MIKE GRACIA
A plane similar to the one in which Patsy Cline died.
A Kansas City resident named Mildred Keith snapped what
is believed to be one of the last photographs of the country music star.
Just before breakfast on the morning of March 4, Private
Albert Gitchell of the U.S. Army reported to the hospital at
Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms
of sore throat, fever and headache. Soon after, over 100
of his fellow soldiers had reported similar symptoms,
marking what are believed to be the first cases in the
historic influenza pandemic of 1918, later known as
Spanish flu.
The flu would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and an
estimated 20 million to 50 million people around the world, proving to be a far deadlier force than even the First World
War.
On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States.
In his famous inaugural address, delivered outside the
east wing of the U.S. Capitol, Roosevelt outlined his
“New Deal”, an expansion of the federal government
as an instrument of employment opportunity and welfare
and told Americans that “the only thing we have to fear
is fear itself.”
The comedic star John Candy died suddenly of a heart
attack on March 4, 1994, at the age of 43. At the time of
his death, he was living near Durango, Mexico, while
filming Wagons East, a Western comedy co-starring
comedian Richard Lewis. Lewis died recently on
February 27th.
1987
Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922)
Bell was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor,
scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting
the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)
in 1885.
Bell at the opening of the long-distance line
from New York to Chicago in 1892.
Melville House, the Bells’ first home in North America, now
a National Historic Site of Canada.
Bell statue by A. E. Cleeve Horne in front of the Bell
Telephone Building of Brantford, Ontario.
