Thursday, June 23

This Day In History

• 1868   Christopher L. Sholes of Wisconsin patented his type-writer. A Mr. Remington later turned it into a more practical typewriter. Christopher’s version was a little cumbersome. It was about as big as a desk. And it didn’t have any correcting ribbon. The writer didn’t need any since the huge type-writer hid the paper inside itself so one couldn’t see any typos until after the fact ... a lot like when you forget to use the spell-checker on your computer.
• 1892   The Democratic convention in Chicago nominated former President Grover Cleveland on the first ballot.
• 1917   The ‘Sultan of Swat’ did just that on this day ... he swatted an umpire! Babe Ruth punched an umpire with his fist after he was given the “Yer outta here, Bub!” in a baseball game between Boston and Washington. Ruth, pitching at the time, threw four pitches, all called balls by the home plate umpire. Ruth stomped off the pitcher’s mound to the plate and tongue-lashed Brick Owens with a volley of unmentionable cuss words. Ruth was ejected and fined $100. Here’s the rub. Ernie Shore came into the game and pitched what would have been the fourth perfect game in major-league baseball history as the Red Sox defeated Washington 4-0. In truth it was the only perfect game ever thrown by a relief pitcher. However, Shore came into the game with Ruth’s walk on first so the entire game was not perfect. The base runner was cut down stealing second. “How about that!”
• 1931   Aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane.
• 1956   Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.
• 1969   Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States.
• 1972   President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation.
• 1985   All 329 people aboard an Air-India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, apparently because of a bomb.
• 1992   John Gotti, convicted of racketeering charges, was sentenced in New York to life in prison.
• 1993   Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, Va., sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her.
• 1995   Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine against polio, died at age 80.
• 1997   Civil rights activist Betty Shabazz, 61, the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burns suffered in a fire set by her 12-year old grandson.
• 2003   Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean announced his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Happy Birthday To

• 1894   Dr. Alfred Kinsey (sexual behavior researcher: The Kinsey Report, The Sexual Behavior in the Human Male; died Aug 25, 1956)
• 1894   Edward Patrick David (England’s Duke of Windsor/Edward VIII: only British monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne; died May 28, 1972)
• 1910   Edward P. Morgan (radio/TV reporter: ABC: Edward P. Morgan and the News; commentator: Ford Foundation-funded Public Broadcasting Laboratory: “Let’s face it, we in this trade use this power more frequently to fix a traffic ticket or get a ticket to a ballgame than to keep the doors of an open society open and swinging ... The freest and most profitable press in the world, every major facet of it, not only ducks but pulls its punches to save a supermarket of commercialism or shield an ugly prejudice and is putting the life of the republic in jeopardy thereby.”; died Jan 27, 1993)
• 1929   June Carter Cash (Grammy Award-winning country singer [w/husband, Johnny Cash]: Jackson, If I were a Carpenter; songwriter: Ring of Fire; died May 15, 2003)
• 1948   Clarence Thomas (U.S. Supreme Court Justice)