TODAY IN HISTORY January 16
U.S. and World History
1861 – The Crittenden Compromise, the last chance to keep North and South united, died in the U.S. Senate. Proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the compromise was a series of constitutional amendments. The amendments would have continued the old Missouri Compromise provisions of 1820, which divided the West along the latitude of 36 30′. North of this line, slavery was prohibited. Other amendments protected slavery in the District of Columbia, forbade federal interference with the interstate slave trade, and compensated owners whose slaves escaped to the free states.
The major problem with the plan was that it called for a complete compromise by the Republicans with virtually no concessions on the part of the South. The Republican Party formed in 1854 for the main purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the Western territories, particularly the areas north of the Missouri Compromise line. Just six years later, the party elected a president, Abraham Lincoln, over the opposition of the slave states. Crittenden was asking the Republicans to abandon their most key issues.
The vote was 25 against the compromise and 23 in favor of it. All 25 votes against it were cast by Republicans, and six senators from states that were in the process of seceding abstained.
1919 – The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” was ratified and became the law of the land.
1921 – The Kid premiered in movie theaters. The classic starred Charlie Chaplin and featured a little tyke named Jackie Coogan.
1935 – Arizona Donnie “Ma” Barker and her son, Fred, were shot to death in a gunfight with FBI agents in Ocklawaha, Florida. After her death, she acquired a reputation as a ruthless crime matriarch, who controlled and organized her sons’ crimes. J. Edgar Hoover described her as “the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade.”
Though her children were undoubtedly murderers and their Barker-Karpis Gang committed a spree of robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes between 1931 and 1935, there is no evidence that “Ma” was their leader, or was even significantly involved.
Al Karpis – the gang’s second most notorious member – later suggested the myth was encouraged by Hoover and his fledgling FBI to “justify killing an old lady. She wasn’t a leader of criminals or even a criminal herself. There is not one police photograph of her or set of fingerprints taken while she was alive. She knew we were criminals but her participation in our careers was limited to one function: when we traveled together, we moved as a mother and her sons.”
1936 – Albert Fish was executed at Sing Sing prison in New York. The “Moon Maniac” was one of America’s most notorious and disturbed killers. Authorities believe that Fish killed as many as 10 children and then ate their remains. Fish went to the electric chair with great anticipation, telling guards, “It will be the supreme thrill, the only one I haven’t tried.”
1942 – Actress Carole Lombard, famous for her roles in comedies such as My Man Godfrey and To Be Or Not To Be, and for her marriage to actor Clark Gable, was killed when the TWA DC-3 plane she was traveling in crashed en route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She was 33.
1944 – Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of the Allied invasion force in London.
1945 – Adolf Hitler descended to his underground bunker in Berlin, where he remained for 105 days until he committed suicide. Fifty-five feet under the chancellery (Hitler’s headquarters as chancellor), the shelter contained 18 small rooms and was fully self-sufficient, with its own water and electrical supply. He left only rarely (once to decorate a squadron of Hitler Youth) and spent most of his time micromanaging what was left of German defenses.
1963 – Nikita Khrushchev claimed the Soviets had a 100-megaton nuclear bomb in their arsenal. In October 1961, the USSR had tested a 50-megaton bomb dropped over Novaya Zemlya Island. That test remains the single largest blast ever detonated. The flash was visible 600 miles away, its mushroom cloud rose 40 miles and the atmospheric disturbance orbited the earth three times.
Based on the results of the 50-megaton bomb, a 100-megaton bomb would have created a firestorm equaling the size of Maryland. The explosive force of this bomb would have been approximately 6,500 times the bomb detonated at Hiroshima. Khrushchev wanted to “let this device hang over the heads of the capitalists, like a sword of Damocles.”
His strategy failed to impress President John Kennedy, who concluded a bomb with such yield was impractical. It was too large and heavy, there was significant risk of residual fallout, there was a high risk that the plane delivering it would not arrive at the target, and the advent of ICBMs made such a design obsolete.
1964 – Hello Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre in New York City. Carol Channing starred in the role of Mrs. Dolly Levi. The musical, an adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s play, The Matchmaker, was hailed by critics as “the possible hit of the season.” That was an understatement. Hello Dolly! played for 2,844 performances.
1969 – Czech student Jan Palach committed suicide by self-immolation in Prague in protest against the Soviets’ crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
1969 – Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 performed the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.
1972 – Ross Bagdasarian, better known as David Seville – Witch Doctor – and creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks – The Christmas Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late), died of a heart attack at the age of 52.
Bagdasarian played minor roles in films, the best known of which is his appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 murder mystery, Rear Window. Bagdasarian portrayed a piano-playing songwriter who composes, plays, and sings the song Lisa.
1973 – The final first-run episode of the long-running (14 seasons) western Bonanza aired on NBC.
1979 – Actor Ted Cassidy (known for the fight scene with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, but better known for his role of Lurch in The Addams Family) died following complications from open-heart surgery. He was 46.
1979 – Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, was forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.
1981 – Actor Bernard Lee (best known for his role as M in the first eleven James Bond films) died of stomach cancer at the age of 73.
1989 – Actor Trey Wilson (Raising Arizona, Bull Durham, Great Balls Of Fire) died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 40.
1991 – At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expired, and the Pentagon prepared to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq.
All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House.
1993 – Actor Glenn Corbett (Chisum, Big Jake, and Midway, but best known for his roles as the original Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive, on the original Star Trek series, and Lincoln Case on Route 66 ) died of lung cancer at the age of 59.
1995 – Avalanches swept two buses off the highway between Srinagar and Jammu in Kashmir, India. Two more days of avalanches in the area eventually killed more than 200 people; 5,000 others had to be rescued.
1997 – Bill Cosby’s 27-year-old son Ennis Cosby was murdered after he stopped to fix a flat tire along California’s Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. Cosby, a graduate student in special education at Columbia University Teachers College, was driving a Mercedes-Benz convertible on Interstate 405 when he pulled off to Skirball Center Drive to change a flat tire.
A Ukrainian-born teenager, Mikhail Markhasev, and two friends were at a nearby park-and-ride lot using the phone. Markhasev, reportedly high on drugs, approached Cosby to rob him but when Cosby took too long to hand over money he was shot and killed. Markhasev, then 19, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Cosby’s murder. During his trial, Markhasev showed no remorse for his crime.
2002 – The UN Security Council unanimously established an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107, which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.
2007 – Actor Ron Carey (best known for his role of cocky – but very short – NYPD Police Officer Carl Levitt on Barney Miller) died of a stroke at the age of 71.
2013 – Pauline Phillips, who for more than 40 years wrote the Dear Abby newspaper advice column, died at the age of 94 in Minneapolis after battling Alzheimer’s disease. With a daily readership eventually topping 110 million people, Dear Abby became the world’s most widely syndicated newspaper column, appearing in some 1,400 newspapers and generating around 10,000 letters per week.
2014 – Actor Russell Johnson (best known for his role of “The Professor” on Gilligan’s Island) died of kidney failure at the age of 89.
2014 – Actor Dave Madden (Laugh-In, Alice, but most famous for his role of group manager Reuben Kincaid on The Partridge Family) died from heart and kidney failure. He was 82.
ROCK & ROLL HISTORY
The late Bob Bogle (bass guitar with The Ventures – ‘Walk—Don’t Run’) was born in 1934
The late Bill Francis (keyboards with Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show – ‘Cover Of The Rolling Stone’) was born in 1942
Jim Stafford (‘Spiders And Snakes’) is 71
Ronnie Milsap (‘Any Day Now’) is 72
1957 – Elvis Presley recorded ‘(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear’.
1957 – The Cavern Club (home to many early Beatles performances) opened in Liverpool. The opening act was a band called The Merseysippi Jazz Band. They played to 600 people, with double that amount locked out in the cold. Within 3 years, membership totaled an unparalleled 20,000 people, bands came to play there from all over the world, and the club became a national focal point in the UK Jazz scene.
But by 1960, the Cavern was losing a lot of customers to its competitors around the city; competitors who mainly played “Beat music”. New owner Ray McFall had a major dilemma on his hands. Should he continue to keep the Cavern as a predominant Jazz club (and lose money) or adopt the Beat phenomena and attract a younger crowd with more money to spend?
“Beat music” was allocated one night a week (Wednesdays) while Jazz continued to be played every other night. The first Beat night was headlined by Rory Storm & The Hurricanes (featuring drummer Ringo Starr) on May 25, 1960.
Rock Factoid:The Cavern stage was built by two local carpenters, Harry Harris and his son Ian. Harry was Paul McCartney’s uncle.
1965 – Guess Who? released ‘Shakin’ All Over’. Quality Records (in Canada) owned the rights to Chad Allan & The Expressions recordings. In an attempt to build a mystique around ‘Shakin’ they (and American label Scepter) credited the single to “Guess Who?”, hoping listeners might assume the “Guess Who?” identity was deliberately masking several famous performers working under a pseudonym. Even after Quality Records revealed the band was really Chad Allan & The Expressions, radio DJ’s still announced the group as Guess Who?, effectively forcing the band to rename themselves. The “question mark” at the end of the name was finally dropped in 1968.
1970 – Citing them as “obscene,” Scotland Yard confiscated eight John Lennon lithographs from the London Arts Gallery. After a four-month “investigation”, the artwork was determined not to be obscene and returned to Lennon.
1976 – Bob Dylan released the ‘Desire’ album. It reached #1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, and stayed there for five weeks.
1979 – Cher and Gregg Allman’s divorce was finalized.
1980 – Paul McCartney was jailed in Tokyo for possession of marijuana. He spent nine days behind bars before being kicked-out of the country by Japanese authorities.
A housekeeper who worked for John Lennon at the Dakota, claimed John said, “If he really needs weed, surely there’s enough people who can carry it for him. You’re a Beatle, boy, a Beatle. Your face is in every damn corner of the planet. How could you have been so stupid?”
1988 – George Harrison had the last #1 single in the U.S. by any of the solo Beatles when ‘Got My Mind Set On You’ reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart
1991 – Inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame included LaVern Baker, The Byrds, John Lee Hooker, The Impressions, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Reed, and Ike & Tina Turner. Non-Performers inducted were Dave Bartholomew and Ralph Bass, while Howlin’ Wolf was inducted as an Early Influence.
1992 – Eric Clapton taped his appearance for MTV Unplugged at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, UK.
1994 – Bryan Adams played in front of a crowd of 2,500 people in Ho Chi Minh City. He was the first Western entertainer to perform in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.
1996 – Jimmy Buffett’s plane was shot at by Jamaican police. The ‘Hemisphere Dancer’ was carrying Buffett, U2’s Bono and Island Records CEO Chris Blackwell. Police suspected it was smuggling drugs. No one was hurt although there were a few bullet holes in the plane.
2000 – Will Jones (The Coasters – ‘Searchin’) died of complications from diabetes.
2007 – Thornton James ‘Pookie’ Hudson (lead singer with The Spaniels – ‘Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight’) died of cancer.
2009 – George Alan O’Dowd (a/k/a Boy George) was sentenced to 15 months in prison for the 2007 assault and false imprisonment of male Norwegian model Audun Carlsen. O’Dowd was released after serving four months of his sentence and was released on home detention curfew and was required to wear an ankle monitor for 90 days.
2011 – Steve Prestwich (drummer/songwriter with Chisel – ‘When The War Is Over’) died of a brain tumor.
2012 – Jimmy Castor (‘Troglodyte’) died of heart failure.
SPORTS HISTORY
1970 – Seven-time Golden Glove-winning center fielder Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals filed suit in a New York federal court against Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the presidents of the American and National Leagues and all 24 teams in the Major League Baseball organization.
After the Cardinals traded Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies in October 1969, Flood wrote a letter to Kuhn in late December, protesting the league’s player reserve clause, which prevented players from moving to another team unless they were traded. Kuhn denied Flood’s request to be made a free agent, and Flood decided to sue.
After a U.S. district court judge rejected Flood’s claim in August 1970, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite the support of such great players as Jackie Robinson, Flood suffered when no active players agreed to testify on his behalf, and the court ruled against him in a 5-3 decision in 1972.
His lost battle turned into an eventual win for the players, however. Major League Baseball agreed to federal arbitration of players’ salary demands in 1973, and in 1975 an arbitrator effectively threw out the reserve clause, paving the way for free agency in baseball and all professional sports.
1972 – The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Miami Dolphins, 24-3, to win Super Bowl VI.
1974 – Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
2001 – Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
2003 – Major League Baseball owners approved a plan that gives the winner of the All-Star game as the league with home field advantage in the World Series.
It was a ridiculous idea then and it’s a ridiculous idea now.
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