15 April

1897 - Andres Bonifacio, leader and founder of the revolutionary government Katipunan, appoints Emilio Jacinto as Supreme Commander of all revolutionary forces in Manila during the Filipinos' struggle against Spanish colonial rule; the appointment comes less than a month before Supreme Bonifacio would be executed by order of his revolutionary nemesis and perceived virtual coup plotter, then-Capt. Emilio Aguinaldo.

1912 - The British luxury liner Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg, and some four days after it began its maiden voyage; Some 1,500 people will perish in the disaster that struck what was thought to an unsinkable ship--the subject of the record-breaking Hollywood film "Titanic" nearly 90 years later.

1998 - Pol Pot, former Cambodian dictator responsible for the death of millions of his people either by execution or by starvation and disease in the 1970s, is dead; Pot, who led the overthrow of the United States-backed Cambodian government in 1975, forcibly tried to implement his Marxist vision of an agrarian utopia, when he abolished private property, money, and religion and forcing city folks to migrate and set up rural collectives with disastrous results.

2000 - A white farmer/farmland owner is shot dead by black squatters in Zimbabwe, apparently signalling the beginning of President Robert Mugabe's radical plan to remove his country's farms from white ownership; Nine other white farmers will be murdered by 'war veterans'  who demand that Zimbabwe's land that was unfairly appropriated by white settlers in the days of white rule be returned to the indigeneous blacks.


Photo scan credit: Dnvzs Zjzllg