1979

Today in History 05/04/18

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Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with husband Denis Thatcher, waves to well-wishers outside Number 10 Downing Street following her election victory on May 4, 1979, in London (© Tim Graham/Getty Images)(1979) Thatcher sworn in as Britain’s first female prime minister
The first woman prime minister in British history arrives at at 10 Downing Street after her Conservative Party sweeps the elections. Margaret Thatcher will prove to be one of the country’s longest tenured PMs as well as one of the most controversial.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, FRIC was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to have been appointed. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the “Iron Lady”, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Lived: Oct 13, 1925 – Apr 08, 2013 (age 87)
Height: 5′ 5″ (1.66 m)
Spouse: Denis Thatcher (m. 1951 – 2003)
Related movies: The Iron Lady
Children: Carol Thatcher (Daughter) · Mark Thatcher (Son)
Education: City Law School (1952 – 1954) · Somerville College, Oxford (1943 – 1947) · Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School (1936 – 1943)
Highlights
  • 1951: During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by husband Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951.

  • 1979: Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979.

  • 2005: Upon leaving the House of Commons, Thatcher became the first former Prime Minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties.

  • 2005: In 2005, Thatcher criticised the way the decision to invade Iraq had been made two years previously.

  • 2009: Thatcher returned to 10 Downing Street in late November 2009 for the unveiling of an official portrait by artist Richard Stone, an unusual honour for a living former Prime Minister.

  • 2013: In 2013 she died of a stroke in London at the age of 87.

Margaret Thatcher at Cabinet table in the White House
Margaret Thatcher in the White House Cabinet Room meeting with President Jimmy Carter.
wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
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(1979) Thatcher sworn in as Britain’s first female prime minister.
Also on this day,
1959 | Grammys debut
1961 | Freedom Riders
1970 | Kent State shootings

Today in History 03/28/18

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Aerial view of Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979 (© AP)(1979) Three Mile Island plant suffers a partial meltdown
Fears of radioactive contamination run rampant after a coolant leak causes a reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island to overheat. The power plant, just 10 miles from the state capital, is stabilized before complete meltdown. The accident will swell anti-nuclear sentiment in the public.
The Three Mile Island accident occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. It was the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences.
Date: Mar 28, 1979

Carter TMI
President Jimmy Carter touring the TMI-2 control room with (l to r) Harold Denton, Governor Dick Thornburgh, and James Floyd, supervisor of TMI-2 operations, on April 1.
wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
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Today in History 03/26/18

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(From left) Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin in a three-way handshake at the White House on March 26, 1979 (© AFP/Getty Images)(1979) Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty ends 30-year war
Seven months after meeting with US President Jimmy Carter for peace talks at Camp David, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel sign a treaty ending decades of conflict between their two countries.
The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords. The Egypt–Israel treaty was signed by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and witnessed by United States president Jimmy Carter.
Sadat Carter Begin handshake
Library of Congress: “Photograph shows President Jimmy Carter shaking hands with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty on the grounds of the White House.”
wiki/Egypt-Israel_Peace_Treaty
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Today in History 05/04/17

File photo of Grammy Award trophies (© Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)(1959) First Grammy Awards held in New York and Los Angeles
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Services hosts black-tie dinners on both coasts to give out the first Grammy Awards. Attendees include Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin. ‘Volare’ wins Song and Record of the Year, and Henry Mancini’s ‘The Music From Peter Gunn’ takes Album of the Year.
A Grammy Award, or Grammy, is an honor awarded by The Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the mainly English-language music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of those awards that have a more popular interest. It shares recognition of the music industry as that of the other performance awards such as the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards, and the Academy Awards.
Categories: Grammy Award for Album of the Year · Grammy Award for Song of the Year · Grammy Award for Record of the Year · Grammy Award for Best New Artist · Grammy Award for Best Rap Album · Grammy Award for Best Rock Album · Grammy Award for Best Rock Song · Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award · Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album

wiki/Grammy_Award
A bus load of 'Freedom Riders,' including four white college professors and three African American students, arrives in Montgomery, Alabama, May 24, 1961, under guard of police and National Guard (© Perry Aycock/AP)(1961) Freedom Riders head to the US South
Calling themselves the ‘Freedom Riders,’ 13 activists board an interstate bus departing Washington, DC, for New Orleans, Louisiana. Along the way they will defy Jim Crow travel laws, be beaten by angry crowds, and be arrested and jailed.
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia, which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.
Start date: May 04, 1961
End date: Dec 10, 1961

wiki/Freedom_Riders
Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels by the body of a student lying face down on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, on May 4, 1970 (© John Filo/AP)(1970) Students killed as National Guard opens fire on campus
A war protest turns deadly as Ohio National Guard troops shoot at unarmed students on the Kent State University commons. Four die, nine are wounded, and less than a week later 100,000 will march against the killings, and the Vietnam War, in Washington, DC.
The Kent State shootings were the shootings of unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, by members of the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. Twenty-nine guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
Fatalities: 4
Date: May 04, 1970

wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with husband Denis Thatcher, waves to well-wishers outside Number 10 Downing Street following her election victory on May 4, 1979, in London (© Tim Graham/Getty Images)(1979) Thatcher sworn in as Britain’s first female prime minister
The first woman prime minister in British history arrives at at 10 Downing Street after her Conservative Party sweeps the elections. Margaret Thatcher will prove to be one of the country’s longest tenured PMs as well as one of the most controversial.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, FRIC was a British stateswoman, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and as Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, and the first woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist dubbed her The Iron Lady, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Lived: Oct 13, 1925 – Apr 08, 2013 (age 87)
Height: 5′ 5″ (1.66 m)
Spouse: Denis Thatcher (m. 1951 – 2003)
Education: Somerville College, Oxford (1943 – 1947) · Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School (1936 – 1943) · City Law School (1952 – 1954)
Children: Mark Thatcher (Son) · Carol Thatcher (Daughter)
Related movies: The Iron Lady
Highlights
  • 1951: During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951.

  • 1975: Thatcher became party leader and Leader of the Opposition on 11 February 1975; she appointed Whitelaw as her deputy.

  • 1979: Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979.

  • 2002: Thatcher was voted the fourth-greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a poll of 139 academics organised by MORI, and in 2002 was ranked number 16 in the BBC poll 100 Greatest Britons.

  • 2005: After leaving the House of Commons, Thatcher became the first former Prime Minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 because of financial difficulties.

  • 2013: In 2013, she died of another stroke in London, at the age of 87.

wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
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Today in History 03/28/17

Engraving of the Roman Emperor Pertinax (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(193) Pertinax is assassinated in Imperial Rome power-grab
Emperor Commodus’ murder on New Year’s Eve 192 had set off ‘the year of five emperors,’ an epic struggle for Roman rule that escalates when Commodus’ successor, Emperor Pertinax, is killed by his own Pretorian Guard after just three months as caesar.
The Year of the Five Emperors refers to the year 193 AD, in which there were five claimants for the title of Roman Emperor. The five were Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus. This year started a period of civil war where multiple rulers vied for the chance to become Caesar.
wiki/Year_of_the_Five_Emperors
Engraving of the Viking siege of Paris (© Duncan Walker/Getty Images)(845) Vikings sack Paris
The Frankish Empire is no match for a plundering hoard of Viking warriors, headed, tradition holds, by the legendary Danish chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok. The invaders will be paid a literal king’s ransom to leave Paris.
The Siege of Paris and the Sack of Paris of 845 was the culmination of a Viking invasion of the kingdom of the West Franks. The Viking forces were led by a Norse chieftain named “Reginherus”, or Ragnar, who traditionally has been identified with the legendary saga character Ragnar Lodbrok. Ragnar’s fleet of 120 Viking ships, carrying thousands of men, entered the Seine in March and proceeded to sail up the river. The West Frankish king Charles the Bald assembled a smaller army in response, but as the Vikings defeated one division, comprising half of the army, the remaining forces retreated. The Vikings reached Paris at the end of the month, during Easter. After plundering and occupying the city, the Vikings finally withdrew after receiving a ransom payment of 7,000 French livres of silver and gold from Charles the Bald.
wiki/Siege_of_Paris_(845)
Drawing of Spanish explorer Don Juan Bautista de Anza (© Underwood Archives/Getty Images)(1776) First Europeans settle in San Francisco
With 247 colonists in tow, Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza founds a fort, or ‘presidio,’ on a wide bay in northern California. The modest outpost will grow into one of the biggest cities in North America.
San Francisco officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations. Located at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula, San Francisco is about 47.9 square miles in area, making it the smallest county—and the only consolidated city-county—within the state of California. With a density of about 18,451 people per square mile, San Francisco is the most densely settled large city in California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose, and the 13th-most populous city in the United States—with a census-estimated 2015 population of 864,816. The city and its surrounding areas are known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger OMB-designated San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth most populous in the nation with an estimated population of 8.7 million.
Website: www.sfgov.org
Population: 864,816 (2015)
Area: 231.89 sq miles (600.59 km²)
Travel tip: Who cares about a little fog (okay, a lot of fog) when there’s so much to do in San Francisco? By day, explore Fisherman’s Wharf and the Aquarium of the Bay, ride a cable car, @tripadvisor
Nearby airports: San Francisco International Airport · Oakland International Airport
Mayor: Ed Lee

wiki/San_Francisco
Aerial view of Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979 (© AP)(1979) Three Mile Island plant suffers a partial meltdown
Fears of radioactive contamination run rampant after a coolant leak causes a reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island to overheat. The power plant, just 10 miles from the state capital, is stabilized before complete meltdown. The accident will swell anti-nuclear sentiment in the public.
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences.
Date: Mar 28, 1979

wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
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