Category: Weekly Summary

The week that was: April 9 – 15

The week that was: April 9 – 15. In case you missed it.

In case you missed it.

Left to right: Commander, James A. Lovell Jr., Command Module pilot, John L. Swigert Jr., Lunar Module pilot, Fred W. Haise Jr.

 

 

 

 

April 9, 1974 Open Mouth, Insert Foot – CEO or ditch digger, there are days you just want to go home and start over.

April 10, 1869 SCOTUS – The 113th Supreme Court justice:  the 1st in history to serve with the justice for whom he once clerked

April 11, 1970 Houston, We’ve Had a Problem – 200,000 miles from earth and their only means of getting home just blew up.

April 12, 1955 Conquering Polio – Imagine the terrifying finality of the AIDS virus, combined with the randomness of the common cold

April 13, 1861 Sumter – A surprising number of northern soldiers resigned commissions and fought for the south.

April 14, 1958 Laika – In the 1950s, no one knew whether the human body could survive conditions of rocket launch and space flight.

April 15, 1912 Unsinkable – Captain Edward Snow was sure that modern ship-building had gone beyond all that.

 

 

The week that was: April 2 – 9

In case you missed it.

April 2, 1722 Silence Dogood – In 1722, James Franklin felt that little brothers should be seen, and not heard.  16-year old Benjamin, thought differently

April 3, 1946 Bataan Death March – The POW received his prison number…the same he’d worn playing fullback, for Notre Dame.  #58. That was when he knew he’d make it

April 4, 1926  America’s 1st War Dog – America’s first war dog “Sgt. Stubby” got there by accident, serving 18 months ‘over there’.

April 5, 1761 Midnight Ride – “Listen my children and you shall hear”… the story of the female Paul Revere

April 6, 1917 Safe for Democracy – In the end, the German response to anticipated US action, brought about the very action it was trying to avoid

April 7, 1933 A Brief History of Beer – So it is that, from that day to this, April 6 is celebrated as “New Beer’s Eve”.  Sláinte.

April 8, 1740 War of Jenkins’ Ear – For the future colony of Georgia, the War of Jenkins’ Ear was an existential threat

The week that was: March 26 – April 1

In case you missed it

Leon Chester Thrasher 1st American killed in WW!

March 26, 1881 Old Abe – The real-life Civil War mascot, who became the symbolic “Screaming Eagle” of the 101st Airborne Division

March 27, 1912 Cherry Trees of the Potomac – The Japanese gift of 3,000 cherry trees to the United States, and how that gift came back, after WWII

March 28, 1915 Thrasher Incident – Leon Thrasher of Hardwick Massachusetts, was the first American killed in “The War to End All Wars”

March 29, 1973 Vietnam – The War in Vietnam, how we got there, and where it led

March 30, 1282 War of Sicilian Vespers – How a French soldier molested an Italian woman outside of church, and lost the kingdom of Sicily, to Spain.

March 31, 2016 Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye – The number of Allied soldiers serenading Nazis during WWII, must be precisely, one.  It had to be Mel Brooks.

April 1, 1698 Washing the Lions – It’s the Annual Grand Event of Washing the Lions in the tower moat.  Or maybe it’s just April Fools.