Nguyen One Soon said:

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historian said:

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April 4:

1841: Pres. William Henry Harrison became the first president in U.S. history to die while in office. He died of pneumonia only 32 dies after his inauguration, the shortest presidency on record. He also holds the distinction of delivering the longest inaugural addressalmost 2 hours on a cold, wet day in

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Just curious, how long is 32 dies?

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just shy of 3 1/2 cats

corrected

So glad no one else ever had a typo!

historian said:

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corrected

So glad no one else ever had a typo!

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Should have let it go, but even as often as you post, you never have any mistakes.

April 5:

1614: Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the Virginia colonist who discovered the profitability of tobacco grown in the colony.

1792: Pres. George Washington vetoed a bill passed by Congress for the first time.

1859: British naturalist Charles Darwin sent the first three chapters of his Origin of Speciesto his publisher.

1933: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of the New Deal. This program put unemployed single young men to work in the nation's forests and national parks.

1955: Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1976: Death of Howard Hughes

1984: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke the NBA all-time scoring record with his 31,420thpoint.

1994: Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

April 6:

1830: Joseph Smith organized the Mormon Church in New York.

1832: The Black Hawk War Native Americans and Anglo settlers over their tribal lands in modern Illinois.

1841: John Tyler was inaugurated as 10thpresident of the U.S. after the death of his predecessor William Henry Harrison two days earlier.

1862: The Battle of Shiloh began. It was a loss for the Union forces, as most early battles of the Civil War were.

1896: First modern Olympics opened in Athens, Greece.

1909: The expedition led by Robert Peary reached the North Pole.

1917: Congress declared war on Germany and the U.S. officially became a belligerent in WWI.

1941: Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece.

historian said:

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April 5:

1933: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of the New Deal. This program put unemployed single young men to work in the nation's forests and national parks.

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My dad was in the CCC in Lubbock. They built a lot of MacKenzie Park there.

The New Deal helped millions of Americans and had real successes. But it also had real failures. Most programs were a mixed bag.

The scope of the New Deal was amazingly comprehensive. Everyone was touched by it one way or another. It's a bit scary to think how much we Americans have grown used to federal government intrusion in our lives. Coronavirus may cure us of that but probably not.

April 7:

1862: The Civil War Battle of Shiloh ended with a Confederate victory.

1945: The largest battleship ever built, the Yamoto, was sunk by Allied forces off of Okinawa.

1953: Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.

1954: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered the "domino theory" speech suggesting a fall of French Indochina (Vietnam) to the communists would lead to a similar fate for neighboring countries. The prediction proved to be only partly true.

1963: Yugoslavia made Tito, their communist dictator, leader for life.

1994: Violence broke out in Rwanda eventually leading to genocide as Hutus murdered over 800,000 Tutsis while the world did nothing.

2019: The Baylor Lady Bears defeated Notre Dame in Tampa, Florida to win the NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship, Baylor's third under Head Coach Kim Mulkey.

The last minute of the game:



ESPN's highlights:



Full game:



Interview of Kim Mulkey immediately after:

Chloe Jackson was MVP:

I love these last two because both ladies give God the glory.

historian said:

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The last minute of the game:

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10 minutes and 3 seconds to play the last 1:07 of the game. No wonder we were all nervous wrecks.

Said it before, but I have never wanted Baylor to win more than in that game.

NC game. ND was in it, but Baylor was clearly the better team. Then Cox goes down. Then hold on.

That's TV: they are going to milk it for all it's worth. No doubt ESPN made millions off of that game.

I could not go to Tampa for the game but I did enjoy the watch party at the Ferrell Center.

historian said:

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April 7:

1862: The Civil War Battle of Shiloh ended with a Confederate victory.

1945: The largest battleship ever built, the Yamoto, was sunk by Allied forces off of Okinawa.

1953: Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.

1954: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered the "domino theory" speech suggesting a fall of French Indochina (Vietnam) to the communists would lead to a similar fate for neighboring countries. The prediction proved to be only partly true.

1963: Yugoslavia made Tito, their communist dictator, leader for life.

1994: Violence broke out in Rwanda eventually leading to genocide as Hutus murdered over 800,000 Tutsis while the world did nothing.

2019: The Baylor Lady Bears defeated Notre Dame in Tampa, Florida to win the NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship, Baylor's third under Head Coach Kim Mulkey.

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I'm going to rewatch the whole game. Thank you Historian!!

Chole so deserving of leading out team especially after Lauren went down. I'm crying just as hard as the first time. Now back to the game....

Wichitabear said:

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Chole so deserving of leading our team especially after Lauren went down. I'm crying just as hard as the first time. Now back to the game....

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Something to look for I noticed last Spring but never thought to mention here: if you look at the ND bench, one player has green sneakers & another has yellow (a player with white sneakers between them). I always thought it kinda funny that they were promoting Baylor colors inadvertently.

April 8:

563 BC: Birthday of Siddhartha Gautama, aka the Buddha.

1904: Britain and France signed the Entente Cordiale, the first step in an alliance that would be of great importance in World War I.

1935: Congress established the Works Progress Administration as part of the New Deal.

1945: Prominent anti-Nazi German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenburg, days before the concentration camp was liberated by American forces.

1974: Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record with his 715thcareer home run.

1990: Ryan White, an 18 year old national symbol of the AIDS catastrophe, died.

1993: Astronaut Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in space.

2009: Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk container ship Alabama.

2013: Death of Margaret Thatcher

April 9:

1859: Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, received his steamboat pilot's license.

1865: Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

1881: Billy the Kid was convicted of murder.

1939: Opera singer Marian Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. An international superstar, she was denied an opportunity to sing in Constitution Hall because she was black so First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped to organize an alternative venue for a much larger audience in person and over the radio.

1940: Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.

1942: American soldiers under Maj. Gen. Edward P King, Jr. surrendered to Japanese forces at Bataan in the Philippines. This would lead to the barbaric Bataan Death March and 3 years of imprisonment in horrific POW camps.

1959: NASA introduced America's first astronauts including John Glenn, "Gus" Grissom, and Alan Shepard.

1969: The "Chicago Eight" plead not guilty to federal conspiracy charges.

2003: U.S. forces captured Baghdad during the Iraq War.

2005: Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles.

April 10:

1778: Commander John Paul Jones and his crew of 140 men aboard the USS Rangerset sail with the purpose of raiding British ships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War and their daring exploits would achieve some success.

1906: Publication of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi."

1919: Assassination of Mexican Revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata.

1942: Beginning of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines.

1963: Atomic submarine USS Threshersank in the Atlantic Ocean killing all aboard.

1970: Paul McCartney announced the breakup of the Beatles.

historian said:

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April 10:

1778: Commander John Paul Jones and his crew of 140 men aboard the USS Rangerset sail with the purpose of raiding British ships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War and their daring exploits would achieve some success.

1906: Publication of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi."

1919: Assassination of Mexican Revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata.

1942: Beginning of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines.

1963: Atomic submarine USS Threshersank in the Atlantic Ocean killing all aboard.

1970: Paul McCartney announced the breakup of the Beatles.

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1778 needs to be a movie in the style of Band of Brothers or The Pacific. With today's technology, I'm sure they could do a great job with it

There were so many great events related to the War of 1812 which I think would make several good movies. With the bicentennial of that war having passed recently, I am surprised and disappointed that no one made any such movie.

For example, I'd love to see one about "Old Ironsides", the USS Constitution which had some great victories over the British when it was the most powerful navy in the world. Another wonderful topic for a film would be the British attack on Baltimore culminating in the bombardment of Ft. McHenry at the entrance to Baltimore Harbor which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the famous poem, "The Star Spangled Banner."

I guess we cannot count on Hollywood to make movies that inspire patriotism; they are more interested in movies about people who hate America.

April 11:

1803: French Foreign Minister Talleyrand offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. American representatives were initially interested in purchasing New Orleans but were instead given this surprise offer.

1814: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated the French throne and went into exile on the island of Elba of the coast of Italy.

1945: Soldiers of the U.S. army liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany.

1951: Pres. Harry S. Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur from command for insubordination during the Korean War.

1970: Apollo 13 launched from Cape Kennedy on its voyage to the moon.

1979: Ida Amin, dictator of Uganda, was overthrown.

2015: Pres. Barack Obama met with Raul Castro, dictator of Cuba, in Paris.

Missed a big one

April 11, 1947 - Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American player in Major League Baseball

That's because it happened on April 15.

April 12:

1633: Galileo was convicted of heresy by the Roman Inquisition.

1770: The British government repealed the Townshend Act which was hated in the American colonies as another example of "taxation without representation."

1861: Confederate forces fired upon Ft. Sumter at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, thus beginning the Civil War.

1945: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, Georgia and succeeded by Harry S. Truman.

1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.

1975: The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia was evacuated as communist Khmer Rouge forces began their final assault to take the city.

1981: The Space Shuttle Columbiawas launched for the first time.

1975 Helpless, angry feelings

April 13:

1742: Premier of Handel's Messiahin Dublin

1743: Thomas Jefferson's birthday

1861: Union forces at Ft. Sumter surrendered to the Confederates. They had run out of supplies and Pres. Lincoln and the U.S. Navy were unable to resupply them.

1870: The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in NYC.

1928: The first nonstop flight from Europe to North America, landing on a small Canadian island.

1964: Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field.

1970: The oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13 en route to the moon. The moon landing was cancelled as the engineers at NASA focused on bringing the 3 astronauts safely home. (You've seen the movie!)

1990: The Soviets admitted to their responsibility in the Katyn Forest Massacre during WWII. In the Spring of 1940, the Soviets murdered 22,000 Polish officers and continued blaming the Germans despite substantial evidence to the contrary.

1997: Tiger Woods won the Masters for the first time.

Nice Historian

April 14:

1775: The First American abolition society was founded in Philadelphia. Before the United States even existed, Americans were organizing to end the institution of slavery.

1818: Publication of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language

1865: Pres. Abraham Lincoln and his wife attended a performance at Ford's Theater during which he was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth, a disgruntled southern radical upset about the Confederacy having recently lost the Civil War.

1912: The largest moving object ever constructed, the RMS Titanicof the White Star Line, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage.

1918: American pilots engaged in the first dogfight over the western front.

1950: America's intelligence experts delivered to Pres. Harry Truman the important document NSC-68 outlining the policy of containment which would define American foreign policy for the first 10-20 years of the Cold War.

1986: U.S. forces bombed terrorist & military targets in Libya in response to the bombing of a club in West Berlin that killed an American serviceman. Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi survived but not all of his family. The attack had the desired impact as Qaddafi soon ceased his support of terrorism and later even provided aid to the U.S. in combatting terrorism.

1988: Soviet representatives signed an agreement with Afghanistan & the U.S. to withdraw their military forces from Afghanistan.

April 15:

1865: In the early morning, Pres. Abraham Lincoln died of the gunshot wound he had received the previous evening, the first president to be assassinated.

1912: In the early morning hours the RMS Titanicsank with apx. 1500 passengers still onboard, less than 3 hours after striking the iceberg. The ship did not have enough life boats for the 2200+ people and most of them were not filled to capacity anyway.

1920: A security guard was killed during an armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts leading to one of the more dramatic trials in the 1920s with Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti tried, convicted & executed.

1947: Jackie Robinson became the first black Major League Baseball player, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1959: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro visited the United States.

1997: MLB retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42.

1998: Pol Pot, ruthless communist dictator and leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, died in his sleep.

2013: Two Islamofascist terrorists, brothers, detonated a bomb during the Boston Marathon killing 3, including an 8 year old boy, and injuring 260 others.

historian said:

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April 15:

1865: In the early morning, Pres. Abraham Lincoln died of the gunshot wound he had received the previous evening, the first president to be assassinated.

1912: In the early morning hours the RMS Titanicsank with apx. 1500 passengers still onboard, less than 3 hours after striking the iceberg. The ship did not have enough life boats for the 2200+ people and most of them were not filled to capacity anyway.

1920: A security guard was killed during an armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts leading to one of the more dramatic trials in the 1920s with Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti tried, convicted & executed.

1947: Jackie Robinson became the first black Major League Baseball player, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1959: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro visited the United States.

1997: MLB retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42.

1998: Pol Pot, ruthless communist dictator and leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, died in his sleep.

2013: Two Islamofascist terrorists, brothers, detonated a bomb during the Boston Marathon killing 3, including an 8 year old boy, and injuring 260 others.

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Today's anniversaries could be an entire semester in a history or political/sci class.

April 16:

1889: Birthday of Charlie Chaplin

1917: Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland with aid from the Germans who provided a sealed train for the journey in the hopes that he would pull Russia out of WWI. They got their wish but still lost the war and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution produced the first communist state.

1947: Bernard Baruch, multimillionaire and financier, coined the term "Cold War" to describe contemporary international developments.

1972: Apollo 16 departed for the moon. The fifth of the Apollo missions to make a lunar landing, it carried astronauts John W. Young & Charles M. Duke.

2007: A crazed gunman went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people.

April 17:

1790: Death of Benjamin Franklin

1815: The Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted killing 80,000.

1941: The German Wehrmacht completed their conquest of Yugoslavia.

1961: Bay of Pigs invasion: Planned by the Eisenhower administration, the attempted invasion of Cuba by emigres and CIA forces failed as Pres. John F. Kennedy withdrew his support late.

1964: The Ford Mustang debuted at the World's Fair Flushing Meadows, New York.

1969: Alexander Dubcek, author of the "Prague Spring", resigned. His attempt to initiate reforms and produce "communism with a human face" were crushed by Soviet tanks and brutal repression.

1975: The communist Khmer Rouge conquered Cambodia.

1970: Apollo 13 returned safely to earth.

historian said:

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April 16:

1889: Birthday of Charlie Chaplin

1917: Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland with aid from the Germans who provided a sealed train for the journey in the hopes that he would pull Russia out of WWI. They got their wish but still lost the war and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution produced the first communist state.

1947: Bernard Baruch, multimillionaire and financier, coined the term "Cold War" to describe contemporary international developments.

1972: Apollo 16 departed for the moon. The fifth of the Apollo missions to make a lunar landing, it carried astronauts John W. Young & Charles M. Duke.

2007: A crazed gunman went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people.

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On a side note, Charlie Duke is from my home town and was a friend of my Dad's. More importantly, he is a solid Christian man.