Monday April 21, 2014

KALW

Published April 21, 2014 at 6:17 AM PDT

On This Day In …
753 BC --- According to tradition, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth century B.C., and the exact date of Rome's founding was set by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C.

1649 --- The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.

1856 --- The first rail train to pass over the mighty Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, IL made its journey across a newly completed bridge between the two rail centers.

1865 --- A train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4.
1892 --- The first Buffalo was born in Golden Gate Park.
1895 --- Woodville Latham and his sons, Otway and Gray, demonstrate their “Panopticon,” the first movie projector developed in the United States. Although motion pictures had been shown in the United States for several years using Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, the films could only be viewed one at a time in a peep-show box, not projected to a large audience. Brothers Grey and Otway Latham, the founders of a company that produced and exhibited films of prize fights using the Kinetoscope, called on their father, Woodville, and W.K.L. Dickson, an assistant in the Edison Laboratory, to help them develop a device that would project life-sized images onto a screen in order to attract larger audiences.

1918 --- In the skies over Vauz sur Somme, France, Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as "The Red Baron," is killed by Allied fire. Richthofen, the son of a Prussian nobleman, switched from the German army to the Imperial Air Service in 1915. By 1916, he was terrorizing the skies over the

western front in an Albatross biplane, downing 15 enemy planes by the end of the year, including one piloted by British flying ace Major Lanoe Hawker. In 1917, Richthofen surpassed all flying ace records on both sides of the western front and began using a Fokker triplane, painted entirely red in tribute to his old cavalry regiment. Although only used during the last eight months of his career, it is this aircraft that Richthofen was most commonly associated with and it led to an enduring English nickname for the German pilot--the Red Baron.

1930 --- A fire at an Ohio prison kills 320 inmates, some of whom burn to death when they are not unlocked from their cells. It is one of the worst prison disasters in American history.

1945 --- Soviet forces fighting south of Berlin, at Zossen, assault the headquarters of the German High Command. The only remaining opposing "force" to the Russian invasion of Berlin are the "battle

groups" of Hitler Youth, teenagers with anti-tank guns, strategically placed in parks and suburban streets. In a battle at Eggersdorf, 70 of these Hitler teens strove to fight off a Russian assault with a mere three anti-tank guns. They were bulldozed by Russian tanks and infantry.

1949 --- The prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for Broadcasting waspresented to You Bet Your Life star, “The one, the only, Groucho Marx.” This was the first time the honor had been awarded to a comedian.

1953 --- In New York, the Sidney Janis Gallery held the Dada exhibition.
1960 --- Brazil inaugurated its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro.

1960 --- Dick Clark testified before a congressional committee investigating payola. He admitted that he had a financial interest in 27 percent of the records he played on his show in a period of 28 months.
1961 --- The French army revolted in Algeria.

1962 --- The Top Of The Needle restaurant in the Seattle, Washington Space Needle, was officially opened. It was

the second revolving restaurant in the U.S. It seats 260 and rotates completely once every hour.

1970 --- Sportscaster Curt Gowdy was the recipient of the coveted George Foster Peabody Award for achievement in radio and television. Curt, a long-time voice of the Boston Red Sox, NBC and ABC Sports and syndicated programs (including The American Sportsman), was the first sports broadcaster to receive the honor.

1976 --- A Cadillac convertible, the ‘last’ American-made rag-top automobile, rolled off the assembly line at GM’s Cadillac production facility in Detroit, MI. This ended a tradition that began in 1916. The tradition didn’t stay ended, however. A few years later,

Chrysler Corporation, under chairman Lee Iacocca, began production once again of soft-top cars. Then Ford brought back the convertible Mustang and GM got back in the picture with the convertible Pontiac Sunbird and a new, smaller Cadillac version. It seems that the convertible is just too popular to disappear from the American auto scene!

1977 --- The Broadway musical, Annie, opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Andrea McArdle was a shining star in the title role. Annie continued on the Great White Way until January 2, 1983.
1980 --- Rosie Ruiz, age 26, finishes first in the women’s division of the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:31:56 on April 21, 1980. She was rewarded with a medal, a laurel wreath and a silver bowl;

however, eight days later Ruiz is stripped of her victory after race officials learned she jumped into the race about a mile before the finish line.

1987 --- Special occasion stamps were offered for the first time by the U.S. Postal Service. "Happy Birthday" and "Get Well" were among the first to be offered.
1989 --- Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students gather at Beijing's Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China's authoritative communist government. The next day, an official memorial service for Hu Yaobang was held in Tiananmen's Great Hall of the People, and student representatives carried a petition to the steps of the Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li Peng. The Chinese government refused such a meeting, leading to a general boycott of Chinese universities across the country and widespread calls for democratic reforms.
1992 -- Robert Alton Harris is executed in California's gas chamber after 13 years on death row. This was California's first execution since former Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other state supreme court justices, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso, had been rejected by California voters. From 1979 to 1986, the Bird court had reversed 64 out of the 68 death penalty cases on appeal. Supporters of capital punishment initiated a campaign against Bird, Grodin, and Reynoso, successfully ousting them from the court in 1986. Republican Governor George Deukmejian then appointed three justices in favor of the death penalty to take their places.

1994 --- Jackie Parker became the first woman to qualify to fly an F-16 combat plane.
Birthdays
Charlotte Bronte
John Muir
Queen Elizabeth II
Elaine May
Charles Grodin
Iggy Pop
Andie MacDowell
Patti LuPone
Tony Danza
Nicole Sullivan
Anthony Quinn
Michael Franti
Friedrich Froebel

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