lol, but damn dude, got to be a little smarter. Her time, had it been real, would have been a Boston record and 3rd fastest time by a woman in any sanctioned marathon ever! Observers said she wasn't even sweating or breathing heavy when she crossed the finish line. This from a woman who got a special dispensation to run the NY Marathon a few months earlier by claiming to have brain cancer.
On April 22, 1889 at precisely high noon, thousands of settlers make a mad dash into the newly opened Oklahoma Territory to claim cheap land. The nearly two million acres of land had originally been designated Indian Territory, but President Benjamin Harrison decides to open it up to white settlement. It is literally a race for land; at least 50,000 would-be settlers line up along the border of the designated land, and with the firing of a cannon as the signal, rush into the territory and begin staking their claims. Some jumped the gun, however, and legal cases involving these so-called "Sooners" would tie up the courts for years. On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman, who gave up his pro football career to enlist in the U.S. Army after the terrorist attacks of September 11, is killed by friendly fire while serving in Afghanistan. The news that Tillman, age 27, was mistakenly gunned down by his fellow Rangers, rather than enemy forces, was initially covered up by the U.S. military. On April 22, 1970, Americans celebrate Earth Day for the first time. Proposed by Wisconsin Senator and environmental advocate Gaylord Nelson, it is a day designated to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches and educational programs across the country. On April 22, 1978, the studio audience for NBC's Saturday Night Live may have at first been disappointed. The program has developed a well-deserved reputation for bringing in established musical guests to perform live, but tonight they get.....regular comic cast members John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, wearing dark suits and sunglasses, performing blues songs with members of the house band. Its the debut of The Blues Brothers, a concept the two comedians have been developing for 2 years. The concept would lead to a feature film, 2 studio albums and four live albums that generate 4 Top 40 hits.
On April 23, 1778, Captain John Paul Jones, with 30 volunteers from his ship, the USS Ranger, launch a surprise attack on the two harbor forts at Whitehaven, England. Jones’ boat successfully took the southern fort and burned it. The fire ultimately consumed the entire town. It was the only American raid on English shores during the American Revolution. On April 23, 1969, Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death after being convicted in the assassination of politician Robert F. Kennedy. The Senator from New York and US Attorney General under his brother, John F. Kennedy, was shot to death in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968, the morning after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. In 1972, Sirhan’s sentence was commuted to life in prison after California abolished the death penalty, and he remains a guest of the California penal system to this day.
On April 24, 1800, President John Adams authorizes Congress to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.” The first purchase arrives from London a year later and is housed in the U.S. Capitol, becoming the Library of Congress. The entire library will be lost when the British burn the capitol in 1814, but its quickly re-established after the war with the purchase of former president Thomas Jefferson's personal library. Today the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as millions of maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints, drawings and digital materials. On April 24, 1980, an ill-fated military operation to rescue the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ends with eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued. The hostage crisis is in its 6th month with no end in sight, and President Jimmy Carter orders the rescue attempt. Eight helicopters are tasked for the mission, but three suffer engine failure at the staging area, and the mission is scrubbed. Then during the withdrawal, one of the remaining helicopters collides with a C-130 transport, resulting in the fatalities. The next day, a somber Jimmy Carter gave a press conference in which he took full responsibility for the tragedy. The hostages were not released for another 270 days. On April 24, 1990, space shuttle Discovery launches with the Hubble Space Telescope in its bay. With optics built around an 8-foot mirror, the Hubble is the largest space telescope ever placed in orbit. Unfortunately, NASA doesn't learn until weeks later, when activating the telescope that the mirror is warped, and useless. Three years of planning and fabrication of new materials follows, before another mission can be launched to fix the problems. Since then (with several upgrades over the years) the Hubble has performed well beyond the expectations of even its designers.
