Man, those were the days. The Saints are such a shit show now, it's pathetic. Loomis HAS to go! Same for the current coach!
On January 25, 1776 (5 months before the Declaration of Independence), the Continental Congress authorizes the construction of a memorial to Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, killed a month earlier leading the assault on Quebec. He is the first American general killed in the Revolutionary War, and his is the first U.S. national memorial. The Congress designated Benjamin Franklin to make the monument happen; he hired French King Louis XV's personal sculptor, Jean Jacques Caffieri, to design and build it. It took Caffieri 2 years to do the work, but the monument remained in storage until 1788, when Congress changed its intended home from Independence Hall in Philadelphia to St. Paul's Chapel in NYC, which served as the national chapel until the capital was moved to Washington. Montgomery's body joined his monument at the chapel in 1818. On January 25, 1942, Thailand declares war on the U.S. and other allied nations. Thailand had declared neutrality in 1939 despite the presence of French and English colonies in neighboring nations. It took advantage of the French surrender to Germany to attack French Indochina (with Japanese assistance), taking 21,000 square miles of land. Thailand was one of numerous Japanese targets around Asia in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, and within a month was a puppet state of the Japanese Empire. (Thai Prime Minister inspecting troops during conflict with French Indochina) On January 25, 1993, 23-year old Hawaiian American Chad Rowan - all 6-foot-8 inches and 455 pounds of him - is awarded the title of yokozuna. He is the first non-Japanese to achieve the highest rank in sumo wrestling, the national sport of Japan. Rowan dropped out of Hawaii Pacific University (he was on basketball scholarship) in 1988 to pursue a career in sumo, a sport that had interested him since childhood. Considered too tall by many promoters, he developed a thrusting attack style that used his height to his advantage. Wrestling under the name Akebono ("new dawn"), Rowan immediately began setting records for percentage of wins in sumo tournaments, and was competing in the sport's top division by 1990. Rowan's promotion to yokozuna was met with skepticism by many sumo purists, but by his retirement in 2001 he was among the sport's top ten all time performers with 11 championships. (Rowan at his 2001 retirement ceremony)
On April 10, 1865 - one day after surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to General U.S. Grant - General Robert E. Lee addresses his troops for the final time. Lee rejected proposals from senior officers to extend the war in guerilla fashion and instead sought to live a quiet life of solitude. His fame precluded that plan; the summer after the war he accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, VA. He praised the abolition of slavery and advocated for the admission of black children into public schools, though he opposed former slaves' right to vote. Although he applied for a presidential pardon on the day he became president of Washington College, he was not officially pardoned and restored as a U.S. citizen until 1975. (stained glass window in the National Cathedral in D.C. portrays Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville.) On April 10, 1975, African-American golfer Lee Elder breaks the color barrier at The Masters golf tournament. Born in Dallas, Elder was a late arrival to golf (played his first complete round at age 16) and developed his skills while caddying at clubs his home town. He turned pro in 1961(the same year the Professional Golf Association lifted its ban on black members) but didn't earn his tour card until 1968. His first PGA win, the 1974 Monsanto Open, earned him the invite to the following year's Masters. A New York Times writer would record that Elder was frequently applauded during his debut round, but politely rather than enthusiastically. He failed to make the cut and would play in 5 more Masters in his career, finishing no better than 17th. In 2021, Elder was offered the chance to participate in the ceremonial opening tee shots of the tournament alongside legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, but he was too ill to attend; he died later that year at 87 years old. On April 10, 1834, New Orleans firemen fighting a blaze at the LaLaurie Mansion discover a slave torture chamber. The firemen discovered a 70-year old slave woman chained up in the kitchen; she led her rescuers to the attic where they found seven more slaves tied up and fitted with spiked collars. The first victim fingered the lady of the mansion, Delphine LaLaurie, as the culprit. A year earlier, Delphine (a known sadist) had caused the death of a slave girl who fell off the roof of the mansion; authorities forced the LaLauries to sell their slaves, but Delphine arranged for relatives to buy them and soon was back in the torture business. Her neighbors took a dim view of her manner of slave discipline and drove her out of town. It's believed she emigrated to France and died years later in Paris.
On April 11, 1979, Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, is driven from the capital city by native rebels and Tanzanian troops. His government officially fell two days later. Amin joined the colonial British Army in 1946 and eventually reached the highest rank possible for a black African. He was commissioned a captain in the Ugandan army when independence was achieved in 1962, and by '66 was chief of both the army and air force. An extreme nationalist, he seized control of the government in 1971 and launched genocidal campaigns against two ethnic groups and also expelled more than 50,000 Asians who made up a brunt of the nation's workforce, collapsing the national economy. In 1978, he launched a war against neighboring Tanzania, which responding by supporting revolutionaries in the Ugandan military. Amin fled the country after his ouster and eventually died in Saudi Arabia in 2003, with the blood of an estimated 300,000 of his countrymen on his hands. On April 11, 1870, Josslyn Pennington, 5th Baron Muncaster of Britain, is kidnapped along with his wife by brigands near Marathon, Greece. Takos Arvanitakis and his band of pirates were experienced in the art of kidnap and ransom collection, and they demanded £50,000 for the release of the Penningtons. Hoping to avoid hostilities with Britain, Greek King George instead offered himself as hostage in exchange for the the Baron and his wife. He then sent in troops who freed the hostages and killed most of the pirates, though Arvanitakis escaped, only to be killed two years later.
On April 12, 1864, Confederate cavalry troops massacre black soldiers attempting to surrender. Fort Pillow was constructed by the Confederacy on a Mississippi River bluff just north of Memphis, TN, and changed hands several times in the first years of the war. It was in Union hands in the spring of 1864 when CSA Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest launched raids throughout western Tennessee and Kentucky. He attacked Ft. Pillow with more than 1,500 men, facing a force of about 600, more than half of whom were black. After about 5 hours, Forrest asked for the Union force's surrender, but when they refused, ordered a massed charge of the fort and overran the defenders. The Federals suffered about 350 casualties, but many northerners in the fort would later say Forrest's men continued attacking surrendering soldiers, and suggested that the high number of black casualties was intentional (historic studies, one as recent as 2002, would agree with the survivors' accounts). In the aftermath, Union officers negotiating terms with their Confederate counterparts began demanding that black prisoners be treated equally to white prisoners. Forrest would go on to found the Ku Klux Klan after the war.
On April 13, 1928, the "Three Musketeers of the Air" complete the first Europe to North America trans-Atlantic flight. German pilot Hermann Köhl, Irish aviator James Fitzmaurice and Baron Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld, the expedition’s financier, took off from Dublin, Ireland a day earlier; destination, New York City. Flying Hünefeld's personal aircraft, a Junkers W33 named Bremen (below), the expedition strayed off course as it approached Canada due to a faulty compass, then was forced to land early due to an oil leak. But the east-to west trans-Atlantic crossing was complete (a year after Lindbergh's flight; prevailing winds made an east-to-west crossing more difficult than west-to-east) and the "musketeers" received a hero's welcome on their return home. On April 13, 1978, New York Yankee fans disrupt opening day with a candy crush. Years before, up and coming Oakland A's outfielder Reggie Jackson predicted he would be so good, "somebody will name a candy bar after me." Fast forward to '78, Jackson was starting his third year with the Yankees, and the Curtiss Candy Co. (makers of the Baby Ruth bar) had recently introduced the Reggie! bar, which were passed out to Yankee Stadium patrons before the game. (The Reggie! bar was a re-packaging of a candy Curtiss already made called the Bun Bar, and was actually patty-shaped, rather than a traditional bar.) In his first at-bat of the day/season, Jackson launched a 3-run homer, and fans celebrated by launching their Reggie! bars onto the field. The game was delayed for 5 minutes while grounds crews cleaned up. (The Curtiss company says, contrary to American lore, it named the Baby Ruth bar after Ruth Cleveland, daughter of President Grover Cleveland, not Babe Ruth.)
On April 14, 1944, a massive shipboard explosion destroys much of the Bombay, India waterfront. Despite happening at the height of WWII, the explosion of the SS Fort Stikine was only partially war-related. It was awaiting unloading after delivering a mixed cargo from England, including a volatile combination; hundreds of cotton bales stored directly above 300 tons of TNT. For unknown reasons (thought to be sabotage at first but later determined to be accidental), the cotton caught fire and set off the dynamite. The death toll was about 1,300, with another 3,000 injured. Twelve ships anchored in the vicinity were destroyed. On April 14, 1929, French-born William Glover-Williams (below) wins the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix. Conceived by the Automobile Club de Monaco, the Grand Prix was originally planned on a course through the countryside of Monaco and neighboring nations France and Italy. The club hoped to gain recognition as a national, rather than regional, organization by the governing body of European motorsports, but was refused because the proposed course was not entirely within the tiny country's borders. Club founder Antony Noghes then hit on the idea of staging the race entirely within Monaco's harbour city of Monte Carlo. The race quickly became one of the most popular on the Grand Prix circuit, and is considered - along with the Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans - to be one of the jewels in auto racing's Triple Crown.
