Today in History

[goofywife]

1910: Mark Twain dies
Writer and humorist Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, died today after a brief illness at the age of 74. In 1909, he predicted his death, noting, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it."

"Samuel Langhorne Clemens was considered the best-known American man of letters. Often he was referred to as the 'Dean of American Literature.' He was known far beyond the boundaries where English is spoken as the greatest humorist, using that tongue, if not actually the greatest humorist and satirist living. His famous telegram to a newspaper publishing a report of his death, when it happily was untrue, has been quoted and requoted everywhere. 'The report of my death,' he wired. 'Is greatly exaggerated,'" reported The Washington Post on April 22, 1910.

NOTE: Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn along with many, many other novels, stories, and articles. Nobel Prize winning author William Faulkner once noted that Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs." Twain continues to be widely read and well-loved today.


1986: Al Capone's vault is opened
Geraldo Rivera, host of the two-hour special The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault, witnessed the opening of Al Capone's legendary vault today, only to find a few old bottles and dust. The vault, located under the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, was predicted to hold whiskey, money and the bones of his enemies. "The discovery came before a worldwide TV audience and special agent Dennis Sansone of the Internal Revenue Service, which didn't want to miss a shot at collecting its due from one of the nation's most notorious tax evaders," informed The Capital on April 22, 1986.

1966: Grounation Day“His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Conquering Lion of Judah, arrived in Jamaica yesterday afternoon to a welcome of superlatives,” reported The Gleaner on April 22, 1966. “And he wept.” Selassie I was heralded as the second coming of Jesus by the Rastafarian faith, a claim that he never endorsed but also never discouraged. This arrival became the second-most important Rastafarian holy day after the Emperor’s coronation day. NOTE: During the visit, Emperor Selassie I told elder Rastafarian leaders that they should not emigrate to Ethiopia until they had liberated the people of Jamaica, a doctrine that became known as “liberation before repatriation.”

1930: Ohio prison fire kills more than 300
More than 300 prisoners died at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus after a fire broke out today. "The blaze was believed set by a band of vengeful lifers who supposedly conceived the fire as a means of inciting a mutiny that would deliver the prison into their hands," explained The Chronicle Telegram on April 22, 1930.


1912: Giants, Yankees raise money for Titanic survivors
The New York Giants and the Yankees played an exhibition game to benefit the survivors of the Titanic today. On April 22, 1912, the Trenton Evening Times reported, "At the baseball game between the Giants and the Yankees at the Polo Grounds yesterday for the benefit of the Titanic survivors the attendance was 14,083 and the receipts $9,425.25."

[katcarasella]

1986: Al Capone's vault is opened

Here are some of his quotes:

Vote early and vote often. (Very popular here)

When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

[Dobie]

I can remember watching Capone's vault being opened - it was like a 2 hour special with Geraldo - absolutely nothing was in it. I think that's when Geraldo stopped being a legitimate reported in the eyes of a lot of people.

[Janet]

So true, I thought it would have been so exciting to see what was in it and after that...Geraldo kind of left the public for a while. I see here lately he's making a come back.

[goofywife]

1964: World's Fair opens
The New York World's Fair opened today on schedule, even though there were threats that the fair would be disrupted by civil rights groups.

"The demonstration had been planned largely as a stall-in – the deliberate stalling of automobiles to block traffic leading to the fair," reported The Daily Times-News on April 22, 1964. "Police spotted a number of stalled cars and towed them away, but traffic appeared lighter than usual. Many motorists who ordinarily pass the fairground area in commuting from Long Island to New York City apparently took other routes."

NOTE: According to newspaper reports from 1964, 18-year-old Bill Turchyn from St. Peter's College in New Jersey became the first to enter the fair after he waited in line for nearly two days.

1994: Richard Nixon dies
Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, who left the White House in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal, died today at the age of 81. "In a career brimming with paradoxical twists, Nixon went from red-baiting congressman in the Cold War era, to vice president, to a seeming political has-been after beatings in the early 1960s. He went on to become president in 1968; the ruined man of Watergate in 1974; the beneficiary of a stunning presidential pardon, and a rich recluse in retirement limbo," explained the Daily Herald on April 23, 1994.

1993: Holocaust Memorial Museum opens
President Clinton led the dedication ceremony for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. today. "In his dedication address, Clinton said the museum binds 'one of the darkest lessons in history to the hopeful soul of America,'" informed the Daily Herald on April 23, 1993.

1952: TV viewers watch atomic bomb test
For the first time in U.S. history, television viewers witnessed live the detonation of an atomic bomb at the U.S. testing site in Yucca Flat, Nevada. "It was a bomb of 'king-size,' at least as powerful as any tested here since the proving grounds was activated 18 months ago. It was officially declared to be more powerful than the atomic bombs which knocked out Hiroshima and Nagasaki," reported the San Mateo Times on April 22, 1952. NOTE: During the test, U.S. troops were stationed closer to the atomic blast than ever before.

1889: First land run
“The Furious Rush of the Home Seekers Commenced at Noon Today—The Town Site Companies Even More Daring Than the Claim Hunters,” announced the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette on April 22, 1889. The land run of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands and included two million acres of land in Oklahoma. The Indian Appropriations Bill of 1889 had opened the land for settlement, and with the land run, more than 50,000 people lined up to claim land. Each person was allowed up to 160 acres. NOTE: If a settler lived on the land and improved it, he would then receive the title to the land.

[goofywife]

OK, I have to reply to the land run article. First let me say, I did not grow up in Oklahoma, I met my DH and moved here to be with him. I do not understand why OU has selected the Sooners as a mascot. The Sooners were the people who cheated and went out and staked a claim before the race. Why would a university have a mascot honoring cheaters?

[goofywife]

1985: Coca-Cola announces new formula
The Coca-Cola Company announced today it has changed its formula for Coke. The new recipe, which the company called "the most significant soft-drink development" in its history, was said to make the beverage sweeter and smoother.

"The slogan reads 'Coke Is It,' but times change and so will the 99-year-old secret formula of the world's No. 1 soft drink. As soon as Coca-Cola's plans were made known, archrival Pepsi tasted victory in its cola war and crowed that Coke is 'not the real thing,'" reported the Syracuse Herald Journal on April 23, 1985. "Industry experts were upbeat about the company's reported decision to change the formula set down by Dr. John Pemberton in 1886. Called 'Merchandise 7X,' it is kept in an Atlanta bank vault, its ingredients known only to a handful of Coke executives."

NOTE: Despite the company's excitement over the new formula, the public reacted mostly negatively to the change. An organization called Old Cola Drinkers of America was even formed. Less than three months after the new Coke was introduced, Coca-Cola announced the original formula would return.


1998: James Earl Ray dies
James Earl Ray, the man charged with assassinating Martin Luther King Jr., died of kidney failure and complications from liver disease today, while he was still serving his 99-year prison sentence. "For more than a year, James Earl Ray fought the government, popular opinion and his own failing body for a chance to prove he didn't kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Time ran out for Ray, but the debate survives," explained The Capital on April 24, 1998.

1984: AIDS virus is identified
"Researchers announced today they have discovered and isolated a virus they say is likely to be the primary cause of AIDS, the mysterious and deadly disease that destroys the body's protective immune system," reported The Capital April 23, 1984. "According to the papers and scientists familiar with the work, the virus in question appears to be a member of a family of viruses called human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV) previously suspected of having a role in AIDS." NOTE: Scientists also announced the discovery had led to the development of a blood test to diagnose AIDS victims.

1969: Robert Kennedy assassin sentenced to death
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was sentenced to death today. "A jury of seven men and five women returned to the tight-security courtroom on the eighth floor of the Los Angeles Hall of Justice after almost 12 hours of deliberation to say the young Jordanian immigrant should die in California's gas chamber for the murder of the New York senator and would-be president," informed the Independent on April 24, 1969. NOTE: The death sentence was reduced to life in prison in 1972.

1968: Britain introduces decimal coins
The British government began issuing two new coins today, a 5 pence and 10 pence, which would completely replace the one and two shilling pieces within three years. "Pity the poor British housewife. She must learn that 100 pennies make a pound ($2.40). It was so simple before – 12 pennies equal one shilling, 20 shillings equal one pound, which means there are 240 pennies to a pound," explained the Independent on April 24, 1968. "Tuesday the government began the introduction of the new coinage system, and to prepare Britain for the shock of change it took large advertisements in national newspapers."


1940: Night club fire proves deadly
More than 200 African Americans died today when a fire broke out in the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Mississippi. "The fire lasted only 15 minutes in which the flimsy, shack-like building was reduced to ashes. Most of the victims, apparently, were killed not by the fire but in a mad stampede for the one exit. All the bodies taken from the ashes were badly burned, some beyond possibility of identification," reported the Dunkirk Evening Observer on April 24, 1940. "Approximately 150 escaped and of these authorities estimated that 50 to 100 were injured in varying degrees."