Canada: The RMS Empress of Ireland Sinks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
On this day in 1914, 1024 people died when the ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sunk in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. It had collided in the early hours of the morning with the Norwegiancollier ‘Storstad.’
Launched in 1906, the Empress of Ireland often crossed between Quebec in Canada and Liverpool in England. It had not long departed on another crossing when the accident occurred. There was a heavy fog which resulted in both ships not being able to see the other.
The HMS Coventry was a Type 42 (Sheffield Class) Destroyer in the Royal Navy, commissioned on the 10th November 1978. The Argentine bombing raid resulted in the loss of the Coventry, with 19 of her crew killed and 30 injured. The ship capsized before sinking not longer after.
On the 14th April 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated the President of the United States of America at Ford’s Theatre, in Washington D.C. Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, managed to escape the scene of his crime and fled on horseback to a farm in northern Virginia. It was here, 12 days after his attack on the president that Booth was shot and killed.
John Wilkes Booth was born on the 10th May 1838, into the well known Booth family and became a well known actor in his own right. But it would be his assassination of Abraham Lincoln that he would always be remembered for.
Eight other co-conspirators were tried and convicted for their parts in the assassination and other roles in the plot that resulted in the death of the president. Four of these were hung a short time later.
History for Today 