April 14 in Military History

John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln during a performance at Ford's Theatre, five days after Lee's surrender. Lincoln died the following morning, the first U.S. presidential assassination.

On the same day Lincoln was shot, Major General Robert Anderson, who had surrendered Fort Sumter four years earlier, returned to raise the same American flag over the recaptured fort. The tragic coincidence of triumph and tragedy made April 14 one of the most dramatic days in American history.

The British liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 PM in the North Atlantic and sank two hours later. The disaster prompted the 1914 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and the founding of the International Ice Patrol under U.S. Coast Guard command.

The Curtiss XP-36 prototype flew for the first time at Buffalo, New York. The all-metal monoplane fighter entered Army Air Corps service as the P-36 Hawk and evolved into the P-40 Warhawk that served through World War II.

The destroyer USS Roper sank German submarine U-85 off North Carolina, the first U-boat destroyed in American waters following Germany's Operation Drumbeat. All 46 German crew were killed.

Elements of the U.S. 7th Army reached the outskirts of Nuremberg, the symbolic capital of the Nazi movement, beginning a fierce four-day battle against fanatical SS defenders. The city fell on April 20.

North Korean MiG-21 fighters shot down a U.S. Navy EC-121M Warning Star over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew members, the largest single loss of American aircrewmen during the Cold War.

F-111F and A-6E strike packages at RAF Lakenheath and Upper Heyford completed final arming and briefings for the raid on Libya the following night in retaliation for the La Belle discotheque bombing.

The frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will, blowing a 25-foot hole in the hull. The mining triggered Operation Praying Mantis four days later, the largest U.S. naval surface engagement since WWII.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption spread an ash cloud across European airspace, grounding most NATO fixed-wing flight operations for six days. The disruption exposed the fragility of coalition air mobility.