Today in History: April 15

2003: U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the government of Ṣaddām Hussein in Iraq had fallen as a result of the Iraq War and the following day asked the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq.

2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton established the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a preserve near Sequoia National Park covering more than 500 square miles (1,300 square km) of Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada of California.

1986: U.S. warplanes attack Libya.

1971: North Vietnamese troops ambush a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.

1960: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes at Shaw University.

1959: Cuban leader Fidel Castro begins a U.S. goodwill tour.

1955: On this day in 1955, American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, launching an enterprise that would eventually become the world's largest fast-food chain.

1952: President Harry Truman signs the official Japanese peace treaty.

1948: Arab forces are defeated in battle with Israeli forces.

1947: Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's racial barrier, played in his first major league game for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt is buried on the grounds of his Hyde Park home.

1940: French and British troops land at Narvik, Norway.

1926: Robertson Aircraft, one of the companies that later developed into American Airlines, flew its first mail route, between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri, with Charles A. Lindbergh as the pilot.

1923: The first sound films shown to a paying audience are exhibited at the Rialto Theater in New York City.

1920: Two men were murdered in South Braintree, Massachusetts, leading to the Sacco-Vanzetti case and the still-controversial conviction of the two Italian immigrants.

1919: British troops kill 400 Indians at Amritsar, India.

1917: British forces defeat the Germans at the battle of Arras.

1912: With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.

1871: 'Wild Bill' Hickok becomes the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

1865: Abraham Lincoln dies from John Wilkes Booth's assassination bullet.

1861: President Lincoln mobilizes Federal army.

1858: At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists.

1813: U.S. troops under James Wilkinson siege the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.

1784: The first balloon is flown in Ireland.

1755: English lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language.