Thats wild. My son the one that wasn't born until '03 just told me about Bradley Nowell knocking on all of his bandmates doors asking for help before he died. I never knew that either.
i didn’t know that one. I knew about Kurt and Layne though as i was much more into the grunge era than the Alternative side of the 90s.
On April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court declares the busing of students for the purpose of school desegregation constitutional, in Swann vs Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education. Brown vs Board of Education effectively banned segregation in 1954, but that SCOTUS ruling failed to integrate schools, thanks to a variety of factors. Ten years later, with fewer than 5 percent of its African American children attending integrated schools, the city of Charlotte (NC) began the practice of busing black students out of district to "white" schools. The NAACP challenged on behalf of six-year old James Swann, but the judiciary system upheld the practice, despite outrage demonstrated in both black and white communities around the country. Systems around the country adopted busing for awhile, but the practice died out within a couple of decades. On April 20, 1902, Pierre and Marie Currie successfully isolate the element radium. Born Marie Skladowska in Warsaw, Marie moved to Paris, where she met and married Pierre while studying at the Sorbonne. Marie began studying uranium for her doctoral thesis and while refining the element from the mineral pitchblende, discovered properties that suggested two more rare elements were present. The first, which she named polonium for her native country, isolated easily; radium took much more work. It took several tons of pitchblende to produce just one-tenth of a gram of radium. The Curries would win the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery On April 20, 1971 (same day as SCOTUS piece above), the Pentagon announces that cases of "fragging" among units in Viet Nam are on the rise. In 1969, 34 men were murdered in 96 fragging incidents, in which men intentionally throw a fragmentation hand grenade among fellow troops (usually in sleeping quarters). There were also 34 fatalities in 1970, but from more than 200 incidents. "Fragging" sometimes took place in front line units and were usually attributed to seasoned troops ridding themselves of an inexperienced, incompetent officer. But most happened in the rear echelon, and were usually attributed to troops taking revenge on officers who took too hard a line in preventing drug use in their units. The Pentagon added that intimidation by threat of fragging (usually an unprimed grenade left on the bed of a potential target), occurred far more often than actual attacks.
On April 21, 753 BC (the date is arrived at by converting older calendars to current and may not be completely accurate), the city of Rome is founded. Several traditional stories point to possible founders of the city, the most common being that it was founded by the twin brothers Romulus and Remus at the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as infants. The two argued during construction of the city and Romulus killed his brother, afterward naming the city for himself. Rome is the capital of Italy, a UNESCO world heritage site and the 11th most visited city in the world. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the body of President Abraham Lincoln - assassinated six days earlier - departs Washington for his home town of Springfield, IL for his burial. The train will pass through 180 cities in seven states on its 1,600 mile journey (straight line distance from D.C to Springfield is about 680 miles), making numerous stops for mourners to pay their respects before the May 4 funeral. On April 21, 1967, a metallic blue Chevrolet Caprice coupe rolls off the assembly line of the General Motors plant at Janesville, WI. It is GM's 100 millionth car. GM surpassed Ford as the world's largest auto maker in 1930, a title it held until it was surpassed by Toyota in 2008. GM car number 100,000,000 is now in the Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan.
On April 22, 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres (Belgium) the Germans dispense 150 tons of chlorine gas into the air. Carried into the Allied lines by the prevailing winds, the gas decimates two divisions of French and Algerian troops. Its not the first time poison gas is used in warfare, but it is by far the largest. Every nation involved in WWI rushes to catch up, developing both their own chemical weapons and protective gear. By 1917, the wide use gas masks seriously hampers the effectiveness of gas as a strategic weapon. Still, chemical weapons account for more than a half million dead and injured during the war, and its use will be banned by the Geneva Protocol of 1925, a ban ignored by both the Japanese and Italians at the onset of WWII. The Germans observed the ban on the battlefield, but apparently didn't feel it applied to their concentration camps. Chemical weapons were completely banned by international treaty in 1997. (aerial view of gas attack at Ypres) On April 22, 1945, Adolph Hitler, learning from one of his generals that no German defense was offered to the Russian assault at Eberswalde, admits to all in his underground bunker that the war is lost and that suicide is his only recourse. Downfall - Hitler's Outrage (Original Subtitles, Extended Length) - YouTube
On April 23, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov visits President Harry Truman at the White House. It is barely 2 weeks since Truman ascended to the presidency on the death of Franklin Roosevelt, and he's playing catch up on foreign policy; Roosevelt kept Truman in the dark on many such matters (domestic as well; Truman knew nothing about the atomic bomb program as VP). Today, he jumps into foreign affairs by blasting Molotov on the USSR's failure to live up to agreements with FDR that would essentially hand eastern Europe to the Communists. Truman later said it was a tirade of "one syllable words" and Molotov, after a pro forma objection to the language, stormed out of the White House. With that brief confrontation, Truman made it clear that the US would be taking a much harder line of communism than it had under Roosevelt. On April 23, 1635, the Boston Latin School is established. It is the first public school in America, and the oldest, as it still exists today. Alumni include Samuel Adams, John Hancock and several members of the Kennedy line. Ben Franklin and Louis Farrakhan hold the title of Boston Latin drop outs. True to its origins, incoming 7th graders must still pass four years of Latin to graduate (3 if they enter in the 9th grade). On April 23, 1954, ten days after making his debut with the Milwaukee Braves, Hank Aaron hits his first major league home run. St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Vic Raschi serves up the morsel. Just 15 days short of the 20th anniversary of number one, Aaron would hit #715.
On April 24, 1916, a secret organization of nationalists called the Irish Republican Brotherhood attacks several provincial British government facilities in Dublin, occupies the General Post Office (below) and declares Irish independence. The so-called Easter Rebellion (Easter was April 23 that year) will be crushed in five days and more than a dozen nationalists leaders will be executed. The uprisings will continue, however, and by 1921 most of Ireland had again declared itself a free state. Great Britain would recognize Irish independence in 1949, though the nation would remain part of the United Kingdom. On April 12, 1945 President Harry Truman, president for just 12 days, is briefed for the first time on the Manhattan Project, the effort to develop an atomic bomb. Truman had been a Senator for the first of FDR's 3 terms, joining him on the 1944 campaign ticket, and FDR elected to keep his new running mate in the dark on the project. Truman immediately authorized the project to continue, but tabled a suggestion from Secretary of War Harry Stimson that information be leaked to the Russians in hopes the news would bring Stalin's ambitions on eastern Europe to heel. Truman would authorize Stimson to relay news of the bomb's development to the Russians on August 2, four days before it was dropped on Hiroshima. (Truman and Stimson confer) On April 24, 1946, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Chester Nimitz authorizes the formation of the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Team. The team, consisting of pilots flying 4 Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters, performs for the public for the first time on May 10 at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, FL. It is a 15 minute demonstration of formation maneuvers, and simulated aerial combat against a trainer plane suitably modified and painted to resemble a Japanese Zero. Two months later, team pilot Lt. Maurice Wickendoff suggests a new name for the team, which he borrowed from a New York nightclub he had read about. The team is soon renamed The Blue Angels. The world's second oldest military aerobatic team, the Blues have performed for more than 500 million spectators. Though the team has transitioned through ten different aircraft over the years (most recently adopting the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet last November), the performance program is basically unchanged since 1946.
Ireland was independent from 1922 as a part of British empire. Winston Churchill negotiated the peace treaty which allowed the northern countries to remain English. In fact the Irish didn’t allow the English navy to use its ports in WWII. This greatly hampered the fight against Nazi submarines.
On April 25, 1859, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps swings the ceremonial pickaxe to break ground on a project of his design, the Suez Canal. When opened ten years later, the 120-mile long canal connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, crossing the Isthmus of Suez. Intended to eliminate the need for ships to sail around the African continent, it is only 25 feet deep and 72 feet wide at the bottom, and extensive expansion will be necessary. One of the most critical locations on earth (both commercially and strategically), the canal was travelled by an average of 51 ships a day in 2020. On April 25, 1915, British, French, Australian and New Zealander forces land on the Gallipoli Peninsula in western Turkey. The invasion is intended to gain control of the Dardanelles, a series of passages connecting the Aegean with the Black Sea. A naval attack on the passage a month earlier had been disastrous; the Turks had mined the waterways and half of the attacking Anglo-French fleet was lost. The amphibious Gallipoli campaign fared little better. The invading force was recalled after nine months of combat that barely got them off the beach. The Allies suffered about 250,000 casualties, and British Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, in overall command, would resign in disgrace. On April 1983, Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov writes a letter to 10-year old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine. Several months earlier, Smith, rattled by President Reagan's proclamation of the USSR as an "evil empire", took diplomacy into her own hands, writing to Andropov and asking if he intended to start a nuclear war. In his response, Andropov assured Smith of his peaceful intentions, and invited Samantha and her parents to visit the Soviet Union. They would accept his invitation two months later. Smith's actions earned her celebrity status and she was seen as a goodwill ambassador, a role cut short when she died in a plane crash at age 13. (Smith and her parents strolling through Red Square, Moscow)
