May 3, 2012

75 years ago
1937

Literature
Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel Gone with the Wind.

60 years ago
1952

Hit Parade
#1 singles in the U.S.A. (Billboard): Wheel of Fortune--Kay Starr (Best Seller--8th week at #1; Disc Jockey--8th week at #1); Juke Box--6th week at #1)

U.S.A. Top 10 (Cash Box)
1 Blue Tango--Leroy Anderson and his "Pops" Concert Orchestra (3rd week at #1)
--Hugo Winterhalter and his Orchestra
2 Wheel of Fortune--Kay Starr
--Bobby Wayne
--Eddie Wilcox Orchestra with Sunny Gale
3 The Blacksmith Blues--Ella Mae Morse
4 A Guy is a Guy--Doris Day
5 Any Time--Eddie Fisher
6 Cry--Johnnie Ray and the Four Lads
7 Perfidia--The Four Aces
8 I'll Walk Alone--Don Cornell
9 Be Anything (But Be Mine)--Eddy Howard
10 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--Guy Mitchell

Singles entering the chart were Kiss of Fire, with versions by Georgia Gibbs and Tony Martin (#14); Delicado by Percy Faith and his Orchestra (#24); and Mountains in the Moonlight by Johnnie Ray (#42). Delicado was the B-side (or maybe the A-side) of Festival, which charted at #40. Mountains in the Moonlight was the B-side of What's the Use?, which charted at #21.

Horse racing
Hill Gail, with Eddie Arcaro up, won the 78th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville in a time of 2:01 3/5 seconds. Sub Fleet placed second.

50 years ago
1962

Hit parade

#1 single in the U.K. (Record Retailer): Wonderful Land--The Shadows (7th week at #1)

On television tonight
The Untouchables, starring Robert Stack, on ABC
Tonight's episode: Downfall

40 years ago
1972

War
Two days after the city of Quang Tri had fallen to North Vietnamese troops, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu flew to the city of Hue—now jammed with refugees—and dismissed the two top generals on the northern front, putting Lieutenant General Ngo Quong Truong in command. Gen. Truong issued shoot-to-kill orders against looters, arsonists, and deserters of the fleeing 3rd Division, who had left behind tanks, armoured cars, and artillery.

Law
U.S. President Richard Nixon named assistant Attorney General L. Patrick Gray as acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, pending nomination of a permanent director after the November 7 elections. Mr. Gray was replacing J. Edgar Hoover, who had died the previous day.

Disasters
A thunderstorm in Mexico City left at least 37 dead, 216 injured, and 10,000 homeless.

30 years ago
1982

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): I Love Rock 'N' Roll--Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Protest
10,000 people in Warsaw gathered to protest against the Communist government of Poland, and many were beaten by police.

25 years ago
1987

Hit parade
#1 single in France: Viens boire un p'tit coup à la maison--License IV (4th week at #1)

Personal
This blogger flew to London, Ontario to become a student at the University of Western Ontario’s School of Library and Information Science.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Division Finals
Toronto 0 @ Detroit 3 (Detroit won best-of-seven series 4-3)

Men’s world championship
Final
Sweden 9 Canada 0

20 years ago
1992

Died on this date
George Murphy, 89. U.S. actor and politician. Mr. Murphy was a song and dance man who appeared in such movies as Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937); Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940); A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob (1941); Bataan (1943); This is the Army (1943); Having Wonderful Crime (1945); Border Incident (1949); and Battleground (1949). He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1944-1946 and was a United States Senator from California from 1964-1971.

10 years ago
2002

Died on this date
Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, 91. U.K. politician. Ms. Castle was a British parliamentarian from the 1940s to the 1970s, and was a cabinet minister in the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Diplomacy
Russia signed an agreement returning Cam Ranh Bay, after 1979 the largest Soviet naval base outside the U.S.S.R., to Vietnam.

Terrorism
Eight rural mailboxes in a circular cluster of small towns in northwestern Illinois and northeastern Iowa were found to be booby-trapped with pipe bombs. Each bomb was accompanied by a long, obscure, anti-government note. Lucas Helder, a student at the University of Wisconsin—Stout, was arrested in Nevada four days later on suspision of responsibility for the bombs.

World events
A funeral was held in Cape Town for Saartje Baartman, a Khoisan woman who had left South Africa in 1910 and had been exhibited in France as “Hottentot Venus” for the rest of her life and after her death. Her remains had been returned to South Africa by Paris’s Musee de l’Homme.

Disasters
At least 271 people were killed when a ferry sank in a rainstorm on the Meghna River in southeastern Bangladesh.