Tuesday May 13, 2014

KALW | By Ichabod Cranium

Published May 13, 2014 at 6:02 AM PDT

On This Day In …
1568 --- At the Battle of Langside, the forces of Mary Queen of Scots are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, the regent of her son, King James VI of Scotland. During the battle, which was fought out in the southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge routed Mary's 6,000 Catholic troops, and they fled the field. Three days later, Mary escaped to Cumberland, England, where she sought protection from Queen Elizabeth I.

1607 --- Some 100 English colonists arrive along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.

1637 --- Cardinal Richelieu 'created' the table knife when he had the points rounded on all knives to be used at his table. Presumably so no one could stab him.

1648 --- Margaret Jones of Plymouth was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck.

1787 --- Captain Arthur Phillip left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed eleven ships full of convicts on January 18, 1788, at Botany Bay. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.

1854 --- The first big American billiards match was held at Malcolm Hall in Syracuse, NY. Joseph White and George Smith participated in the event for a $200 prize. White pocketed the award as winner of the match.

1865 --- The last land engagement of the Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far south Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia.

1911 --- The New York Giants set a record. Ten runners crossed home plate before the first out of the game against St. Louis.

1917 --- Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.

1918 --- The first airmail postage stamps were issued with airplanes on them. The denominations were 6, 16, and 24 cents.

1938 --- "When the Saints Go Marching In" was recorded by Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra.

1940 --- Winston Churchill told the British House of Commons in his first speech as prime minister, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

1954 --- U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the legislation authorizing construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which would connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.

1954 --- The Pajama Game made its debut on Broadway in New York City at the St. James Theatre. Harold Prince produced The Pajama Game, his first Broadway endeavor. The show ran for 1,063 performances. John Raitt and Janis Paige starred in the leading roles.

1958 --- During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America's Cold War policies.

1971 --- Still deadlocked, the Vietnam peace talks in Paris enter their fourth year. The talks had begun with much fanfare in May 1968, but almost immediately were plagued by procedural questions that impeded any meaningful progress. Even the seating arrangement was disputed: South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky refused to consent to any permanent seating plan that would appear to place the National Liberation Front (NLF) on an equal footing with Saigon. North Vietnam and the NLF likewise balked at any arrangement that would effectively recognize the Saigon as the legitimate government of South Vietnam. After much argument and debate, chief U.S. negotiator W. Averell Harriman proposed an arrangement whereby NLF representatives could join the North Vietnamese team but without having to be acknowledged by Saigon's delegates; similarly, South Vietnamese negotiators could sit with their American allies without having to be acknowledged by the North Vietnamese and the NLF representatives. Such seemingly insignificant matters became fodder for many arguments between the delegations at the negotiations and nothing meaningful came from this particular round of the ongoing peace negotiations.

1972 --- A fire breaks out at the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan, that kills 118 people. Only 48 people at the trendy nightclub survived the horrific blaze because safety equipment was faulty and safety procedures were not followed.

1980 --- At the annual meeting of the Chrysler Corporation on this day in 1980, stockholders vote to appoint Douglas Fraser, president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), to one of 20 seats on Chrysler's board of directors. The vote made Fraser the first union representative ever to sit on the board of a major U.S. corporation.

1981 --- Pope John Paul II is shot and wounded at St. Peter's Square in Rome, Italy. Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, an escaped fugitive already convicted of a previous murder, fired several shots at the religious leader, two of which wounded nearby tourists. Agca was immediately captured.

1985 --- A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group's headquarters. 11 people died in the fire that resulted.

1985 --- Tony Perez became the oldest major-league baseball player to hit a grand slam home run. Perez hit the grand slam for the Cincinnati Reds -- helping the Reds to a 7-3 win over the Houston Astros. Perez was just a month shy of his 43rd birthday.

2003 --- The government unveiled a new version of the $20 bill - the first to be colorized in an effort to thwart counterfeiters.

2011 --- Two suicide bombers attacked paramilitary police recruits heading home after months of training in northwest Pakistan, killing 87 people in what the Pakistan Taliban called revenge for the U.S. slaying of Osama bin Laden.

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