An armed group of white supremacists attacked a courthouse
guarded by a mostly-Black militia in the town of Colfax,
Louisiana on April 13, 1873. A bloodbath ensued, as the
militia surrendered and the white supremacists carried out a
day-long campaign of terror that came to be known as the
Colfax Massacre.
Apollo13 – view of the crippled Service Module after
separation.
On April 13, 1970, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth
when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up on Apollo 13, the third
manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell,
John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days
before for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were
forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire
insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the
contents of both of the SM’s oxygen tanks to space.
Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating
electric power, the SM’s propulsion and life support systems
could not operate. The CM’s systems had to be shut down
to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the
crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing
canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home
alive.
At NASA Mission Control in Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center, Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, left, director of flight
crew operations, holds lithium hydroxide canisters attached
to a hose, a makeshift repair to reduce the dangerous levels
of carbon dioxide aboard the crippled spacecraft Apollo 13.
On July 9, 1955 "Rock Around the Clock" became the first rock
and roll recording to hit the top of Billboard‘s Pop charts.
The song is ranked No. 159 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s
list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The Pythian condominium building,
formerly the Pythian Temple where
the recording session for “Rock
Around the Clock” took place.
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed
away partway through his fourth term in office, leaving Vice
President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting
the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of
unprecedented and terrifying power.
In the afternoon of April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia,
while sitting for a portrait by Elizabeth Shoumatoff, Roosevelt
said: "I have a terrific headache." He then slumped forward in
his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom.
The president’s attending cardiologist, Howard Bruenn, had
diagnosed a massive intracerebral hemorrhage.
The last photograph of U.S. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, taken at Warm Springs, GA by Nicholas
Robbins for Elizabeth Shoumatoff.
Engraving of the Four Freedoms at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, dedicated in 1997 in Washington,
D.C.
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.
