Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Only 247 days until the Year 2010
Today is:
Kiss-Your-Mate Day
Today In History
On The Way To Today... April 28th
1770 - Captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay in Australia.
1788 - Maryland became the seventh state of the Union.
1789 - A rebel crew took control of the British ship "HMS Bounty,"
leaving the ship's leader, Lieutenant William Bligh, and his
supporters adrift in the South Pacific Ocean. The mutiny was led by
Masters Mate Fletcher Christian. The "Mutiny on the Bounty" became
popularized through novels and movies.
1896 - J.S. Duncan of Sioux City, Indiana patented the Addressograph.
1932 - A vaccine to fight yellow fever was announced.
1937 - In New York City, the first animated cartoon electric sign was
displayed on a building on Broadway. The sign, created by Douglas
Leight, consisted of several thousand light bulbs. It gave a
four-minute show featuring a cavorting horse and ball-throwing cats.
1940 - On Bluebird Records, Glenn Miller recorded his signature song,
"Pennsylvania 6-5000". According to the original label, on the old
78-RPM disk, it was record number 10754.
1944 - Exercise "Tiger" ended with 750 United States soldiers dead in
a D-Day rehearsal after their convoy ships were attacked by German
torpedo boats off Slapton Sands, on the southwest coast of England.
1947 - Explorer Thor Heyerdahl left dock from the Peruvian coast in
the 45-foot "Kon Tiki". His 4,300-mile voyage came to an end 101 days
later. Heyerdahl would write a popular book about his ordeal called
"Kon Tiki".
1952 - Dwight D. Eisenhower was relieved, at his own request, of the
post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and replaced by General
Matthew Ridgway.
1980 - United States Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned over the
failed commando mission to rescue American hostages in Iran.
1985 - Near St. Petersburg, Florida, the largest sand castle in the
world was completed, at a height of four stories tall. The castle
contained hidden treasure for kids who came, with permission, to
demolish the work of art a week later.
1985 - The town of Parker, Texas, not far from Dallas, reported a
2-to-1 rise in the ratio of tourists to residents. Some of the 1,000
citizens of the town were not happy about it. Every day, some 2,100
tourists arrived in the town to visit Southfork Ranch, home of the
fictious Ewing family of CBS-TV's, "Dallas".
1987 - For the first time in history, a compact disc of an album was
released before its vinyl record counterpart. The album? Tony
Bennett's "The Art of Excellence", his first recorded work in a
decade.
1989 - Iran protested against the exhibition and sale of the novel
"The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie at the Geneva international
book fair.
1989 - Argentina, hit by hyper-inflation, ran out of money, leaving
thousands stranded without cash.
1990 - A Chorus Line closed on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre. It
broke the record for number of performances - a record 6,237
performances. The musical, written by James Kirkwood, Nicholas Dante,
Marvin Hamlisch, and Edward Kleban, opened on July 25, 1975, and was
an instant hit. It won the Tony award for Best Musical. A Chorus
Line's cast, during the 15-year period, employed 510 different
members.
1992 - The Afghan government formally ceded power to triumphant
Islamic guerrillas in Kabul three days after mujahideen forces entered
the capital, ending 14 years of armed resistance and civil war.
1994 - Aldrich Ames, former CIA officer, and his wife, Rosario, leaded
guilty to spying for Moscow in one of the most damaging espionage
cases in U.S. history. He was sentenced to life in prison.
1998 - Actress Alyssa Milano filed a suit against several Internet
porn sites on this date, claiming they fabricated nude pictures of her
and sold them on the Web. The complaint, which also listed Milano's
personal photographer, Michael O'Connor, as a plaintiff, was seeking
an injunction on specified images, as well as unspecified damages for
copyright infringement, trademark dilution, and violation of statutory
right of publicity. The suit claimed several Vancouver-based
pornography peddlers produced nude celebrity images, transfered them
to CD-ROMs, and marketed the discs on adult Websites. Milano's mother,
Lin, who ran a business called CyberTrackers that specialized in
finding online porn, helped her daughter locate the offending sites.
Formerly of TV's Melrose Place and Who's the Boss?, Milano claimed her
professional image was being denigrated, and O'Connor's work was being
stolen. Legal experts expressed that, while the law was on Milano's
side, there were too many offending websites to fight them all.
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