“If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me!”
~George Macaulay Trevelyan

sultana
1865 – An explosion on a Mississippi River steamboat killed an estimated 1,547 people, mostly Union soldiers returning home after the Civil War. Prisoners of war who had been held in hellish conditions in Alabama’s Andersonville and Cahaba prison camps were trying to make their way home to Illinois. The steamboat Sultana was one of their only options.
The steamboat was built to hold 376 passengers, but reports say that there were as many as 2,700 people on board as it lumbered slowly up the Mississippi River. It took 17 hours to make the journey from Vicksburg to Memphis, where it stopped to pick up more coal.
A couple of hours past midnight, the trip came to a sudden end: near the Arkansas side of the river, one of the Sultana‘s three boilers suddenly exploded. Hot metal debris ripped through the vessel and two other boilers exploded within minutes of the first. The passengers were killed by flying metal, scalding water, collapsing decks and the roaring fire that broke out on board. Some drowned as they were thrown into the water, but rescue boats were immediately dispatched, saving hundreds of lives.

babe-ruth-day
1947 – The New York Yankees hosted Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium. The event was held to honor the ailing baseball star, who was nearing the end of his life because of throat cancer.


1956 – World heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano retired from boxing at the age of 31. Marciano, one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, ended his career as the only heavyweight champion with a perfect record – 49 wins in 49 professional bouts, with 43 knockouts.

edward-r-murrow-death
1965 – Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow died of cancer at the age of 57. Murrow’s career with the Columbia Broadcasting Company spanned 25 years. It ended in January, 1961, when President Kennedy named him head of the United States Information Agency.


1968 – Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. In an interview, he said he supported the current U.S. policy of sending troops “where required by our own national security.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam, had announced that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election.
When the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago in August, a conflict immediately erupted over the party’s Vietnam platform. While demonstrations against the war took place in the streets outside the convention hall, Humphrey won the party nomination.
He was ultimately defeated in the general election by Republican Richard Nixon, who criticized the Johnson’s handling of the war and ran on a platform of achieving “peace with honor” in Vietnam.


1982 – John W. Hinckley Jr. went on trial in Washington, D.C., for the shooting of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. He was acquitted by reason of insanity.

kurt-waldheim
1987 – The Justice Department barred Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
Although he had served as U.N. Secretary-General from 1972-1981, Waldheim’s past as an officer in the mounted corps of the SA was revealed when he ran for President of Austria, although declassified CIA documents showed the CIA had been aware of his wartime past since 1945.

nelson-mandela-vote
1994 – More than 22 million South Africans turned out to cast ballots in the country’s first multiracial parliamentary elections. An overwhelming majority chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party, former President F.W. de Klerk’s National Party, and Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party. In May, Mandela was inaugurated as president, becoming South Africa’s first black head of state.


2006 – Construction began on the Freedom Tower (later renamed One World Trade Center) in New York City. Just over seven years later, the final piece of the spire was lifted to the top of the building, bringing the tower to its full height of 1,776 feet, making it the tallest building in the United States and the fourth-tallest building in the world.


2011 – The 2011 Super Outbreak; the largest, costliest, and one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks ever recorded, devastated parts of the Southeastern United States, especially the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Two hundred five tornadoes touched down on April 27 alone, killing more than 300 and injuring hundreds more.


2011 – President Barack Obama sought to put end to rumors claiming that he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States by obtaining and releasing a copy of his long form birth certificate issued by the state of Hawaii. Officials from that state certified that the copy of the certificate they provided to President Obama was authentic.
Fringe theorists (often referred to as “birthers”) still didn’t believe it. A claim that the newly released document was a forgery made with image editing software quickly spread on the Internet.


2014 – Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were declared saints in the first papal canonization since 1954. Pope Francis praised them both as men of courage and mercy, who responded to challenges of their time by modernizing the Catholic Church in fidelity to its ancient traditions.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2018 RayLemire.com. / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.