Monday, April 4

This Day In History

• 1818   Congress adopted a U.S. flag with 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state.
• 1841   President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office.
• 1850   The city of Los Angeles was incorporated.
• 1887   Susanna M. Salter became the first woman mayor in the U.S. She was duly elected by the people of Argonia, KS. Ms. Salter won by a two-thirds majority but didn’t even know she was in the running ’til she went into the voting booth. It seems that her name was submitted by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Susanna M. Salter received $1 for her year as mayor.
• 1902   British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University in England.
• 1905   Earthquake in Kangra, India, killed more than 20,000.
• 1945   U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
• 1949   Twelve nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
• 1967   Johnny Carson quit "The Tonight Show". He returned three weeks later with an additional $30,000 a week
• 1968   Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.
• 1974   Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied Babe Ruth's career home run record by hitting his 714th round-tripper in Cincinnati.
• 1975   A U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed shortly after takeoff from Saigon, killing more than 130 people, most of them children.
• 1979   Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the deposed prime minister of Pakistan, was hanged after he was convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent.
• 1981   Henry Cisneros became the mayor of San Antonio, Texas: the first Hispanic mayor of a major U.S. city.
• 1991   Sen. John Heinz, R-Penn., and six other people were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pa.
• 1995   Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., used a mock Japanese accent to ridicule O.J. Simpson trial judge Lance Ito on a nationally syndicated radio program. D'Amato apologized two days later on the Senate floor.
• 1999   The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 8-2 in baseball's first season opener held in Mexico.
• 2003   U.S. forces seized Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad.
• 2003   Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the 18th player to hit 500 career homers, connecting for a solo shot in a 10-9 loss to Cincinnati.

Happy Birthday To

• 1821   Linus Yale (inventor: Yale Infallible Bank Lock and cylinder lock; died Dec 25, 1868)
• 1895   Arthur Murray (Moses Teichman) (dancer: Arthur Murray Dance Studios; died Mar 3, 1991)
• 1906   John Cameron Swayze (newsman: NBC-TV; panelist: Who Said That; commercial spokesman: Timex; died Aug 15, 1995)
• 1928   Maya Angelou (author: All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes)
• 1932   Anthony Perkins (actor: Psycho series, The Sins of Dorian Gray, Mahogany, Murder on the Orient Express, On the Beach, Desire Under the Elms, Friendly Persuasion; died Sep 12, 1992)
• 1951   Steve Gatlin (singer: group: The Gatlin Brothers: Sweet Becky Walker, The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall, Delta Dirt, Broken Lady, Statues without Hearts, Night Time Magic, I’ve Done Enough Dyin’ Today, All the Gold in California, Take Me to Your Lovin’ Place, It Don’t Get No Better Than This, Sure Feels like Love, Houston [Means I’m One Day Closer to You], Denver)
• 1965   Robert Downey Jr. (actor: Ally McBeal, Richard III, Natural Born Killers, Short Cuts, Chaplin, Soapdish, Baby It’s You, U.S. Marshals)