Friday May 9, 2014

KALW | By Ichabod Cranium

Published May 9, 2014 at 5:45 AM PDT

On This Day In …
1429 --- Joan of Arc defeated the besieging English at Orleans.
1671 --- In London, Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as "Captain Blood," is captured attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Blood, a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, was deprived of his estate in Ireland with the

restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1663, he put himself at the head of a plot to seize Dublin Castle from supporters of King Charles II, but the plot was discovered and his accomplices executed. He escaped capture. In 1671, he hatched a bizarre plan to steal the new Crown Jewels, which had been refashioned by Charles II because most of the original jewels were melted down after Charles I's execution in 1649.

1754 --- The first cartoon appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette, the newspaper published at the time in Philadelphia, PA, Benjamin Franklin’s hometown. The cartoon appeared as part of an editorial by Franklin commenting on “the present disunited state of the

British Colonies.” The title of the featured cartoon is “JOIN, or DIE.” The drawing is of a snake, chopped into eight pieces. Each of the pieces are labeled with the abbreviation for one of the colonies. The message was that the colonies’ continued failure to join together would result in their eventual doom.

1785 --- Joseph Bramah patented the beer-pump handle.
1868 --- The town site of Reno, Nevada (named after Civil War General Jesse Reno) was officially established. Actually, the town that was just over the border from California, already existed before this date. It was first settled by the Washoe Indians who used the area for festivals and ceremonies. Then, as settlers moved in, it was known as Fuller’s Ferry, and later, as Lake’s Crossing. In the mid 1800s, Reno was just another settlement of silver miners. When the Comstock Lode was discovered in the Virginia City area, intrigued fortune hunters throughout the world came to the area to strike it rich.

1887 --- Buffalo Bill's Wild West show opens in London, giving Queen Victoria and her subjects their first look at real cowboys and Indians.
1901 --- In Australia, the Duke of Cornwall and York declared the First Commonwealth Parliament open.

1914 --- President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother's Day. The previous day, May 8, Congress designated the 2nd Sunday in May as Mother's Day and requested a proclamation.

1930 --- For the first time, a starting gate was used to start a Triple Crown race. The gate was rolled into place at the Preakness at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, MD. Gallant Fox, the winner, had no problem with the new contraption. Prior to that time, this horse race began from a standing start at the start/finish line with the drop of a flag.

1949 --- The first self-service coin operated laundry (laundrette) in Britain opened in Queensway, London.

1950 --- Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology.
1955 --- Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany's integration into the Western European defense system.

1960 --- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world's first commercially produced birth-control bill--Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago.
1961 --- Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned TV programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.

1961 --- Jim Gentile (Baltimore Orioles) set a major league baseball record when he hit a grand slam home run in two consecutive innings. The game was against the Minnesota Twins.
1962 --- Brian Epstein met with EMI producer George Martin. Martin signed the Beatles to record demos on June 4, 1962. It was their first recording contract.

1964 --- Following the ascension of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to #1 in early February, the Beatles held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for three and a half solid months—longer than any popular artist before or since. Over the course of those months, the Fab Four earned three consecutive #1 singles (a record); held all five spots in the top five in early April (a record); and had a total of 14 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-April (yet another record). But just when it seemed that no homegrown act would ever stand up to the

British invaders, one of least likely American stars imaginable proved himself equal to the task. On May 9, 1964, the great Louis Armstrong, age 63, broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the U.S. pop charts with the #1 hit "Hello Dolly."

1969 --- William Beecher, military correspondent for the New York Times, publishes a front page dispatch from Washington, "Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested," which accurately described the first of the secret B-52 bombing raids in Cambodia. Within hours, Henry Kissinger, presidential assistant for national security affairs, contacted J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, asking him to find the governmental sources of Beecher's article.

1970 --- Between 75,000 and 100,000 young people, mostly from college campuses, demonstrate peacefully in Washington DC, at the rear of a barricaded White House. They demanded the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations.
1974 --- The House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

1978 --- The bullet-riddled body of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was found in an automobile in the center of Rome. The Red Brigades had abducted him.

1994 --- South Africa's newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country's first black president.
1996 --- In video testimony to a courtroom in Little Rock, AR, President Clinton insisted that he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan in the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.

2001 --- During a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, an encounter between police and rowdy fans results in a stampede that kills 126 people. This tragedy was the worst-ever sports-related disaster in Africa's history to that time.
2002 --- In Bethlehem, West Bank, a deal was reached that would end the 38-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity. Thirteen suspected militants were to be deported to several different countries. The standoff had begun on April 2, 2002.

2002 --- In Bahrain, people were allowed to vote for representatives for the first time in nearly 30 years. Women were allowed to vote for the first time in the country's history.

2010 --- Dallas Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in major league history, leading the Oakland Athletics in a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Birthdays
Mike Wallace
Rosario Dawson
Albert Finney
Glenda Jackson
James L Brooks
Prince Fielder
Candace Bergen
Billy Joel
Alley Mills
Tony Gwynn
Ghostface Killah
Sir James Barrie
Henry J Kaiser
Pancho Gonzales
Howard Carter
John Brown
Hank Snow

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