What is it with the month of April?
Why has so much craziness jumped off during this month? Is it that everyone has been pinned up all winter and when the weather warms up ,all the craziness must bubble to the surface? Or is it that college basketball has ended and everyone realizes football season doesn’t start for another four months?
I am going to leave out the fact that two of my nutso ex-girlfriends were born during April, which automatically moves April to the top of the list of supernatural events for a month. However, here’s a look at some of the other awful events from the first month of Spring from Savannah’s WTOC.com:
April 14, 1865 — U.S. President Abraham Lincoln leads the country through the Civil War. But he was shot dead at Ford’s Theatre just five days after the Confederacy surrendered.
April 20, 1889 — Adolf Hitler was born. He would go on to be one of the worst dictators of all time. He is responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
April 4, 1968 — Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the civil rights movement was shot dead. He is credited with being one of the most influential people surrounding the civil rights movement. He is celebrated each year with a national day of observance.
April 19, 1993 — The 50 day siege known as the “Waco Massacre” on Mount Carmel Center ended after days of fighting after a religious group called the Branch Davidians killed four federal agents and holed up at the ranch property. The siege ended when the Mount Caramel Center went up in flames, killing 76 people.
April 19, 1995 — The Oklahoma City bombings killed 168 people and injured more than 680 people. The blast took place at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. It is said to have caused more than $652 million worth of damage.
April 24, 1995 — The “Unabomber,” later identified as Ted Kaczynski, engaged in nationwide bombing for years, killing three people and injuring 23 others. The last of his victims was killed April 24, 1995.
April 20, 1999 — This day, the U.S. dealt with one of the worst school shootings in history. Two seniors at Columbine High School shot and killed 12 students and one teacher on the campus in Colorado. Twenty-one other students were injured.
April 16, 2007 — A senior at Virginia Tech shot and killed 32 people and hurt 17 others in two separate attacks before he turned the gun on himself. The Virginia Tech attack is still the bloodiest school shooting in history.
April 15, 2013 — Two separate bombs went off at the end of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding an estimated 170 others. One of the suspects were killed Friday morning; the other was arrested late Friday night.
Is that not a ton of tragedy for one month, when you consider Hitler, Lincoln, Waco and Oklahoma City all occurred during the same month? Is April the month the anti-Christ is supposed to be born? Maybe I should just plan on staying in my house for the entire month from now on.
I am sure, with research, a case can be made for another time of the year. However, these are some pretty terrible tragedies that have occurred in this country during the last 20 years alone. I thought spring was supposed to be a time of “new life” — not all this bad stuff.
Richard Clark is the consolidated desk chief for Halifax ENC; his column appears in this space every Sunday. You can reach him at 910-219-8452 or at Richard.Clark@jdnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at kpaws22.
