On This Day:
Tuesday April 15, 2014 This is the 105th day of the year, with 260 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: taxes Taxes have been part of human life since the dawn of civilization; one of the clay tablet recordings left behind by the Sumerians reads, "You can have a Lord, you can have a king, but the man to fear is the tax collector." Egyptian hieroglyphics depict tax agents from 4,000 years ago getting tough on delinquent taxpayers, and the Rosetta Stone was a document granting tax immunity to priests. When Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary were on their way to report to a census used by tax collectors. Many historians argue that the Romans propelled their civilization to greatness through a tax system and then brought about their own demise when that system became corrupt and inefficient. Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry in Britain to protest taxes levied by her husband. And perhaps most famously of all, the British colonies in America launched a revolution against King George III protesting taxes on sugar, tea, and stamps, thereby giving birth to the United States of America.
Holidays Feast day of St. Ruadhan, St. Paternus of Wales, St. Hunna, and Saints Anastasia and Basilissa.
United States: Federal income tax returns due to the Internal Revenue Service.
Events 1755 - English lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson published his "Dictionary of the English Language."
1783 - The Continental Congress ratified preliminary articles of peace ending the Revolutionary War with Great Britain.
1817 - The first American school for the deaf opened in Hartford, Connecticut.
1850 - The city of San Francisco was incorporated.
1861 - Three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln mobilized Federal army at the outset of the Civil War.
1865 - Andrew Johnson became the nation's 17th president upon Abraham Lincoln's death.
1922 - Insulin was discovered by Canadian physiologist Frederick Banting and John Macleod.
1945 - During World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.
1955 - Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's; it was located in Des Plaines, Illinois.
1989 - Students in Beijing launched a series of pro-democracy protests following the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang; the protests culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre.
1989 - Ninety-six people died in a crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England.
1999 - Astronomers from San Francisco State University, working in Arizona, announced the discovery of the first multi-planet system found orbiting around a star other than the Sun.
2003 - U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has fallen; the following day he called on the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq that had been in place since 1991.
Births 1452 - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, scientist, engineer, draftsman.
1843 - Henry James, American-born British author and critic.
1880 - Max Wertheimer, Czech-born American psychologist, founder of Gestalt psychology.
1922 - Neville Mariner, American conductor.
Deaths 2002 - Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White.
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