It was early on a Wednesday morning, with most of the residents of San Francisco peacefully sleeping, when disaster suddenly struck the City by the Bay. At 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906, an earthquake tremor for about 20 seconds was followed by a major 7.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the city for over 40 seconds, jolting terrified residents awake as buildings collapsed around them. Worse still, the powerful quake twisted and broke gas and water lines. Huge fires erupted and burned continuously for three days. Without water, firefighters were helpless to stop the inferno. read more...
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After Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces on April 13, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days to preserve the Union. The South scrambled to respond. Realizing the Confederacy lacked an effective navy, President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation on April 17 offering to give sanction to any armed private vessel that was willing to attack Northern ships. read more...
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Hopes were high when Apollo 13 and its three astronauts blasted off April 11, 1970, intending to be the third mission to land on the moon. However, disaster struck two days later when an oxygen tank exploded 200,000 miles above the Earth. Suddenly astronauts Fred W. Haise, James A. Lovell and John L. Swigert were in a harrowing fight for their lives, with controllers back in Houston, Texas, desperately scrambling to come up with a way to get the men home. read more...
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When people think of American women pioneers in aviation, Amelia Earhart usually comes to mind. However, Harriet Quimby was the first woman to earn a pilot’s license in the United States, which she accomplished on Aug. 1, 1911—twelve years before Earhart. In September of that year she achieved another distinction: first woman to make a nighttime flight. read more...
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Opening day for the Chicago White Sox on April 16, 1940, was a raw, cold and windy day that kept most fans away—little more than 14,000 bothered to show up. Those that did, however, witnessed baseball history that day. The opponent was the Cleveland Indians, and their young flame-throwing phenom, Bob Feller, did something no one else has ever done: he pitched a no-hitter on opening day. read more...
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January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, decreed by the United Nations in 2005 to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust—a horrific program in which Nazi Germany murdered between 11 and 17 million people, approximately 6 million of them Jews. The date was chosen because Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, the largest of the concentration camps, on Jan. 27, 1945. read more...
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On April 15, 1861, the day after Fort Sumter was occupied by Confederate troops in the opening battle of the Civil War, Washington, D.C., accelerated its preparations for the war that was now upon it. Someone who was there wrote a letter (signing it simply as “Observer”) to the Public Ledger describing the scene. This Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, newspaper published the letter on April 16, 1861: read more...
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At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the passenger liner RMS Titanic sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg shortly before midnight, killing 1,517 passengers and crew. It was the world’s largest passenger ship, carrying all the latest safety features, and was thought to be unsinkable. The Titanic was four days into its maiden voyage with 2,223 people on board when disaster struck. In full compliance with existing regulations, the ship had enough lifeboats for only 1,178 people. read more...
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Readers of the New York Herald picked up their papers on April 14, 1861, and learned that Fort Sumter had surrendered the previous afternoon after enduring a 34-hour bombardment—the opening battle of the Civil War had ended with a Confederate victory. read more...
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On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the nation’s 32nd president, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His life ended just as the great Allied victory in World War II that he had worked so hard for was in sight. In his remarkable and unprecedented four terms and 12 years in the White House, Roosevelt steered the nation through two of the greatest traumas in its history: the Great Depression and World War II. read more...
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I understand that when writing a blog, it’s necessary to show a picture and say a few words about yourself, so that people don’t think a nameless, faceless committee or advisory board is running the show. Here I am, a real person. My name is Tony Pettinato, and I live in Deerfield, Mass. I did my undergraduate studies in English at Oberlin College, my graduate work in Journalism at UC Berkeley, and have been a reporter for six newspapers. For the past fourteen years I have worked at NewsBank, six of those as a managing editor for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set project – NewsBank’s acclaimed effort that digitized and indexed twelve million pages of primary source documents – that gratified my lifelong interest in American history. And that led me to editing this history blog!
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