TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1901, U.S. President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist . McKinley succumbed
to his wounds on September 14, 1901. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt
was sworn into office on the same day, succeeding McKinley, who had
been reelected in 1900. Gzolgosz was executed on October 29, 1901.
    
   

Leon Frank Czolgosz  (May 5, 1873 – October 29, 1901)

The site of William McKinley’s tragic assassination in Buffalo, New
York is only marked by a plaque on a large boulder.        

President Harry S. Truman addressed the nation in the first
live, coast-to-coast television broadcast. (AP)

On September 4, 1951, President Harry S. Truman’s opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was broadcast across the nation, marking the
first time a TV program was broadcast from coast to coast. The speech
focused on Truman’s acceptance of a treaty that officially ended America’s
post-World War II occupation of Japan.

According to the CBS television network, the broadcast, via then-state-of-the-
art microwave technology, was picked up by 87 stations in 47 cities.

U.S. President Truman addresses the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco.

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D.

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on
its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many
people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, at 2:32 a.m.

The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his
four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the
government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm. Just
before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base
in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that
date.

These five astronauts were the crew members for STS-8, Challenger. Richard M. Truly, center, crew commander. Daniel C. Brandenstein,
left, was the pilot. The mission specialists were Dale A. Gardner,
William E. Thornton (both on back row) and Guion S. Bluford.

Guion “Buy” Bluford will be 77 on Nov. 22.

From left to right: Sir Hugh Beaver, the first Guinness World Records book, Ross and Norris McWhirter, Norris McWhirte today.

On August 27, 1955, the first edition of “The Guinness Book of Records” is published in Great Britain; it quickly proves to be a hit. Now known as the “Guinness World Records” book, the annual publication features a wide
range of feats related to humans and animals.

The inspiration for the record book can be traced to November 1951, when
Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery (founded in
Dublin in 1759), was on a hunting trip in Ireland. After failing to shoot a
golden plover, Beaver and the members of his hunting party debated
whether the creature was Europe’s fastest game bird but were unable
to locate a book with the answer.

Thinking that patrons of Britain’s pubs would enjoy a record book which
could be used to settle friendly disagreements, Beaver decided to have
one produced. He hired twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter, the
founders of a London-based agency that provided facts and statistics
to newspapers and advertisers.

The fastest game bird is the golden plover (below), in case you were
wondering!

On this day in 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age movie
American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George Lucas,
opened in theaters across the U.S. Set in California in the
summer of 1962, American Graffiti was nominated for five
Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture,
and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard Dreyfuss
and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor and future
Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard. The film’s success
enabled Lucas to get his next movie made, the mega-hit Star
Wars (1977).

Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith) appears as the D.J. 

Harrison Ford