On this day in 1997, 21-year-old Tiger Woods won the prestigious Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes in Augusta, Georgia. It was Woods’ first victory in one of golf’s four major championships–the U.S. Open, the British Open, the PGA Championship, and the Masters–and the greatest
Today In History
Emiliano Zapata, a leader of peasants and indigenous people during the Mexican Revolution, was ambushed and shot to death in Morelos by government forces. Born a peasant in 1879, Zapata was forced into the Mexican army in 1908 following his attempt to recover village lands taken over by a rancher. After the revolution began in […]
The U.S. table tennis team began a weeklong visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the invitation of China’s communist government. The well-publicized trip was part of the PRC’s attempt to build closer diplomatic relations with the United States, and was the beginning of what some pundits in the United States referred to […]
O. Henry’s second short story collection, The Four Million, was published. The collection includes one of his most beloved stories, The Gift of the Magi, about a poor but devoted couple who each sacrifice their most valuable possession to buy a gift for the other. O. Henry was the pen name adopted by William Sydney […]
On April 10, 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh, 54. In 1863, Bergh had been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to a diplomatic post at the Russian court of Czar Alexander II. It was there that he […]
On April 8, 1935, Congress voted to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” In November 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Governor Roosevelt of New York was elected the 32nd president of the United States. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, […]
Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan independence movement, was convicted by Kenya’s British rulers of leading the extremist Mau Mau in their violence against white settlers and the colonial government. An advocate of nonviolence and conservatism, he pleaded innocent in the highly politicized trial. One of modern Africa’s first nationalist leaders, Kenyatta was a great […]
Senator Joseph McCarthy labelled Professor Owen Lattimore “extremely dangerous so far as the American people are concerned” in a carefully worded public speech, but stops short of calling him a Soviet spy. The speech was yet another example of McCarthy’s ability to whip up damaging Red Scare hysteria with no real evidence. In February 1950, […]
On this day, Buddhists celebrate the commemoration of the birth of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, thought to have lived in India from 563 B.C. to 483 B.C. Actually, the Buddhist tradition that celebrates his birthday on April 8 originally placed his birth in the 11th century B.C., and it was not until the […]
On this day in 1993, race car driver and owner Alan Kulwicki, who won the 1992 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Winston Cup championship by one of the tightest margins in series history, was killed in a plane crash near Bristol, Tennessee, where he was scheduled to compete in a race the […]
Adolf Hitler was sentenced for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8, 1923. The attempted coup in Munich by right-wing members of the army and the Nazi Party was foiled by the government, and Hitler was charged with high treason. Despite his conviction, Hitler was out of jail before the end of […]
On April 1, 1918, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) was formed as an amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The RAF took its place beside the British navy and army as a separate military service with its own ministry. In April 1911, eight years after the […]
On this day in 1700, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools’ Day by playing practical jokes on each other. Although the day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back […]
On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announced on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952- -an epidemic year for polio–there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died […]
During a radio broadcast dealing with a Senate investigation into communists in the U.S. Department of State, news was leaked that Senator Joseph Mc- Carthy has charged Professor Owen Lattimore with being a top spy for the Soviet Union. Lattimore soon became a central figure in the Red Scare hysteria created by McCarthy’s reckless charges […]
This Side of Paradise was published, immediately launching 23-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald to fame and fortune. Fitzgerald, named for his ancestor Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star Spangled Banner,” was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, to a once well-to-do family that had descended in wealth and influence. With the funding of a well-off aunt, […]
On March 23, 1994, Wayne Gretzky scored his 802nd goal, breaking his childhood idol Gordie Howe’s National Hockey League record for most goals scored in a career. Gretzky, known to hockey fans as “The Great One,” broke a total of 61 offensive records in his NHL career, including many previously held by “Mr. Hockey” Gordie […]
Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico’s ruling party’s presidential candidate, was gunned down during a campaign rally in the northern border town of Tijuana. As a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the political party that held power in Mexico for most of the 20th century, Colosio became the protÝgÝ of future Mexican president Carlos Salinas […]
Benito Mussolini, an Italian World War I veteran and publisher of Socialist newspapers, broke with the Italian Socialists and established the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento, named after the Italian peasant revolutionaries, or “Fighting Bands,” from the 19th century. Commonly known as the Fascist Party, Mussolini’s new right-wing organization advocated Italian
