ON THIS DAY~APR 19

     Invention of the Month

 

The Modern Bicycle Is Invented

It's all but impossible to single out a single time or person who is universally acknowledged as the inventor of the modern bicycle. Its earlier precursors were called velocipedes, and included several types of human-powered vehicles. One dating back to 1790 and said to be the earliest bicycle was a scooter-like dandy horse of the French Comte de Sivrac. But many bicycle historians believe that these contraptions with no steering mechanism were probably made up and never existed. The German Baron Karl von Drais, who rode his 1817 machine while collecting taxes, was most likely the originator of the modern bicycle.

 

1897  The First Boston Marathon Is Run in Boston, Massachusetts

John J. McDermott of New York ran the 24.5-mile course of the all-male event in a winning time of 2:55:10.

 

 

1927  Mae West Jailed

Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity. She had written, produced, and directed Sex, a Broadway play about a gigolo, which the courts condemned for its scandalous content. She continued writing plays and battling censors and finally scored a Broadway success with her 1928 play, Diamond Lil. West went on to become a Hollywood star and one of the most highly paid women in the United States.

 

1938  TV Experiments Begin

RCA-NBC launches its first regular TV broadcasts. The programs, broadcast from the Empire State Building,were an experiment and aired only five hours a week. Very few TV sets existed at the time to receive the programs.

 

1943  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Put Down

On this day in 1943, Waffen SS attacks Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.

Shortly after the German invasion of Poland, in September 1939, nearly 400,000 Polish Jews were confined to a 3.5-square-mile area that normally housed about 250,000. The "ghetto" was sealed off with a 10-foot-high wall. Anyone caught leaving was shot on sight. As if this weren't bad enough, the Nazis strictly controlled the amount of food that was brought into the ghetto, forcing Jews to live on a bowl of soup a day. By July 1942, about 80,000 Jews had died.

 

1956  Actress Grace Kelly Became Princess Grace of Monaco

 

The beloved U.S. actress from Philadelphia married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a storybook wedding. More than 1,500 radio, TV, newspaper and magazine reporters were on hand for the event in Monaco, as were most of the citizens of the tiny country.

 

 

1995  Truck bomb Explodes In Oklahoma City

Just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast collapsed the north face of the nine-story building, instantly killing more than 100 people and trapping dozens more in the rubble. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma City from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later the death toll stood at 168 people killed, including 19 young children who were in the building's day-care center at the time of the blast.

 

 

APRIL IS AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH