Civil War Begins…..
April 12, 1861……
The American Civil War begins when the Confederacy fires upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Confederate batteries fired on the fort for 34 straight hours. The fort fell to Confederate forces the following day.
Houston, we’ve had a problem here…..
April 13, 1970……
An Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes, endangering the crew and causing the planned Moon landing to be aborted. One of the problems that had to be overcome was the need to adapt the Command Module’s square carbon dioxide scrubber cartridges to fit the Lunar Module, which took a round cartridge. This was done by drawing air through them with a suit return hose (shown in photo).
Note: The actual phrase was “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here”, spoken by Jack Swigert. After being asked to repeat the transmission Jim Lovell responded with “Uh, Houston, we’ve had a problem”. In the 1995 movie Apollo 13, the line was shortened to the more dramatic, “Houston, we have a problem”.
Sinking of the Titanic…..
April 14, 1912…….
At 11:37 p.m. the “unsinkable” ship the RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic while on her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City. She sank at 2:20 a.m. killing 1,517 of the 2,238 people aboard.
Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese passenger, survived, but was ostracized for the rest of his life in Japan as dishonorable and a coward for not going down with the ship.