Top 10 Reasons April Is the WORST Month

Top 10 Reasons April Is the WORST Month

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T.S. Eliot called it the “cruellest month.” Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 reasons April is the WORST month. For this list, we’re looking through history, and choosing all of the worst things to ever take place during the month of April. It’s the height of allergy season, Tax Day falls right in the middle and historians believe it’s the month Jesus was crucified. Need more? Try these on for size.

#10: San Francisco Earthquake April 18, 1906

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The infamous San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which is estimated to have registered a 7.8 on the Richter scale, struck the state of California early in the morning on April 18th, 1906, sending shockwaves from Eureka to the Salinas Valley. The worst of the damage happened in San Francisco, where the quake triggered catastrophic fires. Anything not destroyed by the tremors was razed by the fire, which annihilated 80% of the city and killed 3,000 people. To this day, it’s considered one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States.

#9: Bay of Pigs Invasion April 17-19, 1961

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To the American government, this military invasion of Cuba seemed like a great idea: train and fund a paramilitary group made up of Cuban exiles to depose Fidel Castro and his communist government. Over $13 million was earmarked for the invasion, and the CIA began organizing the operation. President John F. Kennedy okayed the plan, and on the night between April 16th-17th, Brigade 2506 arrived at a beach in the Bay of Pigs. However, within three days, they’d been defeated. In addition to irreparably damaging the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba and strengthening Castro’s position, the failed invasion also led to 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis.

#8: Boston Marathon Bombing April 15, 2013

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The 2013 Boston Marathon seemed like another normal edition of the famed event, until two homemade bombs exploded about 12 seconds apart near the finish line at 2:49pm. Three people were killed, 16 lost appendages, and hundreds of others were injured in the blasts, which the FBI determined to be the work of the Tsarnaev brothers. The Chechan-American brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were said to have carried out the attack due to their extremist Islamic views. After shootouts, kidnappings, more murders, the death of Tamerlan and an extensive manhunt, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was located, tried and ultimately sentenced to death for his crimes.

#7: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1865

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Often recognized as one of the greatest and most influential presidents in the history of the United States, 16th President Abraham Lincoln was responsible for keeping the country together during its bloody Civil War, abolishing the institution of slavery and aiding economic growth, while also upholding the principles set forth by the Founding Fathers. These are just a few reasons why the nation mourned when, on the evening of April 14th, 1865 while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre, Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth, and died the next day.

In what’s been called the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in United States history, a car bomb destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children, injuring almost 700, damaging hundreds of buildings and cars in the area and causing $652 million worth of damage. Within hours, Timothy McVeigh was arrested, and his partner Terry Nichols turned himself in soon after. After their anti-government motive was uncovered, McVeigh was executed for the bombing in 2001 and Nichols was sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

Sadly, the Columbine massacre wasn’t the only school shooting to take place during the month of April, as the Virginia Tech shooting occurred on April 16th, 2007. But Columbine has been called “the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.” Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold devised a complex plan that involved propane tanks, fire bombs, car bombs and other explosive devices to cause as much mayhem as possible while they went on their shooting spree. After killing 12 and injuring many more, the two students committed suicide, kicking off a worldwide panic about gun control, bullying, goth culture and violence in the media.

#4: Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. April 4, 1968

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A prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement, this Baptist minister and nonviolent activist protested racial discrimination, combatted poverty and opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Known for his skills as a public speaker, and more specifically his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, he was a fierce orator and crusader for the African-American people. However, MLK’s fight ended on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. In town to support striking sanitation workers, Dr. King was shot while standing on the balcony of his hotel room by criminal and fugitive James Earl Ray.

It was said to be unsinkable, but that was proven false on the night of April 14-15, 1912. It was during the Titanic’s maiden voyage that the largest ship of its time collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, with over 2,200 people onboard. Ultimately, the ship took on water, broke apart and foundered, eventually sinking beneath the icy ocean surface. Although some 700 were saved by the steamship RMS Carpathia, which had rushed to the rescue, more than 1,500 died due to a lack of lifeboats and the poorly organized evacuation. This April tragedy has since been called one of the deadliest commercial maritime disasters in modern history.

It was on April 26th, 1986, during a rushed, late-night test of the plant’s power-failure preparedness, that a combination of human error and internal flaws resulted in a catastrophic explosion and fire at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat in the USSR. Although only two employees died in the blast, hundreds of other staff, firefighters and people living in the vicinity succumbed to acute radiation syndrome in the months to come, and an untold number were at risk for cancer. Causing enormous damage to the environment and exposing the population to medical risks, the cleanup and containment process involved over 500,000 people and cost around 18 billion dollars, with that cost only increasing as years passed. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions: - Deepwater Horizon Explosion April 20, 2010 - The Beatles Officially Break Up April 10, 1970 - Waco Siege Ends in Disaster April 19, 1993

After years of tension between the Hutu majority government and the Tutsi people in Rwanda, violence erupted on the 7th of April 1994, and many of the political elite, the army, clergy and civilians began a mass slaughter of the Tutsis. In what turned out to be a genocide that lasted 100 days, more than 800,000 Tutsis were murdered, with many more starved, tortured and raped. A devastating moment in human history, this massacre only ended once the Hutu-controlled government was defeated by the Tutsi-Supported Rwandan Patriotic Front. But even then, some 2 million Rwandans, mainly Hutus, were forced to flee the country and become refugees.