Mangyongdae, P'yŏngan, North Korea.

Thursday 15th of April 1920

Slater and Morril Shoe Company 44-year-old security guard Alessandro Berardelli and 34-year-old paymaster Frederick Parmenter are shot dead and robbed of 16.000 $ in Slater-Morrill Shoe Company, Pearl Street, South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States.

On 5 May Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeao Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the crime.

Tuesday 15th of April 1924

23-year-old Hermann Bock is killed and his meat sold by serial killer Fritz Haarmann aka Der Hannover Werwolf in Das Mordhaus, Rote Reihe 4, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Wednesday 15th of April 1925

Serial killer Fritz Friedrich Heinrich Karl Haarmann aka Der Hannover Werwolf is executed by the Guillotine at the age of 46 in Königliches Zellengefängnis, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Haarmann's head is kept in the Kraepelinschen Hirnforschungsinstitut in München, Germany.

Saturday 15th of April 1933

Photographer and film director David Hamilton is born in London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 15th of April 1936

Cyclist Raymond Poulidor aka Poupou aka L'Éternel Second is born in Masbaraud-Mérignat, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.

Friday 15th of April 1938

Actress Claudia Joséphine Rose Cardinale is born in Tunis, La Goulette, Protectorat Français, Tunisia.

Wednesday 15th of April 1942

Modernist writer Robert Mathias Musil known for his novel ‘Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften’ dies of a stroke at the age of 62 in Genève, Romandie, Switzerland.

Only eight people attended Musil's cremation.

Saturday 15th of April 1944

Murderer Fred L. Brady is executed by hanging at the age of 46 in Lansing Correctional Facility, 301 E Kansas Avenue, Lansing, Kansas, United States.

Saturday 15th of April 1944

Murderer Clark B. Knox is executed by hanging in Lansing Correctional Facility, 301 E Kansas Avenue, Lansing, Kansas, United States.

Sunday 15th of April 1945

The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by British and Canadian troops in KZ Bergen-Belsen, Bergen, Niedersachsen, Germany.

The first two to reach the camp were a British Special Air Service officer, Lieutenant John Randall and his jeep driver who were on a reconnaissance mission and discovered the camp by chance.

Tuesday 15th of April 1947

581 die in SS Grandcamp explosion and fire in Port of Texas City, Texas City, Texas, United States.

The SS Grandcamp's cargo of approximately 2.300 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated due to a fire and caused a subsequent chain-reaction of further fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities. An additional 113 people were classified as missing, for no identifiable parts were ever found.

Tuesday 15th of April 1947

Cop killer Misao Katagiri is born in Tokyo, Setagaya, Kantō, Japan.

Sunday 15th of April 1951

Mabel Everson dies at the age of 69. On the night of the funeral   45-year-old Murderer and body snatcher Ed Edward Theodore Gein aka America’s Most Bizarre Murderer robs her grave and takes parts of her body home to make his grisly artefacts   in Plainfield, Wisconsin, United States.

   

Friday 15th of April 1955

Murderer Jackson Howard is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 42 in Georgia State Prison, Georgia Highway 147, Reidsville, Georgia, United States.

Sunday 15th of April 1956

Child killer Robert Glen Coe is born in Hickman, Kentucky, United States.

Monday 15th of April 1957

23-year-old Serial killer Angelo Anthony Buono aka The Hillside Strangler marries Mary Catherine Castillo in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Monday 15th of April 1957

58-year-old General practitioner and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams is found not guilty of the two murders he was charged with in Old Bailey Criminal Court, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Monday 15th of April 1968

Son of Charles Manson and Mary Therese Brunner Valentine Michael Manson aka Pooh Bear is born in Summit Trail Shack, Topanga Canyon, California, United States.

Wednesday 15th of April 1970

Radical left organisation the Weather Underground members Linda Sue Evans and Dianne Donghi are arrested for trying to forge checks using false identification in New York City, New York, United States.

Saturday 15th of April 1972

Irish Republican Army volunteer Joe McCann is shot dead in a confrontation with RUC Special Branch and British paratroopers at the age of 25 in Joy Street, Belfast, The Markets, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Monday 15th of April 1974

20-year-old Newspaper heiress, kidnap victim and member of the Symbionese Liberation Army Patty Patricia Campbell Hearst takes part in a bank robbery by the Symbionese Liberation Army in Sunset District Hibernia Bank, 1450 Noriega Street, San Francisco, California, United States.

Tuesday 15th of April 1975

19-year-old Melanie Suzanne 'Suzi' Cooley is abducted and bludgeoned to death by serial killer Ted Bundy aka The Only Living Witness in Nederland, Colorado, United States.

A road maintenance worker found Cooley's body in Coal Creek Canyon on 2 May 1975. Bundy was never officially tied to this murder.

Tuesday 15th of April 1975

21-year-old Karen Ann Quinlan aka The Coma Girl suffers irreversible brain damage after experiencing an extended period of respiratory failure during a coma in Landing, New Jersey, United States.

Quinlan became unconscious after arriving home from a party where she had consumed diazepam, dextropropoxyphene and Gin and Tonics. She was taken to a hospital where she lapsed into a persistent vegetative state for ten years. Around the time of the party Quinlan went on a radical diet in order to fit into a dress that she had bought.

Tuesday 15th of April 1980

Writer, philosopher, political activist and critic Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre dies of pulmonary edema at the age of 75 in Hôpital Broussais, Paris, XIVe, Île-de-France, France.

Friday 15th of April 1983

16-year-old Ervin Gibson is found beaten and stabbed to death by serial killer Larry Eyler aka The Leather Boy Killer in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States.

Sunday 15th of April 1984

Actor and comedian Tommy Thomas Frederick Cooper dies of a heart attack at the age of 63 in Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket, London, Westminster, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Cooper was midway through his act on the London Weekend Television variety show Live From Her Majesty's, transmitted live from Her Majesty's Theatre.

Sunday 15th of April 1984

34-year-old Mass murderer Christopher Thomas aka The Palm Sunday murderer shoots three women, a teenage girl and six children in the head at close range in 1080 Liberty Avenue, New York, Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Among the victims were 24-year-old Virginia Lopez, her 4-year-old and 7-year-old sons, 14-year-old Betsy and 10-year-old Marilyn Bermudez 20-year-old Carmen Perez and her 5-year-old and 3-year-old sons. An 11-month-old girl was the only survivor.

Monday 15th of April 1985

21-year-old Robert Allen Sheldon is suffocated by a plastic bag by serial killer Robert Berdella aka The Kansas City Butcher in 4315 Charlotte Street, Kansas City, Missouri, United States.

Sheldon was drugged with sedatives and held captive in the second floor bedroom for three days, enduring forms of torture such as the swabbing of drain cleaner in his left eye, the insertion of needles beneath his fingertips, the binding of his wrists with piano wire with the intention of permanently damaging the nerves in his hands and filling his ears with caulking to reduce his hearing capacity.

Tuesday 15th of April 1986

Writer, thief and political activist Jean Genet dies of throat cancer at the age of 76 in Jack's Hôtel Room #205, 19 Avenue Stéphen-Pichon, Paris, XIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Genet is buried in the Spanish Cemetery in Larache, Morocco.  

Tuesday 15th of April 1986

Murderer Daniel Morris Thomas is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 38 in Florida State Prison, 23916 NW 83rd Ave., Raiford, Florida, United States.

Thomas refused to touch his last meal of lobster, steak, barbecued chicken, pecan pie, a doughnut and grape juice.

Saturday 15th of April 1989

96 die in Liverpool - Nottingham Forest football game stampede in Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Sunday 15th of April 1990

Actress Greta Garbo dies of pneumonia and renal failure at the age of 84 in New York Hospital, New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.

Sunday 15th of April 1990

Over 150 die in phosphorous contaminated fried bread poisoning in Raipura Jungla, Uttar Pradesh, India.

All of them had been guests at a community feast for an engagement ceremony.

Tuesday 15th of April 1997

Over 250 die in Camp Mama fire in Mecca, Makkah l-Mukarramah, Saudi Arabia.

The fire was caused by exploding canisters of cooking gas.

Wednesday 15th of April 1998

Cambodian socialist revolutionary and leader of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot dies of heart failure at the age of 73 in Anlong Veng, Oddar Meanchey, Cambodia.

Pol Pot most probably died of a lethal dose of a combination of Valium and chloroquine.

Sunday 15th of April 2001

Musician Joey Ramone dies of lymphoma at the age of 50 in New York–Presbyterian Hospital, New York City, New York, United States.

Monday 15th of April 2002

129 die in Air China Boeing 767-2J6ER Flight 129 crash in Gimhae Airport, Busan, Yeongnam, South Korea.

There were 37 survivors.

Friday 15th of April 2005

The Lenin Mausoleum early in the morning in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Tuesday 15th of April 2025

150 die in HB Kongolo motorized wooden vessel fire and capsizing in Mbandaka, Équateur Province, Congo.

The fire reportedly started when a woman was cooking on board, leading to a blaze that caused panic among the 500 passengers. Many jumped into the river to escape the flames, but some were unable to swim and drowned. Approximately 100 people were rescued, many with severe burns, while 100 were unaccounted for.