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Monday April 14, 2014

KALW
Published April 14, 2014 at 6:17 AM PDT
  • 104th Day of 2014 261 Days Remaining
  • 68 Days Until Summer Begins

  • Sunrise 6:34
  • Sunset 7:45
  • 13 Hours 11 Minutes

  • Moon Rise 7:45pm
  • Moon Set 6:11am
  • Moon Phase 100 %
  • Full Moon @ 12:45am Tomorrow

  • This year 12.30
  • Last year 16.31
  • Normal 22.28

  • Holidays
  • Children With Alopecia Day
  • National D.A.R.E Day
  • National Pecan Day

  • International Moment of Laughter Day
  • Pan-American Day
  • Dia De Las Americas-Honduras
  • Vaisakhi-India
  • National Fast & Prayer Day-Liberia
  • Songkran Days(Thai New Year)-Thailand
  • Youth Day-Angola
  • Orange Day-Japan

  • On This Day In History
  • 1775 --- The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American society dedicated to the cause of abolition, is founded in Philadelphia. The society changes its name to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in 1784.

  • 1828 --- The first edition of Noah Webster's dictionary was published under the name "American Dictionary of the English Language."
  • 1860 --- The first Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, MO.
  • 1865 --- At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War. Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy. Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene's acclaimed performance in
    "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater on April 14, Booth plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray. On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward's home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln's private theater box unnoticed, and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth jumped to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]--the South is avenged!" Although Booth had broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln's box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.

  • 1894 --- The kinetoscope was demonstrated by its inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, in New York City. A viewer that held 50 feet of film -- about 13 seconds worth -- showed images of Annie Oakley and
    Buffalo Bill. The demonstration was actually called the first peep show, as one had to peep into the device to see what was on the film. Movies were not projected on a screen at that time.

  • 1902 --- J.C. (James Cash) Penney opened his first store -- in Kemmerer Wyoming. In partnership with Thomas M. Callahan and William Guy Johnson, Penney named the store Golden Rule. The dry goods and clothing store had a first-year profit of $8,514.36 on sales of $28,898.11.
  • 1910 --- The Philadelphia Athletics, under manager Connie Mack, played the Washington Senators in what became a most historic game. This game was not only the season opener; but also, the first time a United States President had thrown out the first ball. The president was William Howard Taft. The game was held in Washington, DC and appropriately, The Senators won 3-0. And so began a baseball tradition. Play ball!

  • 1912 --- “Up in the crows nest, Frederick Fleet was staring into the darkness. It was around 11:30 p.m. on a very odd calm moonless night when he noticed a black object immediately in their path, he
    knew it was ice!” The Royal Mail Steamship Titanic of the White Star Line struck an iceberg at approximately 11:40 p.m. The great ship, on its maiden voyage, sank just under three hours later. 1,517 passengers were lost at sea.

  • 1925 --- WGN became the first radio station to broadcast a regular season major league baseball game. The Cubs beat the Pirates 8-2.

  • 1935 --- In what came to be known as "Black Sunday," one of the most devastating storms of the 1930s Dust Bowl era swept across the region on this day. High winds kicked up clouds of millions of tons of dirt and dust so dense and dark that some eyewitnesses believed the world was coming to an end. The term "dust bowl" was reportedly coined by a reporter in the mid-1930s and referred to the plains of western Kansas, southeastern Colorado, the panhandles of
    Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico. By the early 1930s, the grassy plains of this region had been over-plowed by farmers and overgrazed by cattle and sheep. The resulting soil erosion, combined with an eight-year drought which began in 1931, created a dire situation for farmers and ranchers. Crops and businesses failed and an increasing number of dust storms made
    people and animals sick. Many residents fled the region in search of work in other states such as California (as chronicled in books including John Steinbeck s The Grapes of Wrath), and those who remained behind struggled to support themselves.

  • 1935 --- Babe Ruth played his first game for the National League in Fenway Park in Boston, MA. This time, he was playing for the Boston Braves, not his old Red Sox. Ruth was in his last year of pro ball in the major leagues. In this, his last season, Ruth played only 28 games, getting 13 hits and six home runs, before hanging up his spikes for good.
  • 1939 --- 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck was published.
  • 1945 --- A malfunctioning toilet on German U-Boat U-1206 forces it to surface off the coast of Scotland. Promptly attacked by British aircraft, the Captain scuttles the boat.

  • 1955 --- Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" was released.

  • 1956 --- Ampex Corporation of Redwood City, CA demonstrated the first commercial magnetic tape recorder for sound and picture. The videotape machine had a price tag of $75,000. These early Ampex units were too large to fit in a small room. That’s back when bigger was better.
  • 1958 --- Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky piano competition. Later that night he appeared on national TV for the first time. He was on NBC's "The Tonight Show" with Steve Allen.
  • 1969 --- For the first time, a major league baseball game was played in Montreal, Canada.
  • 1969 --- For the first time in the history of the Academy Awards, a tie resulted in two stars sharing the Best Actress Oscar. Barbra Streisand for her performance in Funny Girl had reached the top, only to share the honor with the ‘First Lady of the American Screen’, Katharine Hepburn for her starring role in The Lion in Winter.

  • 1981 --- America's first space shuttle, Columbia, returned to Earth after a three-day test flight. The shuttle orbited the Earth 36 times during the mission.
  • 1984 --- The Texas Board of Education began requiring that the state's public school textbooks describe the evolution of human beings as "theory rather than fact".
  • 1986 --- The United States launches air strikes against Libya in retaliation for the Libyan sponsorship of terrorism against American troops and citizens. The raid, which began shortly before 7 p.m. EST (2 a.m., April 15 in Libya), involved more than 100 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft, and was over within an hour. Five military targets and "terrorism centers" were hit, including the headquarters of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.

  • 1998 --- The state of Virginia ignored the requests from the World Court and executed a Paraguayan for the murder of a U.S. woman.

  • Birthdays
  • Loretta Lynn
  • Anne Sullivan Macy
  • Francois Duvalier
  • Christian Huygens
  • John Gielgud
  • Rod Steiger
  • Julie Christie
  • Brad Garrett
  • Anthony Michael Hall
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar