April 18, 2008

80 years ago
1928

Disasters
Earthquakes in Bulgaria at Philippopolis, Papazli, and Tchirpan, killed 50 and destroyed much property.

Adventure
Japanese traveller Toichi Araki reached New York, 12 days after departing Tokyo on a trip around the world heading east. Ryvkichi Matsui left Tokyo the same day heading west.

Aviation
After a journey with took them to Natashquan on April 16 and Sept-Iles and Clarke City on April 17, C.A. "Duke" Schiller and his passenger, Commandant James Fitzmaurice of the German Junker Bremen, which was stranded on Greenely Island after a transatlantic flight from Dublin to New York, arrived in Murray Bay, where they met Miss Herta Junkers, daughter of the Bremen's builder. Miss Junkers had flown in from New York. Mr. Schiller then flew to Quebec City.

60 years ago
1948

On the radio
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on MBS, starring John Stanley and Alfred Shirley
Tonight’s episode: The Case of the Very Best Butter

50 years ago
1958

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.K.: Magic Moments--Perry Como (8th week at #1)

Baseball
The Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game at the Los Angeles Colosseum in front of a crowd of 78,672. Carl Erskine got the win, besting Al Worthington and the San Francisco Giants 6-5.

40 years ago
1968

World events
In a successful coup d’etat, non-commissioned Sierra Leone officers replaced the military government of Colonel Andrew Juxon-Smith with a 14-member Anti-Corruption Revolutionary Movement. Charging that Col. Juxon-Smith’s National Reform Council had been "more corrupt and selfish" than the civilian regime it had replaced in March 1967, a Sierra Leone radio broadcast promised a restoration of civilian rule.

Labour
A nationwide strike of 200,000 telephone workers who were members of the AFL-CIO Communications Workers of America began against American Telephone & Telegraph Company-affiliated Bell Telephone firms in 15 states and Western Electric Company firms in 40 states. Automation enabled service to continue at near-normal levels.

Hockey
The Stanley Cup quarter-finals ended with the home team losing both series. The Minnesota North Stars whipped the Los Angeles Kings 9-4 at the Forum in Inglewood, California to win the series 4 games to 3. For Kings' goalie Terry Sawchuk, it was his 100th career playoff game, and probably his worst. He never played for the Kings again. At the Spectrum in Philadelphia, the St. Louis Blues upended the Flyers 3-1 to take their series 4-3. Meanwhile, the remaining Eastern Division clubs opened the semi-finals at the Montreal Forum, as the Canadiens thrashed the visiting Chicago Black Hawks 9-2.

30 years ago
1978

Politics
The United States Senate voted 68-32, more than the two-thirds majority required, to turn over the Panama Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999. The margin was the same as the March 16 vote to ratify the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal after 2000. Reservations added to the treaty would allow the U.S. to use its troops to reopen the canal if necessary, but not to interfere with Panamanian sovereignty. U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who had lobbied hard for the treaties, and Panama’s head of state, Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos, hailed the ratification. Brig. Gen. Torrijos added that if the treaties had been rejected, Panama would have seized the canal by force.

World events
A message was found saying that former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro had been killed by his kidnappers, and his body thrown into a mountain lake near Rome. Italian troops on skis and in helicopters began a three-day search of the area in vain.

Law
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 7-2 that broadcasters and recording companies would not have automatic access to former president Richard Nixon’s White House tapes. In a majority opinion, Justice Lewis Powell argued that the press had no "special benefits" beyond "the right to attend the trial and report what they have observed."

25 years ago
1983

Terrorism
An explosion at the U.S. embassy in Beirut killed 63 people and injured at least 100. 16 Americans were among the dead, including the top Middle East analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. It was believed that the explosives had been ignited from a car or van near the building. A radical Iranian group claimed responsibility, but the government of Iran denied any involvement.

Defense
The defense minister of El Salvador, Jose Guillermo Garcia, resigned after Salvadoran leaders and U.S. military advisers criticized him for not effectively carrying the civil war to the rebels. He was succeeded by Gen. Eugenio Vides Casanova.

Hockey
At the Olympic Saddledome in Calgary, the hometown Flames staved off elimination when they held off the Edmonton Oilers 6-5 to cut the Oilers’ lead in their Stanley Cup divisional final series to 3 games to 1. Elsewhere, the Boston Bruins defeated the Buffalo Sabres 6-2.

Weather
In striking contrast to 2008, it was a beautiful, hot day in Edmonton, perfect for girl-watching--and the girls were more worth watching in those days.

Politics
United States Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina became the fifth declared candidate for the 1984 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination. While attacking President Reagan’s economic policies, Senator Hollings also warned that simply spending money, as Democrats had done in the past, was not always good policy.

20 years ago
1988

World events
John Demjanjuk, who had been extradited to Israel from the United States in 1986, was found guilty of war crimes by an Israeli court in Jerusalem. He had been accused by survivors of the Treblinka, Poland death camp of being "Ivan the Terrible," a guard who had assisted in the persecution of Jews. Mr. Demjanjuk claimed that he was the victim of mistaken identity. A few years after this trial, Mr. Demjanjuk was proven correct when documents released from a Soviet archive indicated that the real "Ivan the Terrible" was an Ivan Marchenko, who looked nothing like Mr. Demjanjuk.

War
Three U.S. warships bombarded the Sassan Iranian offshore oil platform, and after it was abandoned, U.S. Marines destroyed it. Some Iranians may have been killed during a similar bombardment of the platform off Sirri Island. During a series of Iranian reprisals, a U.S. helicopter gunship disappeared and its two-man crew was presumed lost. Two U.S. vessels repelled an attack by an Iranian missile boat and then sank it. The attacks, approved by President Ronald Reagan, were in response to the discovery of underwater mines in international waters, which President Reagan believed to be the work of Iran.

Iraq reported that it had recaptured the once-important oil port of Fao from Iran.

Diplomacy
Nicaraguan Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said that the Sandanista government would make concessions to the opposition Contras only after a final cease-fire was signed.

Politics
In the contest for the 1988 Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Rev. Jesse Jackson won the Delaware caucus vote.

Hockey
NHL
In third-round Stanley Cup playoff action, the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Boston Bruins 5-2, while the Washington Capitals beat the New Jersey Devils 3-1.

10 years ago
1998

Died on this date
Terry Sanford, 80. U.S. politician. Mr. Sanford was a Democratic politician and educator from North Carolina, where he served as a state senator from 1953-1961, Governor from 1961-1965, and United States Senator from 1986-1993. Mr. Sanford was noted for his progressive leadership in the fields of civil rights and education, and served as president of Duke University from 1969 to 1985. During his time as Governor of North Carolina, Mr. Sanford nearly doubled state spending on public schools, and created the Governor’s Schools for gifted students. He also pushed for desegregation. In recognition of Mr. Sanford's efforts in education and in countless other areas, a 1981 Harvard University survey named him one of the 10 best governors of the 20th century.

Mr. Sanford was a close ally of President John F. Kennedy, and according to President Kennedy’s personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, Mr. Kennedy would have dumped Vice-President Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in the 1964 election in favour of Mr. Sanford. According to Mrs. Lincoln, President Kennedy stated these views in a private conversation with her on November 19, 1963, just three days before his assassination. President Kennedy, according to Mrs. Lincoln, planned to emphasize government service as an honourable career in his second term, and thought that Governor Sanford believed the same things that he did.

Mr. Sanford served as President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign manager in 1968 before Mr. Johnson announced his withdrawal from the race on March 31. In September he took over as Hubert Humphrey’s campaign manager. In 1972, with Alabama Governor George Wallace running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Sanford decided to challenge the idea that Governor Wallace represented southern opinion. Mr. Sanford declared his candidacy on March 8, but he received 100,000 fewer votes than Governor Wallace in the North Carolina primary, and received just 77 ½ votes at the Democratic National Convention, finishing a distant fourth behind George McGovern, George Wallace, and Shirley Chisholm. On June 1, 1975, Mr. Sanford announced his candidacy for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, but he withdrew on January 25, 1976, after suffering a heart murmur.