Daily Calendar for Friday, April 5, 2024

Born

  • Booker T. Washington (educator & activist)
  • Washington Atlee Burpee (botanist, seedsman)
  • Spencer Tracy (actor)
  • Bette Davis (actress)
  • Gregory Peck (actor)
  • Colin Powell (former U.S. Secretary of State)
  • Agnetha Fältskog (singer in the Swedish rock group ABBA)
  • Franklin Chang-Diaz (astronaut)
  • Krista Allen (actress)

Died

  • Howard Hughes (industrialist & producer)
  • Sam Walton (businessman)
  • Kurt Cobain (musician)
  • Allen Ginsberg (poet)
  • Lee Petty (race car driver)
  • Saul Bellow (author of Humboldt’s Gift and other novels, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature)
  • Charlton Heston (actor)

Events

  • Pocahontas married Englishman John Rolfe
  • New York Chamber of Commerce formed
  • Anne Sullivan made a breakthrough with blind/deaf student Helen Keller, by conveying the meaning of the word water
  • Jess Willard knocked out Jack Johnson to win world heavyweight boxing title
  • Women granted the right to vote in British Columbia
  • Richard J. Daley elected to his first term as Chicago’s 39th mayor
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer, US physicist, declared a security risk in 1954, is named winner of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Enrico Ferni award
  • My Fair Lady won an Academy Award for Best Picture
  • Bobby Orr first NHL defenseman to win scoring title
  • Basketball star Kareem Abdul- Jabbar of the L.A. Lakers became the highest scoring player in NBA history. He reached 31,420 points, beating Wilt Chamberlain’s record
  • A camel named Bert was deputized, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, California
  • A minor earthquake shook southeastern Massachusetts
  • Elsie McLean, at 102 years old, became the oldest golfer to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course

Weather

  • This was the last day of a four-day snowstorm in the northern Rockies and the Black Hills, with the town of Lead, South Dakota, receiving 52 inches
  • A blizzard left 27.2 inches of snow in St. John’s, Newfoundland

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