April 17, 2009

660 years ago
1349

Died on this date
Hasan II. King of Mazandaran, 1344-1349. Hasan II succeeded his brother Sharaf al-Muluk. Hasan II was murdered in his bath by the sons of nobleman Kiya Afrasiyab, who then took power, ending the Bavand dynasty.

490 years ago
1519

Born on this date
Frans Floris. Flemish artist. Mr. Floris was a painter and printmaker who was mainly known for his history paintings, allegorical scenes and portraits, and was a major figure in the genre known as Romanism. He died after a brief illness on October 1, 1570 at the age of 51.

160 years ago
1849

Born on this date
William R. Day. U.S. politician and jurist. Mr. Day was Assistant U.S. Secretary of State from 1897-1898, and Secretary of State from April-September 1898, negotiating the end of the Spanish-American War. He served on the U.S. Circuit Court for the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1899-1903, and was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1903-1922, where he was known for siding with the majority against trusts. Mr. Day died on July 9, 1923 at the age of 74.

140 years ago
1869

Mexicana
President Benito Juarez declared Morelos to be a state of Mexico.

130 years ago
1879

Born on this date
Henri Tauzin. French hurdler. Mr. Tauzin won the silver medal in the men's 400-metre hurdles competition at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris in 1900. He died on October 11, 1918 at the age of 39.

125 years ago
1884

Baseball
The new Union Association, attempting to compete as a major league, opened its season with 3 games. Tom O'Brien had 5 hits and 4 runs as the Boston Reds beat the Philadelphia Keystones 14-2. Bill Sweeney pitched a 5-hitter to get the win as the Baltimore Monumentals beat the Washington Nationals 7-3.

120 years ago
1889

Canadiana
Saint John and Portland agreed to merge, becoming one City of Saint John, New Brunswick.

110 years ago
1899

Born on this date
Aleksander Klumberg. Estonian decathlete. Mr. Klumberg won the bronze medal in the decathlon at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris in 1924, and trained the national athletics teams of Poland and Estonia. He was arrested by the U.S.S.R. secret police force NKVD in 1944, and interned in a prison camp until 1956. Mr. Klumberg died on February 10, 1958 at the age of 58.

100 years ago
1909

Born on this date
Alain Poher. President of France, 1969, 1974. Mr. Poher, a member of various centrist parties, was a Senator from 1946-1948 and 1952-1995. He was President of the Senate from 1968-1992, and served briefly as interim President of France following the retirement of Charles de Gaulle and the death of Georges Pompidou. Mr. Poher was President of the European Parliament from 1966-1969. He died on December 9, 1996 at the age of 87.

80 years ago
1929

Died on this date
Clifford Sifton, 68. Canadian politician. Sir Clifford, a native of Middlesex County, Canada West, was a Liberal who was first elected to the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in 1888, and served as the province's Attorney General (1891-1896). He moved into federal politics in 1896, and represented Brandon in the House of Commons (1896-1911). Sir Clifford was Minister of the Interior (1896-1905) in the cabinet of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, and oversaw a tremendous increase in immigration, especially to the prairie provinces. He resigned from the cabinet over the issue of publicly funded religious education in the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and eventually retired from politics as a result of increasing deafness. Sir Clifford died in New York City, where he was visiting a heart specialist. His brother Arthur was Premier of Alberta (1910-1917).

Married on this date
U.S. baseball player Babe Ruth, star outfielder with the New York Yankees, married actress and model Claire Merritt Hodgson at St. Gregory's Roman Catholic Church in New York City. The marriage was the second for both; Mr. Ruth's first wife Helen had died in a fire three months earlier.



Baseball
The New York Yankees' scheduled season opener against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium was postponed because of rain.

The Philadelphia Athletics scored all their runs in the first 5 innings as they opened their season with a 13-4 win over the Washington Nationals before 25,000 fans at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Eddie Rommel (1-0) relieved ineffective starter Carroll Yerkes and allowed 6 hits in 7.2 scoreless innings of relief to get the win.

Harry Heilmann drove in 5 runs with a pair of doubles and Harry Rice batted 4 for 6 with a double and a run to help the Detroit Tigers rout the Cleveland Indians 15-3 before 20,000 fans at League Park in Cleveland. George Uhle (1-0) pitched a 10-hit complete game victory and batted 3 for 5 with 3 runs and a run batted in.

The Chicago Cubs scored 5 runs in each of the 1st and 8th innings as they routed the Pittsburgh Pirates 15-2 before 8,000 fans at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Pat Malone (1-0) pitched a 6-hit complete game victory and batted 2 for 4 with a run.

70 years ago
1939

Boxing
Joe Louis (38-1) retained his world heavyweight title with a knockout of Jack Roper (61-40-10) at 2:20 of the 1st round at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles.



60 years ago
1949

Died on this date
Bernard Pares, 82. U.K. historian. Sir Bernard was an expert on Russia, teaching at the University of Liverpool for many years and then at the University of London. He was an observer to the Russian Army during World War I, served at the British embassy in Petrograd, and delivered lectures to White troops, and was knighted for services to British-Russian relations.

War
Chinese Communists issued an ultimatum to the Nationalist government demanding unopposed crossing the Yangtze River; formation of a Communist-dominated coalition government; integration of Nationalist forces into the Communist army; and punishment of President Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and other Nationalist leaders.

Europeana
At midnight, 26 Irish counties officially left the British Commonwealth. A 21-gun salute on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, ushered in the Republic of Ireland.

Politics and government
Acting President Felipe Molas Lopez was elected to a full term as President of Paraguay.

Economics and finance
Italian Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi issued a land reform program calling for redistribution of three million acres among landless peasants.

Roman Catholic welfare agencies in the United States attacked the national health insurance system proposed by the administration of President Harry Truman as "practically a government monopoly," and urged federal aid to expand voluntary insurance programs.

Basketball
NBL
Finals
Oshkosh 70 @ Anderson 72 (Anderson led best-of-five series 2-0)

50 years ago
1959

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): Side Saddle--Russ Conway (4th week at #1)

Space
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced the creation of a research group headed by physicist Robert Jastrow to prepare for and carry out "scientific explorations of the moon's surface and environment."

War
French Army headquarters in Algiers reported that 1,600 Muslim guerrillas had been killed and 460 captured in a three-week French offensive south of Oran.

Diplomacy
Addressing the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention in Washington, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro asserted that Cuba would maintain its membership in the Inter-American Mutual Defense pact, and denied that his regime was Communist-influenced.

Politics and government
The Communist Chinese People's Consultative Conference renamed several purged rightist leaders to secondary government posts.

Scandal
Former assistant U.S. tax commissioner Daniel Bollich and attorney Max Halperin were acquitted in New York of charges that they had fixed tax cases for business firms accused of fraud.

Economics and finance
Romanian envoy Silvio Brucan requested the resumption of negotiations on Romanian claims to $25 million in assets seized by the United States during World War II.

40 years ago
1969

On television tonight
Dragnet 1969, on NBC
Tonight's episode: Intelligence: DR-34

This was the last episode of the season.



Defense
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the United States, by its very military presence in Spain, had assumed a "quasi-commitment" to defend the regime of dictator Francisco Franco, possibly even in a civil war.

Politics and government
The Czechoslovak Communist party, yielding to Soviet pressure, removed Alexander Dubcek, the leader of Czechoslovakia's liberalizing movement, from power. The party's central committee named Gustav Husak, leader of the Slovak party, to succeed Mr. Dubcek as first secretary.

Bernadette Devlin, 21, was elected as Britain's youngest ever female MP and the country's third youngest ever. She won as an independent Unity candidate in the Northern Ireland riding of Mid-Ulster. Miss Devlin termed her win a "moral victory" for Ulster's civil rights movement. Her opponent was the widow of a Protestant Unionist, whose death had prompted the by-election.

Crime
A jury found Sirhan Sirhan guilty of first degree murder in the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy the previous June. Mr. Sirhan, a Jordanian immigrant, was also convicted on five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill five people who stood near Mr. Kennedy.

Economics and finance
It was reported that the gross national product of the United States rose by $16 billion in the first quarter of 1969. The rise reflected almost entirely higher spending by business and consumers--the two sectors supposed to be restrained by higher taxes and tight money.

Sylvia Ostry was appointed director of the Economic Council of Canada.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Semi-Finals
Montreal 0 @ Boston 5 (Montreal led best-of-seven series 2-1)
Los Angeles 2 @ St. Louis 3 (St. Louis led best-of-seven series 2-0)

Phil Esposito scored 2 goals, including the winner at 3:37 of the 1st period,and Gerry Cheevers made 34 saves for his third shutout of the playoffs as the Bruins blanked the Canadiens at Boston Garden.

Gary Sabourin scored his second goal of the game with 5:29 remaining in regulation time to breaka a 2-2 tie as the Blues edged the Kings at St. Louis Arena.

Baseball
Bill Stoneman of the Montreal Expos pitched a no-hitter to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-0, in just the franchise's ninth game in existence, before a crowd of 6,496 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The no-hitter was Mr. Stoneman's first complete game in the major leagues. Rusty Staub was the hitting hero for the Expos, going 4 for 5 with 3 doubles and a home run, with 3 runs batted in.

Al Oliver's 3-run home run off Cal Koonce in the bottom of the 8th inning provided insurance runs as the Pittsburgh Pirates shut out the New York Mets 4-0 before 8,097 fans at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Jim Bunning allowed 3 hits in 6 innings to get the win, and Ron Kline pitched 3 hitless innings to earn a save. Don Cardwell allowed 4 hits and 1 earned run in 7 innings in taking the loss.

Bill Hands allowed 3 hits in 8+ innings to get the win and Phil Regan pitched the 9th inning to get the save as the Chicago Cubs shut out the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 before 11,350 fans at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Billy Williams doubled home 2 runs with 2 out in the 8th inning to provide insurance runs. Dave Giusti allowed 7 hits and 3 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings to take the loss.

With 2 out and nobody on base in the bottom of the 10th inning, the New York Yankees loaded the bases and Joe Pepitone hit a grand slam to give the Yankees a 7-3 win over the Washington Senators in the first game of a doubleheader before 6,883 fans at Yankee Stadium. The Senators tied the game in the 9th on a 2-run home run by Mike Epstein. Mel Stottlemyre pitched an 8-hit complete game victory. The Senators scored 3 runs in the last 2 innings to win the second game 5-2.

The Detroit Tigers scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th inning to break a 4-4 tie and held on to defeat the Cleveland Indians 7-6 before 2,284 fans at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. With 2 out and nobody on base in the bottom of the 9th, Chuck Hinton singled and Tony Horton followed with a 2-run home run. Pinch hitter Duke Sims then drew a base on balls, but Don McMahon relieved Mike Kilkenny and retired Max Alvis on a ground ball to shortstop to end the game.

30 years ago
1979

On television tonight
The Paper Chase, on CBS
Tonight's episode: A Case of Detente

Died on this date
Joe Conzelman, 89. U.S. baseball pitcher. Mr. Conzelman played with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1913-1915, compiling a record of 6-8 with an earned run average of 2.92 in 54 games.

Defense
United States Defense Secretary Harold Brown told the Senate that despite the loss of two listening posts in Iran, Soviet compliance with a new Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) pact could be "adequately" verified within a year.

Labour
United Auto Workers president Douglas Fraser blasted U.S. federal wage guidelines, saying that they did not require equal sacrifices from employers, and suggested that the union not consider them in upcoming contract talks.

Music
The Beach Boys' latest single, Good Timin', was beginning to achieve airplay on radio stations such as CFCN in Calgary. Good Timin' was issued as a single after much public displeasure over Here Comes the Night, a disco version of an old album track that had been issued as the first single from LA: Light Album. Good Timin', written and sung by Brian and Carl Wilson, was a considerable improvement on Here Comes the Night.

Baseball
Pinch hitter Dave Cash led off the bottom of the 12th inning with a base on balls, advanced to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Andre Dawson, and scored on a single by Rodney Scott to give the Montreal Expos a 5-4 win over the New York Mets before 7,912 fans at Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

The Philadelphia Phillies scored 5 runs in the 3rd inning and 6 in the 5th as they routed the Pittsburgh Pirates 13-2 before 7,739 fans at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Philadelphia leadoff hitter Bake McBride was 5 for 6 with 2 home runs and 5 runs batted in, while Garry Maddox added a grand slam.

The Los Angeles Dodgers scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to break a 6-6 tie as they beat the Houston Astros 10-6 before 27,635 fans at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles first baseman Steve Garvey drove in 3 runs with a pair of home runs, while Steve Yeager's 2-run homer broke the tie in the 8th.

Dave Winfield singled home Ozzie Smith with none out in the bottom of the 8th inning to break a 3-3 tie as the San Diego Padres edged the San Francisco Giants 4-3 before 16,734 fans at San Diego Stadium.

Fred Lynn hit a 2-run home run with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th inning to give the Boston Red Sox a 6-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers before 16,053 fans at Fenway Park in Boston.

Ron Guidry pitched a 3-hitter and Reggie Jackson led off the bottom of the 7th inning with a home run to break a 1-1 tie as the New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-1 before 20,135 fans at Yankee Stadium.

Nolan Ryan pitched a 4-hitter and struck out 10 batters for the California Angels as they shut out the Minnesota Twins 6-0 before 37,529 fans at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

Jim Essian singled home Mitchell Page with 2 out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th inning to give the Oakland Athletics a 6-5 win over the Seattle Mariners at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Losing pitcher Odell Jones pitched a complete game despite allowing 13 hits. This blogger was able to pick up the Seattle broadcast of the game on KIRO, and all through the game, the broadcast team of Dave Niehaus and Ken Wilson kept remarking about the small size of the crowd. They weren't exaggerating, because attendance was announced as 653.

25 years ago
1984

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): 99 Luftballons--Nena (3rd week at #1)

Died on this date
Claude Provost, 50. Canadian hockey player. Mr. Provost played right wing with the Montreal Canadiens from 1955-1970, scoring 589 points on 254 goals and 335 assists in 1,005 regular season games and adding 63 points on 25 goals and 38 assists in 126 playoff games. He played on nine Stanley Cup championship teams (1956-1960; 1965-66; 1968-69), and in 1968 became the first winner of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for exemplifying the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Mr. Provost died of a heart attack while playing tennis at his home in Florida.

Yvonne Fletcher, 25. U.K. police officer. Miss Fletcher was killed, and 10 others wounded by gunfire from the Libyan People's Bureau (Embassy) in London, during a small demonstration outside the embassy. The events led to an 11-day siege of the building.

Economics and finance
The United States Commerce Department reported that housing starts had declined 26.6% in March, the biggest one-month decline ever. The drop was reported to be due to bad weather.

20 years ago
1989

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Australian Music Report): Like a Prayer--Madonna

#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): Like a Prayer--Madonna (6th week at #1)

Scandal
The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee, consisting of six Republicans and six Democrats, released a report that held, unanimously, that there was reason to believe that House Speaker Jim Wright (Democrat--Texas) had violated House rules. The 69 separate instances cited by the committee related to the acceptance of gifts and outside income, and were the legislative equivalent of an indictment. Mr. Wright said, "I know in my heart I have not violated any rules."

Economics and finance
U.S. President George Bush announced a package of economic aid to Poland, including elimination of U.S. tariffs on some Polish goods; loans to Poland (subject to Congressional approval); and an effort to expand the role of U.S. companies in Poland.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Division Finals
Boston 2 @ Montreal 3 (Montreal led best-of-seven series 1-0)

10 years ago
1999

Terrorism
At least 45 people were injured--at least 4 seriously--in the explosion of a nail bomb outside a market in Brixton, south London. This and two subsequent explosions were the work of David Copeland, 22, a right-wing extremist.

Politics and government
Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had supported India's 1998 entry into the world nuclear club, resigned as that country's Prime Minister after losing a non-confidence vote in parliament 270-269. His party was hurt by its advocacy of India as a predominantly Hindu state.

Hockey
On Hockey Night in Canada, the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2.