(1896) Henry Ford takes his first automobile for a test driveHenry Ford has been working for another inventor at the Edison Illuminating Co., but has taken time out to tinker on his own invention, an ethanol-powered 4-wheeled vehicle he dubs the ‘Quadricycle.’ Brakes are not included, but the vehicle’s top speed is only 20 miles per hour.The Ford Quadricycle was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford. Ford’s first car was a simple frame with an ethanol-powered engine and four bicycle wheels mounted on it. The earliest cars were hand built, one by one, and very expensive. The peculiar machines were seen as toys for the rich. In the 1890s, the “horseless carriage” was a relatively new idea, with no one having a fixed, universal idea of what a car should look like or how it should work. Most of the first car builders were inventors, rather than businessmen, working with their imaginations and the parts they had on hand. Thus, the invention of the Quadricycle marks an important innovation as a proto-automobile that would lay the foundation for future, with more practical designs to follow. wiki/Ford_Quadricycle(1917) First awarding of Pulitzer PrizesPublisher Joseph Pulitzer willed funds to Columbia University to reward excellence in American journalism, literature, and music, and the first awards are given out this year. In decades to come, the Pulitzer Prize will be bestowed on a stellar array of American artists and writers.Pulitzer Prizes were first presented in 1917. There were initially four categories; others that had been specified in Joseph Pulitzer’s request were phased in over the next few years. The winners were selected by the trustees of Columbia University. The first Pulitzer Prize winner, French Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand, who had written the best book about American history, won $2,000. Herbert Bayard Swope won a $1,000 prize for reporting.
Date: Jun 04, 1917
wiki/1917_Pulitzer_Prize(1984) Bruce Springsteen releases ‘Born in the U.S.A.’The singer releases his seventh studio album, backed by his longtime E Street Band. ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ will produce seven top-10 singles, including the smash ‘Dancing in the Dark’ (propelled by a video featuring a future ‘Friends’ star) and the often-misinterpreted title track.Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released on June 4, 1984, by Columbia Records. It was written by Springsteen and recorded with his E Street Band and producers Chuck Plotkin and Jon Landau at The Power Station and The Hit Factory in New York City.
Release date: Jun 04, 1984 Genre: Rock, Indie / Alternative Label: Columbia Artist: Bruce Springsteen Awards: American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album · Grammy Hall of Fame · Juno Award for International Album of the Year
wiki/Born_in_the_U.S.A.(1989) A brutal crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen SquareThe People’s Liberation Army arrives in Tiananmen Square with assault weapons and tank columns to forcibly remove pro-democracy student demonstrators after seven weeks of protests. The government crackdown escalates, and thousands are killed as the Chinese military fires into the crowds.The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes referred to as the ’89 Democracy Movement. The protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became widely known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with assault rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated at anywhere from hundreds to thousands.
(1336) Petrarch climbs Mont Ventoux on cusp of the RenaissanceAn Italian poet and scholar ascends more than 6,000 feet to the summit of France’s Mont Ventoux and experiences an epiphany that inspires him to examine the life of the soul. Petrarch will go on to write works that usher in a more modern age, and be called “the father of humanism.”Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was a scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero’s letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch’s works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch’s sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the “Dark Ages.” This standing back from his time was possible because he straddled two worlds—the classical and his own modern day.
Lived: Jul 20, 1304 – Jul 19, 1374 (age 69) Children: Giovanni (Son) · Francesca (Daughter) Parents: Ser Petracco (Father) · Eletta Canigiani (Mother) Education: University of Bologna (1320 – 1323) · University of Montpellier (1316 – 1320) First ascent: Mont Ventoux Siblings: Gherardo Petracco (Brother)
Highlights
1309: He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy.
1326: After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices.
1341: On April 8, 1341, he became the second poet laureate since antiquity and was crowned by Roman Senatori Giordano Orsini and Orso dell’Anguillara on the holy grounds of Rome’s Capitol.
1345: In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero’s letters not previously known to have existed, the collection ad Atticum.
1348: Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair.
1362: In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same name as Petrarch’s mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee the plague then ravaging parts of Europe.
wiki/Petrarch(1977) Studio 54 opens in New York CitySteve Rubell and Ian Schrager open a nightclub, which will become a legendary symbol of the decadent disco era and overindulgent celeb culture. Regulars would include Andy Warhol, Mick and Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote, Elizabeth Taylor, and yes, Donald Trump.Studio 54 is a former nightclub and currently a Broadway theatre, located at 254 West 54th Street, between Eighth Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan. The building, originally built as the Gallo Opera House, opened in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming CBS radio and television Studio 52.
Website: www.roundabouttheatre.org Address: 254 W 54th St, New York, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 719-1300 Opened: 1977 Closed: 1986 Capacity: 1,006 Architects: Ian Schrager · Eugene De Rosa
wiki/Studio_54(1986) Explosion rocks the Chernobyl nuclear power plantAn unexpected power surge causes a rupture in Reactor 4 at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear plant. The resulting explosion is the world’s worst nuclear accident, sending radioactive contamination drifting over large swathes of the Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Western Europe.The Chernobyl disaster, also referred to as the Chernobyl accident, was a catastrophic nuclear accident. It occurred on 26 April 1986 in the No.4 light water graphite moderated reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, in what was then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union.
Date: Apr 26, 1986
wiki/Chernobyl_disaster(1989) History’s deadliest tornado strikes BangladeshRoughly 1,300 perish, 12,000 are injured, and 80,000 are left homeless after the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado wreaks havoc in the central Dhaka region of Bangladesh. Estimated at a mile wide, and leaving a trail 50 miles long, the storm devastates the South Asian country.The Daulatpur–Saturia, Bangladesh tornado was an extremely dangerous tornado that occurred in the Manikganj District, Bangladesh on April 26, 1989. It was the costliest and deadliest tornado in Bangladesh’s history. There is great uncertainty about the death toll, but estimates indicate that it killed around 1,300 people, which would make it the deadliest tornado in history. The tornado affected the cities of Daulatpur and Saturia the most, moving east through Daulatpur and eventually northeast and into Saturia. Previously, the area that the tornado hit had been in a state of drought for six months, possibly generating tornadic conditions.
(1603) Fall of the Tudor dynastyElizabeth I, queen of England for 45 years, dies without leaving an heir. She’d been the fifth monarch of the House of Tudor, which for over a century had extended its power beyond England to Wales and Ireland. Elizabeth had never named a successor, but James VI will assume the crown later this very day.The House of Tudor was a royal house of Welsh and English origin, descended in the male line from the Tudors of Penmynydd. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland from 1485 until 1603, with five monarchs in that period. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantaganet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster. The Tudor family rose to power in the wake of the Wars of the Roses, which left the House of Lancaster, to which the Tudors were aligned, extinct. wiki/House_of_Tudor(1882) A breakthrough in fighting tuberculosisOnce thought to be an inherited disease, the scourge of tuberculosis is revealed by German microbiologist Robert Koch to be borne by infectious bacterium. Although TB has been responsible for as many as one in seven deaths in the 19th century, immunizations won’t be tried on humans until the 1920s.Robert Heinrich Hermann Koch; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a celebrated German physician and pioneering microbiologist. As the founder of modern bacteriology, he is known for his role in identifying the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax and for giving experimental support for the concept of infectious disease. In addition to his innovative studies on these diseases, Koch created and improved laboratory technologies and techniques in the field of microbiology, and made key discoveries in public health. His research led to the creation of Koch’s postulates, a series of four generalized principles linking specific microorganisms to specific diseases that remain today the “gold standard” in medical microbiology. As a result of his groundbreaking research on tuberculosis, Koch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905. wiki/Robert_Koch(1944) ‘The Great Escape’ begins at Stalag Luft IIIThe moonless night providing a modicum of cover, Allied POWs crawl through a tunnel dug under their hut in Stalag Luft III camp. Seventy-six will make it beyond the perimeter fence and into the German woodlands. The escape will be depicted in the films The Great Escape (1963) and The Wooden Horse (1950).Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan, 160 kilometres southeast of Berlin. The site was selected because it would be difficult to escape by tunnelling through sandy soil. wiki/Stalag_Luft_III(1989) Oil tanker spill in AlaskaJust past midnight, the Exxon Valdez tanker strikes a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The resulting spill of up to 38 million gallons of crude oil is the largest in US history and will devastate 11,000 square miles of pristine wilderness.The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef at 12:04 am local time and spilled 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil over the next few days. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The Valdez spill is the second largest in US waters, after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume released. Prince William Sound’s remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, or boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline, and 11,000 square miles of ocean.
(1818) Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ is publishedEnglish author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, just 21 at the time, sees her debut novel, ‘Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus’ unleashed to an unsuspecting public. The work will be considered the first science-fiction novel and spawn countless adaptations.Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque but sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London in 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.
Authors: Mary Shelley · Henry M. Milner · Mary Lowe-Evans First published: Mar 11, 1818 ATOS reading level: 4.20 Characters: Frankenstein’s monster · Victor Frankenstein · Elizabeth Lavenza · Dr. Henry Clerval · Captain Robert Walton Genres: Gothic fiction · Horror · Soft science fiction Adaptations: Frankenstein (1931) · Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) · Bride of Frankenstein (1935) · Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) · Victor Frankenstein (2015) · Young Frankenstein (1974)
wiki/Frankenstein(1918) Deadliest flu pandemic in recorded history beginsHundreds of soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas, are sick with a virulent form of influenza, prompting the first reporting of the epidemic. The flu will go on to infect some 500 million people and kill between 50 million and 100 million, according to most estimates.The 1918 flu pandemic was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Disease had already greatly limited life expectancy in the early 20th century. A considerable spike occurred at the time of the pandemic, specifically the year 1918. Life expectancy dropped by about 12 years.
Fatalities: 50,000,000
wiki/1918_flu_pandemic(1985) Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of USSRMikhail Gorbachev is chosen to succeed Konstantin Chernenko as the General Secretary of the Communist Party and de facto leader of the USSR. He will usher in ‘glasnost’ (transparency) and ‘perestroika’ (restructuring), ultimately serving as the Soviet Union’s final leader before its dissolution.Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, when the party was dissolved. He was the country’s head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991.
Website: www.gorby.ru/en Born: Mar 02, 1931 (age 86) · Privolnoye, Krasnogvardeysky District, Stavropol Krai, Russia Height: 5′ 9″ (1.75 m) Spouse: Raisa Gorbacheva (m. 1953 – 1999) Previous offices: Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1989 – 1990) · General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985 – 1991) Children: Irina Mihailovna Virganskaya (Daughter) Founded: Union of Social Democrats · Club of Madrid · Social Democratic Party of Russia · The Gorbachev Foundation · Green Cross International · Global Green USA · Kombat Armouring
Highlights
1953: Mikhail Gorbachev married Raisa Gorbacheva on September 25, 1953; their marriage lasted 46 years till September 20, 1999.
1984: Andropov died in 1984, and indicated that he wanted Gorbachev to succeed him as general secretary.
1985: Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief “interregna” of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo in 1985.
1986: Gorbachev initiated his new policy of perestroika (literally “restructuring” in Russian) and its attendant radical reforms in 1986; they were sketched, but not fully spelled out, at the XXVIIth Party Congress in February–March 1986.
1988: In June 1988, at the CPSU’s Party Conference, Gorbachev launched radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government apparatus.
1990: On 15 March 1990, Gorbachev was elected as the first executive President of the Soviet Union with 59% of the Deputies’ votes.
wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev(1989) ‘Cops’ premiere makes for arresting TVResponding to a writer’s strike, TV producers look for unscripted fare to fill timeslots, and it pays off as the Fox network debuts ‘Cops.’ Great ratings, and a seemingly unending reality TV craze, will follow.“Cops” was among the earliest reality-based law enforcement shows, and remains one of the most popular of the genre. Each week, a camera crew followed the activities and daily beats of the officers of a different city’s police department. Incidents ranged from routine traffic stops that evolve into charging the subjects with drug-related offenses; domestic violence; high-speed chases; and stakeouts and raids. The success of “Cops” led to other similar programs, with varying degrees of success.
Website: www.cops.com First episode: Mar 11, 1989 Episode duration: 30 minutes Creators: John Langley · Malcolm Barbour Theme song: Bad Boys Producers: John Langley · Malcolm Barbour · Paul Stojanovich · Bertram van Munster Genres: Reality television · Documentary · Action
(1898) USS Maine blows up in Havana harbor Over 260 US crewmembers are killed when their battleship, the USS Maine, explodes after anchoring in Havana Harbor, off the coast of Cuba. The suspicion that Spain mined the vessel will kindle support for the Spanish-American War.USS Maine (ACR-1) is an American naval ship that sank in Havana Harbor during the Cuban revolt against Spain, an event that became a major political issue in the United States. Commissioned in 1895, this was the first United States Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine. Originally classified as an armored cruiser, she was built in response to the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and the increase of naval forces in Latin America. Maine and her near-sister ship Texas reflected the latest European naval developments, with the layout of her main armament resembling that of the British ironclad Inflexible and comparable Italian ships. Her two gun turrets were staggered en échelon, rather than on the centerline, with the fore gun sponsoned out on the starboard side of the ship and the aft gun on the port side, with cutaways in the superstructure to allow both to fire ahead, astern or across her deck. She dispensed with full masts thanks to the increased reliability of steam engines by the time of her construction.
Keel laid: Oct 17, 1888 Launched: Nov 18, 1889
wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)(1933) Franklin Roosevelt survives assassination attemptSpeaking from the back of an open car near Miami, Florida, President-elect Roosevelt is missed by Giuseppe Zangara’s bullets, but they bring down five others, including Chicago’s mayor, Anton Cermak, who will die 19 days later.Giuseppe “Joe” Zangara was the assassin of Anton Cermak. Zangara was an Italian American anarchist who shot Cermak and four others in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933, during a speech by United States President–elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt himself may have been the intended target, but was unharmed.
Born: Sep 07, 1900 · Ferruzzano, Italy Died: Mar 20, 1933 · Raiford, FL Height: 5′ 1″ (1.55 m)
Highlights
1900: Zangara was born on September 7, 1900 in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy.
1923: After serving in the Tyrolean Alps in World War I, he did a variety of menial jobs in his home village before emigrating with his uncle to the United States in 1923.
1929: He settled in Paterson, New Jersey and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929.
1933: Zangara was an Italian American anarchist who shot Cermak and four others in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933, during a speech by United States President–elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1933: On March 20, 1933, after spending only 10 days on death row, Zangara was executed in Old Sparky, the electric chair at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
wiki/Giuseppe_Zangara(1946) ENIAC unveiled as the first general-purpose computerThe University of Pennsylvania formally dedicates their room-filling computer that the press has dubbed a ‘Giant Brain.’ The six main programmers, all women, have initially programmed ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) to run computations on the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb.ENIAC was amongst the earliest electronic general-purpose computers made. It was Turing-complete, digital, and could solve “a large class of numerical problems” through reprogramming.
Inventors: John Mauchly · J. Presper Eckert
wiki/ENIAC(1989) Soviet forces leave Afghanistan After almost a decade of fierce fighting against the Mujahideen, the Soviet Union announces that the last of its troops has left Afghanistan. In the West, the war is deemed ‘the Soviet’s Vietnam.’The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 850,000–2 million civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. The war is considered part of the Cold War.
(1896) Henry Ford takes his first automobile for a test drive
(1917) First awarding of Pulitzer Prizes
(1984) Bruce Springsteen releases ‘Born in the U.S.A.’
(1989) A brutal crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.jpg)
