On This Day In History
April 27, 4977 BC
Universe is created, according to Kepler

On April 27, 4977 B.C., the universe is created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered a founder of modern science. Kepler is best known for his theories explaining the motion of planets.

Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Germany. As a university student, he studied the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ theories of planetary ordering. Copernicus (1473-1543) believed that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, a theory that contradicted the prevailing view of the era that the sun revolved around the earth.

In 1600, Kepler went to Prague to work for Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, the imperial mathematician to Rudolf II, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Kepler’s main project was to investigate the orbit of Mars. When Brahe died the following year, Kepler took over his job and inherited Brahe’s extensive collection of astronomy data, which had been painstakingly observed by the naked eye. Over the next decade, Kepler learned about the work of Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who had invented a telescope with which he discovered lunar mountains and craters, the largest four satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, among other things. Kepler corresponded with Galileo and eventually obtained a telescope of his own and improved upon the design.

In 1609, Kepler published the first two of his three laws of planetary motion, which held that planets move around the sun in ellipses, not circles (as had been widely believed up to that time), and that planets speed up as they approach the sun and slow down as they move away. In 1619, he produced his third law, which used mathematic principles to relate the time a planet takes to orbit the sun to the average distance of the planet from the sun.

Kepler’s research was slow to gain widespread traction during his lifetime, but it later served as a key influence on the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and his law of gravitational force. Additionally, Kepler did important work in the fields of optics, including demonstrating how the human eye works, and math. He died on November 15, 1630, in Regensburg, Germany. As for Kepler’s calculation about the universe’s birthday, scientists in the 20th century developed the Big Bang theory, which showed that his calculations were off by about 13.7 billion years.

 

April 28

1611 - Establishment Pontifical and Roya University of Santo Tomes by Bishop Miguel de Bernavidesthe Catholic University of the Philippines is the oldest and largest Catholic University in the world

1789 - Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh lin the Southeast Pacific

1910 - First night air flight by Claude Grahame-White takes place in England

1758 - James Monroe was born.

 

On April 28, 1947, Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and a small crew sailed from Peru in the primitive raft Kon-Tiki, which was said to be an old name for the Incan god Viracocha.

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have reached Polynesia during pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available (although some ancillary modern technology was brought to document the journey) to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so.

Their arrival in Polynesia three and a half months later demonstrated the possibility that the Polynesians may have originated in South America.

Hyerdahl's 1950 documentary 'Kon-Tiki', which he directed, was edited by Olle Nordemar, who officially received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for 1951.

A scripted 2012 film titled 'Kon-Tiki' garnered significant attention as both cinematically beautiful and a rousingly exhilarating adventure. I highly recommend it.


Hyerdahl:



The 2012 film:

 

1789: Mutiny breaks out in the HMS Bounty
Having completed his mission of sailing from England to Tahiti to gather breadfruit saplings, Captain Bligh finds his command under siege less than a month into the return voyage. Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian leads the mutinous crewmembers, and they will set Bligh and 18 loyalists adrift in an open boat.

 

On this day in history, April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali refuses to serve military at height of Vietnam War
Boxer's stoic stand for his faith clouded by reports he refused draft upon order of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.


Cassius Clay points to a newspaper headline to show he's not the only one protesting the Vietnam War, March 28, 1966. The heavyweight champ was relaxing before his March 29th bout with Canada's George Chuvalo. Rozaa Rio, left, a recording artist from Chicago, came to Toronto to wish Clay luck.


Muhammad Ali, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, entered the combative ring of politics and culture by refusing to serve in the United States military at the height of the Vietnam War on this day in history, April 28, 1967.

"I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong," Ali famously said the year before, the exact quote the source of some dispute, in a battle that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

He later wrote, "I refuse to be inducted into the Armed Forces of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister of the religion of Islam."

Ali was lauded around the world as a hero for standing up for the courage of his convictions.

Critics say he used the power of his podium and celebrity to dodge the draft at a time when the nation’s working-class young men were fighting and dying at the sharp end of existential struggle for survival against communism.

Born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1942, the pugilist punched his way into the national spotlight winning a gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome at age 18.

He captured the world heavyweight title with his famous upset of Sonny Liston in February 1964. Clay then publicly announced his conversion to the Nation of Islam immediately after the bout and said his new name was Cassius X.

He was given his world-famous new identity by the Nation of Islam's Muhammad in a radio address on March 6.

 

On This Day In History
April 28, 1945
Benito Mussolini executed

On April 28, 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.

The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the communist partisans, who had been fighting the remnants of roving Italian fascist soldiers and thugs in the north, would try him as a war criminal, he settled on escape to a neutral country.

He and his mistress made it to the Swiss border, only to discover that the guards had crossed over to the partisan side. Knowing they would not let him pass, he disguised himself in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet, hoping to slip into Austria with some German soldiers. His subterfuge proved incompetent, and he and Petacci were discovered by partisans and shot, their bodies then transported by truck to Milan, where they were hung upside down and displayed publicly for revilement by the masses.

 

On This Day In History
April 28, 1945
Benito Mussolini executed

On April 28, 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.

The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the communist partisans, who had been fighting the remnants of roving Italian fascist soldiers and thugs in the north, would try him as a war criminal, he settled on escape to a neutral country.

He and his mistress made it to the Swiss border, only to discover that the guards had crossed over to the partisan side. Knowing they would not let him pass, he disguised himself in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet, hoping to slip into Austria with some German soldiers. His subterfuge proved incompetent, and he and Petacci were discovered by partisans and shot, their bodies then transported by truck to Milan, where they were hung upside down and displayed publicly for revilement by the masses.

 

28 Apr 1941
Charles Sweeney joined the United States Army Air Corps; he would later become the pilot of B-29 Superfortress bomber Bockscar that delivered the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.
The carrier USS Essex keel was laid at Newport News, Virginia, United States, the first of the Essex-class aircraft carriers. The lead ship of a near armada class of carriers would push across the Central Pacific and contribute massively to the war's end with Japan in 1945.

28 Apr 1942
The German Reichstag passed the legislation marking Adolf Hitler as the "Supreme Judge of the German People," formalizing his status above the law.

28 Apr 1945
Heinrich Himmler's attempts to negotiate peace with the Western Allies were discovered by Adolf Hitler, who stripped him of all his titles and ranks and ordered his arrest. This was mostly a formality as Hitler had no real power at that point and was well, a short-timer by then.

 

April 29

1864 - Battle of Gata Pa(Pukehinshina) 1,700 British troops suffer their worst defeat in the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Maors warriors in Tauranga.

1872 + Jesse James gang robs $1,500 in Columbia, Kentucky killing bank employee Robert A C Martin during the crime.

1916 - Irish republicans abandon the post office in Dublin and surrender unconditionally, marking the end of the Easter Rising.

1945 - U.S. Army liberates 31,600 POWs from Dacha Nazi concentration camp in Germany.

1980 - Wrecking balls negin tearing down the Berlin Wall St the Brandenburg Gate.

1899 - Duke Ellington born

1933 - Willie Nelson born

1980 - Alfred Hitchcock passed away.


1967 - Aretha Franklin releases her single "Respect" (written by Otis Redding) . Becomes Billboards Song of the Year.

 

On April 29, 1992, the jury in the trial of the four LAPD officers accused of police brutality against Rodney King issued its verdicts: not guilty on all counts, except for one assault charge that ended in a hung jury. That very day, the acquittals touched off the LA riots, which grew into the largest U.S. civil disturbance of the 20th century.

It is clear that the officers overstepped what was necessary to subdue King, but the media quickly edited the available video so the public would not see the out of control King attacking the officers prior to the beat-down.

Rioters seemed to feel that the verdict was a clarion call to attack any white people they saw, including truck driver Reginald Denny, who was pulled from his truck and severely beaten, suffering a fractured skull and impairment of his speech and his ability to walk, for which he underwent years of rehabilitative therapy. The incident was caught on tape by a news chopper.

It is wideley felt that the King beating laid the groundwork for the eventual acquittal of O.J. Simpsoin, who brutally murdered his estranged wife and her friend.

Guests arriving at LAX for my wedding over the next few days drove past an L.A. skyline ringed with smoke from numerous fires. The smoke still hung in the air as my bride and I drove to San Pedro harbor to board our honeymoon cruise the day after the wedding.







Reginald Denny gets a flying kick to the head from one of four strangers:

 

On this day in history, April 29, 2004, World War II Memorial opens in Washington, D.C.: 'Stirs memories'
Memorial designed by architect Friedrich St. Florian honors ultimate sacrifice of over 400,000 Americans.


The World War II Memorial, designed by Austrian architect Friedrich St. Florian, opened on this day in history, April 29, 2004.

The World War II Memorial opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on this day in history, April 29, 2004.

The memorial's purpose to "honor the service of the 16 million members of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, the support of countless millions on the home front, and the ultimate sacrifice of 405,399 Americans," says the National Park Service's website.

In 1997, the design created by Austrian-born architect Friedrich St. Florian was selected out of more than 400 entries, said the website.

"He remembered the challenge of protecting the view between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, as the new memorial would be placed between the two, as well as encompassing the Rainbow Pool, which rests at the west end of the Reflecting Pool," it added.

To solve this issue, St. Florian designed the memorial so that it was a "plaza sunken into the ground, with earth berms on the side," the architect himself said, according to the site.

"I looked up and I said, ‘I think we have a winning design!’"

Construction on the memorial began in Sept. 2001.

The memorial features 24 bronze bas-relief panels at its entrance, depicting scenes associated with the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of the war.

 

1961: First Episode of 'Wide World of Sports' airs on ABC
The show begins its 37-year run, exposing a new audience to sports previously not covered on TV. Jim McKay will host for the entire run, and his introduction, 'the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat,' will become part of the American lexicon.

 

29 Apr 1945

The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan, Italy, and hung upside down for public display at the spot where partisans had been executed earlier.

Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in his bunker in Berlin, Germany, and began dictating his final political testament and will. Eva Braun changed her legal name to Eva Hitler after the marriage.

 

April 30

311 - Roman Emperor Galerius issues the Edict of Toleration, ending the persecution of Christians

313 - Licinius unified the entire Eastern Roman Empire under his rule.

711 - Islam conquest of Iberia by Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn- Ziyaad. They land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberia Peninsula.

1352 - French Chamberlain Enguerrance de Murigny is hung at the gallows at Montfaucon after being convicted of sorcery.

1349 - Jewish community of Redfolfxrll, Germany exterminated

1789 - George Washington is inaugurated as first President of the United States of America at Federal Hall in New York City

1939 - Lou Gehrig sets a Major League record playing his 2,130th consecutive and final game for the New York Yankees..

 

On April 30, 1993, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor which he called the World Wide Web. Originally called Mesh, the browser became the first royalty-free, easy-to-use means of browsing the emerging information network that developed into the internet as we know it today.

Berners-Lee, who was a a fellow at CERN, the research organization headquartered in Switzerland, had outlined a plan for such a network in 1989 and developed it over the following years. The computer he used, a NeXT desktop, became the world’s first internet server. Berners-Lee wrote and published the first web page, a simplistic outline of the WorldWideWeb project, in 1991.

In June, 2021, Berners-Lee, auctioned off a single edition of his original time-stamped files for his invention’s source code as an NFT. Although the groundbreaking code has long been in the public domain, this original copy sold via Sotheby’s for $5,434,500.

Once the code was released in 1993, porn producers and people with cats and video cameras from all over the world sat up and took notice.

I remember the first time I saw it was at work, when a manager showed it to me. I recall the anticipation as we waited five minutes for a full photo of porn star Kobe Tai to gradually appear. I honestly did not see much potential for it as a masturbation aid...

Kobe Tai (not the same slow-loading photo):


Berners-Lee (no nude photos available):


'Pajamas and Nick Drake,' the first cat video to ever appear on You Tube:

 

On this day in history, April 30, 1789, George Washington inaugurated as first US president
Event was celebrated with fireworks and an inaugural ball held a week later.


An illustration of President George Washington delivering his inaugural address, held in New York City.

President George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States on this day in history, April 30, 1789.

In his address, which he delivered at New York City's Federal Hall, Washington expressed his anxiety over the prospect of leading a new nation.

At the time, New York City's Federal Hall served as the U.S. Capitol, according to the National Archives.

Washington had been notified officially of his election as president on April 14, said the National Archives website.

In his inaugural address, Washington noted that "no life event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month."

Robert Livingston, who was the chancellor of the State of New York, administered the oath of office, says the National Archives website.

"After repeating this oath, Washington kissed the Bible held for him by the Chancellor, who called out, ‘Long live George Washington, President of the United States,’ and a salvo of 13 cannons was discharged," it added.

 

1803: US makes Louisiana Purchase for $15 million
At a cost of about four cents per acre, the American government purchase from the French 828,000 square miles of land, stretching across much of North America. France needs the money for another looming war with Britain, and President Thomas Jefferson is happy to oblige.

 

30 Apr 1937
Claire Chennault retired from the US Army Air Corps under the guise of poor health; in actuality, he had grown too frustrated with the USAAC leadership who did not share his vision for the future of air warfare. He would continue a military aviation career in China, ultimately establishing the First American Volunteer Group (AVG), "Flying Tigers" and leading squadrons for the US in China once it entered WWII.

30 Apr 1942
US Carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet sailed toward the Coral Sea to join Lexington and Yorktown in the upcoming battle; however, they would arrive too late to participate.

30 Apr 1945
As the Soviets and US First Army linked up near Ellenburg, Germany, the recently married Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in Berlin, Germany. Their bodies were burned near the Chancellery bunker. The "Germany Calling" radio program ceased broadcasting as British Army troops closed in on the radio station facilities in Hamburg, Germany.

 

May 1

1707 - Acts of Union comes into force, uniting England and Scotland from the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

1840 - "Penny Black", the first adhesive postage stamp issued by Great Britain.

1931 - The Empire State Building opens in New York City. It is the world's tallest building until the World Trade Center in 197

1941 - "Citizen Kane" directed by Orson Welles and starring himself , Joseph Cotton and Dorothy Coming over premiers at the Palace Theater in New York City.

1852 - Calamity Jane was born. An American frontier woman.

1918 - Jack Parr , American talk show host, writer, and television and radio show comedian was born.

2023 - Gordon Lightfoot passed away.

 

On May 1, 1960, Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2 spyplane while on a high altitude reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union. The United States had secretly been gathering data on Soviet missile capabilities through photographs obtained through these overflights.

The Soviets had previously been unable to shoot down the spyplanes because of the altitude, but the new S-75 Divina surface-to-air missile had the requisite capability. It was one of these that brought down Powers' plane.

The flights had been ongoing as part of a plan laid in 1958, but the first flights had British pilots flying the U2s as Eisenhower felt that if an American pilot was shot down over the U.S.S.R. it would be seen as an act of aggression.

Powers was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and 7 years of hard labor. He served one year and nine months of the sentence before being exchanged for Rudolf Abel on February 10, 1962 at the Glienicke Bridge (dubbed 'The Bridge of Spies') connecting Potsdam, East Germany, to West Berlin.

Powers and his U2


The S-75 Divina