| On January 4, 1493 he set sail for home, not yet understanding the elliptical nature of the trade winds that had brought him west. He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into one of the worst storms of the century. He had no choice but to land his ship in Portugal, where he was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost. Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta were spared. |
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| Franklin's first visit to England was in 1725 where he expanded his knowledge of the printing trade. The area where he took up residence, Little Britain, was a great centre for printers and booksellers, and a lively hub of political and religious debate - founder of the Methodist church John Wesley regularly preached nearby. Franklin worked in the London printing shops of Samuel Palmer and John Watts. |
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| In 1863, James L. Plimpton changed the skating world forever when he patented the forerunner of the modern roller skate. Safer and easier to use than existing versions, which were little more than wheels attached to rigid boards, his "rocker skate" allowed skaters to steer simply by leaning left or right. |
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| With huntinig territories reaching 100 square kilometres, the cougar was especially vilnerable to increased logging activities and human disturbance during the 1800s. It was believed to be extinct after the last confirmed individual was killed in 1884. |
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| In 1885, Dr. William West Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is believed to be the first successful appendectomy in the U.S. His patient was 22-year-old Mary Gartside, on whom he performed surgery by opening her abdomen and removing a perforated appendix. She recovered and lived until 1919, when she died from an unrelated illness. |
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| For the next two months, the Mona Lisa enjoyed a triumphant tour through the major cities of her homeland, including Rome and Milan, where sixty thousand Italians crowded into the Brera museum for a last good-bye. She was then carefully packaged for the return trip to France, escorted by a convoy of politicians, museum officials and policemen. On arrival at the Louvre, she was subjected to another battery of tests, including x-rays and a painstaking photographic analysis of the tiny cracks in the painting's varnish. |
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| The first "network" broadcast is aired when A New York City concert was simulcast on WNAC and New York's WEAF (660 kHz). The audio connection was made by telephone, and the show ran about 5 minutes. |
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| NBC produced a 47-station coast-to-coast program The Dodge Victory Hour with Al Jolson in New Orleans, Fred Stone in Chicago and Paul Whiteman in New York and Will Rogers from his home in Beverly Hills (he did a Coolidge imitation, the first time a presidential imitation was done on radio), to the largest national audience since Lindberg's return in 1927, estimated at 35 million, sponsored by Dodge new Victory Six auto, the front page of the New York Times next day declared "All America Used As a Radio Studio." |
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| Hope joined the vaudeville circuit with a song-and-dance routine, making his debut in 1924 in a Fatty Arbuckle revue. He began appearing in comedy shorts in the mid-1930s. He appeared on Broadway for the first time in 1933. On January 4, 1935, Hope became the Master of Ceremonies of the radio series, Intimate Revue, sponsored by Bromo Seltzer with Jane Froman, James Melton and the Al Goodman Orchestra. That series lasted only thirteen weeks with Hope. In 1938, he was picked to star in The Big Broadcast. |
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| The mechanical music machines began to flourish in the 20s and 30s and major juke box manufacturers like Seeburg, Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola (the name predates the birth of rock'n'roll) became big-time Billboard advertisers. This support left a powerful impression on Billboard's management. More and more they committed space to music coverage. Billboard's importance in measuring music popularity was presaged in 1936, when the magazine introduced a feature called "Chart Line," which listed the most-played songs on the three major radio networks. Joe Venuti, jazz violinist, was at the top of the chart with a little ditty called, "Stop! Look! Listen!". |
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| Stalin is named 'Time' magazine's man of the year, for stopping Hitler and opening the possibility of an Allied victory in Europe. He was also named 'Time' magazine's man of the year for 1939 for switching the balance of power in Europe by signing the nonaggression pact with Hitler, a decision that is described as "world-shattering". "Without the Russian pact," the magazine says, "German generals would certainly have been loath to go into military action. With it, World War II began." |
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| Elvis Presley strolled into the Memphis Recording Service and put $4 on the counter. He recorded "Casual Love Affair" and "I'll Never Stand in Your Way", two songs that so impressed record executive Sam Phillips that he had Elvis record his first professional sides for Sun Records the following August. |
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| Boone launched his film career in 1957, appearing in such family fare as Bernardine (1957), April Love (1957), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) and State Fair (1961). |
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| In 1958, the Russian Sputnik I satellite, the first man-made object to orbit the earth, fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated, after 92 days in space. The Sputnik (meaning "companion" or "fellow traveller") was launched from Kazakhstan. The craft circled the earth every 95 minutes at almost 20,000 miles per hour 500 miles above the Earth. The 184-lb satellite had transmitted a radio signal picked up around the world, and instrumentation for temperature measurement. |
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| In 1958, leading a five-person group by dog sled and snow tractor across 1,200 mi (1,931 km) of Antarctica to the South Pole, he became part of the first group since 1912 to reach the Pole by overland route. He also reached the South Pole, as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition for which he led the New Zealand section, on January 4, 1958. |
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| Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, and the first of a series of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon. On January 3, at a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a large (1 kg) cloud of sodium gas was released by the spacecraft. This glowing orange trail of gas, visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star, allowed astronomers to track the spacecraft. It also served as an experiment on the behavior of gas in outer space. Luna 1 passed within 5995 km of the Moon's surface on January 4 after 34 hours of flight. |
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| By the late '50s, Robbins had pop hits of his own with teen fare like "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)." Almost simultaneously, he completed work on his Song of the Islands album. In 1959, Robbins stretched even further with the hit single "El Paso," thus heralding a pattern of "gunfighter ballads" that lasted the balance of his career. |
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| The first automated train in U.S. history, left in service at Grand Central at 3:17 PM on January 4th, 1962. For under 4 hours, the unmanned train shuttle took customers back and forth between Times Square and Grand Central on Track #4 (the north track), it was a huge success to NYCTA, and a huge blow to the Transport Workers Local 100 Union, the union representation NYCTA Conductors, Train Operators and other hourly employees. It operated until April 21, 1964, when a fire broke out in the Dispatcher's Office gave reason to have human control over the subway train. |
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| Luna 4 was the USSR's first successful spacecraft of their "second generation" lunar program. The spacecraft, rather than being sent on a straight trajectory toward the Moon, was placed first in an Earth orbit and then an automatic interplanetary station was rocketed in a curving path towards the Moon. Luna 4, the second attempt of this program, achieved the desired trajectory but missed the Moon by 8336.2 km. |
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| Vinton was appearing in a concert when a "long-haired, bearded DJ" shouted to him as Vinton was walking to the stage, "Come here!" Vinton obliged, and the DJ told him that if he would record "There! I Said It Again," he would have his third #1 hit. The advice stunned Vinton as he took the stage. It was the last US #1 hit before the Beatles took over the charts. |
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| "And now, in 1965, we begin a new quest for union," Johnson said in his first State of the Union address that year. He detailed an expansive vision of a "Great Society," in which poverty would be eliminated and the civil rights of all Americans would be protected. |
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| Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong recorded this with Gaye in 1967, but could not convince Motown head Berry Gordy to release it. He chose Holland/Dozier/Holland's "Your Unchanging Love" over this as Gaye's next single. "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" was the longest running Motown #1 hit. It topped the US chart for 7 weeks and was Gaye's first #1 hit. He had another 5 years later with "Let's Get It On." |
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| Since John Lennon and the other Beatles used to visit the Richardson family's antique and jewelry shop, Lucy Richardson knew Julian Lennon. So when he became homesick and unsettled she would be called out of class to sit with him while he drew pictures. One of these pictures was of Lucy. Lucy's sister, Mary remembers 'One day John Lennon came into the shop and said, "Hello, Lucy in the sky with diamonds." |
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| Lionel became one of the most successful artists of the '80's, earning a string of 13 top ten hits between 1981 and 1987, including five number 1 singles "Endless Love," "Truly," "All Night Long (All Night)," "Hello," and "Say You (Say Me.") His 1982 self titled album established a run of platinum plus discs throughout the 80's. Can't Slow Down (released in 1983) sold 20 million units worldwide and 1986's Dancing On The Ceiling became a pop and R&B classic (and included the Oscar nominated song "Say You Say Me"). |
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| Ventura ran as a candidate for the Reform Party of Minnesota (but joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when it broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America) and "shocked the world," as he phrased it, when he narrowly, but unexpectedly beat the major-party candidates: St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. |
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