Today in History 05/15/18

Alabama Governor George Wallace and his wife, Cornelia, hold up newspaper with headline 'Wallace wins in Maryland, Michigan, Democratic Presidential primaries.' May 17, 1972 (© Everett Collection/REX)(1972) Assassination attempt fells US presidential candidate
Arthur Bremer shoots Alabama governor and US presidential hopeful George Wallace as he campaigns at a Maryland shopping center. Wallace survives the assassination attempt, but will be paralyzed from the waist down the rest of his life.
George Corley Wallace Jr. was an American politician and the 45th Governor of Alabama, having served two nonconsecutive terms and two consecutive terms as a Democrat: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. Wallace has the third longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history, at 16 years and four days. He was a U.S. presidential candidate for four consecutive elections, in which he sought the Democratic Party nomination in 1964, 1972, and 1976, and was the American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election. As of 2018 he remains the last third-party candidate to receive pledged electoral college votes from any state.
Lived: Aug 25, 1919 – Sep 13, 1998 (age 79)
Height: 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
Spouse: Lisa Taylor (m. 1981 – 1987) · Cornelia Wallace (m. 1971 – 1978) · Lurleen Wallace (m. 1943 – 1968)
Parties: Dixiecrat · Democratic Party
Education: University of Alabama · University of Alabama School of Law
Previous offices: Governor of Alabama (1983 – 1987) · Governor of Alabama (1971 – 1979) · Governor of Alabama (1963 – 1967)
Highlights
  • 1943: George Wallace married Lurleen Wallace on May 21, 1943; their marriage lasted 25 years till May 07, 1968.

  • 1962: In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted a hard-line segregationist stance and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election in 1962.

  • 1963: Wallace took the oath of office on January 14, 1963, standing on the gold star marking the spot where, nearly 102 years earlier, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America.

  • 1966: He felt somewhat vindicated when Republicans in Idaho denied renomination in 1966 to Governor Robert E. Smylie, author of the article entitled “Why I Feel Sorry for Lurleen Wallace.”

  • 1982: In the 1982 Alabama gubernatorial Democratic primary, Wallace’s main opponents were Lieutenant Governor George McMillan and Alabama House Speaker Joe McCorquodale.

  • 1998: Wallace died of septic shock from a bacterial infection in Jackson Hospital in Montgomery on September 13, 1998.

Wallace at University of Alabama
Wallace standing against desegregation while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach at the University of Alabama in 1963
wiki/George_Wallace
4.9.a18

(1972) Assassination attempt fells US presidential candidate.
Also on this day,
1793 | Early flying machine
1928 | Mickey Mouse
1986 | “Raising Hell” released

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