Monday May 5, 2014

KALW | By Ichabod Cranium

Published May 5, 2014 at 6:45 AM PDT

On This Day In …
1809 --- Mary Kies was awarded the first patent to go to a woman. It was for technique for weaving straw with silk and thread.

1862 --- During the French-Mexican War, a poorly supplied and outnumbered Mexican army under General Ignacio Zaragoza defeats a French army attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. Victory at the Battle of Puebla represented a great moral victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful foreign nation. In 1861, the liberal Mexican Benito Juarez became president of a country in financial ruin, and he was forced to default on his debts to European governments. In response, France, Britain, and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve a dependent empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juarez and his government into retreat. Today, Mexicans celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla as Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in Mexico.

1865 --- The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.
1877 --- Sitting Bull and a band of followers cross into Canada hoping to find safe haven from the U.S. Army. On June 25, 1876, Sitting Bull's warriors had joined with other Indians in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana, which resulted in the massacre of

George Custer and five troops of the 7th Cavalry. Sitting Bull's band continued to roam about Montana in search of increasingly scarce buffalo, but the constant travel, lack of food, and military pressure began to take a toll. On this day in 1877, Sitting Bull abandoned his traditional homeland in Montana and led his people north across the border into Canada.

1891 --- New York City was the site of the dedication of a building called the Music Hall. It was quite a celebration. A festival was held for five days, featuring guest conductor Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. The structure is now called Carnegie Hall, named in honor of Andrew Carnegie.
1893 --- The worst economic crisis in U.S. history (to that time) happened on this day. Stock prices plummeted, major railroads went into receivership, 15,000 businesses went bankrupt and 15 to 20 percent of the work force was unemployed.

1900 --- "The Billboard" (later called ”Billboard”) began weekly publication instead of monthly after six years of publication.

1904 --- Boston Red Sox pitcher Cy Young throws a perfect game against the Detroit Tigers, who had fellow future Hall of Fame pitcher

Rube Waddell on the mound. This was the first perfect game of the modern era; the last had been thrown by John Montgomery Ward in 1880. It was the second of three no-hitters that Young would throw, and the only perfect game.

1925 --- John T. Scopes was arrested in Tennessee for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
1926 --- Eisenstein's film "Battleship Potemkin" was shown in Germany for the first time.

1936 --- A patent was granted for the first bottle with a screw cap to Edward Ravenscroft of Glencoe, Illinois.

1941 --- Emperor Haile Selassie re-enters Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, exactly five years to the day of when it was occupied by Italy.

1945 --- A Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon. A pregnant woman and five children were killed.
1955 --- The musical, Damn Yankees, opened in New York City for a successful run of1,019 performances. The show at the

42nd Street Theatre mixed both baseball and ballet. It is an adaptation of the book, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. Gwen Verdon starred in the role of Lola and won the Tony for Best Actress in a musical for her performance.

1961 --- Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first

American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

1966 --- Willie Mays broke the National League record for home runs when he hit his 512th.
1968 --- Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" was released.

1973 --- 56,800 fans paid $309,000 to see Led Zeppelin at Tampa Stadium. This was the largest, paid crowd ever assembled in the U.S. to see a single musical act. The concert topped The Beatles 55,000-person audience at Shea Stadium in New York ($301,000).
1978 --- Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds registered his 3,000th major league hit.
1981 --- Irish-Catholic militant Bobby Sands dies after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his treatment as a criminal rather than a political prisoner by British authorities. His death immediately touched off widespread rioting in Belfast, as young Irish-Catholic militants clashed with police and British Army patrols and started fires. After Sands' death, the hunger strike continued, and nine more men perished before it was called off on October 3, 1981, under pressure from Catholic Church leaders and the prisoners' families. In the aftermath of the strike, the administration of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to give in to several of the protesters' demands, including the right to wear civilian clothing and the right to receive mail and visits. Prisoners were also allowed to move more freely and no longer were subject to harsh penalties for refusing prison work. Official recognition of their political status, however, was not granted.

1985 --- The first husband and wife team to win a major marathon, Ken and Lisa Maratin, won over $50,000 for their first-place finishes in the Pittsburgh Marathon. Interesting also, because they had never run in the same race before.

1985 --- President Ronald Reagan angers Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors by visiting the Bitburg war cemetery in

Germany. Reagan laid a wreath at the base of a monument to fallen German soldiers. What he did not know was that the cemetery included the graves of 49 of Hitler's infamous SS (Schutzstaffel), the paramilitary organization that planned and carried out the massacre of approximately 6 million people in death camps during World War II.

1986 --- It was announced that Cleveland, Ohio, had been chosen as the city where the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would be built.
Birthdays
James Beard
Ann B Davis
Pat Carroll
John Rhys-Davies
Kurt Loder
Tina Yothers
Chris Brown
Tyrone Power
Adele
Soren Kierkegaard
John B Stetson
Jose Pagan
Annette Bening
Karl Marx
Nellie Bly

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