MIKE GRACIA

Patsy Cline (born Virginia Patterson Hensley)
(September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963)

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.” Although it was a
rainy day in Washington, and gusts of rain blew over Roosevelt
as he spoke, he delivered a speech that radiated optimism a
nd competence, and a broad majority of Americans united
behind  their new president and his radical economic proposals
to lead the nation out of the Great Depression.

On March 1, 1932, in a crime that captured the attention of the
entire nation, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of
aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the
family’s  new mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey. Lindbergh,
who became an international celebrity when he flew the first
solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, and his wife
Anne discovered a ransom note demanding $50,000 in their
son’s empty room.

The Lindberghs were inundated by offers of assistance and
false clues. Even Al Capone offered his help from prison. For
three days, investigators found nothing and there was no
further word from the kidnappers. Then, a new letter showed
up, this time demanding $70,000.

Soon after an exhaustive search, the baby’s lifeless body was
discovered near the Lindbergh mansion. He had been killed
the night of the kidnapping and was found less than a mile
from home. The Lindberghs ended up donating the mansion
to charity and moved away.

The kidnapper used a ladder (above) to climb up to the open second-floor window and left muddy footprints in the room. 

Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

Dr.Jonas Salk administered one of the first polio shots.

On February 23, 1954, a group of children from Arsenal
Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, receive the
first injections of the new polio vaccine developed by Dr.
Jonas Salk (above). Thanks to the vaccine, by the 21st
century polio cases were reduced by 99 percent worldwide.

Though not as devastating as the plague or influenza,
poliomyelitis was a highly contagious disease that emerged
in terrifying outbreaks and seemed impossible to stop.

Attacking the nerve cells and sometimes the central nervous
system, polio caused muscle deterioration, paralysis and even
death. Even as medicine vastly improved in the first half of the
20th century in the Western world, polio still struck, affecting
mostly children but sometimes adults as well.

The most famous victim of a 1921 outbreak in America was
future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then a young
politician. The disease spread quickly, leaving his legs
permanently paralyzed.

From the Sunday, Feb. 18, 1968 issue of the "Daily Northwest Alabamian"– state Rep. Rankin Fite placing the first-ever 911
call from the mayor’s office–that’s Mayor James Whitt behind him.

February 16, 1968 saw the first official "911" call placed in the
United States. Now taken for granted as first course of action
in the event of emergency by nearly all of the nation’s 327
million people, 911 is a relatively recent invention and was
still not standard across the United States for many years
after its adoption by Congress.

As telephones became common in U.S. households, fire
departments around the country recommended establishing
a single, simple number to be dialed in the event of a fire or
other emergency. A similar system had been implemented in
the United Kingdom decades earlier, in 1936, when the code
999 was chosen for emergency telegraph and phone
communications.