Forgot one for today.....on March 31, 1922 (100 years ago today), WWL AM radio signs on in New Orleans, broadcasting a piano recital from its home studio at Loyola University. Started by the Jesuit priests of Loyola with permission from the Vatican as an on campus wireless lab, WWL's first transmitter generated 10 watts on the 833 kHz band. FCC approval for increased power was granted several times over the next two decades. By 1937, she was up to 50,000 watts, and in 1941 moved to its current position on the AM band, 870kHz. WWL is one of 60 "clear channel" AM stations in North America, which are granted extra protections from interfering signals. At night, WWL's signal covers most of the Gulf Coast, and can be picked up on good radios as far north as the Great Lakes region. Loyola sold the station in 1989 and it is now part of the Audacy radio group.
On April 1, 33AD, Jesus Christ shares the "Last Supper" with his disciples. At least, that's how British physicist and mathematician Colin Humphreys sees it. All four Gospel tellings that are included in the New Testament describe the event as a meal in celebration of the Passover; three of the four reference Jesus predicting during the meal that Judas Iscariot will soon betray him. Humphreys drew on a variety of sources, some not directly of the Bible, to narrow down his date. Curiously, though the Catholic Church traditionally recognizes the Last Supper as the seminal event of Holy Thursday, Humphreys' calculations place it on a Wednesday. In much of its form, the traditional Catholic Eucharistic mass is a reenactment of the Last Supper. On April 1, 1873, the White Star liner SS Atlantic founders and sinks off Nova Scotia, with the loss of at least 535 passengers and crew. It is one of the worst maritime disasters of the 19th century and in the Atlantic, and the worst loss for the White Star Line until the Titanic sank in 1912. Like the Titanic and her sister ships, the Atlantic and her three sisters were among the most luxurious and modern trans-Atlantic liners of their time. She was less than two years old and on her 19th voyage between Liverpool and New York. A single engine steamer with sails for backup power, the Atlantic was sailing on wind power (Captain James Williams had possibly miscalculated the amount of coal he had in reserve), when she encountered rough seas and was pushed onto rocks off Halifax. There were 429 survivors. A Canadian government inquiry placed blame for the disaster squarely on Williams' shoulders. On April 1, 1973, Project Tiger is launched in Jim Corbett National Park, India. Thanks to this effort to preserve the Bengal Tiger in its natural habitat, the tiger population in India has more than doubled since the project began.
On April 2, 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon comes ashore on the present-day Florida coast, claiming the territory for Spain. He believed he was setting foot on a large island, not a continent, and named it La Florida because the landing came during the time of Pascua Florida, the Easter feast. After six days his expedition returned to sea, planning to land farther south, but strong winds and the currents of the previously unknown Gulf Stream forced him to abandon the mission. He returned in 1521 with a colonizing expedition, and (legend has it) to search for the fabled Fountain of Youth, but the expedition was attacked by natives and Ponce de Leon was wounded. The expedition returned to Cuba, where he died of his wounds. On April 2, 1800 in Vienna, Austria, Ludwig von Beethoven premiers his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus number 21 (the composer's 21st work in order of composition). Musical scholars agree that the influence of Beethoven's teacher, Joseph Haydn, is evident in the piece, but it is clearly a unique work. The debut of his First and Second Symphonies (in 1802) establish Beethoven as one of the next generation of great composers following the era of Haydn and Mozart. (painting depicts Beethoven in 1803) On April 2, 1917, Jeanette Rankin (R-Montana) becomes the first woman sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rankin finished second in Montana's general election; the state at the time made both of its Congressional seats at-large representation, with the top two vote getters winning the seats. Rankin dedicated most of her term to the cause of women's suffrage. Failing to win re-election, she spent the next two decades lobbying for various pacifist organizations, maintaining a Montana residence though she rarely lived there. With war looming in the late 30's, Rankin again ran for Congress in Montana, defeating the incumbent in 1940. Again she served only one term; this time not seeking re-election. Rankin's two terms of office coincided with the outbreak of the two world wars, and she holds the distinction of being the only member of Congress to have voted against America's entering either war (she abstained from the vote to declare war on Germany and Italy after voting against war on Japan). She remained one of America's most influential voices against war and for women's rights until her death in 1973. (Rankin's first Congressional portrait) On April 2, 1963, the poster is granted admission to this planet's membership.
On April 3, 1946, Masaharu Homma, former Lt. General in the Imperial Japanese Army, is executed for having perpetrated the Bataan Death March. Following the fall of the Philippines to Homma's 14th Army in 1942, an estimated 60-80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war were transferred from their surrender points to POW camps on the Bataan Peninsula, a distance of 60-70 miles. Most of the journey was made on foot, and Homma's troops made little effort to see to even the most basic of the prisoners' humanitarian needs during the transfer. Many died of dysentery; many more were killed by their captors, in some cases for as benign an offense as stepping out of line to relieve themselves. Estimates vary on the number of dead, anywhere from 5-18,000, mostly Filipinos. On April 3, 1973, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper makes the first cellular telephone call from his product, the DynaTAC 8000x. Cooper was supposed to give the first demonstration during a press conference from a hotel ballroom in NYC; he cheated the press by making a call to a Motorola home base in New Jersey in front of pedestrians outside the hotel first. The DynaTAC weighed about 2.5 pounds, and its battery would only run the phone for about 30 minutes ("No problem," said Cooper. "You couldn't hold the thing up that long anyway.") Misconception: Cooper was inspired to invent the cell phone by the communicators on Star Trek. Cooper says he was actually inspired by comic book detective Dick Tracy's "2-way wrist radio." He is now 93 years old, holds 11 telecommunications patents and is on several committees that function under the FCC and U.S. Department of Commerce. On April 3, 1975, Bobby Fischer forfeits the World Chess Championship to Russian challenger Anatoly Karpov. America's only World Chess Champion, Fischer's 18-year professional career was known as much for his stubbornness over establishing match guidelines as for his game ability. He won the World Championship in September, 1972 by beating Russian master Boris Spassky. The match with Karpov was to be his first defense, and Fischer proposed the match guidelines in late 1973: first player to win 10 games is champion, no limit to the number of games to be played, and if a 9-9 tie was reached, Fischer would retain the title. Chess' governing body (FIDE) agreed to the 10 win stipulation but not the other two. A year of futile negotiations followed, with Fischer announcing his forfeiture in June 1974. FIDE gave him until April 1 to reconsider, but when Fischer did not respond, the body awarded the championship to Karpov on the 3rd. The reclusive Fischer played just one more match before his death in 2008; a rematch with Spassky that Fischer won but forced him into exile because the match was played in Yugoslavia in direct violation of a Presidential order; the U.S. had economic sanctions against Yugoslavia at the time. Fischer never returned to the U.S., living out the remainder of his life in Hungary.
On April 4, 1818, the U.S. Congress affirms the 2nd Continental Congress' Flag Resolution of 1777, in adopting a uniform Flag of the United States. The 1777 resolution set the familiar look of 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 stars on a blue field. But there were no other specifics, and many flag designers took liberties with the design, particularly in the type and arrangement of stars. When one such variation added two stripes along with two stars for the 14th and 15th states, the need for a specified design became apparent. The 1818 law specified five-pointed stars; one for each state (20 at the time) and 13 stripes to honor the original 13 colonies. Any necessary changes would become official on July 4th following the admission of a new state. Historians recognize 39 official U.S. flags since 1777. On April 4, 1973, 1 World Trade Center and 2 World Trade Center - the "Twin Towers" - are formally dedicated in New York City. Originally proposed in 1943 as a way to revitalize a run down warehouse district of lower Manhattan, the towers eclipsed the Empire State Building to the north as the world's tallest buildings, though Chicago's Sears Tower took the title about a year later. Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the towers and the other 5 buildings of the full complex, which would not be completed until 1987. Before their destruction in the 9-11 terrorist attacks (peripheral damage from the collapse of the towers caused the entire complex to be demolished), the Twin Towers were the subject of a terrorist bombing, a bank robbery, an unauthorized high-wire crossing by Phillipe Petit, an unauthorized "human fly" climb by George Willig, and roughly 470 movie appearances, not including films focused on 9-11. On April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln dreams of his own assassination, according to the recollections of Ward Hill Lamon, a personal friend. The two became friends in Illinois when Lamon married the daughter of Lincoln's law partner, and he was active in Lincoln's 1860 Presidential campaign. Lincoln rewarded him with an appointment as U.S. Marshal of Washington D.C., where Lamon, a physically imposing figure, often took it upon himself to act as the President's personal bodyguard, even patrolling the White House grounds at night. In a biography of Lincoln published years after his death, Lamon told the story of how Lincoln recollected a dream in which he saw mourners over a corpse in the East Room. Asking a guard who had died, Lincoln was told, "The president. He was assassinated." Lamon added that Lincoln would bring up the dream again on April 11, saying it continued to "strangely annoy" him. Four days later, while Lamon's marshal duties took him on an overnight trip to Richmond, Lincoln went to a play at Ford's Theater in Washington.
Me too. One of my best college friends' gramps was SID of Bama at the time, and he got us 4 tickets in the nosebleeds. We said screw it and went and sat about 20 rows from the court on Saturday, and saw about the first half of the first game (UNC/Houston) before we were moved. We tried it again for the finals...the place filled up - 65,000 or so - but no one moved us. Were easily top price seats.
On April 5, 1943, one of the worst incidents of collateral damage of WWII takes place at the small Nazi-occupied city of Mortsel, Belgium, near Antwerp. U.S. Eighth Bomber Command targeted the nearby Erla automobile factory, converted to a Messerschmitt fighter repair facility for the war. Eighty-two bombers (far more than were necessary) attacked from an altitude of 25,000 feet. For a variety of reasons, including unreliable bombsites from that altitude, about 80% of the planes overshot the target and their bombs fell on the town. More than 930 civilians were killed, including about 250 children, and about 1300 wounded. It is said that the loss of children in the bombing cost Mortsel (present day population is about 25,000) an entire generation. I can't resist..... On April 5, 2063 near Bozeman, Montana, the human race makes its first officially recognized contact with an interstellar species. Earlier that same day, American engineer/entrepeneur Zefram Cochrane successfully test launched the Phoenix, a spaceship he converted from an old Titan-II ICBM and outfitted with engines of his own design that allowed the Phoenix to achieve light speed (later referred to as warp speed). He was unaware that his test flight was seen from an alien spacecraft surveying the outer planets of our solar system. On realizing the beings of Earth had achieved warp capability, the aliens, who would identify themselves as being from the planet Vulcan, altered course and landed at the site of the Phoenix's launch. Cochrane would later admit that his only motivation for building the Phoenix was profit and that he was embarrassed by the great explorer status humanity conveyed on him for the achievement.
Regarding the above, Star Trek fans like to call April 5 First Contact Day. I'm sure its a coincidence, but I just read that the keel for the Navy's next aircraft carrier was laid yesterday, and it will be the Enterprise.
On April 6, 1929, the Louisiana Legislature files 19 charges of impeachment against Governor Huey P. Long. The charges range from blasphemy to subornation of murder, but do not mention what really pissed off the House, a statement by Long that many in their number had been bought off by big oil interests. The impeachment trial would become known as "bloody Monday" as several fights between the pro- and anti-Long factions broke out on the House floor during the proceedings. The House eventually sent 8 charges to the Senate, but when Long produced a document of dubious authenticity showing that 15 senators would vote not to convict, the Senate, believing no chance to convict existed, dropped all charges. On April 6, 1926, Varney Air Lines begins operation with a mail delivery flight from Pasco, WA to Elko, NV. Airline founder Walter Varney (below) took advantage of the Kelly Act of 1925, which authorized the U.S. Postal Service to contract with private air carriers to deliver mail in the western U.S. Varney would add several new routes to his service over the next five years. In 1931, he sold his northern routes into a merger with two other airlines who were contracted with Boeing for new aircraft; that merger would be the berth of United Airlines. When the Roosevelt Administration cancelled the Kelly Act in 1934, Varney sold the remainder of his routes to airline industry pioneer Robert F. Six. That sale would be the foundation on which Six would build Continental Airlines. On April 6, 1808, German immigrant to the U.S. John Jacob Astor founds the American Fur Company. The demand for fur in Europe had dramatically increased in the late 18th century; Astor invested heavily in the Northwest Territories to meet the need, often playing on anti-British sentiments in Europe to beat out his British-Canadian competitors. He also allegedly engaged in the illegal smuggling of opium to further his wealth. The fur demand faded and the American Fur Company went bankrupt in 1842, but by then Astor had completely divested himself of the company, turning his investments to real estate in the New York area. By his death in 1848, Astor was America's first millionaire with a worth of $20 million dollars. When adjusted for inflation, he was worth more than $650 million in 2020 dollars, making him one of the richest people in modern history.
