Springtime Can Kill You

T.S. Eliot wrote that "April is the cruelest month," which is not only all metaphorical and poetical and stuff. It is actual truth, at least for America. Consider the following American events:

Paul Revere's ride, announcing the British Invasion ("The Beatles have landed, the Beatles have landed!") took place on the night of April 18th, 1775, effectively beginning the Revolutionary War.

Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, was bombarded by General Beauregard -- an act of treason, if you ask me -- on April 12th, 1861, leading to the surrender of the fort to the Confederacy and the start of the U.S. Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln -- one of the best writers to ever occupy the White House -- was assasinated by the traitor and conspirator John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.

J.L. "Casey" Jones was making up time on the Cannonball steam locomotive, charging north of Memphis on April 29th, 1900, when he came across two stalled freighters. Rather than risk derailment, Jones ran his engine into one of the stalled friegthers, killing him but saving his passengers. Whether he was a union scab or high on cocaine depends on which folk record you listen to.

The Great Quate of 1906 shook San Francisco on April 18, 1906, killing an estimated 3,000 people and leaving about 300,000 homeless in a city that was left 80% destroyed.

The Titanic sunk over the night of April 14th and 15th, 1912, killing several rich dudes, Harry Widener, and Leo DiCaprio. (My friend Rob's estimation of the movie "Titanic": "It's every woman's fantasy. She has the best sex of her life with a cute guy, he swears he will always love her, and then he dies.")

On April 14th, 1935, twenty of the worst "Black Blizzards" swept through the American plains on a day known as "Black Sunday" due to the darkness brought on by the swirling dust.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was assasinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. (Not in "early morning," as U2 would have it, but around 6pm.)

In early April 1974, a "Super Outbreak" spread 148 confirmed tonados across 13 states and Canada.

The L.A. riots broke out following the verdict in the Rodney King case on April 29, 1992. Of the more than 50 people killed over the next six days, about half were African-American.

The FBI/ATF siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX, ended in fire on April 19, 1993: 79 dead, including 21 children.

Marking the anniversary of the Waco Siege, Timothy McVeigh car-bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, OK, on April 19th, 1995. The blast and collapse killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured 800 more.

On April 20th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 Columbine High School students and one teacher before turning their guns on themselves in the U.S.'s most notorious school shooting.