Back in Time – This Day in History – April 21

 

1934: The Loch Ness Monster

By Mick Ferris, Press Association, AP, UPI, calendar.songfacts.com, classicbands.com and thisdayinmusic.com

753BC: Traditional date for when Romulus and Remus founded Rome.

1509: England’s King Henry VII died; he was succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Henry VIII.

1536: Thomas Cromwell begins to plan Anne Boleyn’s downfall while feigning illness.

1689: William III and Mary Stuart are proclaimed King and Queen of England.

1789: John Adams is sworn in as the first Vice President of the USA.

1796: The French, led by Napoleon, defeat the Piedmontese at the Battle of Mondovi.

1816: Birth of novelist Charlotte Bronte in Thornton, West Yorkshire.

1836: With the battle cry "Remember the Alamo!" Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated the army of Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at San Jacinto, Texas, opening the path to Texas independence.

1894: George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms & the Man” premieres in London.

1910: Author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Connecticut, at age 74.

1913: The German passenger ship Imperator runs aground.

1913: California state Sen. Ernest S. Birdsall of Placer County stated in an interview with United Press that the citizens of California demanded the prohibition of "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning farm land. The California Alien Land Law of 1913 was aimed at discouraging immigration to the state.

1916: The Aud, carrying a cargo of 20,000 rifles to assist Irish republicans in staging what would become the 1916 Rising, is captured by the British Navy and forced to sail towards Cork Harbour.

1918: Manfred von Richthofen, 25, the German ace known as the “Red Baron” who was believed to have downed 80 enemy aircraft during World War I, was himself shot down and killed while in action over France.

1925: Noel Coward’s “Fallen Angels” premieres in London.

1926: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II was born in Mayfair, London; she was the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and the Queen Mother.

1930: Fire broke out inside the overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, killing 332 inmates.

1934: The Daily Mail publishes the "Surgeon's photograph" supposedly showing the Loch Ness monster. The image, taken by Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson, was later proven to be a fake. (From PKL Living History@gaelhistory)

1935: King Boris of Bulgaria forbids all political parties.

1941: Greece surrenders to Nazi-Germany.

1942: The first edition of “The Stranger” (L’Etranger), Albert Camus’ highly influential absurdist novel, was published in Nazi-occupied Paris by Gallimard.

1945: The Russian Army enters the outskirts of Berlin.

1954: Georgi Malenkov becomes premier of the USSR.

1954: U.S. Air Force planes began flying French troops to Indochina to reinforce Dien Bien Phu. The city later fell to communist Viet Minh forces.

1955: National newspapers in Britain are published for the first time in nearly a month following the end of a strike by maintenance workers.

1960: Brasilia was inaugurated as Brazil's capital, moving the seat of government from Rio de Janeiro.

1961: The French army revolts in Algeria.

1962: Elvis Presley started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Good Luck Charm', his fifth US No.1 of the 60s. Also an UK No.1 hit.

1967: A Greek army coup in Athens sent King Constantine into exile in Italy.

1967: Working at EMI Studios in Abbey Road, The Beatles completed the recording of the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The final recordings were a short section of gibberish and noise which would follow A Day in the Life in the run-out groove. They record assorted noises and voices, which engineer Geoff Emerick cuts up and randomly re-assembles and edits backwards. At John Lennon’s suggestion, they also add a high-pitched 15 kilocycle whistle audible only to dogs. On the same day, Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Allilueva arrives in New York after defecting to the US.

1968: UK TOP 20: Album chart:

1. Bob Dylan -  John Wesley Harding

2. The Supremes - Greatest Hits - Supremes

3. Otis Redding - History Of Otis Redding

4. The Four Tops - Greatest Hits - Four Tops

5. Incredible String Band - Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

6. Original Soundtrack - The Sound Of Music

7. The Supremes - Live At The Talk Of The Town

8. Tom Jones - Live At The Talk Of The Town

9. Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac

10. Tom Jones - 13 Smash Hits

11. The Beach Boys - Wild Honey

12. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

13. Original Soundtrack - Dr Zhivago

14. The Four Tops - Reach Out

15. Cilla Black - Sher-Oo

16. The Move - Move

17. Various Artists - British Motown Chartbusters

18. Esther & Abi Ofarim - 2 In 3

19. Otis Redding - Otis Blue

20. Otis Redding - Otis Redding Live In Europe

***

1969: The Ministry of Defence announces that British troops would be used in Northern Ireland to guard key public installations following a series of bombings.

1973: US TOP 20 : Singles chart:

1. Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando - Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree

2. Vicki Lawrence - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

3. Carpenters - Sing

4. War - The Cisco Kid

5. Four Tops - Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got)

6. Gladys Knight And The Pips - Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)

7. The Sweet - Little Willy

8. The Temptations - Masterpiece

9. Anne Murray - Danny's Song

10. Donny Osmond - The Twelfth Of Never

11. Stevie Wonder - You Are The Sunshine Of My Life

12. Johnny Nash - Stir It Up

13. Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You

14. Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly With His Song

15. Dobie Gray - Drift Away

16. The Stylistics - Break Up To Make Up

17. Helen Reddy - Peaceful

18. Al Green - Call Me (Come Back Home)

19. Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side

20. Skylark - Wildflower

***

1975: Nguyen Van Thieu resigned as president of South Vietnam after denouncing the United States as untrustworthy. His replacement, Tran Van Huong, prepared for peace talks with North Vietnam as communist forces advanced on Saigon.

1976: Clinical trials of the swine flu vaccine began in Washington, D.C.

1977: Elvis Presley begins his last concert tour in Greensboro, North Carolina.

1977: The musical play “Annie,” based on the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,377 performances.

1978: Singer Sandy Denny dies aged 31 of a traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage four days after collapsing at a friend’s home.

1979: Amii Stewart's "Knock On Wood" hits #1 in America. The song was originally recorded by Eddie Floyd in 1966.

1982: The Clash frontman Joe Strummer disappears, causing the cancellation of a tour. He is found three weeks later living rough in Paris.

1983: The £1 coin is introduced.

1985: Ingrid Kristiansen wins the London Marathon in a record 2:21:06.

1987: A bomb planted by extremist Tamil Tigers explodes at bus terminal in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo killing 127 people and injured 288.

1990: Paul McCartney plays to 184,000 fans at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Jnaeiro, creating a new world record for the largest crowd attending a rock concert.

1992: Gas explosions ripped through the historic center of Guadalajara, Mexico, killing more than 200 people and injuring hundreds of others.

1994: One of the Guildford Four, Paul Hill, wins an appeal against his conviction for the IRA murder of former soldier Brian Shaw in 1974 after it is declared unsafe.

1995: The FBI arrests Timothy McVeigh and charge him with the Oklahoma City bombing of two days earlier.

1997: The ashes of Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry are launched into orbit.

1998: Astronomers announced in Washington that they had discovered possible signs of a new family of planets orbiting a star 220 light-years away, the clearest evidence to date of worlds forming beyond our solar system.

2000: Neal Matthews of Elvis’ backing singers The Jordanaires dies of a heart attack.

2001: REM guitarist Peter Buck is charged by police at Heathrow airport with being drunk on an aircraft and assaulting British Airways crew.

2002: Cold Feet wins best drama at the BAFTA Television Awards.

2003: Death of singer Nina Simone (Eunice Waymon) aged 70.

2004: Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan is attacked in The Joiner’s Arms pub in central London and suffers a fractured cheekbone after being kicked, punched and hit with a metal bar.

2005: The U.S. Senate approved the nomination of John Negroponte to be the nation's first national intelligence director.

2008: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a link had been found between contaminated drug thinners from China and 81 deaths in the United States.

2008: Soul singer-songwriter Al Wilson dies of kidney failure at the age of 68.

2009: The sole survivor of a pirate attack on an American cargo ship off the Somali coast was charged as an adult with piracy in federal court in New York. (A prosecutor said Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse had given wildly varying ages for himself before finally admitting he was 18. Muse later pleaded guilty to hijacking, kidnapping and hostage-taking and was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison.)

2012: Actress Carey Mulligan marries “Mumford & Sons” lead singer Marcus Mumford in Somerset.

2013: Liverpool’s Luis Suárez is sent off and banned for 10 matches after biting Branislav Ivanović’s arm in the Liverpool v Chelsea Premier League match at Anfield.

2016: Prince is found dead in a lift at his home in Minnesota at the age of 57. On the same day, country singer-guitarist Lonnie Mack diesof natural causes in hospital near his log cabin home, 70 miles east of Nashville.

2017: A Taliban attack on Camp Shaheen near Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, left more than 100 Afghan soldiers dead and dozens injured.

2018: North Korea announced that it would suspend nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches ahead of its summits with South Korea and the United States. Barbara Bush was remembered as the “first lady of the Greatest Generation” during a funeral in Houston attended by four former U.S. presidents and hundreds of others. Actor Verne Troyer, best known for his role as “Mini-Me” in the “Austin Powers” movies, died in Los Angeles at the age of 49; a coroner later ruled that the death was suicide by alcohol intoxication.

2019: Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a Extinction Rebellion protest in London amid city-wide climate protests where Waterloo Bridge was occupied over four days.

2020: Scripps National Spelling Bee officials canceled the 2020 national finals citing concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BIRTHDAYS: 

Queen Elizabeth II, 95; 

Iggy Pop (James Osterberg), singer-songwriter, 74; 

Tony Danza (Iadanza), actor, 70; 

Mike Barson, keyboardist/songwriter (Madness) 63; 

Andie (Rosalie) MacDowell, actress, 63; 

Robert Smith, singer-songwriter/guitarist (The Cure) 62; 

John Maher, drummer (The Buzzcocks) 61; 

Johnny McElhone, guitarist/songwriter (Altered Images/Texas) 58; 

Toby Stephens, actor, 52; 

James McAvoy, actor, 42; 

Robbie Amell, actor, 33.