This Day in History – April 1, 2011

0374 Halley’s Comet approaches within 0.0884 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth 1578 William Harvey of England discovers blood circulation 1663 Gemert fines unwed motherhood (50 guilder penalty) 1748 Ruins of Pompeii found 1778 Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, creates “$” symbol 1789 House of Representatives 1st full meeting, New York NY, F Muhlenberg 1st speaker 1792 Gronings feminist Etta Palm demands women’s right to divorce 1793 Volcano Unsen on Japan erupts killing about 53,000 1803 French law rules the use of intention 1826 Samuel Mory patents internal combustion engine 1836 Charles Darwin aboard HMS Beagle reaches Cocos Islands 1853 Cincinnati becomes 1st US city to pay firefighters a regular salary 1863 1st wartime conscription law in US goes into effect 1865 Battle of 5 Forks VA, signalling end of Lee’s army 1866 US Congress rejects presidential veto gives all equal rights in US 1876 1st official National League baseball game (Boston-6, Philadelphia-5) 1889 1st dishwashing machine marketed (Chicago) 1891 London-Paris telephone connection opens 1910 Dumitru Dan (Romania) completed a 62,137 mile (100,000 m) walk 1924 Hitler sentenced to 5 years labor but General Ludendorff acquitted 1927 1st automatic record changer introduced by His Master’s Voice 1929 Morehouse College, Spelman College & Atlanta University affiliate to form Atlanta University Center 1929 Louie Marx introduces Yo-Yo 1931 Jackie Mitchell becomes 1st female in professional baseball 1934 Bonnie & Clyde kill 2 police officers 1938 Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown NY 1945 US forces launch invasion of Okinawa during WWII 1946 Tsunamis generated by a quake in Aleutian Trench strike Hilo HI 1946 Weight Watchers forms 1952 Big Bang theory proposed in Physical Review by Alpher, Bethe & Gamow 1954 US Air Force Academy established 1960 Mabry Harper catches a 25 lb Walleye in Tennessee 1961 Jim Bakker marries Tammy Faye 1963 NYC’s newspapers resume publishing after a 114 day strike 1963 Soap operas “General Hospital” & “The Doctors” premier on TV 1970 John Lennon & Yoko Ono release hoax they are having dual sex change operations 1970 President Richard Nixon signs bill limiting cigarette advertisements on 1/1/71 1972 Major league baseball players stages 1st collective strike 1973 Japan allows its citizens to own gold 1973 John & Yoko form a new country with no laws or boundaries, called Nutopia, its national anthem is silence 1976 Stephen Wozniak & Steven Jobs originate Apple Computer 1977 NFL decides to experiment with a 7th official in some preseason games 1980 Baseball Players’ Association votes to cancel 92 remaining exhibition games 1981 CNN airs a videotape that shows that Tamara Rand predicts that Reagan is in danger from someone named Jack Humley (a hoax) 1986 World oil prices dip below $10 a barrel 1990 Wrestlemania VI (67,678 in Toronto); Ultimate Warrior beats Hulk Hogan for championship 1991 US minimum wage goes from $3.80 to $4.25 per hour 1991 Iran releases British hostage Roger Cooper after 5 years 1991 Supreme Court rules jurors can’t be barred from serving due to race 1992 NHL players begin 1st strike in 75-year history 1992 Rocker Billy Idol fined $2,000 for hitting a woman 1992 World’s 7 wealthiest nations agree on $24 billion aid for former USSR 1997 69 year old Gordie Howe begins playing AHL game with Syracuse Crunch 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp Perihelion (0.914 AU) 2001 A Chinese fighter jet bumps into a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft which is forced to make an emergency landing in Hainan, China. The U.S. crew is detained for ten days and the F-8 Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, goes missing and is presumed dead. 2001 The first Major League Baseball game is played in Puerto Rico, as the Toronto Blue Jays defeat the Texas Rangers 8-1. 2001 In the Netherlands, the Act on the Opening up of Marriage goes into effect. The Act allows same-sex couples to legally marry for the first time in the world since the reign of Nero. 2008 Namibia’s Namdeb diamond company discovers a shipwreck off the coast of Namibia. Three bronze cannons are dated to 16th century Spain; other objects recovered are thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, and several tonnes of elephant tusks. 2008 UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank and world’s biggest wealth manager, announces write-downs on American mortgage-backed securities of US$37 billion, resulting in a first quarter loss of 12 billion Swiss francs. Chairman Marcel Ospel announces his resignation. 2010 German carmaker Daimler pleads guilty to corruption in the US and will pay US$185 million. The company paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to foreign government officials in at least 22 countries between 1998 and 2008. 2010 India launches a new census in which every person aged over 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted to create a biometric national database, which will then be used for national identity cards. 2010 Death of Dr. Edward Roberts, founder of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), “father of the personal computer”, inventor of the Altair 8800 computer, at age 68 after a long bout of pneumonia.]]]]> ]]>