Welcome to April, named for Aprilis, an Etruscan Goddess of Agriculture and planting, or it may even be a corruption of the name of the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love. OtThe month was considered by Romans sacred to Venus- Venuralia.
Birthdays: Big Jim Fisk , Edmund Rostand, Lon Chaney, Sir William Harvey, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ali McGraw, Toshiro Mifune, Debbie Reynolds, Phil Neikro, Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, Bo Schembechler, Annette O’Toole, Barry Sonnenfeld, Rachel Maddow is 47, animator Andreas Deja is 65.
1867- Opening of the Paris World Exhibition. This world’s fair was seen as the zenith of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Visitors marveled to exhibits as Dr Lister’s new disinfectant, a new metal called Aluminum, a new butter substitute called margarine, and in the American exhibit, a novel bit of furniture called a Rocking Chair. The Art galleries of the exhibition were filled with Ingres, Courbets and Delacroix. But nothing from Cezanne, Manet, Pizarro or any of the other weirdoes who would one day be called Impressionists.
1918- The British Royal Flying Corps (RAF) formed.
1923- Developers S.H. Woodruff and Canadian William Whitley start advertising lots for sale in Hollywoodland, beneath their giant new Hollywoodland sign. The sign originally was covered with lightbulbs. It collapsed and was repaired in 1939, the 'land' part never restored. The Hollywood Sign was made over again in 1978.
1944- Tex Avery's "Screwball Squirrel" Only a few shorts were made. As animator Bob Givens reminisced:" Eventually, everyone found that squirrel just too annoying!"
1945- OKINAWA- The Marines land and the battle began. Because it was not a conquered territory, but part of the home Japanese islands, Washington weighed it’s decision to use the atomic bomb by its observation of how tough Okinawa was, indicating how tough it would be to land on mainland Japan, only 360 miles away.
The fighting was brutal, hand to hand with bayonets and flame-throwers. Of the 125,000 man Japanese garrison only 7,500 didn’t fight to the death, and many civilians threw themselves off cliffs in mass suicide. A children's class trip visiting from Tokyo who were caught in the battle, were shown by soldiers how to cluster themselves around a single hand grenade, so as to save on the number needed. Today there is a shrine to their memory. The Cave of the Maidens is dedicated to a group of schoolgirls who hid in a cave and when the Americans heard Japanese voices inside and none would answer their calls to come out and surrender, filled the cave with flamethrower fire.
Almost every American soldier who was captured was executed. The U.S. Navy suffered the worst number of ships sunk and men killed since Pearl Harbor. There were 1,900 Kamikaze plane attacks. U.S. casualties were so high the government re-imposed a press blackout.
This battle has the rare distinction like the Plains of Abraham in 1759 where both opposing generals died. US General Simon Bolivar Buckner, whose father had fought Ulysses Grant in the Civil War, was killed by an artillery round three days before the battles end. Japanese General Usijima committed hari-kiri almost at the same time.
1949- Zsa Zsa Gabor married George Sanders. (Shere Khan )
1961- Rev Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker get married.
1970- A symbol of the 70’s, AMC’s compact car the Gremlin introduced.
1972- In a gesture of turnabout-is-fair-play for women, Playgirl Magazine ran its first male nude centerfold- Burt Reynolds.
1976- Two college dropouts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a company named Apple Computers. A third partner, small businessman Ron Wayne, sold his shares to Jobs & Woz for $800 before they filed papers of incorporation. He didn’t want to get stuck with the bill when they failed. In 2011 Apple surpassed Microsoft as the world’s richest company.
1984- Motown star Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his own father in an argument over plans for the singer's 45th birthday party the next day.
1996- Animation World Network, Toontown’s virtual trade magazine, started up. www.AWN.com
2004- G-Mail invented.
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