April 5, 2008

720 years ago
1288

Born on this date
Go-Fushimi. Emperor of Japan, 1298-1301. Go-Fushimi, also known as Fushimi II, succeeded his father Fushimi as Emperor. He abdicated in 1301, and died on May 17, 1336 at the age of 48.

420 years ago
1588

Born on this date
Thomas Hobbes. English philosopher. Mr. Hobbes’ best-known works were Leviathan (1651) and Behemoth (1680). In Leviathan, Hobbes developed his political philosophy, arguing from a mechanistic view that life is simply the motions of the organism and that man is by nature a selfishly individualistic animal at constant war with all other men. In a state of nature, men are equal in their self-seeking and live out lives which are "nasty, brutish, and short"--or maybe it was Mr. Hobbes who was "nasty, brutish, and short." According to Mr. Hobbes, fear of violent death was the principal motive which caused men to create a state by contracting to surrender their natural rights and to submit to the absolute authority of a sovereign. Mr. Hobbes died in 1679.

100 years ago
1908

Born on this date
Bette Davis. U.S. actress. One of the most annoying and overrated actresses in movie history, Miss Davis possessed a remarkable ability to ruin with her ridiculous overacting most of the movies she starred in. For examples, see Bordertown (1935); The Petrified Forest (1935); Dark Victory (1939); Watch on the Rhine (1943); and All About Eve (1950). Now, Voyager (1942) is famous for the scene where Miss Davis and Paul Henreid blow cigarette smoke in each other’s faces; for some reason this is supposed to be regarded as romantic. Her acting was the kind that wins Academy Awards, and she won twice for Best Actress for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and The Corn is Green (1945) are among the movies where Miss Davis toned down her performances, and she was very good in those; unfortunately, these were exceptions. Sometimes her overacting helped a movie, as in Storm Center (1956), and especially Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Another movie from her later years that’s worth seeing is the little-seen The Whales of August (1987), co-starring Lillian Gish and Vincent Price. Bette Davis died of cancer in France on October 6, 1989 at the age of 81. Her last film appearance was in Wicked Stepmother, which was released eight months before her death.

80 years ago
1928

Died on this date
Chauncey DePew, 93. U.S. railroad executive and politician. Mr. DePew, a lawyer from Peekskill, New York, became the attorney for New York & Harlem Railroad in 1866, taking the same position for the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad three years later. In 1876 he moved up to become general counsel and director of the whole "Vanderbilt System." Six years later he began serving on the executive board of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad as second vice president. In 1885, he was elected president of the railroad and served until 1898. Mr. DePew also held positions with other railroads and companies too numerous to mention here. After serving in New York state politics in various positions beginning in 1862, and participating in the national Republican Party in the 1880s and 1890s, Mr. DePew was elected to the United States Senate in 1898. He served two terms from 1899-1911.

Economics and finance
The $5,210,000 of gold which had been received in New York from the Soviet Union on February 21 and which had been the centre of international financial and legal turmoil, was sent back to Europe on the steamship Dresden.

Swimming
Mercedes Gleitze of London swam the Strait of Gibraltar from Tarfa, Spain to Punta Leona, Morocco, covering the 24 miles in 12 ½ hours.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Finals
New York Rangers 0 @ Montreal Maroons 2 (Montreal led best-of-five series 1-0)

75 years ago
1933

On the radio
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Richard Gordon and Leigh Lovell, on NBC
Tonight's episode: The Voodoo Curse

Died on this date
Earl Derr Biggers, 48. U.S. novelist and playwright. Mr. Biggers, a native of Warren, Ohio, graduated from Harvard University in 1907 and was hired in 1908 by the Boston Traveler as a humour columnist, and later as drama critic. His blunt reviews offended many, and the Traveler sent him packing in 1912, allowing Mr. Biggers time to write his first novel. Seven Keys to Baldpate was published in 1913, and was an immediate success. George M. Cohan bought dramatization rights from Mr. Biggers, and Mr. Cohan’s adaptation was a Broadway hit, running for 320 performances at the Astor Theatre from September 22, 1913 to June 1914. Mr. Cohan also starred in an early film version of Seven Keys to Baldpate, which was made into movies seven times. Mr. Biggers continued his success as a novelist with Love Insurance (1914) and The Agony Column (1916). Other projects were also successful, including a war play, Inside The Lines (a collaboration with Robert Welles Ritchie), which ran 500 nights in London in 1915 and 1916. A busy season in 1919 included the plays See-Saw (an adaptation of Love Insurance) and Three’s a Crowd (a collaboration with Christopher Morley), after which Mr. Biggers decided to take a break and go on vacation with his wife to Hawaii. While in Hawaii, Mr. Biggers read a newspaper article about Chang Apana, a Hawaiian detective of Chinese descent. Mr. Biggers had never heard of an Oriental detective, and the idea for a fictional character began to take shape in his mind. Mr. Biggers wanted to promote a more positive view of Orientals than was common in books and movies at the time (such as the Fu Manchu novels), so he decided to make his character a hero and a sage. The January 24, 1925 issue of The Saturday Evening Post began running The House Without a Key, a murder mystery featuring Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police Department. The story, published as a book later that year, was popular enough to spawn a second Charlie Chan novel. The Chinese Parrot was published in 1926, the same year that The House Without a Key was made into a movie. By this time Mr. Biggers and his wife had moved to Pasadena, California. Charlie Chan became such a popular character that Mr. Biggers now found it difficult to publish novels that weren’t about Charlie Chan. His last non-Chan novel, Fifty Candles, was published in 1926. The Saturday Evening Post paid Mr. Biggers $25,000 for the serialization rights to the third Charlie Chan novel, Behind That Curtain, which was published in 1928. The first two Chan novels had been made into silent movies, and had been successful enough for Fox studios to offer Mr. Biggers a handsome sum for the rights to Behind That Curtain. Sound had come to the movies by the time Behind That Curtain was filmed, and E.L. Park became the first actor to give voice to Charlie Chan (and the first Oriental actor to play the role). The fourth Charlie Chan novel, set in the Hollywood movie community of the late 1920s, was The Black Camel, published in 1929. I think this is the best of the Chan novels, but Mr. Biggers, like Arthur Conan Doyle before him, wanted to see if he could have success with something other than a story involving his most famous creation. However, the stock market crash hurt his bank account, and he decided to stick with what was working. Charlie Chan Carries On was published in 1930; in 1931 it was made into a movie, marking Warner Oland’s debut as Hollywood’s most famous Charlie Chan. The movie version of The Black Camel appeared later in 1931, with a cast that included Bela Lugosi and Robert Young. Those who haven’t read the Charlie Chan novels might be surprised to find that the characters of Number One and Number Two sons were made up for the movies. Chan’s assistant in the novels was a dimwitted Japanese-American named Kashimo, who bears a strong, but coincidental resemblance to real-life Edmonton legend Harry Woo, a Canadian of Chinese ancestry who didn’t come along until decades later. The next Charlie Chan novel, Keeper of the Keys, appeared in 1932. It was adapted for the stage by Valentine Davies. The play, starring William Harrigan as Charlie Chan, opened at the Fulton Theatre on Broadway on October 18, 1933, and closed in early November after just 23 performances. The early closing of the play may be a reason that Keeper of the Keys is the only Charlie Chan novel that hasn’t been made into a movie. Unfortunately, Earl Derr Biggers didn’t leave to see his latest novel on stage. He had been working at a pace that was injurious to his health, and died in a Pasadena hospital after suffering a heart attack in Palm Springs. He was praised for promoting a positive view of Chinese-Americans, including their role in contributing to the settling of the west coast of the United States. In 1932 he made this comment on his most famous creation: "I am quite sure that I never intended to travel the road of the mystery writer. Nor did I deliberately choose to have in the seat at my side, his life forever entangled with mine, a bland and moon-faced Chinese. Yet here I am, and with me Charlie Chan. Thank heaven he is amiable, philosophical--a good companion. For I know now that he and I must travel the rest of the journey together."

70 years ago
1938

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Finals
Chicago 3 @ Toronto 1 (Chicago led best-of-five series 1-0)

Shortly before game time at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Black Hawks announced that goaltender Mike Karakas would be unable to play because of a broken toe. National Hockey League teams didn't dress backup goalies in those days, so Chicago coach and general manager Bill Stewart asked if they could use New York Rangers' goalie Dave Kerr, who was in attendance. Maple Leafs' owner Conn Smythe refused, and suggested that the Black Hawks use substitute Paul Goodman instead. Mr. Goodman couldn't be found, but someone remembered that Alfie Moore, a New York Americans farmhand, was living in Toronto. According to legend, Mr. Moore hadn't been able to get a ticket to the game, and was sitting in a pub near the Gardens waiting for the radio broadcast to begin when the Black Hawks found him. And of course, Mr. Moore played the game of his life; his sensational play sparked Chicago to a 3-1 win.

60 years ago
1948

Literature
Missouri Waltz: The Inside Story of the Pendergast Machine by former U.S. District Attorney Maurice Milligan was published in New York by Scribners.

President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War by Charles Beard was published in New Haven, Connecticut by Yale University Press.

War
A U.S. court in Nuremberg acquitted Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and 11 other Krupp directors of conspiring with the German government to wage wars of aggression. The defendants remained on trial on charges of abusing slave labour and plundering occupied territories.

Politics and government
U.S. delegate Warren Austin presented the American Palestine trusteeship plan to the United Nations Security Council, indicating that the United States would seek to include the U.S.S.R. from administration of the trusteeship.

Economics and finance
U.S. President Harry Truman named Studebaker Corporation President Paul Hoffman, a Republican, to supervise the European Recovery Program as economic cooperation administrator.

Disasters
A British transport plane flying to Berlin collided with a Soviet fighter and crashed near the Gatow airport in the British sector of Berlin, killing 14 passengers and the Soviet pilot. The U.S.S.R. apologized for the incident and promised not to violate air corridors to Berlin in the future.

50 years ago
1958

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): Catch a Falling Star--Perry Como

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Der lachende Vagabund--Fred Bertelmann (11th week at #1)

#1 single in France (IFOP): Hello, le soleil brille--Annie Cordy (4th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (Record Mirror): Magic Moments/Catch a Falling Star--Perry Como (6th week at #1)

U.S. top 10 (Cash Box)
1 Tequila--The Champs (4th week at #1)
2 Lollipop--The Chordettes
--Ronald and Ruby
3 Who's Sorry Now--Connie Francis
4 Sweet Little Sixteen--Chuck Berry
5 Catch a Falling Star--Perry Como
6 It's Too Soon to Know--Pat Boone
7 Are You Sincere--Andy Williams
8 He's Got the Whole World (In His Hands)--Laurie London
9 26 Miles (Santa Catalina)--The Four Preps
10 Breathless--Jerry Lee Lewis

Singles entering the chart were Twilight Time by the Platters (#35); For Your Love by Ed Townsend (#44); To Be Loved by Jackie Wilson (#49); Skinny Minnie by Bill Haley and his Comets (#54); Teacher's Pet by Doris Day (#59); Looking Back by Nat "King" Cole (#60); and Midnight by Hugo Winterhalter and his Orchestra (also #60). Teacher's Pet was the title song of the movie, which co-starred Miss Day.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Semi-Finals
New York 2 @ Boston 8 (Boston won best-of-seven series 4-2)

Jerry Toppazzini scored 3 goals and Fleming Mackell added 2 as the Bruins eliminated the Rangers at Boston Garden to advance to the finals against the Montreal Canadiens.

40 years ago
1968

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand (RIANZ): Why or Where or When--Mr. Lee Grant (2nd week at #1)

Edmonton’s top 10 (CJCA)
1 Lady Madonna--The Beatles
2 Playboy--Gene and Debbe
3 Jennifer Eccles--The Hollies
4 Summertime Blues--Blue Cheer
5 Young Girl--The Union Gap
6 Valleri--The Monkees
7 The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde--Georgie Fame
8 The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)--Manfred Mann
9 Love is Blue (L'Amour est Bleu)--Paul Mauriat and his Orchestra
10 The Unicorn--The Irish Rovers
Pick of the Week: Rainbow Woman--Lee Hazlewood
New this week: Greasy Heart--Jefferson Airplane
The Legend of Xanadu--Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
Does Your Mama Know About Me--Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers
Lonely Street--Brook Benton

Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers were from Vancouver, British Columbia, and had gone to Detroit to record for the Gordy label, a Motown susidiary. One of the Vancouvers was Tommy Chong, later famous as half of the comedy duo Cheech and Chong. The group had operated under various names for several years before signing with Motown. The names (such as The Calgary Shades) usually reflected the band’s interracial makeup, but early success disappeared when they started going by the name Four Niggers and a Chink, which was politically incorrect even then. Does Your Mama Know About Me is a song about the then-controversial topic of interracial dating (Janis Ian’s hit single Society’s Child, about the same subject, had come out the previous year). The B-side was Fading Away, a catchy tune co-written by Smokey Robinson, which had been released two years earlier by The Temptations as the B-side of I’m Ready. Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers invited The Jackson 5 to be their opening act for a performance in Chicago in July 1968, and were thus responsible for bringing them to the attention of Motown Records chief Berry Gordy.

Died on this date
Jefferson Davis, 84. U.S. hobo. Mr. Davis, the American "hobo king," founded Hobos of America in 1908. Mr. Davis explained that hobos were those who travelled to find seasonal work, but who never took a man's job from him or undercut the union wage.

Music
Buck Owens and his Buckaroos, plus Sheb Wooley, Wynn Stewart, Freddie Hart, Tommy Collins, Dick Curtess, Kay Adams, and Ben Colder performed at the Stampede Corral in Calgary. Tickets were priced at $2.50-$4.00.

War
Operation Pegasus, the force of 30,000 American and South Vietnamese troops sent on April 1 to relieve the U.S. Marine base at Khesanh, succeeded in lifting the siege, 76 days after a North Vietnamese force of 20,000 had surrounded the 6,000-man garrison. Much of the North Vietnamese force was believed to have withdrawn to Laos before Operation Pegasus began. A relief column from Calu, 15 miles to the east, met little resistance as it moved along the only overland supply road to the base. Operation Pegasus was led by Maj. Gen. John J. Tolson, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), which supplied most of the troops.

Politics and government
Rev. Ralph Abernathy, 42, was named to succeed Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been assassinated the day before, as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark flew to Memphis, where he said that the FBI was hunting the assassin, a white man who was reported to have been seen fleeing the area in a late-model car, in several states.

The Liberal Party of Canada’s leadership convention continued at the Ottawa Civic Centre with the candidates’ speeches. Perhaps the most unusual speech was, in retropect, the most remarkable. Ernst Zundel, a largely-ignored "fringe" candidate from Toronto, used his speaking time to denounce what he saw as discrimination against German-Canadians.

From Lubor Zink’s column in the Toronto Telegram that day:

Talking to delegates I find that most of those who support Trudeau cannot explain what attracts them to the man. Their commitment, bordering often on hero-worship, is largely emotional. Those who oppose him, recall that only five years ago Mr. Trudeau derided the Liberal Party as a bunch of idiots, campaigned for the New Democrats, and "preached socialism."

An unexpected reason for opposing Trudeau came from a Quebec delegate who told me that "all the separatists hope we’ll elect him because they are certain that a Federal Government under Trudeau will assure and hasten Quebec’s separation."

Americana
U.S. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson officially opened HemisFair '68 in San Antonio, Texas.

Hockey
CPHL
Adams Cup
Semi-Finals
Oklahoma City 2 @ Tulsa 4 (Tulsa led best-of-seven series 2-1)

30 years ago
1978

On the radio
Tonight’s broadcast of CBS Radio Mystery Theater on CFCN in Calgary was Night Eyes, about a ringer horse.

Hockey
NHL
The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in the nationally-televised Wednesday night game.

CHL
Dallas 5 @ Fort Worth 7
Kansas City 6 @ Tulsa 4

25 years ago
1983

Diplomacy
47 people, 40 of them diplomats, were expelled from France and accused of espionage. Those ousted included the third-ranking diplomat at the Soviet Embassy and the Paris bureau chief for the Soviet news agency TASS. The French interior ministry said that the Soviets had been "engaged in a systematic search...for technologicl and scientific information, particularly in the military area."

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasir Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan concluded four days of meetings in Amman with an inability to work out joint paricipation in U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s plan for a Middle East peace settlement, but agreed to meet again.

20 years ago
1988

On television tonight
The Wonder Years, on ABC
Tonight's episode: Angel

Terrorism
A Kuwait Airways jet with 112 people aboard was hijacked by Arabic-speaking gunmen, and was forced to land at Mashhad, Iran, where they released 24 female hostages and a man with a heart condition.

Defense
A force of United States Marines, ultimately numbering 1,300, began arriving in Panama to assume security duty at U.S. bases.

World events
Juan Ramon Matta, a suspected drug dealer, was seized in Honduras by U.S. authorities and taken to the United States. The U.S. believed that Mr. Matta was linked to Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel; he was also a suspect in the 1985 murder of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Mexico. The seizure of Mr. Matta provoked violent demonstrations in Honduras.

Politics and government
The contest for the Democratic party nomination for President of the United States moved to Wisconsin. Michael Dukakis won with 48% of the vote; Jesse Jackson took 28%, Al Gore 17%, and Paul Simon 5%. Vice-President George Bush won the Republican primary.

Rose Mofford, the Arizona Secretary of State who had been serving serving as acting Governor during the impeachment trial of Evan Mecham, was sworn in as Mr. Mecham’s successor, one day after Mr. Mecham had been removed from office after being convicted by the state Senate of obstruction of justice.

U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that he had chosen John Shepherd, former president of the American Bar Association, to be the new deputy attorney general.

10 years ago
2008

Died on this date
Walt Masterson, 87. U.S. baseball pitcher. Mr. Masterson played with the Washington Nationals (1939-1942, 1945-1949, 1952-1953); Boston Red Sox (1949-1952); and Detroit Tigers (1956), compiling a record of 78-100 with an earned run average of 4.15 in 399 games, and batting .140 with no home runs and 26 runs batted in in 402 games. His best season was 1947, when he was 12-16 with a 3.13 ERA. Mr. Masterson was the starting pitcher for the American League in the 1948 Major League All-Star Game. He was the pitching coach of the Texas Rangers in 1972, and baseball coach at George Mason University from 1980-1981. Mr. Masterson died of a stroke.