April 11
It’s Eight Track Tape Day and Barbershop Quartet Day and National Cheese Fondue Day and Dandelion Day
ON THIS DAY…
1689 William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain
1775 Last execution for witchcraft in Germany
1783 After receiving a copy of the provisional treaty on March 13, the US Congress proclaimed a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain
1803 A twin-screw propeller steamboat was patented by John Stevens
1814 Napoleon was forced to abdicate his throne; he was banished to the island of Elba
1865 Abraham Lincoln makes his last public speech
1868 The Shogunate is abolished in Japan
1875 The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was organized
1876 The stenotype was patented by John C. Zachos of New York City
1898 President William McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war with Spain
1899 Spain cedes Puerto Rico to the United States
1900 The US Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland
1905 Einstein reveals his Theory of Relativity
1921 Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax
1921 The first live sports event on radio took place this day on KDKA Radio; the event was a boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee
1936 The SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America) was founded
1941 Germany bombers blitzed Conventry, England
1941 The first hydrogen-cooled electrical generator for outdoor installation in the US was put into operation
1941 The Road to Zanzibar starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope opens in US theaters
1943 “Nick Carter, Master Detective” debuted on Mutual radio
1943 Frank Piasecki, Philadelphia engineer and Vertol founder, flew his first (single-rotor)
helicopter, his PV-2 model, the second successful American helicopter to fly
1945 American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald in Germany
1946 Boris Karloff marries his sixth and final wife, Evelyn Hope Helmore
1947 Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major-league history when he played in an exhibition game for the Brooklyn Dodgers
1951 President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur as head of United Nations forces in Korea
1952 Singin’ in the Rain opens in US theaters
1952 Parkinson’s disease was successfully treated with surgery for the first time
1956 James Brown debuts on the R&B charts with “Please, Please, Please”
1957 Britain agrees to Singaporean self-rule
1957 A Ryan X-13 Vertijet became the first jet to take-off and land vertically
1961 The war crimes trial of Adolph Eichman begins in Jerusalem
1964 The Beatles have a record-setting 14 songs in Billboard Magazine’s Top 100
1968 President Johnson signed the 1968 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing
1970 Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission, was launched from Cape Canaveral with crew James Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert
1972 A smoking deterrent – a pseudo-cigarette package that produces simulated coughing sounds when the package is picked up – was issued a US patent to its inventor, Lewis R Toppel
1979 Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces seized control
1980 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors
1981 A massive riot in Brixton, South London, results in almost 300 police injuries and 65 serious civilian injuries
1981 President Ronald Reagan returned to the White House from the hospital after recovering from an assassination attempt
1982 British explorer Ranulph Fiennes with Charles Burton reached the North Pole during their circumnavigation of the Earth via the Poles circling the earth on longitude 0, the Greenwich Meridian
1984 Challenger astronauts completed the first in-space satellite repair
1986 Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to Earth this trip, 39 million miles, on its outbound journey
1986 Kellogg’s stopped giving tours of its breakfast-food plant; the reason for the end of the 80-year tradition was said to be that company secrets were at risk due to spies from other cereal companies
1997 Grosse Pointe Blank opens in US theaters
2006 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran has successfully enriched uranium
2006 Winnie the Pooh received the 2,308th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
2007 Don Imus’ nationally syndicated radio show was canceled after Imus became embroiled in a controversy over racial comments made about the Rutgers women basketball team
BORN:
1755 James Parkinson, physician and amateur paleontologist who was first to recognize a burst appendix as a cause of death, and wrote the first scientific article on appendicitis; he was also the first to describe the neuromuscular disease which is now known by his name as Parkinson’s disease
1798 Macedonio Melloni, physicist who was the first to extensively research of infrared radiation
1866 Charles Benedict Davenport, zoologist who contributed substantially to the study of eugenics (the improvement of populations through breeding) and heredity and who pioneered the use of statistical techniques in biological research
1899 Percy L. Julian, chemist, whose 100 patents include the synthesis of cortisone, hormones, and other products from soybeans
1899 Edward Charles Titchmarsh, mathematician whose contributions helped resolve the differences between the general theory of quantum mechanics and the methods used to solve particular problems in quantum theory
1901 Donald Menzel, astronomer best known for his arguments against the existence of extraterrestrial UFO’s
1908 Dalia “Dale” Messick, the first woman syndicated comic strip artist in the US; she was best known as the creator of Brenda Starr
1908 Masaru Ibuka, electronics pioneer who co-founded a small post-war radio-repair company that grew into the giant Sony Corporation
1913 Oleg Cassini, fashion designer
1930 Anton LaVey, founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan as well as a writer (The Satanic Bible), occultist, musician, and actor
1931 Johnny Sheffield, actor (Tarzan Finds a Son, Tarzans Secret Treasure, Tarzans New York Adventure)
1932 Joel Grey, Tony and Academy Award-winning actor (Cabaret, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins)
1939 Louise Lasser, actress (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Crimewave, Mystery Men)
1944 John Milius, screenwriter and director (Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn, Rome, Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now)
1947 Peter Riegert, actor (National Lampoon’s Animal House, Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Traffic)
1949 Carl Franklin, actor, screenwriter and director (One False Move, Devil in a Blue Dress, Full Fathom Five)
1950 Bill Irwin, Tony Award-winning actor, he is also a producer, director, writer, and choreographer as well as being inducted into the International Clown Hall Of Fame (Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eight Men Out, Popeye)
1954 Chris Difford, musician & songwriter (Squeeze)
1958 Stuart Adamson, musician (Big Country)
1960 Jeremy Clarkson, journalist, author and TV presenter (Top Gear)
1987 Joss Stone, singer (“U Had Me”)
DIED:
1890 Joseph Merrick, remembered as “The Elephant Man” he was a disfigured person who suffered from the very rare disorder Proteus Syndrome, dies at the age of 27 apparently from the accidental dislocation of his neck due to its inability to support the weight of his massive head in sleep
1906 James Anthony Bailey, the creator of the modern circus, dies at 58
1926 Luther Burbank, naturalist and horticulturist who was a pioneer of plant breeding; he developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants, including the Freestone peach, and the Burbank potato, dies at 77
1948 Frederick Orpen Bower, botanist whose study of primitive land plants, especially the ferns, contributed greatly to a modern emphasis on the study of the origins and evolutionary development of these plants, dies at 92
1983 Dolores del Rio, actress (Flying Down to Rio, Ramona, The Devil’s Playground), dies at 77
2001 Sir Harry Secombe, actor (“The Goon Show”, Oliver!, The Bed Sitting Room, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins), dies at 79
2005 Maurice R. Hilleman, microbiologist who developed vaccines against numerous once-common diseases including mumps, measles and rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis (A and B), pneumonia, meningitis and influenza, dies at 85
2007 Kurt Vonnegut, prolific and genre-bending novelist (Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions), dies at 84
2007 Roscoe Lee Browne, Emmy Award-winning actor (The Cosby Show, The Cowboys, Babe, Logan’s Run), dies at 81