Tuesday, May 31

This Day In History

• 1809   Composer Franz Joseph Haydn died in Vienna, Austria.
• 1819   Poet Walt Whitman was born in West Hill, N.Y.
• 1859   What was the sport of baseball originally called? This is not a trick question. On this day in 1859 the Philadelphia Athletics were formally organized to play the game of Town Ball. Baseball didn’t come into being until almost 20 years later.
• 1910   The Union of South Africa was founded.
• 1913   The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was declared in effect.
• 1916   British and German fleets fought the Battle of Jutland off Denmark during World War I.
• 1961   South Africa became an independent republic.
• 1962   Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for his role in the Holocaust.
• 1970   An earthquake in Peru killed tens of thousands of people.
• 1977   The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was completed after three years of work.
• 1989   House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would resign.
• 1990   A little summer replacement TV show named "Seinfeld" debuted.
• 1991   Leaders of Angola's two warring factions signed a peace treaty, ending a 16-year civil war.
• 1994   The United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
• 2000   Bandleader Tito Puente died at age 77.
• 2002   The World Cup soccer tournament opened in Asia for the first time with a match held in South Korea, which co-hosted the event with Japan.
• 2003   Olympic Park bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph was arrested outside a grocery store in Murphy, N.C.
• 1859   What was the sport of baseball originally called? This is not a trick question. On this day in 1859 the Philadelphia Athletics were formally organized to play the game of Town Ball. Baseball didn’t come into being until almost 20 years later.

Happy Birthday To

• 1819   Walt Whitman (poet: Leaves of Grass, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Passage to India, O Captain! My Captain!; died Mar 26, 1892)
• 1857   Pope Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti) (259th pope of the Roman Catholic Church [1922-1939]; died Feb 10, 1939)
• 1894   Fred Allen (John Florence Sullivan) (comedian: radio star: Allen’s Alley, The Fred Allen Show, The Linit Bath Club Revue; died Mar 17, 1956)
• 1898   Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (clergyman: radio ministry; author and syndicated newspaper column: The Power of Positive Thinking; died Dec 24, 1993)
• 1908   Don Ameche
• 1912   Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson (U.S. Senator from Washington; died Sep 1, 1983)
• 1923   Prince Rainer III (head of state: Monaco; married American film star, Grace Kelly)
• 1930   Clint Eastwood (Jr.)
• 1943   Sharon Gless (Emmy Award-winning actress: Cagney & Lacey)
• 1943   Joe Namath
• 1965   Brooke Shields