Today in History

1521 – Parliament of Worms installs edict against Martin Luther

1541 – Hernando de Soto discovers Mississippi River

1792 – US establishes military draft

1847 – Scot Robert Thompson patents rubber tyre

1861 – Richmond, Virginia, is named the capital of the Confederacy

1878 – First unassisted triple play in organized baseball, by Paul Hines

1879 – George Selden files for first patent for a gasoline-driven automobile

1919 – First transatlantic flight take-off by a navy seaplane

1919 – Edward George Honey first proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day.

1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against British oppression in India.

1942 – Aircraft carrier USS Lexington sunk by Japanese air attack in Coral Sea

1942 – German summer offensive opens in Crimea

1945 – V-E Day; Germany signs unconditional surrender, WW II ends in Europe

1958 – Vice president Richard Nixon is shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by protesters in Peru

1967 – Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in US Army

1979 – Radio Shack releases TRSDOS 2.3

	Gary Hart and Donna Rice

1987 – Gary Hart quits democratic presidential race after Donna Rice affair

1988 – Mike Tyson crashes his $183,000 Bentley on Varick Street, the good old days.

1993 – 16 year old Keron Thomas disguises himself as a motorman and takes subway train and 2,000 passengers on a 3 hour ride

2010 – The last piece of Yankee Stadium falls in the Bronx, marking the end of the two year demolition process.

1326 – Joanna I of Auvergne, queen of France (d. 1360)

1753 – Phillis Wheatley, American poet who was both the second published African-American poet and first published African-American woman.

1846 – Oscar Hammerstein, Germany, opera/playwright (Kohinoor)

1884 – Harry Truman, Lamar Missouri, 33rd US President (D) (1945-1953), (d. 1972)

1921 – Saul Bass, designer

1926 – Don Rickles, Queens NY, comedian (Don Rickles Show, CPO Sharkey)

1928 – Theodore Sorenson, presidential advisor (JFK)/author (1000 Days)

1940 – Peter Benchley, NYC, novelist (Jaws, The Deep), (d. 2006)

1945 – Keith Jarrett, jazz musician/film composer (Nachtfahrer)

1904 – Eadweard Muybridge, English photographer (horse trot), dies

1982 – Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian auto racer, dies in an accident

1995 – Jerry Zipkin, socialite, dies at 80

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	Eadweard Muybridge. “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here’s the answer to the letter you sent my wife”

We’ve all seen the galloping horse image of Eadweard Muybridge.

Born in Kingston upon Thames England in 1830, Mr. Muybridge arrived in San Francisco in 1855, a few years into the Gold Rush. He came a successful book dealer and in 1860, leaving his brother to run the business and having just missed a vessel leaving for England, he decided to take the land route to the East Coast. However somewhere in Texas, his stagecoach was involved in an off-road excursion slamming into a tree and severely injuring him and the rest of the passengers. Rehab in Arkansas and then New York, he then sailed for England.

However by 1867 he was back in San Francisco.

He led a colorful life. One evening in 1874 he traveled to a small town north of San Fransisco named Calistoga, knocked on the door of his wife’s lover and  said “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here’s the answer to the letter you sent my wife” and then shot him dead. Muybridge was arrested and tried for murder but was acquitted on the grounds of ‘justifiable homicide.”

In 1872 the former governor Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to settle the question about whether all four feet of a horse were off the ground during a gallop. Artists up until that day were unsure and always painted one foot touching the ground. With the study of the Horse in Motion, the matter was settled.