1919

Today in History 09/10 (Abebe Bikila)

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Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila (11) leads in the final stages of the marathon in the 1960 Olympic Games, Rome, Italy (© AP)(1960) Barefoot Bikila wins Rome’s marathon gold
The son of an Ethiopian shepherd, Abebe Bikila wins the gold medal in the marquee event of the Rome Summer Olympics after running the marathon race in his bare feet from Capitoline Hill to the finish line just outside the ancient Colosseum.
Abebe Bikila was an Ethiopian double Olympic marathon champion. He won the marathon at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot, setting a world record. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Abebe was the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title, breaking his own world record in the process. He was a member of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard, an elite infantry division that safeguarded the Emperor of Ethiopia. Enlisting as a soldier before his athletic career, he rose to the rank of shambel. In Ethiopia, Abebe is formally known as Shambel Abebe Bikila.
Lived: Aug 07, 1932 – Oct 25, 1973 (age 41)
Height: 5′ 10″
Spouse: Yewibdar Giorghis (m. 1954 – 1973)
Parents: Bikila Demissie
Movies: Spirit of the Marathon · The Athlete
Awards: BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year (1964)
Highlights
  • 1954: Abebe Bikila married Yewibdar Giorghis in 1954.

  • 1960: Abebe married 15-year-old Yewebdar Wolde-Giorgis on March 16, 1960.

  • 1961: In the 1961 Athens Classical Marathon, Abebe again won while running barefoot.

  • 1963: Abebe participated in a total of sixteen marathons, winning twelve and finishing fifth in the 1963 Boston Marathon.

  • 1966: In 1966 he ran marathons at Zarautz and Inchon–Seoul, winning both.

  • 1973: Abebe died at age 41 on October 25, 1973, of a cerebral hemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier.

Abebe Bikila wins the marathon at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960
Crossing the finish line
wiki/Abebe_Bikila
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(1960) Barefoot Bikila wins Rome’s marathon gold.
Also on this day,

1509 | Massive earthquake hits Constantinople
The North Anatolian Fault releases 7.2 magnitudes of energy under the Sea of Marmara close to the seat of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, in what will one day be Turkey. The quake will earn its epithet, ‘The Lesser Judgment Day,’ with its immediate destructiveness and 45 days of seemingly endless aftershocks.
1919 | New Yorkers take to the streets as heroes come home
New Yorkers welcome 25,000 soldiers home from the battlefields of Europe nearly a year after WWI’s armistice with a gigantic victory parade down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing leads his 1st Infantry Division troops past the grateful throngs.
2000 | ‘Cats,’ Broadway’s longest-running show, finally closes
The Jellicle Cats have their last pad around the New York stage as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘Cats closes after nearly 18 years. At a record-breaking 7,485 performances, it’s Broadway’s longest-running show and will retain that distinction until Webber unleashes a certain ‘Phantom to haunt the boards for an even longer run.

Today in History 09/10/17

Woodcut depicting damage in the Sept 10, 1509 earthquake in the sea of Marmara (Public Domain)(1509) Massive earthquake hits Constantinople
The North Anatolian Fault releases 7.2 magnitudes of energy under the Sea of Marmara close to the seat of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, in what will one day be Turkey. The quake will earn its epithet, 'The Lesser Judgment Day,' with its immediate destructiveness and 45 days of seemingly endless aftershocks.
The 1509 Constantinople earthquake, referred to as "The Lesser Judgment Day" by contemporaries, occurred in the Sea of Marmara on 10 September 1509 at about 10pm. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.2 ± 0.3 on the surface wave magnitude scale. A tsunami and forty-five days of aftershocks followed the earthquake. Over a thousand houses and 109 mosques were destroyed, and an estimated 10,000 people died.
Date: Sep 10, 1509
1509 Great Istanbul Earthquake
Great Istanbul Earthquake (Little Judgment Day), 1509

wiki/1509_Constantinople_earthquake
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Today in History 08/11 (Watts Riots)

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Fires burn in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood during the fourth day of rioting and looting that began on Aug 11, 1965 (© Bettmann/Corbis)(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting
Spurred by poverty, racism, and tension between residents and the city’s police, riots break out in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood. Lasting six days, the worst rioting yet seen in the city’s history will count more than 3,000 people arrested, over 1,000 injured, and 34 dead.
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police. False rumors spread that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of looting and arson followed. Los Angeles police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard to quell the riots, which resulted in 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on police racism. It was the city’s worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.
Start date: Aug 11, 1965
End date: Aug 16, 1965

Burning buildings during Watts Riots
Burning buildings during the riots
wiki/Watts_riots
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(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting.
Also on this day,

1973 | DJ Kool Herc’s Bronx party kick-starts hip-hop music
Clive ‘Kool Herc’ Campbell is throwing a party in the rec room of his South Bronx, New York, apartment building and he plays dance music on the ‘Merry Go Round,’ two manually-controlled turntables. It’s a great success, and DJ Kool Herc will be hailed by many as the father of hip-hop.
1973 | ‘American Graffiti’ cruises into theaters
Writer/director George Lucas takes moviegoers back to the early 1960s with stories of drive-ins, high-school sock hops, and cruising the strip. The cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Mackenzie Phillips, and Cindy Williams, as well as a cameo from another future TV star.
2016 | Japan first celebrates Mountain Day
A law passed two years earlier takes effect, and Mountain Day is an official holiday in Japan. The idea came from hiking groups who wanted a holiday to celebrate the country’s terrain and geography. This date (8/11) was chosen since the Kanji character for 8 looks like a mountain, and 11 looks like two trees.

Today in History 08/11/17

German flags in front of the of Reichstag building in Berlin (© Westend61/Getty Images)(1919) From the ashes of war Germany's first democracy emerges
A constitutional assembly in Weimar, Germany, adopts a parliamentary democracy, the first in the country's history, replacing centuries of imperial rule. The massive chaos and loss caused by German defeat in World War I has led to the Weimar Republic, but Nazi rule is less than 15 years away.
Weimar Republic was an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich; it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was usually known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their wartime leaders for the country's defeat and for the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, and organized the railway system. Weimar Germany fulfilled most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles although it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the western borders of the republic, but continued to dispute the Eastern border.
Founded: Nov 09, 1918
Dissolved: 1933
Population: 62.41 million (1925)
Area: 181,000 sq miles (468,787 km²)
Capital: Berlin
Official language: German
Map of the German Reich, (Republic of Weimar/Third Reich) 1919–1937
Map of the German Reich, (Republic of Weimar/Third Reich) 1919–1937

wiki/Weimar_Republic
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Today in History 06/02/18

Undated photograph of Luigi Galleani (Public Domain)(1919) Anarchist bombs explode in eight US cities
Operatives of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani detonate package bombs in eight cities, causing property destruction and two deaths. The future US president and his wife, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, narrowly escape a blast, having walked by a package moments before it detonated.
The 1919 United States anarchist bombings were a series of bombings and attempted bombings carried out by anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani from April through June 1919. These bombings led to the Red Scare of 1919–20.
Palmer Bombing
Damage done by the bomb at Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s house.
wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings
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(1919) Anarchist bombs explode in eight US cities.
Also on this day,
1897 | Twain alive
1953 | Elizabeth II crowned
2004 | Game show phenom debuts

Today in History 03/23/18

Italian statesman Benito Mussolini making a speech in Milan, Italy, circa 1920 (© Albert Harlingue/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)(1919) Mussolini establishes the Italian fascist movement
Breaking with socialism, WWI vet Benito Mussolini merges two organizations to found his own nationalist ideological movement, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which will become the National Fascist Party. Now known as “Il Duce” (the leader), he will go on to align with Hitler as an Axis power in World War II.
Italian Fascism, also known simply as Fascism, is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy. The ideology is associated with a series of three political parties led by Benito Mussolini: the Fascist Revolutionary Party founded in 1915, the succeeding National Fascist Party which was renamed at the Third Fascist Congress on 7–10 November 1921 and ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943 and the Republican Fascist Party that ruled the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian Fascism is also associated with the post-war Italian Social Movement and subsequent Italian neo-fascist movements.
Benito Mussolini Roman Salute
Il Duce: Prime Minister Benito Mussolini
wiki/Italian_Fascism
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Today in History 01/16/18

Two men pour alcohol down a drain during Prohibition, circa 1920. (© Buyenlarge/Getty Images)(1919) Alcohol Prohibition ratified in US
Banning the making, selling, or transport of “intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” the 18th Amendment is ratified by the US after a strong push by a loose coalition of “dry crusaders.” Prohibition won’t go into effect for another year, but will be repealed in 1933.
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted activists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the alcoholic beverage trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition. One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called “drys”, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.
Start date: 1920
End date: 1933

Detroit police prohibition
Detroit police inspecting equipment found in a clandestine underground brewery.
wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
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