April 15 in Pop Culture History

April 15 History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

April 15 History Highlights

  • 1947Jackie Robinson, became the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  • 1989 – 96 fans were killed in The Hillsborough Tragedy in Sheffield, England with poor crowd control planning at a soccer match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
  • 2013 – The Boston marathon Bombing killed three people and injured 260 runners and supporters.
  • If you were born on April 15th,
    You were likely conceived the week of… July 23rd (prior year)

April 15 is…

Glazed Spiral Ham Day
Jackie Robinson Day
Laundry Day
Tax Day
Titanic Remembrance Day
World Art Day
#42 Jackie Robinson was the first African American player to play in Major League Baseball and broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years. Jackie Robinson Day is celebrated every April 15th, which is Jackie’s birthday.

US Tax Trivia

The Gettysburg address is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913, to over 7 million words today.

There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions. Even the easiest form, the 1040E has 33 pages of instructions and all in fine print.

The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.

Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions. The total number of computers thrown out the window, or kicked with a frustrated foot is unknown.

American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

The IRS employs 114,000 people; that’s twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

Taxes eat up nearly 40% of the average family’s income; that’s more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.

Tax Freedom Day

Tax Freedom Day is the day that the money that you earn that particular year, on average, stops going into the government’s pocket and starts going into yours.
Tax Freedom Day By Year:
April 17, 2021
April 15, 2020
April 16, 2019
April 19, 2018
April 23, 2017
April 24, 2016
April 24, 2015
April 21, 2014
April 18, 2013
April 13, 2012
April 12, 2011
April 9, 2010
April 8, 2009
April 16, 2008
April 24, 2007
April 26, 2006
April 21, 2005
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2003
April 17, 2002
April 27, 2001
May 1, 2000

Tax Day Jokes

The IRS decides to audit Ralph, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Ralph shows up with his attorney.

The auditor says, “Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.” “I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,” says Ralph. “How about a demonstration?” The auditor thinks for a moment and said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

Ralph says, “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.” The auditor thinks a moment and says, “No way! It’s a bet.”

Ralph removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor’s jaw drops. Ralph says, “Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.” The auditor can tell Ralph isn’t blind, so he takes the bet. Ralph removes his dentures and bites his good eye. The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Ralph’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

“Want to go double or nothing?” Ralph asks. “I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.”

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this guy can manage that stunt, so he agrees again. Ralph stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Ralph’s attorney moans and puts his head in his hands. “Are you okay?” the auditor asks. “Not really,” says the attorney. “This morning, when Ralph told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over an IRS official’s desk and that you’d be happy about it.”
____________________

A businessman on his deathbed called his friend and said, “Bill, I want you to promise me that when I die you will have my remains cremated.” “And what,” his friend asked, “do you want me to do with your ashes?” The businessman said, “Just put them in an envelope and mail them to the Internal Revenue Service. Write on the envelope, “Now, you have everything.”
____________________

“To you taxpayers out there, let me say this: Make sure you file your tax return on time! And remember that, even though income taxes can be a ‘pain in the neck,’ the folks at the IRS are regular people just like you, except that they can destroy your life.”
– Dave Barry

“The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”
-Ronald Reagan

April 15 Birthday Quotes

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it. Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith.”
– Emma Watson

“You want to create an environment where we’re fostering ideas, not rejecting them.”
– Seth Rogen

“I don’t want no drummer. I set the tempo.”
– Bessie Smith

“I’m scared of the interviews…I’m scared of having to get up on stage again. I’m scared of the critique. I’m scared right now of doing this again. But that’s why I have to do it, I think.”
– Linda Perry

“Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn’t listening.”
– Emma Thompson

“The Learner must be led always from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar, guided along, as it were, a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life.”
– Charles Willson Peale

April 15 Birthdays

1741 – Charles Willson Peale, American painter and soldier (died in 1827)
1875 – James J. Jeffries, American boxer and promoter (died in 1953)
1894 – Bessie Smith, African-American singer and actress (died in 1937)
1903 – John Williams, English-American character actor (died in 1983)
1912 – Kim Il-sung, North Korean general and politician, 1st Supreme Leader of North Korea (died in 1994)
1917 – Hans Conried, American voice actor (died in 1982)
1933 – Roy Clarke, American musician and television personality (died in 2018)
1933 – Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (died in 1995)
1938 – Claudia Cardinale, Italian actress
1947 – Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, American screenwriter and producer
1948 – Michael Kamen, American composer and conductor (died in 2003)
1959 – Emma Thompson, English actress
1962 – Tom Kane, American voice actor
1965 – Linda Perry, American singer-songwriter
1966 – Samantha Fox, English model and singer-songwriter
1982 – Seth Rogen, Canadian-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1990 – Emma Watson, English actress

April 15 History

*We pay money in taxes to people who decided the amount of money we pay to them in taxes.

1755 – Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London.

1817 – The Erie Canal was authorized, to link between Buffalo on Lake Erie and the Hudson River at Albany New York,

1892 – The Edison General Electric Company (General Electric Company) was formed.

1912 – Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, near Newfoundland & Nova Scotia, Canada, after hitting an iceberg the night before.

1912 – The fourth dimension was referred to ‘as Time’ by Albert Einstein.

1923Insulin became available for use by people with diabetes.

1924 – Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

1927 – The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 began.

1941 – Igor Ivor Sikorsky made the first helicopter flight over one-hour duration in his Vought-Sikorsky VS-300.

1950 – #1 Hit April 15, 1950 – April 28, 1950: Eileen Barton – If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake

April 15, 1951, 19** Birthday (fictional) Marge Simpson, The Simpsons, TV

1952 – First flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.

1955 – McDonald’s opened its first franchised restaurant, owned by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1964 – Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was opened to traffic, connecting the Eastern Shore to Virginia Beach.

1967 – #1 Hit April 15, 1967 – May 12, 1967: Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra – Somethin’ Stupid

1972 – #1 Hit April 15, 1972 – May 26, 1972: Roberta Flack – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

1983 – Tokyo Disneyland opened to the public.

1984 – The inaugural World Youth Day was held in Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

1989 – #1 Hit April 15, 1989 – April 21, 1989: Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy

1993Benny and Joon and Boiling Point were released in theaters.

1995 – #1 Hit April 15, 1995 – June 2, 1995: Montell Jordan – This Is How We Do It

2004 – Kill Bill vol 2 and The Punisher debuted in theaters.

2010 – Kick-Ass and Death at a Funeral were released in theaters.

April 15, 2011, Lemonade Mouth aired on The Disney Channel

2013 – At approximately 2:50 PM (EDT), in a terrorist attack, two explosions around Copley Square were caught live on camera during the telecast of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 260.

2019 – The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris in France was seriously damaged by a large fire

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

J.P. Morgan of JPMorgan and Chase Co. Banking and Milton Hershey of Hershey’s Chocolate were both in Europe and planned to travel back to the US on Titanic’s Maiden Voyage but made other plans.

“Be happy without picking flaws.” – Victor Hugo

“I’ll have what she’s having.” – Customer (Estelle Reiner) #moviequotes

The Powerpuff Girls get their power from Chemical X, as in the X Chromosome. Their power is girl power.

We have become such a civilized species that we need to emulate manual labor, by working out, to keep ourselves healthy.

“If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the up button.” – Sam Levenson

A group of Donkeys is called a Drove or Pace or Herd.

“Wikipedia is the first place I go when I’m looking for knowledge… or when I want to create some.” – Stephen Colbert

“Yabba dabba do!” – Fred Flintstone (The Flintstones)

Little Richard – Real Name: Richard Wayne Pennyman

The director of ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ had to prove in court that the actors were still alive and didn’t get killed during the movie.

Who is this Rorschach guy? And why does he have pictures of my parents fighting?

“If you could be anything you wanted to be, you’d be disappointed.” #songlyrics

The reason grass makes you itch is because it actually cuts your skin with its serrated edges.

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