The Race To Space - It Happened ToDay

The Race To Space

January 31, 1958 - The first successful launch of an American satellite.

On this day in 1958, President Eisenhower received a telephone call shortly after 10:48 in the morning on his direct line to Cape Canaveral, Florida. The President was informed that the launch of the Explorer I satellite had been successful!

The U.S Army's Explorer program launched the first successful American satellite into orbit - the Explorer I. The Army's previously scrapped satellite program was revived as a crash program to catch up with the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik I four months earlier on October 4, 1957.

Two months earlier the first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite had failed. This time, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's research team worked in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to produce a modified Jupiter-C rocket that could carry Explorer I. Explorer I was put into orbit around the earth by a Jupiter-C rocket. Radio signals from the transmitter aboard the 30.8 pound satellite were picked up in California within a few minutes after the launch. Explorer I would orbit the earth in about 114 minutes at an altitude of altitude between 230 to 2,000 miles above the earth.

The success of Explorer I would initiate decisions that lead to the formation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA - in July of 1958. The race to space was on!

Besides being the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I is known for discovering the Van Allen radiation belt. Since 1958 NASA has launched a series of "Explorer" spacecraft to conduct a wide variety of scientific investigations.

Quote for ToDay:
"Everything we do ought to really be tied in to getting on to the Moon ahead of the Russians...otherwise we shouldn't be spending that kind of money, because I'm not interested in space... The only justification is because we hope to beat the Soviet Union to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of years, by God, we passed them!" - President Kennedy to NASA's director James E. Webb

First Assassination Attempt - It Happened ToDay

First Assassination Attempt

January 30, 1835 - The First Assassination Attempt on an American President.

The first assassination attempt on an American president unfolded on this day in 1835, when Richard Lawrence attempted to murder President Andrew Jackson as the president was leaving a funeral at the Capitol Building.

Lawrence had two flintlock pistols, aiming the first one while he stood within 13 feet of Jackson, but it misfired. An angry Jackson retaliated by beating his would-be assassin repeatedly with his walking stick. Lawrence then pulled his second pistol at point-blank range, again that gun misfired. After the harrowing incident Lawrence was apprehended and committed to a mental institution for the rest of his life.

It was a narrow escape for President Jackson, the odds of two guns misfiring consecutively were 1 in 125,000. Five other sitting presidents would not be so lucky, four of them dying from their gunshot wounds:

Abraham Lincoln - April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Southern sympathizer. Lincoln died the next morning.

James A. Garfield - July 2, 1881, less than four months after taking office, while waiting in the Baltimore and Potomac Railway station in Washington, D.C., accompanied by Secretary of State James G. Blaine, president James Abram Garfield was shot twice in the back by Charles J. Guiteau.

William McKinley - September 6, 1901. While attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, McKinley was shot twice in the chest by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Coincidentally the newly developed X-ray machine was on display at the fair, but it was thought of as merely novelty, no one thought to use it to search for the bullet, it might have saved his life and McKinley died of his wounds two weeks later.

John F. Kennedy - November 22, 1963. While traveling in a convertable with the top down in Dallas, Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded by rifle fire. He died 35 minutes later at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested later the same day and charged with shooting Kennedy. Oswald himself was shot and fatally wounded two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Other Unsuccessful Attempts:

Harry S. Truman - November 1, 1950. Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola ambushed the Blair House where Truman was residing temporarily while the White House was undergoing renovations. Torresola was killed by guards and Collazo was wounded and captured. Collazo was found guilty of murder, assault, and attempted assassination of the president. He was sentenced to death. Truman commuted the sentence to life in prison. Curiously, Jimmy Carter would free Collazo in 1979.
Richard M. Nixon - First assassination attempt - April 1972. Arthur Bremer planned to assassinate Nixon during an appearance at Parliament Hill in Ottawa Canada. It was difficult for Bremer to get within firing range of Nixon. He finally to got close to Nixon's limousine as it was leaving Paliament and the car's windows closed just as it passed Bremer. Unsure bullets would go through the glass Bremer didn't open fire. However, the next month Bremer shot U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace leaving him paralyzed for life. A second assassination attempt was made on February 22, 1974 by Samuel Byck attempting to crash a commercial airliner into the White House. Once on the plane, he was informed that it could not take off with the wheel blocks still in place. Byck shot the pilot and copilot before killing himself.
Gerald R. Ford - Two attempts, within three weeks, were made on President Ford in September of 1975. The first was on September 5th in Sacramento, California. Squeaky Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, drew a Colt .45 caliber pistol on Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. There were four cartridges in the pistol's magazine but the firing chamber was empty. She was soon restrained by a Secret Service agent. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison, where she remains. The second attempt was September 22nd in San Francisco, California, when Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from about 40 feet away. The shot missed Ford because a bystander, Oliver Sipple, grabbed Moore's arm. Moore was sentenced to life in prison. Sara Jane Moore was paroled on December 31, 2007, a little more than a year after Ford died of natural causes on December 26, 2006, after she had served more than 30 years of her life sentence.
Ronald Reagan - March 30, 1981. John Hinckley fired five shots at Reagan in Washington, D.C. One bullet ruptured Reagan's lung and lodged close to his heart. Hinckley, supposedly trying to impress actress Jodie Foster by mimicking a scene from the movie Taxi Driver, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He remains in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington D.C. Reagan was the first sitting president to survive an assassin's bullet, and the fifth sitting president overall to be shot. He was also the first president elected in a year ending in zero -1980- to survive the Curse of Tippecanoe and not die in office since 1820 re-elected president James Monroe.
Bill Clinton - Two attempts were made on Clinton in the Fall of 1994. The first assassination attempt on September 13th was by Frank Eugene Corder who crash landed a small Cessna airplane onto the South Lawn. The plane crashed through the branches of a magnolia tree planted by Andrew Jackson before coming to rest in a crumpled heap two stories below the Clintons' bedroom. At the time, the presidential family was sleeping at Blair House while repairs were being made to the White House's ventilation system. A second assassination attempt occured on October 29th when Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue. Duran thought that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing on the South Lawn. Clinton was actually in the White House Residence watching a football game on TV. No one was hurt and Duran was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
George W. Bush - May 10, 2005. While President Bush was giving a speech at Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia Vladimir Arutinian threw a live Soviet-made hand grenade towards the podium where Bush was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives were seated. The hand grenade landed about 20 yards away from the podium in the crowd hitting a girl but did not detonate. Arutinian was arrested in July 2005 and convicted in January 2006. He is currently serving a life sentence.
Previously an attempt had been on his father and former U.S. president - G.H.W.Bush - in Kuwait. On April 13, 1993 just three months after the former president had left office. Sixteen men in the employment of Saddam Hussein smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush while he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. On June 26, 1993, the Clinton administration launched a missile attack on the Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against G.H.W.Bush.

Quote for ToDay:
"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity." - Helen Schucman

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break - It Happened ToDay

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

January 29, 1880 - William Claude Dukenfield was born on this day.

William Claude Dukenfield was born on this day in 1880. Better known as W.C. Fields his stage and screen name, he became one of the most celebrated comics and actors in the U.S. W.C. Fields starting his career as a vaudeville juggler then spending several decades on the musical stage before turning to films. He made his first short silent film Pool Sharks, in 1915, then performed in many comedy classics like, My Little Chickadee with Mae West, The Bank Dick and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.

W.C. Fields' famous one-lines became subject matter for nightclub impersonators and comedians. One of the most-repeated quotes was originally directed at the child-actor Baby LeRoy, Fields' on-screen nemesis: "Go away, kid, you bother me." The line that demonstrated Fields' jaundiced humor the best and is probably his most-quoted, was fired at a party hostess who unfortunately had offered the bombastic curmudgeon a glass of water. "Never touch the stuff, fish f%@k in it!"

Some more infamous W.C. Fields witticisms:

"Doctors say don't worry about your heart - it will last as long as you live."
"Californians talk so much about their climate it makes their weather vane."
"It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never even thanked her."

Quote for ToDay:
"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning." - Aristotle Onassis

Dr. Livingstone, I presume? - It Happened ToDay

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

January 28, 1866 - Livingstone begins final search for the source of the Nile.

On this day in 1866, Scottish physician, explorer, and missionary David Livingstone, embarked on his final expedition in Africa to establish the true source of the Nile.

Though he never reach the source of the Nile, Livingstone was instrumental in presenting sub-Saharan Africa to the western world. He would be the first European to document numerous African geographical features such as lakes Ngami, Malawi, Bangweulu, the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls. He filled in details of Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru and the course of many rivers including the Lualaba and upper Congo, and his writings enabled large regions of Africa to be mapped which previously had been blank. Livingstone was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London which awarded him a gold medal for his exploration and discoveries.

During most of this last exploration, Livingstone was unable to get word out about his activities, and his welfare became a matter of international concern. Five days after his arrival in Ujiji on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, a rescue party headed by Anglo-American explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley reached Livingstone. Stanley is supposed to have greeted Livingstone with the famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

After Livingstone convinced Stanley that he was not in need of rescue, the two men explored Lake Tanganyika. After separating from Stanley, Livingstone would later succumb to dysentery and die in 1873. His long-time porters buried his heart where he died in Zambia, then carried his body and writings back to Zanzibar, a trek of nine months, to place Livingstone on a boat back to England.

Quote for ToDay:
"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one." - Leo J. Burk

Holocaust Remembrance Day - It Happened ToDay

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27, 1945 - Soviet troops liberate the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

On this day in 1945 Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau in Poland, freeing 7600 prisoners abandoned there. 1.1 million people, about 90 percent of them were Jews, from almost every country in Europe were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Nazi regime.

On January 27, 2005 Holocaust survivors, former Red Army soldiers, leaders of more than 40 countries, and other people gathered in Oświęcim, Poland for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. This day of remembrance would prompt the United Nations on November 1st of 2005 to pass a resolution creating International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"There can be no reversing the unique tragedy of the Holocaust. It must be remembered, with shame and horror, for as long as human memory continues. Only by remembering can we pay fitting tribute to the victims. Millions of innocent Jews and members of other minorities were murdered in the most barbarous ways imaginable. We must never forget those men, women and children, or their agony."
-- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, January 27, 2006

Quote for ToDay:
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." - Dorothy Nevill