Friday, March 25

This Day In History

• 1902   Irving W. Colburn patented the sheet glass drawing machine.
• 1911   A turning point in labor laws -- especially concerning health and safety -- occurred as a result of a tragic fire in a New York City garment factory. Fire broke out at about 4:30p.m. at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company trapping young, immigrant workers behind locked doors. Many jumped to their deaths or were burned beyond recognition. The 18-minute fire left 126 dead; but they did not die in vain as new laws were passed to protect children and others from slave-type labor conditions. The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were indicted for manslaughter.
• 1913   The Palace Theatre opened its doors in New York City. Ed Wynn was first on the vaudeville bill. Some 20 years later, Wynn would be named as radio’s top entertainer. He later became popular on television, as well.
• 1934   Horton Smith won the first Masters golf tournament under the magnolia trees of Augusta National in Georgia.
• 1936   The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Montreal Maroons in the longest hockey game to date. The game went on and on and on for 2 hours, 56 minutes.
• 1937   Babe Ruth was reported to have received $25,000 a year for the Quaker Oats Company to use his name in ads for Quaker Oatmeal.
• 1941   The first paprika mill was incorporated in Dollon, SC. Now you know where those little paprikas that spice up your potato salad come from...
• 1943   Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore premiered on network radio. The pair replaced the popular "Abbott and Costello" following Lou Costello’s heart attack.
• 1954   Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began commercial production of TV sets that were equipped to receive programs in living color. To buy one of those huge sets, television buyers spent $1,000 -- and more.
• 1961   Elvis Presley performed his first post-Army appearance, a benefit for planning and building the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The concert raised well over $64,000 and raised public awareness of the need for the memorial.
• 1965   The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery,
• 1975   King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot and killed by a nephew with a history of mental illness.
• 1992   Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth from the Mir space station after a 10-month stay, during which his native country, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.
• 1994   Last U.S. troops depart Somalia
• 1996   The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
• 1997   Former President George H.W. Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert.

Happy Birthday To

• 1867   John Gutzon Borglum (sculptor: Mt. Rushmore National Memorial [George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt]; died March 6, 1941)
• 1920   Howard Cosell (Cohen) (attorney, TV sports journalist/commentator: ABC’s Wide World of Sports, boxing, Monday Night football; author: Tell It like It Is; Died Apr 23, 1995)
• 1928   James A. Lovell Jr. (astronaut: first to complete 4 spaceflights, first to make 2 flights to the Moon: aboard Gemini 7 [1965: spent 14 days in space] for rendezvous in orbit with Gemini 6; commander of Gemini 12 [Nov 1966: last Gemini mission]; command module pilot of Apollo 8 [Dec 1968: man’s first flight around the moon]; commander of Apollo 13 [Apr 1970: planned lunar landing that was aborted after an explosion on Apollo service module)
• 1934   Gloria Steinem (feminist; publisher: Ms.)
• 1940   Anita Bryant (singer: Paper Roses, Till There Was You; Miss Oklahoma and runner-up to Miss America [1958]; Florida orange juice spokesperson)