(1966) Charles Whitman shoots 48 in Texas killing spreeFormer Eagle Scout, ex-Marine, and engineering student Charles Whitman murders his mother and wife, then carries a cache of firearms to the top of a 300-foot tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, where in 90 minutes he kills 14 and wounds 32 with sniper fire.Charles Joseph Whitman was an American mass murderer who became infamous as the “Texas Tower Sniper”. On August 1, 1966, he murdered his mother and wife in their homes, then went to the University of Texas at Austin where he shot and killed three people inside the university’s tower. He then went to the tower’s 28th-floor observation deck, where he fired at random for some 96 minutes, killing an additional eleven people and wounding thirty-one before being shot and killed by police. Sixteen people were killed in total; a 17th victim died in 2001 from injuries sustained in the attack.
Born: 24 Jun 1941 · Lake Worth, FL Died: 01 Aug 1966 · Austin, TX Height: 6′ 0″ Spouse: Kathy Leissner (m. 1962 – 1966) Education: University of Texas at Austin Parents: Margaret Whitman
Highlights
1941: Whitman was born on June 24, 1941, in Lake Worth, Florida, the eldest of three sons born to Margaret E. (Hodges) and Charles Adolphus “C. A.”
1961: Whitman entered the mechanical engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin on September 15, 1961.
1962: On August 17, 1962, Whitman and Leissner were married in a Catholic ceremony held in Leissner’s hometown of Needville, Texas.
1966: Whitman met with Dr. Maurice Dean Heatly, the staff psychiatrist at the University of Texas Health Center, on March 29, 1966.
1966: At approximately 4:00 p.m. on July 31, 1966, Charles and Kathy Whitman visited their close friends John and Fran Morgan.
1966: On August 1, 1966, he murdered his mother and wife in their homes, then went to the University of Texas at Austin where he shot and killed three people inside the university’s tower.
Description: Charles Whitman Source: 1963 Cactus, the student yearbook of the University of Texas. Copy found at “Charles Whitman Images and Documents,” The Austin History Center. Reference AR.2000.002, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library Date: c 1963
(1868) US President Andrew Johnson escapes conviction by one voteHaving impeached Andrew Johnson three months earlier, the US Congress fails to convict the president of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ stemming from his refusal to go along with Civil War Reconstruction. A Senate trial acquits the first US president ever impeached of all charges.Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The first American president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
Lived: Dec 29, 1808 – Jul 31, 1875 (age 66) Height: 5′ 10″ (1.78 m) Spouse: Eliza McCardle Johnson (m. 1827 – 1875) Successor: David M. Key (Senator) Parties: National Union Party · Republican Party · Democratic Party Children: Martha Patterson (Daughter) · Mary Stover (Daughter) · Brig. Gen. Robert Johnson (USA) (Son) · Andrew “Frank” Johnson, Jr. (Son) · Charles Johnson, MD, USA (Son)
Highlights
1827: In 1827, at the age of 18, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, the daughter of a local shoemaker.
1829: Johnson helped organize a mechanics’ (working men’s) ticket in the 1829 Greeneville municipal election.
1865: Johnson traveled to Washington to be sworn in, although according to Gordon-Reed, “in light of what happened on March 4, 1865, it might have been better if Johnson had stayed in Nashville.”
1868: In January 1868, the Senate disapproved of his action, and reinstated Stanton, contending the President had violated the Tenure of Office Act.
1868: Stanton refused to leave his office, and on February 24, 1868, the House impeached the President for intentionally violating the Tenure of Office Act, by a vote of 128 to 47.
1875: Returning to Tennessee after his presidency, Johnson sought political vindication, and gained it in his eyes when he was elected to the Senate again in 1875 (the only former president to serve there), just months before his death.
wiki/Andrew_Johnson(1966) Cultural Revolution begins in ChinaMao Zedong, China’s Communist Party chairman, issues his ‘May 16 Notice’ condemning the growing influence of capitalist elements in the government, and he calls for a purge. The resulting ‘Cultural Revolution’ will lead to the destruction of important landmarks, torture, and murder.The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. Set into motion by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve ‘true’ Communist ideology in the country by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Maoist thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the country’s economy and society to a significant degree.
Start date: 1966 End date: 1976
wiki/Cultural_Revolution(1966) Beach Boys release landmark albumThe Beach Boys release ‘Pet Sounds,’ which showcases Brian Wilson’s elaborate production and personal approach to songwriting. The album is not an instant smash in the U.S., but will go on to influence the experimental sounds of the psychedelic-rock era and generations of musicians to come.Pet Sounds is the eleventh studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on May 16, 1966. It initially met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response in the United States, peaking at number 10 in the Billboard 200, a significantly lower placement than the band’s preceding albums. In the United Kingdom, the album was hailed by its music press and was an immediate commercial success, peaking at number 2 in the UK Top 40 Albums Chart and remaining among the top ten positions for six months. Pet Sounds has subsequently gathered worldwide acclaim from critics and musicians alike, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential albums in music history.
Release year: 1966 Genre: Pop music, Contemporary Pop Label: Capitol Records Artist: The Beach Boys
wiki/Pet_Sounds(1988) C. Everett Koop warns of nicotine’s addictive powerUS Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reports on the addictive properties of nicotine, described as on par with cocaine and heroin. A dedicated campaigner against smoking, his public advocacy will be credited with helping spur declines in cigarette use during his tenure and beyond.
Charles Everett Koop, MD (October 14, 1916 – February 25, 2013) was an American pediatric surgeon and public health administrator. He was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and served as the 13th Surgeon General of the United States under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1989. According to the Associated Press, “Koop was the only surgeon general to become a household name.”
Koop was known for his work to prevent tobacco use, AIDS, and abortion, and for his support of the rights of disabled children.
(1681) William Penn is granted a charter from King Charles IIBritain’s King Charles II grants English Quaker and real estate developer William Penn a large charter of North American land in payment for a debt. Penn will call the land “Sylvania.”William Penn was the son of Sir William Penn, and was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans. Under his direction, the city of Philadelphia was planned and developed.
Lived: Oct 14, 1644 – Jul 30, 1718 (age 73) Spouse: Gulielma Maria Springett (m. 1672) · Hannah Callowhill Penn Education: University of Oxford · Christ Church, Oxford · Chigwell School Children: John Penn (Son) · Thomas Penn (Son) · Richard Penn, Sr. (Son) · William Penn, Jr. (Son) Parents: Admiral Sir William Penn (Father) · Margaret Jasper Founded: William Penn Charter School
Highlights
1672: After gaining his freedom, he finally married Gulielma Springett in April 1672, after a four-year engagement filled with frequent separations.
1682: Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil in New Castle in 1682 after his trans-Atlantic journey.
1684: In 1684 Penn returned to England to see his family and to try to resolve a territorial dispute with Lord Baltimore.
1699: Accompanied by his wife Hannah, daughter Letitia and secretary James Logan, Penn sailed from the Isle of Wight on the Canterbury, reaching Philadelphia in December 1699.
1712: In 1712 Berkeley Codd, Esq. of Sussex County, Delaware disputed some of the rights of Penn’s grant from the Duke of York.
1718: William Penn died penniless in 1718, at his home in Ruscombe, near Twyford in Berkshire, and is buried in a grave next to his first wife in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting house near Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire in England.
wiki/William_Penn(1917) Rankin becomes first female elected to US Congress Jeannette Rankin takes her seat in the House of Representatives as the first woman elected to serve in Congress. The Montana Republican will vote against entry into World War I, and for women’s voting rights.Jeannette Pickering Rankin became the first woman to hold national office in the United States when she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916 by the state of Montana as a member of the Republican Party. She won a second House term 24 years later, in 1940.
Born: Jun 11, 1880 · Missoula, MT Died: May 18, 1973 · Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA Previous offices: Representative MT 1st District (1941 – 1943) · Representative MT at-large District (1917 – 1919) Parents: John Rankin · Olive Rankin Education: University of Washington · University of Montana Party: Republican Party
Highlights
1880: Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, near Missoula, Montana, nine years before the territory became a state, to schoolteacher Olive Pickering and Scottish-Canadian immigrant carpenter and rancher John Rankin.
1911: In February 1911, Rankin became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, making her case for women’s suffrage.
1918: By 1918, women had been granted some form of voting rights in about forty states, but Rankin became a driving force in the movement for unrestricted universal enfranchisement.
1940: Rankin won election to the House once again in 1940, at the age of 60, defeating incumbent Jacob Thorkelson, an outspoken antisemite, in the July primary, and former Representative Jerry J. O’Connell in the general election.
1972: Although her legacy rests almost entirely on her pacifism, Rankin told the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972 that she would have preferred otherwise.
1973: Rankin died on May 18, 1973, age 92, in Carmel, California.
wiki/Jeannette_Rankin(1966) Beatles “more popular than Jesus”In an interview with the London Evening Standard, the Beatles’ John Lennon says that his band tops Jesus Christ in popularity. Meant as a comment on religion’s general decline, the quote sparks outrage.“More popular than Jesus” was a controversial remark made by the Beatles’ John Lennon in 1966. During an interview, he argued that Christianity was in decline and that it may not endure longer than rock music, explaining “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” The comment drew no controversy when originally published in the United Kingdom, but angry reactions flared up in Christian communities when it was republished in the United States five months later. wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus(1969) The Kray twins convicted of murder London’s Old Bailey court renders a guilty verdict in the murder trial of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, twin brothers infamous for the brutal swathe they’ve cut through the criminal underworld in London’s East End.
Twin brothers Ronald “Ronnie” Kray and Reginald “Reggie” Kray were English gangsters who were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London during the 1950s and 1960s. With their gang, the Firm, the Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults and the murders of Jack “the Hat” McVitie and George Cornell.
As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with politicians and prominent entertainers such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. The Krays were much feared within their social environment; in the 1960s, they became celebrities, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
They were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969, by the efforts of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard “Nipper” Read. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie remained in Broadmoor Hospital until his death on 17 March 1995; Reggie was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, eight weeks before his death from cancer.
(1820) Missouri Compromise passed by US SenateThe tinderbox debate over slavery in the United States is temporarily tamped down as the Senate cobbles together a compromise allowing Missouri to be a slave state while Maine becomes a free state.
The Missouri Compromise is the title generally attached to the legislation passed by the 16th Congress of the United States on May 8, 1820. The measures provided for the admission of the District of Maine as a state free to ratify a state constitution that both did not recognize and prohibited slavery within the state. Further, the Compromise provided that the Missouri territory was free to enact a state constitution that both recognized as legal and permitted (through affirmative state legislation and state government regulation), the institution of chattel slavery. In addition, it outlawed as a matter of Federal law both the recognition and legality of the institution of chattel slavery in the Federal territory that remained of the Louisiana Purchase that was still unorganized and north of the 36°30′ parallel (excepting Missouri, hence “Missouri Compromise”) within the Purchase lands. With these actions, the Compromise committed the largest remaining portion of Purchase territory to free soil. It did not permit either the plantation of or the expansion of slavery in the Purchase, as the territory became populated and organized first into Federal territories, and eventually into states of the union. However, South of the parallel no slavery restrictions were imposed in the Arkansas Territory, which later became Indian territory, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. There also were not any statements about restrictions or recognition of the institution of slavery at or South of the latitude, or in territory possessed by Spain. President James Monroe signed the legislation on April 6, 1820.
The compromise bills served to quell the furious sectional debates that had first erupted during the final session of the 15th Congress. On February 3, 1819, Representative James Tallmadge, Jr., a Jeffersonian Republican from New York State, had submitted two amendments to Missouri’s request for statehood. The first proposed to federally prohibit further slave migration into Missouri; the second would require all slave offspring, born after statehood, freed at 25 years of age. At issue among southern legislators was the encroachment by their northern free state colleagues in what they considered a purely sectional concern: slave labor.
Northern critics including Federalists and Republicans, objected to the expansion of slavery into the Louisiana Purchase territory on the Constitutional inequalities of the three-fifths rule, which conferred Southern representation in the federal government, derived from a states’ slave population. Nonetheless, the more populous North held a firm numerical advantage in the House. Jeffersonian Republicans in the North ardently maintained that a strict interpretation of the Constitution required that Congress act to limit the spread of slavery on egalitarian grounds.
The slave-holding states were acutely aware that maintaining a balance in the number of free-to-slave states was necessary to ensure political equilibrium in the US Senate. With the Senate evenly split at the opening of the debates, both sections possessing 11 states, the admission of Missouri would give the South a two-seat advantage in the upper house and diminish the Northern lower house majority. The South sought to enlist Missouri to maintain Southern political preeminence and ensure security of their institutions.
The Missouri question in the 15th Congress ended in stalemate on March 4, 1819, the House sustaining its northern antislavery position, and the Senate blocking a slavery restricted statehood. Antislavery agitation grew in the North in the aftermath of the debates, leading to widespread opposition to slavery in Missouri. As the 16th Congress assembled in December 1819, the two houses remained thoroughly polarized over slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territories.
When the free-soil District of Maine offered its petition for statehood, the Senate quickly linked the Maine and Missouri bills, making Maine admission a condition for Missouri entering the Union with slavery unrestricted. Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois added a compromise proviso, excluding slavery from all remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 30’ parallel. The combined measures passed the Senate, only to be voted down in the House by those Northern representatives who held out for a free Missouri. Speaker of the House of Representatives Henry Clay of Kentucky, in a desperate bid to break the deadlock, divided the Senate bills. Clay and his pro-compromise allies succeeded in pressuring half the anti-restrictionist House Southerners to submit to the passage of the Thomas proviso, while maneuvering a number of restrictionist House northerners to acquiesce in supporting Missouri as a slave state. This was the Missouri Compromise.
The legislation extracted by the compromisers served to effect a “brokered truce” or “armistice” rather than a genuine compromise. The crux of the Compromise was that it circumvented the deepening disaffection among Jeffersonian Republicans.
The Missouri crisis would spur the formation of two powerful political organizations – the Democratic and Whig Parties – both committed to preserving the federal Union by means of sectional compromise and the suppression of the explosive proslavery and antislavery arguments that had surfaced over Missouri statehood. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 would hasten the growth of a mass antislavery coalition – the Republican Party – whose precepts of which were first formulated by Jeffersonian Republican restrictionists during the Missouri crisis.
wiki/Missouri_Compromise(1913) Armory Show sends shockwaves through the art worldBringing the European avant-garde on a grand scale to American viewers for the first time, the works in this modern art exhibition, representing the latest styles of Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism, will inspire anger, disgust, delight, and a colossal buzz.John Quinn organized the famous Armory Show in 1913 at the 69th Regiment Armory with the help of Henri-Pierre Roche and the Association of American Painters and Sculptors. The Irish American lawyer and premier art collector was active at Tammany Hall and used his influence to convince Congress to overturn the 1909 Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, allowing him to stage at “the Fightin Irish Armory” a very controversial and the first large exhibition of modern art in America. The three-city exhibition started in the New York City venue on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. The exhibition went on to show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston, where, due to a lack of space, all the work by American artists was removed. The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism.
Date: Feb 17, 1913
wiki/Armory_Show(1966) The Beach Boys begin recording ‘Good Vibrations’Previously purveyors of sunshine-and-sand pop tunes, The Beach Boys begin recording what is arguably their greatest and most blissfully complex song, thanks mainly to the work of their frontman, Brian Wilson.“Good Vibrations” is a song composed and produced by Brian Wilson with words by Mike Love for the American rock band the Beach Boys. Released as a single in October 1966, it was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the US and UK. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure, and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most costly single ever recorded at the time of its release. “Good Vibrations” later became widely acclaimed as one of the greatest masterpieces of rock music.
Album: Smiley Smile Artist: The Beach Boys Duration: 3:35 Genre: Pop music, Contemporary Pop
wiki/Good_Vibrations(1979) China invades VietnamAfter Vietnam topples the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, China launches the Third Indochina War. Tensions between China and the Soviet Union underlie the invasion.The Sino-Vietnamese War, also known as the Third Indochina War, was a brief border war fought between the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in early 1979. China launched the offensive in response to Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping saw this as a Soviet attempt “to extend its evil tentacles to Southeast Asia and…carry out expansion there”, which reflected the long-standing Sino-Soviet split. Kissinger also noted that hatever the shortcomings of its execution, the Chinese campaign reflected a serious, long-term strategic analysis”.
(1893) Hawaiian monarchy overthrown American sugar planter Sanford Dole and other anti-monarchists, mostly US citizens, overthrow Queen Lili’uokalani, creating a republic, with Dole as its president. The United States will annex the republic five years later, and it will become the 50th US state in 1959.The overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii began with the coup d’état of January 17, 1893 on the island of Oahu, leading to the end of the hereditary monarchs, largely at the hands of the United States citizens within the kingdom government under Queen Lili’uokalani and backed by an invasion of U.S. Marines under John L. Stevens. Hawaii was initially reconstituted as an independent republic, but the ultimate goal of the revolutionaries was the annexation of the islands to the United States, which was finally accomplished in 1898.
Date: Jan 17, 1893
wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii(1950) Great Brinks Robbery nets $2.7 millionEleven men make a record-breaking robbery at Boston’s Brinks Armored Car Depot. Their plan to wait six years before collecting the hidden money will be foiled days before the statute of limitations ends.The Great Brink’s Robbery was an armed robbery of the Brink’s Building at the east corner of Prince St. and Commercial St. in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on January 17, 1950. Today the building is a parking garage located at 600 Commercial Street.
Date: Jan 17, 1950
wiki/Great_Brink’s_Robbery(1966) Military planes collide and drop nuclear bombsFour 70-kiloton nuclear bombs fall to earth and sea around the remote town of Palomares after a B-52 bomber and a Stratotanker refueling aircraft collide over Spain.The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, or the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force’s Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard. wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash(1991) Operation Desert Storm beginsBroadcast on live television, bombing missions over Iraq’s capital of Baghdad mark the start of combat operations in the Persian Gulf War, as US-led coalition forces fight to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control.The Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait.
(1966) Charles Whitman shoots 48 in Texas killing spree.jpg)
