First live sporting event broadcast on radio

On April 11, 1921, KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasts the first live sporting event on the radio, a boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee. Pittsburgh Daily Post sports editor Florent Gibson calls the event, about four months before KDKA’s Harold Arlin announces the first Major League Baseball game broadcast on radio.

READ MORE: How a 1921 baseball radio broadcast marked dawn of sportscasting

The lightweight bout pitted Dundee, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, against Ray, who would later train and manage famed boxer Billy Conn.

In the early part of the 20th century, radio had been used primarily for two-way communication. The medium’s popularity took a nosedive during World War I, when the U.S. military took over all airwaves.

But Harry P. Davis, the vice president of Westinghouse in 1921, saw radio as something more. He told Inventing American Broadcasting that radio was “an idea of limitless opportunity.” On October 27, 1920, KDKA became the first licensed radio station. Less than six months later, it put its live-event broadcasting to the test with sports.

“[Radio] operators were treated to the action of the ring battle with all the realism of each blow and each bit of ring strategy enacted the instant it occurred,” the Associated Press reported about the boxing match. “… [radio] brought the sounds of the conflict, the clang of the gong and the shouts of the fans.”

Ray, who fought “like a master,” according to the Pittsburgh Daily Post, won the 10-round fight. 

Within three months, the second fight broadcast on radio took place, a title bout between heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. 

READ MORE: 8 moments when radio helped bring Americans together

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Barack Obama and Raúl Castro meet in Panama

Year
2015
Month Day
April 11

For the first time in over 50 years, the presidents of the United States and Cuba meet on April 11, 2015. Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, President of Cuba and brother of Fidel Castro, with whom the United States broke off diplomatic contact in 1961, shook hands and expressed a willingness to put one of the world’s highest-profile diplomatic feuds in the past.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower had cut diplomatic ties with Cuba after the Castro-led revolution overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator and installed a regime that was friendly with the Soviet Union. For the next five decades, the U.S. sought to isolate Cuba economically and politically; though it failed to get other nations to join its embargo, it did manage to severely hamstring Cuba’s economic development. Fidel Castro stepped down as president in 2008, the same year that Obama was elected. Early in his administration, Obama signed laws and executive orders that eased the U.S. embargo of Cuba and made it easier for Americans to travel to the island nation. Taking over for his brother, Raúl Castro expressed a willingness to reciprocate, and the two shook hands at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela in 2013. That year, officials from the two nations discussed normalizing relations at secret talks facilitated by Pope Francis I in Canada and at the Vatican.

The following April, Castro and Obama met, shook hands, and posed together for photographs in Panama City, Panama. Both leaders stressed their desire to work together, but warned that their meeting was only the beginning of what would have to be a long dialogue. A short time later, the Obama administration removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terror, and the diplomatic relationship was officially re-established in July.

The “Cuban Thaw,” along with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran, the U.S., and its allies, was one of the major foreign policy accomplishments of Obama administration, and as such its reversal was priority for his successor, Donald Trump. The Trump administration has sought to impose more restrictions on Cuba, but it has not ended commercial travel between the two countries, nor has it closed the U.S. embassy in Cuba or asked Cuba to vacate its embassy in Washington, D.C.

READ MORE: How the Castro Family Dominated Cuba for Nearly 60 Years

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Ugandan dictator Idi Amin overthrown

Year
1979
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 1979, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin flees the Ugandan capital of Kampala as Tanzanian troops and forces of the Uganda National Liberation Front close in. Two days later, Kampala fell and a coalition government of former exiles took power.

Amin, chief of the Ugandan army and air force from 1966, seized control of the African nation in 1971. A tyrant and extreme nationalist, he launched a genocidal program to purge Uganda of its Lango and Acholi ethnic groups. In 1972, he ordered all Asians who had not taken Ugandan nationality to leave the country, and some 60,000 Indians and Pakistanis fled. These Asians comprised an important portion of the work force, and the Ugandan economy collapsed after their departure.

In 1979, his eight years of chaotic rule came to an end when Tanzania and anti-Amin Ugandan forces invaded and toppled his regime. Amin had launched an unsuccessful attack on Tanzania in October 1978 in an effort to divert attention from Uganda’s internal problems. He escaped to Libya, eventually settling in Saudi Arabia, where he died in August 2003. The deaths of 300,000 Ugandans are attributed to Idi Amin.

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Apollo 13 launches to the moon

Year
1970
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13, the third lunar landing mission, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise. The spacecraft’s destination was the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon, where the astronauts were to explore the Imbrium Basin and conduct geological experiments. After an oxygen tank exploded on the evening of April 13, however, the new mission objective became to get the Apollo 13 crew home alive.

At 9:00 p.m. EST on April 13, Apollo 13 was just over 200,000 miles from Earth. The crew had just completed a television broadcast and was inspecting Aquarius, the Landing Module (LM). The next day, Apollo 13 was to enter the moon’s orbit, and soon after, Lovell and Haise would become the fifth and sixth men to walk on the moon. At 9:08 p.m., these plans were shattered when an explosion rocked the spacecraft. Oxygen tank No. 2 had blown up, disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water. Lovell reported to mission control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and the crew scrambled to find out what had happened. Several minutes later, Lovell looked out of the left-hand window and saw that the spacecraft was venting a gas, which turned out to be the Command Module’s (CM) oxygen. The landing mission was aborted.

READ MORE: What Went Wrong on Apollo 13? 

As the CM lost pressure, its fuel cells also died, and one hour after the explosion mission control instructed the crew to move to the LM, which had sufficient oxygen, and use it as a lifeboat. The CM was shut down but would have to be brought back on-line for Earth reentry. The LM was designed to ferry astronauts from the orbiting CM to the moon’s surface and back again; its power supply was meant to support two people for 45 hours. If the crew of Apollo 13 were to make it back to Earth alive, the LM would have to support three men for at least 90 hours and successfully navigate more than 200,000 miles of space. The crew and mission control faced a formidable task.

To complete its long journey, the LM needed energy and cooling water. Both were to be conserved at the cost of the crew, who went on one-fifth water rations and would later endure cabin temperatures that hovered a few degrees above freezing. Removal of carbon dioxide was also a problem, because the square lithium hydroxide canisters from the CM were not compatible with the round openings in the LM environmental system. Mission control built an impromptu adapter out of materials known to be onboard, and the crew successfully copied their model.

READ MORE: How Apollo 13 Became NASA’s ‘Successful Failure’

Navigation was also a major problem. The LM lacked a sophisticated navigational system, and the astronauts and mission control had to work out by hand the changes in propulsion and direction needed to take the spacecraft home. On April 14, Apollo 13 swung around the moon. Swigert and Haise took pictures, and Lovell talked with mission control about the most difficult maneuver, a five-minute engine burn that would give the LM enough speed to return home before its energy ran out. Two hours after rounding the far side of the moon, the crew, using the sun as an alignment point, fired the LM’s small descent engine. The procedure was a success; Apollo 13 was on its way home.

For the next three days, Lovell, Haise and Swigert huddled in the freezing lunar module. Haise developed a case of the flu. Mission control spent this time frantically trying to develop a procedure that would allow the astronauts to restart the CM for reentry. On April 17, a last-minute navigational correction was made, this time using Earth as an alignment guide. Then the re-pressurized CM was successfully powered up after its long, cold sleep. The heavily damaged service module was shed, and one hour before re-entry the LM was disengaged from the CM. Just before 1 p.m., the spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Mission control feared that the CM’s heat shields were damaged in the accident, but after four minutes of radio silence Apollo 13‘s parachutes were spotted, and the astronauts splashed down safely into the Pacific Ocean.

READ MORE: Space Exploration: Timeline and Technologies

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Henry Ford marries Clara Jane Bryant

Year
1888
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 1888, 24-year-old Henry Ford marries Clara Jane Bryant on her 22nd birthday at her parent’s home in Greenfield Township, Michigan. Clara Ford would prove to be a big supporter of her husband’s business ideas: Fifty years later, Henry Ford—who by then had founded the Ford Motor Company, invented the top-selling Model T car and revolutionized the auto industry with his mass-production technology—was quoted in a 1938 New York Times Magazine article as saying, “The greatest day of my life is when I married Mrs. Ford.”

The couple, both of whom came from farm families, first met at a New Year’s dance in Michigan in 1885. During their courtship, they enjoyed such activities as dancing, corn-husking parties and boating excursions. According to Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford, a biography by Ford R. Bryan: “The two were impressed by each other, Clara with Henry’s unique mechanical talents and Henry with Clara’s serious and appreciative disposition.” They were engaged in April 1886, but the future bride’s mother thought she was too young to wed and made them wait another two years.

READ MORE: Henry Ford: Biography, Inventions & Assembly Line

After their marriage, the Fords lived on farm land given to Henry by his father. By 1891, however, the couple moved to Detroit, where Henry Ford began working as an engineer for Edison Illuminating Company. The couple’s only child, Edsel, was born in November 1893. In 1896, Ford completed a four-wheel, self-propelled vehicle with a gasoline engine called the Quadricycle. During the early years of their marriage, the couple lived in 10 different rental homes while Henry worked to develop an automobile. After incorporating the Ford Motor Company in 1903, Henry launched the Model T in 1908. The car, which was in production until 1927, held the record for the world’s top-selling vehicle until it was surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle in 1972.

In 1915, the Fords moved into a mansion built on land they owned in Dearborn, Michigan. The home, named Fair Lane, included an indoor swimming pool, billiard room, bowling alley and dance floor, as the Fords had always liked to dance. Clara Ford managed the estate staff, pursued such interests as gardening and traveled around the world on business trips with Henry.

Henry Ford died at the age of 83 on April 7, 1947; Clara Ford died three years later, on September 29, 1950, at the age of 84. Their son Edsel, who worked for the family business, preceded both his parents in death, dying at the age of 49 from cancer on May 26, 1943.

READ MORE: The Cars That Made America 

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Napoleon abdicates the throne and is exiled to Elba

Year
1814
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba.

The future emperor was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on August 15, 1769. After attending military school, he fought during the French Revolution of 1789 and rapidly rose through the military ranks, leading French troops in a number of successful campaigns throughout Europe in the late 1700s. By 1799, he had established himself at the top of a military dictatorship. In 1804, he became emperor of France and continued to consolidate power through his military campaigns, so that by 1810 much of Europe came under his rule. Although Napoleon developed a reputation for being power-hungry and insecure, he is also credited with enacting a series of important political and social reforms that had a lasting impact on European society, including judiciary systems, constitutions, voting rights for all men and the end of feudalism. Additionally, he supported education, science and literature. His Code Napoleon, which codified key freedoms gained during the French Revolution, such as religious tolerance, remains the foundation of French civil law.

READ MORE: The Personality Traits that Led to Napoleon Bonaparte’s Epic Downfall

In 1812, thinking that Russia was plotting an alliance with England, Napoleon launched an invasion against the Russians that eventually ended with his troops retreating from Moscow and much of Europe uniting against him. In 1814, Napoleon’s broken forces gave up and Napoleon offered to step down in favor of his son. When this offer was rejected, he abdicated and was sent to Elba. In March 1815, he escaped his island exile and returned to Paris, where he regained supporters and reclaimed his emperor title, Napoleon I, in a period known as the Hundred Days. However, in June 1815, he was defeated at the bloody Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon’s defeat ultimately signaled the end of France’s domination of Europe. He abdicated for a second time and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, where he lived out the rest of his days. He died at age 52 on May 5, 1821, possibly from stomach cancer, although some theories contend he was poisoned.

READ MORE: These Despots Had Different National Identities at Birth

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Phil Mickelson wins first major at Masters

Year
2004
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 2004, Phil Mickelson wins the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, his first major championship in nearly 12 years as a professional golfer.

A native of California, Mickelson graduated from Arizona State University, where he won three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards as the nation’s outstanding college golfer. In 1991, while still an amateur, he won his first PGA Tour tournament, the Northern Telecom Open. Mickelson turned pro in 1992 and went on to win a number of tournaments; however, a victory in one of the four majors—the Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship in Britain and the PGA Championship—eluded him. He finished in second or third place in eight majors and became known as the best player in golf without a major win.

The Masters Tournament is the first of the four majors to be held each year. The inaugural Masters took place in 1934, a year after Augusta National opened in Augusta, Georgia, as a private golf club. On April 11, 2004, Mickelson’s majors losing streak ended when he sunk an 18-foot birdie putt on the final hole at the Masters Tournament to defeat Ernie Els by a single stroke. Mickelson, who finished with a nine-under-par 279, won $1.17 million and was awarded the traditional green sports jacket given to each Masters champ.

In 2005, Mickelson won the PGA Championship and he went on to win his second and third Masters victories in 2006 and 2010. 

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President Carter hosts White House Easter egg roll

Year
1977
Month Day
April 11

On April 11, 1977, President Jimmy Carter, along with first lady Rosalynn Carter, hosts local children at the traditional White House “Easter egg roll.”

According to White House curator Bill Allman, the curious tradition of egg-rolling on the White House lawn originated in the mid-to-late 19th century. First lady Dolley Madison is sometimes credited with proposing the idea of a public egg roll around 1810, and several first families may have held similar events privately prior to 1872. Newspaper articles described the first public egg-rolling event as having occurred on the congressional grounds in 1872. In 1876, foot traffic from hordes of children and their families during an egg roll caused so much damage to the Congressional grounds that legislators were forced to pass the Turf Protection Law to prevent further damage. In doing so, they outlawed the future use of congressional grounds for public events.

READ MORE: A Brief History of the White House Easter Egg Roll

Disappointed D.C. children had to wait two years before President Rutherford B. Hayes hosted the first official Easter egg roll on the White House grounds in 1878. Since then, nearly every presidential administration has hosted this special children’s event unless war or bad weather forced its cancellation or relocation to another venue. The egg roll was suspended from the White House grounds for 12 long years between America’s entry into World War II in 1941 and the end of Eisenhower’s White House renovations in 1953.

In addition to the traditional Easter egg roll, participants, usually including the president’s family, were treated to music, games, food, pony rides, souvenirs and a visit by the Easter Bunny. In 1969, First Lady Pat Nixon donned the Easter Bunny costume and, during Reagan’s two terms, Attorney General Edwin Meese’s wife, Ursula, wore the bunny costume six times. Ursula Meese thus earned the nickname of “Meester Bunny” in the Reagan White House. In 1974, President Nixon allowed organizers to borrow spoons for the egg roll from the White House kitchen.

Since its inception, the Easter egg roll has grown increasingly elaborate. In 1977, President Carter added a circus and petting zoo to the day’s entertainment. In 1981, Easter revelers could attend Broadway show performances or climb into the basket of a hot-air balloon tethered to the ground. During the Clinton administration, organizers started a second tradition of inviting individual states to send an egg decorated by one of their local artists to the White House for display.

READ MORE: Easter Symbols & Traditions

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French Foreign Minister Talleyrand offers to sell Louisiana Territory to U.S.

Year
1803
Month Day
April 11

In one of the great surprises in diplomatic history, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand makes an offer to sell all of Louisiana Territory to the United States.

Talleyrand was no fool. As the foreign minister to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, he was one of the most powerful men in the world. Three years earlier, Talleyrand had convinced Napoleon that he could create a new French Empire in North America. The French had long had a tenuous claim to the vast area west of the Mississippi River known as Louisiana Territory. In 1800, Napoleon secretly signed a treaty with Spain that officially gave France full control of the territory. Then he began to prepare France’s mighty army to occupy New Orleans and bolster French dominion.

READ MORE: Why France Sold the Louisiana Purchase to the US

When President Thomas Jefferson learned of Napoleon’s plans in 1802, he was understandably alarmed. Jefferson had long hoped the U.S. would expand westward beyond the Mississippi, but the young American republic was in no position militarily to challenge France for the territory. Jefferson hoped that his minister in France, Robert Livingston, might at least be able to negotiate an agreement whereby Napoleon would give the U.S. control of New Orleans, the gateway to the Mississippi River.

At first, the situation looked bleak because Livingston’s initial attempts at reaching a diplomatic agreement failed. In early 1803, Jefferson sent his young Virginia friend James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston. Fortunately for the U.S., by that time Napoleon’s situation in Europe had changed for the worse. War between France and Great Britain was imminent and Napoleon could no longer spare the military resources needed to secure control of Louisiana Territory. Realizing that the powerful British navy would probably take the territory by force, Napoleon reasoned it would be better to sell Louisiana to the Americans than have it fall into the hands of his enemy.

After months of having fruitlessly negotiated over the fate of New Orleans, Livingston again met with Talleyrand on this day in 1803. To Livingston’s immense surprise, this time the cagey French minister coolly asked, “What will you give for the whole?” He meant not the whole of New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana Territory. Quickly recognizing that this was an offer of potentially immense significance for the U.S., Livingston and Monroe began to discuss France’s proposed cost for the territory. Several weeks later, on April 30, 1803, the American emissaries signed a treaty with France for a purchase of the vast territory for $11,250,000.

A little more than two weeks later, Great Britain declared war on France. With the sale of the Louisiana Territory, Napoleon abandoned his dreams of a North American empire, but he also achieved a goal that he thought more important. “The sale [of Louisiana] assures forever the power of the United States,” Napoleon later wrote, “and I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble her pride.”

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Bob Dylan plays his first major gig in New York City

Year
1961
Month Day
April 11

Who knows how many other young men arrived in New York City in the winter of 1961 looking like James Dean and talking like Jack Kerouac? It would have been difficult to pick Bob Dylan out of the crowd at first, considering how much he had in common with the other Bohemian kids kicking around Greenwich Village. Artistic ambition? Check. Antipathy toward mainstream culture? Yes. A desire to put his middle-class identity behind him? Definitely. But the singular creative vision that would separate Dylan from the rest of his peers and change the face of popular music wasn’t really in evidence yet. What Bob Dylan did have, though, in addition to his guitar and harmonica, was a unique stage presence and a vast library of American folk songs in his repertoire. On April 11, 1961, he got his first real chance to put those on display with his first major gig in New York City, opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker at Gerde’s Folk City.

Bob Dylan had just arrived in town a few months earlier, but as the prominent producer/talent scout John Hammond would write in the liner notes of his debut album one year later, “The young man from the provinces began to make friends very quickly in New York, all the while continuing, as he has since he was ten, to assimilate musical ideas from everyone he met, every record he heard.” Dylan befriended not only his idol Woody Guthrie—whose hospitalization in New Jersey had been the initial impetus for Dylan to come east from Minnesota—but also some of the significant figures on the burgeoning Downtown folk scene, like Jack Elliot and Dave Van Ronk. Dylan would write about this period in “Talkin’ New York” (1962), which included a verse about his breakthrough gig at Gerde’s:

After weeks and weeks of hanging around

I finally got a job in New York town

In a bigger place, bigger money too

Even joined the Union and paid my dues.

Gerde’s was probably the most important folk-music venue in New York City at the time—the club that every folk act with a national profile played when they were in town. Dylan had previously joined other unknowns like himself onstage at Gerde’s during the club’s Monday “Hootenanny Night,” but the invitation to appear on a regular bill presented a bit of an administrative problem. At just 19 years old, Bob Dylan was too young to obtain the necessary union card and cabaret license. One of the clubs owners, Mike Porco, was interested enough in getting the young man on the bill, though, that he signed on as Dylan’s guardian—”the Sicilian father I never knew I had,” as Dylan put it.

A number of major developments in the year that followed would set Bob Dylan on his road toward stardom, but the very first of those was his appearance at Gerde’s Folk City on this day in 1961.

READ MORE: The Day Dylan Went Electric 

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