Paradise Driver

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Today is Wednesday, April 7th.

The 98th day of 2004.

There are 268 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On April 7, 1927, an audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance (using phone lines) demonstration of television.



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On this date:



In 1348, Prague University, the first in central Europe, was founded by Charles IV, King of Bohemia.



In 1788, 1st settlement in Ohio, at Marietta



In 1798, The Mississippi Territory was organized.



In 1827, John Walker, an English chemist, invented the wooden match.



In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.



In 1891, Nebraska introduced the 8 hour work day.



In 1902, Texas Oil Company (Texaco) forms.



In 1915, One of the greatest jazz-blues singers of all time, Billie "Lady Day" Holiday was born in Philadelphia, PA. She died in 1959.



In 1919, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record its music, makes its debut in London, England; its song “Tiger Rag” becomes popular.



In 1923, The first operation for a brain tumor under local anesthetic is performed at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City by Dr. K. Winfield Ney.



In 1933, Prohibition ended as Utah became the 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment.



In 1939, Italy invaded Albania. (Less than a week later, Italy annexed Albania.)



In 1940, Educator Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.



In 1943, British and American armies linked up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa to form a solid line against the German army.



In 1943, The drug LSD was first produced at Sandoz Laboratories, Basel, Switzerland, by Albert Hofman.



In 1945, During World War II, American planes intercepted a Japanese fleet that was headed for Okinawa on a suicide mission. The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa.



In 1947, Auto pioneer Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Mich., at age 83.



In 1947, Millions of Americans were left without telephone service by a nationwide strike. It lasted 23 days.



In 1948, The World Health Organization (WHO) was founded.



In 1949, The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" opened on Broadway.



In 1953, The U.N. General Assembly elected Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden to be secretary-general.



In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower fears "domino-effect" in Indo-China



In 1959, Oklahoma ends prohibition, after 51 years



In 1964, IBM introduced its innovative System/360, the company's first line of compatible mainframe computers that gave customers the option of upgrading from lower-cost models to more powerful, expensive ones.



In 1966, The United States recovered a hydrogen bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.



In 1967, Israel reported that they had shot down six Syrian MIGs.



In 1969, The Supreme Court unanimously struck down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.



In 1971, President Nixon pledged to withdraw 100,000 more men from Vietnam by December.



In 1978, President Jimmy Carter defers production of the neutron bomb



In 1980, President Jimmy Carter breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage crisis.



In 1981, Willem Klein mentally extracts 13th root of a 100-digit # in 29 seconds



In 1984, The Census Bureau reported Los Angeles had overtaken Chicago as the nation's "second city" in terms of population.



In 1988, Iran and Iraq bomb each other's capitals and other towns, killing and wounding scores of people.



In 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Afghan leader Najibullah met in the Soviet Central Asian city of Tashkent. They later issued a joint statement, anouncing an to end the civil war in Afghanistan and withdraw Soviet troops.



In 1989, In the Norwegian Sea, 42 seamen died when a Soviet Mike-class nuclear-powered submarine,the Komsomolets, sank more than 300 miles off coast of Norway after an undersea accident and fire. Twenty-seven crew members were rescued.



In 1990, At Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center a display of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs went on display. On the same day the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges. The charges resulted in acquittal.



In 1990, In the U.S., John Poindexter was found guilty of five counts at his Iran-Contra trial. The convictions were later reversed on appeal.



In 1991, The 100th episode of "Married With Children" aired.



In 2000, Attorney General Janet Reno met in Washington with the father of Elian Gonzalez; Reno later told reporters that officials would arrange for Juan Miguel Gonzalez to reclaim his son, but she gave Elian's Miami relatives one more chance to drop their resistance and join in a peaceful transfer.



In 2000, U.S. President Clinton signed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act of 2000. The bill reversed a Depression-era law and allows senior citizens to earn money without losing Social Security retirement benefits.



In 2001, In Cincinnati, Ohio, Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black man wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants, was fatally shot by a white police officer, sparking three days of riots.



In 2002, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein vowed to defeat the U.S. if it attacked Iraq. He said Iraq would continue supplying the Palestinians "with every means by which they can defend themselves....We will fight with missiles, warplanes, marsh reeds and even stones and they will be defeated."



Ten years ago (1994):



Civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu intellectuals were slaughtered.



Vatican acknowledges Holocaust (Nazi's killing of Jews) for 1st time



Five years ago (1999):



Yugoslav authorities sealed off Kosovo's main border crossings, preventing ethnic Albanians from leaving as the wave of refugees approached the half-million mark.



One year ago (2003):



U.S. troops in more than 100 U.S. armored vehicles rumbled through downtown Baghdad, seizing one of Saddam Hussein's opulent palaces and toppling a 40-foot statue of the Iraqi ruler.



The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold a 50-year-old Virginia law making it a crime to burn a cross as an act of intimidation.



The Boston Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of the priest sex abuse scandal.



Syracuse won the NCAA basketball tournament with an 81-78 victory over Kansas.



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Today's Birthdays:



Actor R.G. Armstrong is 87.



Sitar player Ravi Shankar is 84.



Actor James Garner is 76.



Pentagon whistleblower (Pentagon Papers) Daniel Ellsberg is 73.



Country singer Cal Smith is 72.



Actor Wayne Rogers is 71.



Actor Ian Richardson is 70.



Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 69.



Country singer Bobby Bare is 69.



Rhythm and blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 67.



Jazz musician Freddie Hubbard is 66.



The mayor of Oakland, Calif., Jerry Brown, is 66.



Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 65.



Television personality David Frost is 65.



Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 57.



Singer John Oates is 55.



Singer Janis Ian is 53.



Country musician John Dittrich is 53.



Rock musician Bruce Gary is 52.



Actor Jackie Chan is 50.



Football Hall-of-Famer Tony Dorsett is 50.



Actress Elaine Miles ("Marilyn Whirlwind" - Northern Exposure) is 44.



Actor Russell Crowe is 40.



Rhythm and blues singer Mark Kibble (Take 6) is 40.



Actor Bill Bellamy is 39.



Rock musician Dave "Yorkie" Palmer (Space) is 39.



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Thought for Today:

"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -

- Eleanor Roosevelt, American first lady (1884-1962).

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