Today in History: April 21st
1865 : Lincoln’s funeral train leaves D.C.On this day in 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Finish reading the article.
1918 : “Red Baron” killed in actionIn the well-trafficked skies above the Somme River in France, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as the “Red Baron," is killed by Allied fire on April 21, 1918. Finish reading article.
1989 : Chinese students begin protests at Tiananmen SquareRead the complete article.
Tiananmen Square / Scott Simmie and Bob Nixon
Neither gods nor emperors : students and the struggle for democracy in China / Craig Calhoun
Find more books, Library Catalog.
April 20, 2007
Let's see how many phobia's you recognize. Match description with its phobia.
Cemeteries or being buried alive-
Eyes, opening one's-
Peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth-
Ommetaphobia or Ommatophobia
Taphephobia or Taphophobia
Search the Library Catalog for books on Phobias.
Today in History: April 20th
1999 : A massacre at Columbine High School
Two teenage gunmen kill 13 people in a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. At about 11:20 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in long trench coats, began shooting students outside the school before moving inside to continue their rampage. By the time SWAT team officers finally entered the school at about 3:00 p.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 fellow students and a teacher, and had wounded another 23 people. Then, around noon, they turned their guns on themselves and committed suicide.Finish reading the article.
Videos available in GSU Library:
Bullied to death [videorecording] / producer, Susan Dickey ; produced by CBS News Productions for A & E Networks ; Kurtis Productions.
VIDEO. BF637.B85 B82000
Bowling for Columbine [videorecording] / United Artists and Alliance Atlantis present a Salter Street Films and VIF 2 production, a Dog Eat Dog Films production ; producers, Michael Moore, Kathleen Glynn, Jim Czarnecki, Charles Bishop, Michale Donovan ; written and directed by Michael Moore.
VIDEO. PS3562.E353 T622005
1865 - Safety matches were first advertised this day.
1961 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave approval for FM stereo broadcasting. It would be another five or six years before FM stations went ‘underground’ or ‘progressive’ to attract listeners who were tired of the lack of audio quality on AM stations. FM stations to that time had broadcast in glorious monaural sound.
To find more information on any of these topics, search the Library Catalog.
Oklahoma City National Memorial
Here are some photos taken at the Oklahoma City National Memorial in February of 2007.
Field of Empty Chairs
168 chairs stand in nine rows, each representing a floor of the building, and represent the 168 lives lost on April 19, 1995. The field is located in what was the footprint of the building. The first set of photos are of the Chairs.
View image of Chairs look closely and you can see the smaller chairs which represent the children.
View image of Chairs look closely and you can see the smaller chairs which represent the children.
View image of Chairs
View image of Chairs
View image of Chairs
Standing 3/4 of an inch deep, the calming water of this pool stands where 5th Street once stood, and shows the reflection of someone changed forever by their visit to the Memorial.
The Survivor Tree
The Survivor Tree, an American Elm, bears witness to the violence of April 19 and now stands as a profound symbol of human resilience. The circular promontory surrounding the tree offers a place for gathering and viewing the memorial.View image
Gates of Time
Two monumental gates stand as entrances to the Memorial site and frame the moment of destruction.View image
Message on Wall left by Team 5:
For more information, visit their website.
Today in History: April 19th
From Those Were the Day - Today in History:
1993 - The Branch-Davidian’s compound in Waco, Texas burned to the ground. It was the anticlimax of a 51-day standoff between the religious cult led by David Koresh and U.S. federal agents (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms). 86 perished including 17 children. Koresh and his followers opted not to surrender themselves and the children to the agents; exchanging gun fire, instead. Nine members of the cult escaped.Read more: 1993 : Branch Davidian compound burns - This Day in History -History.com
Learning lessons from Waco : when the parties bring their Gods to the negotiation table / Jayne Seminare Docherty.
From the ashes : making sense of Waco / James R. Lewis, editor.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK was destroyed by a bomb estimated at 5,000 pounds, hidden in a rent-a-truck. The blast was the worst bombing on U.S. soil. Timothy McVeigh was charged with terroristic murder. 168 people including 19 children died in the blast. 490 were injured. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on 11 different counts, including several first degree murder convictions for the deaths of federal officers. He was executed (lethal injection) on June 11, 2001 at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terry L. Nichols, an Army buddy of McVeigh, was sentenced to life in prison.
View video clip: 1995 - Truck Bomb Explodes in Oklahoma City
In bad company : America’s terrorist underground / Mark S. Hamm.
The unfinished bombing : Oklahoma City in American memory / Edward T. Linenthal
2000 - “The empty chairs are a simple yet powerful portrayal of someone’s absence. Like an empty chair at a dinner table, we are always aware of the presence of a loved one’s absence,” said architects Hans and Torrey Butzer and Sven Berg, explaining their inclusion of 168 bronze and stone chairs, each inscribed with a victim's name and mounted on a glass base, the focus at the opening of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This memorial marks the place where 168 people died in 1995 in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. A new expanse of green lawn was once the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and a 320-foot-long reflecting pool lined with black stone has replaced the bombed-out street. The chairs, symbolic of tombstones, are also placed in symbolic positions: Nine rows representing the nine floors of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, with each victim's chair placed in the row according to the floor on which he or she worked or was visiting at the time of the blast. 19 of the chairs are smaller, representing the children who were murdered in the attack. Ironically, A 70-year-old elm tree survived the bombing. “The Survivor Tree” is now protected by the Rescuer's Orchard: Fruit trees symbolic of the many rescue workers who pulled survivors from the rubble.
April 18, 2007
Today in History: April 18th
1906 - The Great San Francisco Earthquake occurred at 5:13 a.m. The tremendous earthquake was responsible for some 3,000 deaths and catastrophic damage. There were many fires that followed the quake and they took days -- even weeks -- to contain. Survivors of the earthquake gathered annually for memorial services beginning at the moment the predawn temblor struck and became history.
Read about the damage:
Earthquake damage, San Francisco, California, USA : April 18, 1906.
1945: Ernie Pyle killed at Okinawa On this day in 1945, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima off the coast of Okinawa. Extremely popular, especially with the average GI, whose life and death he reported on (American infantrymen braved enemy fire to recover Pyle's body), Pyle had been at the London Blitz of 1941 and saw action in North Africa, Italy, France, and the Pacific. A monument exists to him to this day on Ie Shima, describing him simply as "a buddy."
Burgess Meredith portrayed him in the 1945 film The Story of GI Joe.
Read about Ernie Pyle:
Ernie’s war : the best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II dispatches / [edited by] David Nichols
The story of Ernie Pyle / by Lee G. Miller.
3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons . . Asparagus and rhubarb.
4 The fruit with its seeds on the outside . . Strawberry.
5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)
6. Three English words beginning with dw . Dwarf, dwell and dwindle.
7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar . . Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, bracket s, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.
8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold ! frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh Lettuce.
9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "s" . Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.
National Library Workers Day
National Library Workers Day is a day for library staff, users, administrators and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers.
If you know of someone in the GSU Library that has made a contribution then today is the day to let them know. If you are on campus, stop in the library and let them know. You will definitely brighten their day. Are you to shy to tell them in person? Then fill in a compliment card (available at the Circulation Desk). Compliment Cards are available all year long.
Today in History: April 17th
1790: American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia at age 84.
Read his biography on the History Channel website.
Books about Benjamin Franklin:
Doctor Franklin’s medicine / Stanley Finger.
The Oldest revolutionary : essays on Benjamin Franklin / edited by J. A. Leo Lemay
1961 : The Bay of Pigs invasion begins.
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure.
1970: Apollo 13 returns to earth.
View the video clip.
Read about Apollo 13:
Apollo 13 [electronic resource] : "Houston, we’ve got a problem."
View a video found in the GSU Library:
Moon shot : [videorecording] the inside story of tha Apollo Project / TBS Productions Inc. ; produced and directed by Kirt Woltinger.
FLM-VDO. TL799.M6 M66X1994VIDEORECORD3243
Today in History: April 16th
1900 - The first book of U.S. postage stamps was issued. The two-cent stamps were available in books of 12, 24 and 48 stamps.
1985 - Mickey Mantle, banned from baseball in 1983 because of his association with an Atlantic City casino, was reinstated on this day. He threw out the first pitch to a standing ovation as the New York Yankees played their home opener against the Chicago White Sox.
1912- ‘unsinkable’ luxury liner, Titanic, sank at 2:27a.m. on this day in 1912. The largest passenger vessel in the world went under off the coast of Newfoundland two and one-half hours after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. A young David Sarnoff, later of RCA and NBC, relayed telegraph messages to advise relatives on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean of the 700+ survivors. 1,517 lives were lost at sea. One account claimed that lifeboats weren’t operable and those that were, quickly filled with male passengers and crew members, instead of the traditional women and children first. Reports indicate that the captain of the Titanic, most of the crew and the ship’s orchestra remained on board as the huge luxury liner slid into the icy Atlantic. Still another report, from a survivor, indicated that as the great ship was going down to a watery grave, the orchestra played Nearer My God to Thee. Many movies and documentaries about the monumental disaster have been filmed over the years. However, none had the exacting data gleaned by scientists from the 1986 expedition aboard Atlantis II. Dr. Robert Ballard headed a crew and a robot named Jason in a descent to the deck of the Titanic aboard Alvin, a submersible craft. They returned with information and photos that challenged and verified stories from the past. After years of studying the facts, the 1997 Academy Award-winning film, Titanic, recreated the ship to the tiniest detail including the design on the elegant china. Although the film’s love story is fictitious, the true tragedy of the Titanic can now be seen by the world some eight decades later.
1923 - Insulin became available for general use on this day. It was first discovered in 1922. Today, insulin is used daily in the treatment of diabetes. It is extracted from the pancreas of sheep, oxen and by other means, including synthesization in the laboratory. Insulin, a natural and vital hormone for carbohydrate metabolism in the body, is manufactured by the pancreas. An overabundance of insulin causes insulin shock and leads to a variety of symptoms, including coma.
1947 - Jackie Robinson played his first major-league baseball game (he had played exhibition games previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He went 0-for-4 against Boston. Robinson did get on base due to an error and scored the winning run in a 5-3 win for the Dodgers.
Read about John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln:
The Lincoln murder conspiracies : being the first complete examination and refutation of the many theories, hypotheses, and speculations put forward in the past 118 years concerning those presumed to have aided, abetted, controlled, or directed the murderous act of John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theater the night of April 14, 1865 / William Hanchett.
Myths after Lincoln, by Lloyd Lewis, with an introduction by Carl Sandburg
1912 - “Up in the crows nest, Frederick Fleet was staring into the darkness. It was around 11:30 p.m. on a very odd calm moonless night when he noticed a black object immediately in their path, he knew it was ice!” The Royal Mail Steamship Titanic of the White Star Line struck an iceberg at approximately 11:40 p.m. The great ship, on its maiden voyage, sank just under three hours later. 1,517 passengers were lost at sea. (See TWtD, April 15.)
Read about the Titanic:
Titanic legacy : disaster as media event and myth / Paul Heyer
1980 - Stan Mikita retired after 21 years with the Chicago Black Hawks of the NHL. His #21 jersey became the first Blackhawks number to be retired.
April 13, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.Read the complete Obituary.
Breakfast of champions; or, Goodbye blue Monday! By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. With drawings by the author.
Cat’s cradle / Kurt Vonnegut
PS3572.O5 C3 1998
To find more books written by Kurt Vonnegut, search the Library Catalog.
Today in History: April 12th
1799 - Phineas Pratt patented the comb cutting machine -- a “machine for making combs.”
Read more about inventions:
Men, machines, and modern times [by] Elting E. Morison.
Asimov’s chronology of science and discovery / Isaac Asimov
1955 - The polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was termed “safe, effective and potent” by the University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center.
Read more about Jonas Salk:
Heroes for our times. Edited for the Overseas Press Club of America by Will Yolen and Kenneth Seeman Giniger.
Splendid solution : Jonas Salk and the conquest of polio / Jeffrey Kluger
1984 - Challenger astronauts made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning a healthy Solar Max satellite to space. The orbiting sun watcher had been circling the Earth for three years with all circuits dead before repairs were made.
Read more about astronauts:
Astronaut fact book [electronic resource]
Glenn : the astronaut who would be President / Frank Van Riper
To find these books and more, search the library catalog.
April 11, 2007
Today in History: April 11th
From Those Were the Days:
1947 - Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major-league history when he played in an exhibition game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Jackie Robinson : a life remembered / Maury Allen
1956 - Elvis Presley reached the top spot on the Billboard music chart with his first double-sided hit. The disk featured Heartbreak Hotel and I Was the One. The RCA Victor record stayed at number one for eight weeks. Elvis also made the country and R&B charts, as well.
Elvis / by Albert Goldman.
Last train to Memphis : the rise of Elvis Presley / Peter Guralnick
To find more books, go to the Library Catalog.
April 10, 2007
Please Join Us April 11, 2007
The Faculty Authors Reception will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the Library Balcony.
The published works of the following Faculty Authors will be showcased:
Lydia Morrow Ruetten
Today in History: April 10
From Those Were the Days:
1937 - Collier’s magazine published two short stories this day which would later become motion pictures; a first for a single magazine issue. Stage to Lordsburg, written by Ernest Haycox, was made into the 1939 film classic, Stagecoach, starring John Wayne. Hagar Wilde’s story was turned into a movie that reflected the title of his work, Bringing Up Baby. The 1938 film starred Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.
Watch the movies:
Stagecoach [videorecording] / United Artists ; presented by Caidin Film Co. ; a Walter Wanger production ; screenplay, Dudley Nichols ; original story, Ernest Haycox ; directed by John Ford. VIDEO. PN1995.9.W4 S7342006
Read about the actors:
Buehrer, B. B. (1990). Cary Grant : a bio-bibliography. Ney York, NY: Greenwood Press. PN2287.G675 B841990
Hepburn, K. (1991). Me : stories of my life. New York, NY: Knopf. PN2287.H45 A31991
Neibaur, J. L. (1989). Tough guy : the American movie macho. Jefferson, : McFarland. PN1995.9.M46 N451989
1970 - Officially resigning from The Beatles, Paul McCartney disbanded the most influential rock group in history at a public news conference. The Beatles hit, Let It Be, was riding high on the pop charts. The last recording for the group, The Long and Winding Road (also from the documentary film Let It Be), would be number one for two weeks beginning on June 13, bringing to a close one of contemporary music’s greatest dynasties.
Davies, Hunter (1968). The Beatles; the authorized biography. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Inglis, I. (2000). The Beatles, popular music and society : a thousand voices. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. ML421.B4 B4362000
1947 - Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers announced the purchase of the baseball contract that would bring slugger Jackie Roosevelt Robinson to the Dodgers from Montreal.
1985 - Tom Seaver broke a major-league baseball record (held by Walter Johnson) as he started his 15th opening-day game. The Chicago White Sox defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2. With the win, ‘Tom Terrific’ extended his opening day record to 7-1. He had thrown openers for the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox.
1985 - Broadcasters banded together to play the single, We Are the World, at 10:50 a.m. E.S.T. Stations in the United States were joined by hundreds of others around the world in a sign of unification for the African relief cause. Even Muzak made the song only the second vocal selection it has ever played in elevators and offices since its inception.
April 04, 2007
Today in History: April 4, 2007
1859 - Daniel Emmett introduced I Wish I was in Dixie’s Land (later named Dixie) in New York City. Just two years later, the song became the Civil War song of the Confederacy.
1914 - The first known serialized moving picture opened in New York City. The Perils of Pauline starred Pearl White.
1984 - Bob Bell retired as Bozo the Clown on WGN-TV in Chicago, IL. Bell was an institution in the Windy City since making his first appearance in 1960. Pinto Colvig was the original Bozo.
But the Big News was:
1964 - The Beatles set an all-time record on the Top 100 chart of Billboard magazine this day. All five of the top songs were by the British rock group. In addition, The Beatles also had the number one album as Meet the Beatles continued to lead all others. The LP was the top album from February 15 through May 2, when it was replaced by The Beatles Second Album. It was estimated at the time that The Beatles accounted for 60 percent of the entire singles record business during the first three months of 1964. The top five singles by The Beatles this day were:1) Can’t Buy Me Love
2) Twist and Shout
3) She Loves You
4) I Want to Hold Your Hand
5) Please Please Me
Friends of Mysteries will meet on Tuesday, May 15, in the Cafeteria Annex from noon to 1:00 p.m. We will be discussing Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. The mystery is set in post-WWI England. Maisie was a field nurse in the trenches during the war and is now a practitioner of holistic health.
This discussion group is also an event associated with the Changing the Face of Medicine Exhibit in the University Library from April 25 to June 6.
Copies of the book can be obtained through Interlibrary Loan, Borders or Amazon.com. Please join us. Friends of Mysteries is open to all members of the GSU community and sponsored by Friends of the GSU Library.
April 03, 2007
Today in History - April 3, 2007
From Those Were the Days:
1776 - Harvard College conferred the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington.
1829 - James Carrington of Wallingford, CT patented the coffee mill. Have a cup of fresh ground in celebration today.
1930 - The fledgling film industry patted itself on its collective back this night at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. They were celebrating the 2nd Annual Academy Awards presentation for movies made during the 1928-1929 year. (Movies made during the 1929-1930 year were honored seven months later on November 5.) There were no ‘officially’ announced nominees; but there was a host for the evening’s activities: Writer, director, producer William C. de Mille. No one ran away with all the awards either. The Best Director was Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady; Warner Baxter was voted Best Actor for his role in In Old Arizona, while Mary Pickford took home the Best Actress award for her part in Coquette. Hanns Kräly penned the script for The Patriot, winning the Best Writing award and the Best Picture of the year was The Broadway Melody produced by Harry Rapf.
1979 - Jane Byrne became the first female mayor in Chicago’s history.
Rare Book Room
From the Rare Book Room website:
The "Rare Book Room" site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.
Over the last ten years, a company called "Octavo" embarked on digitally photographing some of the world ’s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).
This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.
Here are a few of the titles you can view:
Gutenberg ’s Bible of 1455 (from the Library of Congress)
Harvey's book on the circulation of blood
Galileo ’s Siderius Nuncius
The first printing of the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta.
April 02, 2007
Today in History
At approximately 7 A.M. on Sunday, April 2, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant's army attacked Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia. By mid-afternoon, Confederate troops had begun to evacuate the town. The Union victory ensured the fall of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, located just 25 miles north of Petersburg.
President Jefferson Davis received word of the events in Petersburg while attending services at St. Paul's Church in Richmond. He abandoned the capital late that night on a train bound for Danville, Virginia.
1792 - The U.S. Congress authorized the first U.S. mint. Which mint was first? The one in Philadelphia, PA.
1889 - Charles Hall patented aluminum on this day.
1902 - The first motion picture theatre opened in Los Angeles. The Electric Theatre charged a dime to see an hour’s entertainment, including the films, The Capture of the Biddle Brothers and New York in a Blizzard. Now that’s entertainment!
1984 - John Thompson became the first black coach to lead his team to the NCAA college basketball championship. Georgetown’s Hoyas defeated Houston 84-75 in Seattle for the win. Thompson’s team in 1982 had finished second to North Carolina for the championship.