On April 27…
“When I saw him, “I called out ‘excellency,’ but he didn’t reply. I also shouted ‘comrade.’ Still nothing. His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. I read utter exhaustion, but not fear. When I arrested him in the name of the Italian people, Mussolini seemed completely lacking in will, spiritually dead.”
~Urbano Lazzaro
1861 – President Abraham Lincoln unilaterally suspended the right of habeas corpus in Maryland.
Lincoln had received word that anti-war Maryland officials intended to destroy the railroad tracks between Annapolis and Philadelphia, which was a vital supply line for the army preparing to fight the south.
Lincoln chose to suspend the writ over a proposal to bombard Baltimore. Lincoln was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in his political opponents who not want to resort to war to force the southern states back into the Union.
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 up the Mississippi River. It took 17 hours to make the journey from Vicksburg to Memphis, where it stopped to pick up more coal.
Just hours after midnight, the trip came to a sudden end when 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.
1945 – Deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were stopped near the village of Dongo (Lake Como) by communist partisans.
The pair, who were attempting to flee to Switzerland before heading to Spain, were travelling in a German convoy when a group of locals, led by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro, forced it to halt a few miles short of the Swiss border.
Mussolini was wearing a German Luftwaffe helmet and overcoat, but the disguise did little to save him. For 20 years, he had built a cult of personality with his image emblazoned on posters and newspapers. Now, the familiarity of his distinctive shaved head and granite jaw, even in disguise, has come back to haunt him.
Mussolini and Petacci were brought to a farmhouse and held overnight.
The story continues tomorrow.
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.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point that Marciano was the champion in the days when boxing had eight weight classifications and only one champion in each.
Today, there are multiple champions in a (too) wide range of weight categories and (far) too many “alphabet soup” organizations (WBO, WBC, WBA, WBF, IBO, IBC, etc.) each claiming “their” champion is the real one.
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 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.
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.
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 – Rolling Stone Keith Richards, while on vacation in Fiji, suffered a head injury after falling out of a tree
Although the incident subsequently became another running joke on Richards’ lifestyle, he was in fact seriously injured. Initial reports suggested that Richards suffered only a mild concussion when he fell from a palm tree.
But after being examined at Fiji’s Suva Private Hospital, it was determined Richards had suffered a subdural hematoma. He was flown 1,300 miles to Ascot Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, where he underwent surgery to relieve the blood clot on his brain.
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 – Pope John XXIII and John Paul II were both 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 ©2019 RayLemire.com. / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.