May 28, 2012

125 years ago
1887

Born on this date
Jim Thorpe. U.S. athlete. Mr. Thorpe, whose ancestry was a combination of Native American and European, was the greatest athlete of the 20th century, if not ever. He won the gold medal in both pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in Stockholm, and was praised by King Gustav V of Sweden as the world's greatest athlete. His medals were taken away because it was discovered that he had briefly played professional baseball several years earlier, but the medals were reinstated and commemorative medals were presented to two of his children 70 years later. Mr. Thorpe played major league baseball with the New York Giants, but his favourite sport was football. He achieved stardom with Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and starred with seven different NFL teams in the 1920s. Mr. Thorpe briefly served as the first president of the American Professional Football Association in 1922, shortly before the league changed its name to the National Football League. He's a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, and was inducted as a charter member of the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1963. A fictionalized account of his feats, Jim Thorpe--All-American, was a popular movie in 1951, starring Burt Lancaster. Mr. Thorpe himself appeared in several movies, including White Heat (1949), where he was one of the prisoners whispering information about Cody Jarrett's mother in the prison cafeteria. He died on March 28, 1953 at the age of 65.

120 years ago
1892

Environment
John Muir founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco.

60 years ago
1952

On the radio
I Was a Communist for the FBI, starring Dana Andrews
Tonight’s episode: Traitors for Hire

On television tonight
The Unexpected, hosted by Herbert Marshall, on NBC
Tonight's episode: The Witch of the Islands, starring Gabriel DeCaesar, Paula Drew, Pat Hogan, and John Kellogg

50 years ago
1962

Space
The U.S.S.R. launched the satellite Cosmos 5.

40 years ago
1972

Died on this date
Edward, Duke of Windsor, 77. King Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions, Emperor of India, 1936. Edward succeeded to the throne on January 20, 1936 on the death of his father, George V, but abdicated the throne on December 10, 1936 in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. He was succeeded as King-Emperor by his younger brother, George VI, who gave Edward the title Duke of Windsor.

30 years ago
1982

War
British forces captured Darwin and Goose Green, defeating the second-largest installation of Argentine forces in the Falkland Islands—1,000 men.

Crime
Edward Thomas Mann, a former salesman with International Business Machines, drove a car through the glass lobby of an IBM building in Bethesda, Maryland, and then went on a shooting spree, killing two workers and wounding at least 10 others. Mr. Mann, wearing a mask and armed with two rifles, a shotgun, and a pistol, surrendered to police after seven hours of negotiations by telephone.

Disasters
Nicaragua and Honduras announced that at least 200 people had died and 65,000 had been left homeless after a huge flood.

25 years ago
1987

On television tonight
Our World, hosted by Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf, on ABC
Tonight's episode: Dangerous Assumptions: Spring 1953

This was the 26th and last episode of the series.



World events
Mathias Rust, a 19-year-old resident of Hamburg, West Germany, flew a single-engine Cessna from Helsinki across 400 miles of Soviet air space and landed in Moscow’s Red Square, just a few yards from the Kremlin Wall. Mr. Rust left his plane and visited with onlookers before being seized and imprisoned.



Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Finals
Edmonton 2 @ Philadelphia 3 (Best-of-seven series tied 3-3)

Brian Propp and J.J. Daigneault scored 1 minute 24 seconds apart in the 3rd period to complete a comeback from a 2-0 deficit as the Flyers edged the Oilers at the Spectrum.



20 years ago
1992

Hit parade
#1 single in Ireland (IRMA): Why Me--Linda Martin

Economics and finance
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 3,398.43.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Finals
Chicago 1 @ Pittsburgh 3 (Pittsburgh led best-of-seven series 2-0)

10 years ago
2002

Died on this date
Mildred Benson, 96. U.S. authoress. Writing under the name Carolyn Keene, Miss Benson wrote 23 of the first 25 Nancy Drew mystery novels.

Diplomacy
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia agreed to the establishment of a NATO-Russian Council, permitting Russia to participate in many NATO discussions.

It was reported that Libya had offered to pay $2.7 billion to the survivors of the passengers on Pan Am flight 103, bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, in exchange for the lifting of United Nations and United States sanctions against the country.

Law
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed a Basic Law, delineating rights of the people and responsibilities of the government, that had been passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1997.