Sunday, September 4

This Day In History

• 1781   Los Angeles, California was born. The Mexican Provincial Governor, Felipe de Neve, founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, originally named Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, by Gaspar de Portola, a Spanish army captain and Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest, who had noticed the beautiful area as they traveled north from San Diego in 1769. El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles translates into the Village of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels ... L.A. for short.
  
• 1833   Barney Flaherty answered an ad in "The New York Sun" and became the first newsboy. Actually, Barney became what we now call a paperboy. He was 10 years old at the time. Show us a 10-year-old who reads a newspaper today. Those were the days! Of course, there was no radio, no TV, no MTV, no computers, no Internet. What was a kid to do?
  
• 1882   Thomas Edison displayed the first practical electrical lighting system. The Pearl Street electric power station, Edison’'s steam powered plant, began operating and successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City.
  
• 1885   On this day, the Exchange Buffet opened in New York City. It was the first self-service cafeteria in the U.S.
  
• 1888   George Eastman received a patent for his roll-film camera and registered his trademark: Kodak.
  
• 1917   The American expeditionary force in France suffered its first fatalities in World War I.
  
• 1948   Queen Wilhelmina abdicated the Dutch throne for health reasons.
  
• 1951   In the first live coast-to-coast television broadcast, President Harry S. Truman addressed the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco.
  
• 1957   Ford Motor Co. began selling its ill-fated Edsel line.
  
• 1967   Michigan Gov. George Romney said during a TV interview that he had undergone a ''brainwashing'' by U.S. officials during a 1965 visit to Vietnam.
  
• 1972   U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won a record seventh Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter relay at the Munich Summer Olympics.
  
• 1997   Three Buddhist nuns acknowledged in Senate testimony that their temple outside Los Angeles illegally reimbursed donors after a fund-raiser attended by Vice President Al Gore, and later destroyed or altered records.
  
• 2002   Singer Kelly Clarkson was voted the first ''American Idol'' on the Fox TV series.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1803   Sarah Childress Polk (First Lady: wife of 11th President of the United States, James Knox Polk; died Aug 14, 1891)
  
• 1917   Henry Ford II (industrialist: head of Ford Motor Co. [1945-1980]; died Sep 29, 1987)
  
• 1918   Paul Harvey (news commentator: “Hello Americans. Stand by for news!”: The Rest of the Story)
  
• 1928   Dick (Richard Allen) York (actor: Bewitched)
  
• 1930   Mitzi Gaynor (Franchesca Mitzi Marlene de Charney von Gerber) (singer, dancer, actress)
  
• 1949   Tom Watson (golf champion)