A couple walking by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 1943.
Today is known as Veterans Day. It originated with Armistice Day observances marking the anniversary of the 1918 end of World War I, which became an
official holiday in the 1930s. In 1954, the U.S. Congress officially turned
Armistice Day into Veterans Day.
MIKE GRACIA
On this day in 1948, Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey for
the U.S. presidency. The Chicago Tribune published an early edition
that had the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." The Truman
victory surprised many polls and newspapers.
On this day in 1945, Howard Hughes flew his "Spruce Goose," a huge wooden airplane, for eight minutes in California. It was the plane’s
first and only flight and never went into production.
Take-off: Howard Hughes’ H-4, the "Spruce Goose."
Hughes watches engineer Chal Bowen, October 31, 1947, two days before the flight as the radio operator looks on. Thirty-six people
were on board for the test flight.
Flight-deck seats, put in for military observers, seven guests from
the press corps and an additional seven industry representatives.
On this day in 1959, Charles Van Doren, a game show contestant
on the NBC-TV program "Twenty-One" admitted that he had been
given questions and answers in advance.
Van Doren (at left) faces Herb Stempel (far right) on “Twenty-One,”
in 1956, under the eye of the show’s host, Jack Barry. Some fifty
million people watched the climax of their rivalry.
Charles Lincoln Van Doren turned 92 in February.
Singer Sammy Hagar replaced David Lee Roth as the lead singer
of rock band Van Halen. In 2017, he began touring with The Circle.
On March 12, 2007, Hagar was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame as a member of Van Halen.
Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Busch Series Championship in 1998 and 1999
and the Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014. He went on to become an analyst
for NASCAR on NBC-TV. He went into his first race with a car he co-owned
with his half brother Kerry. Junior, as he is often called, won his 12th
consecutive Sprint Cup Series Most Popular Driver Award in 2014.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the broadcast booth.
Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver
Sigourney Weaver played the resourceful action hero Ellen Ripley (above) in the Alien film franchise beginning in 1979. She also
played Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II
(1989) and Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar (2009).
