It's not often that two disasters of world significance share the same day, albeit 50 47 years apart. On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate loyalist in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He died the next day in a home across the street. On April 15, 1915 1912, the "unsinkable" ship RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage, with as many as 1,635 people lost due in part to an insufficient number of lifeboats.
Lincoln's assassination has prompted speculation among historians as to what the post-Civil War period would have looked like had he not died. Lincoln most likely would have been magnanimous to the defeated South, as he indicated in his second inaugural address just 41 days before his death, famous for its phrase "with malice toward none, with charity for all." What followed Lincoln's assassination was one of the worst Presidents, Andrew Johnson, who allowed laws to be passed in the South that eliminated the rights of African Americans, which later developed into Jim Crow laws.
The Titanic's sinking led to reforms in the way passenger ship were outfitted, namely having lifeboats sufficient to handle all aboard ship and training of passengers in what to do in the face of emergencies. Better radio communications ship-to-ship were also mandated, and establishing U.S. Coast Guard's International Ice Patrol to monitor icebergs in the North Atlantic.
(Posted by brother Hackwhacker.)
