Tuesday April 22, 2014

KALW

Published April 22, 2014 at 6:10 AM PDT

On This Day In …
1509 --- Henry VIII became king of England following the death of his father, Henry VII.

1778 --- Commander John Paul Jones leads a small detachment of two boats from his ship, the USS Ranger, to raid the shallow port at Whitehaven, England, where, by his own account, 400 British merchant ships are anchored. Jones was hoping to reach the port at midnight, when ebb tide would leave the shops at their most vulnerable. Jones and his 30 volunteers had greater difficulty than anticipated rowing to the port, which was protected by two forts.

They did not arrive until dawn. Jones' boat successfully took the southern fort, disabling its cannon, but the other boat returned without attempting an attack on the northern fort, after the sailors claimed to have been frightened away by a noise. To compensate, Jones set fire to the southern fort, which subsequently engulfed the entire town.

1864 --- The U.S. Congress passed legislation that allowed the inscription "In God We Trust" to be included on one-cent and two-cent coins.

1876 --- An eight-team National League began its inaugural season on this day in 1876. A crowd of 3,000 watched as Boston defeated Philadelphia 6-5. The opening season consisted of 70 games -- a lot less than the 162 game season (barring strikes) played today -- and no playoffs! The original eight National League teams: Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

1878 --- The first Egg Roll was held on the grounds of the White House in Washington, DC. The first president on hand for the first Egg Roll was Rutherford B. Hayes. He and his wife Lucy made it an official event. It has been held every year since, except during the war years of WWI and WWII through 1953. The president who brought the tradition back in 1953 was Dwight D. Eisenhower. In truth, there had been egg rolls in Washington, D.C. as far back as

the mid-1860s, but they had been held on the rolling green hills of the Capitol Building. Since the grounds of the Capitol were looking pretty shabby after the 1876 Easter event, the U.S. Congress passed a law preventing the lawns at the Capitol from being used for any children’s activities ... including egg hunting and rolling. Rain washed out the first opportunity for a White House egg roll in 1877. But, President Hayes came to the children’s rescue for the next year’s Easter Monday.

1889 --- At noon, the sound of a gun shot was the only signal needed for thousands of settlers to rush into the Oklahoma

territory to claim their pieces of land. The U.S. Federal government had “purchased” almost two million acres of land in Central Oklahoma from the Crete and Seminole Indians and opened it up on this day to the settlers to claim their stakes.

1914 --- Babe Ruth, playing for the Baltimore Orioles, made his pitching debut in pro ball. He shut out the Buffalo Bisons, 6-0.
1915 --- The New York Yankees wore pinstripes and the hat-in-the-ring logo for the first time.

1940 --- The first all-Chinese commercial radio program was broadcast over KSAN radio in San Francisco, CA. Later, KSAN would become a pioneer in playing ‘underground rock’ music.

1945 --- Adolph Hitler, learning from one of his generals that no German defense was offered to the Russian assault at Eberswalde, admits to all in his underground bunker that the war is lost and that suicide is his only recourse. Almost as confirmation of Hitler's assessment, a Soviet mechanized corps reaches Treuenbrietzen, 40 miles southwest of Berlin, liberates a POW camp and releases, among others, Norwegian Commander in Chief Otto Ruge.

1952 --- An atomic test conducted in Nevada was the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
1954 --- Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army, which he charges with being "soft" on communism. These televised hearings gave the American public their first view of McCarthy in action, and his recklessness, indignant bluster, and bullying tactics quickly resulted in his fall from prominence.

1969 --- The Who gave their first complete live performance of the rock opera "Tommy" at a show in Dolton, England.

1970 --- Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world's environmental problems, is celebrated in the United States for the first time. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches, and educational programs.

1970 --- Tom Seaver of the New York Mets struck out 19 batters to

tie a National Leaguebaseball record. He also set a record by striking out 10 batters consecutively as the ‘Amazing’ Mets defeated the San Diego Padres at Shea Stadium.

1972 --- Antiwar demonstrations prompted by the accelerated U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia draw somewhere between 30,000 to

60,000 marchers in New York; 30,000 to 40,000 in San Francisco; 10,000 to 12,000 in Los Angeles; and smaller gatherings in Chicago and other cities throughout the country.

1978 --- John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made their first appearance as The Blues Brothers on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
1978 --- Bob Marley and the Wailers performed at the One Love Peace Concert in Jamaica. It was Marley's first public appearance in Jamaica since being wounded in an assassination attempt a year and a half earlier.
1992 --- Dozens of sewer explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico, kill more than 200 people and damage 1,000 buildings on this day in 1992. The series of explosions was caused by a gas leak, the warning signs of which were ignored by the Mexican government and the national oil company. Three days prior to the explosions, the residents of a working-class neighborhood in Guadalajara

noticed a foul smell in the air. The people experienced stinging in their eyes and throats. Some felt nauseous. Despite complaints, the local authorities did not seriously investigate the issue. On April 22, at about 11:30 a.m., a series of powerful explosions began. They took place in an area about one mile long and seemed to come from 35 feet below-ground along the sewer system. Twenty square blocks of Guadalajara were leveled or seriously damaged. In two places, craters nearly 300 feet deep opened up, swallowing the surrounding buildings, roads, cars and buses.

2004 --- Pat Tillman, who gave up his pro football career to enlist in the U.S. Army after the terrorist attacks of September 11, is killed by friendly fire while serving in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. The news that Tillman, age 27, was mistakenly gunned down by his fellow Rangers, rather than enemy forces, was initially covered up by the U.S. military.

2010 --- The Deepwater Horizon oil platform, operated by BP, sank into the Gulf of Mexico two days after a massive explosion that killed 11 workers.
Birthdays
Immanuel Kant
Julius Sterling Morton (founder of Arbor Day)
Robert Oppenheimer
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)
Glen Campbell
Charlotte Rae
Estelle Harris
Jack Nicholson
Byron Allen
Queen Isabella I
Dorothy Alexander
Yehudi Menuhin
Charles Mingus
Nicola Sacco
Vladimir Nabokov
Eddie Albert
Bettie Page
Peter Frampton
Ellen Glasgow

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