The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,directed by John Ford and starring James Stewart and John Wayne in their first movie together, was released in the USA. This classic western also starred Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance.
On this day in 2012...
My fabulous girlfriends took me out for an exquisite High Tea at The Sir Stamford Hotel in Sydney. We started with a glass of Moet, and the lightest scones I've had in a long time. Then some delicious savoury morsels, and I finished with a pot of Superior Oolong with our little sweets.
The Century 21 Exposition World's Fair opened in Seattle, Washington at 11.00 am local time. The President officially opened the Fair by telephone from Palm Beach, where he and Mrs Kennedy were spending the Easter holidays. His voice was heard by 12,000 people seated in the stadium on the fairgrounds in Seattle for the opening ceremonies. He opened the fair by telegraph key, using the same telegraph key that President Taft had used to open the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle in 1909. Let the fair begin!
In addition to the 606 foot tall Space Needle building, which became a symbol of Seattle, the Fair included a carnival that would "fit a working man's budget". The carnival, in operation for the duration of the fair, was called "Gayway".
A flight formation of 24 U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy jets, part of the opening ceremonies of the Seattle World's Fair, ended in tragedy. One of the F-102 Dagger jet fighters experienced flight trouble. The pilot ejected safely, but the jet crashed into a residential neighborhood at the suburb of Mountlake Terrace, Washington, destroying two homes and killing an elderly couple. A five member family, that normally resided in the other home, had gone on Easter vacation to avoid the traffic associated with the fair opening.
Frederick Handley Page, founder of Britain's first aircraft manufacturing company, Handley Page Ltd, died aged 76.
OAS leader Raoul Salan was arrested after a tip from a drug dealer led French Army security forces to his hideout on the fifth floor of a luxury apartment building in Algiers. Salan had dyed his gray hair black and grown a mustache. General Salan had once been commander of the French Army in Algeria, before leading a revolt against the plan to separate French Algeria as a state independent of France.
Grover Whalen the New York City public events co-ordinator known as the master of the ticker-tape parade died aged 75.
The movie Jessica was released in New York starring Maurice Chevalier and Angie Dickinson.
Communist China's Prime Minister Zhou En-lai arrived in Delhi to begin six days of meetings with India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to negotiate an end to a boundary dispute between the world's two largest nations. No resolution was had, and the two would go to war six months later.
The Commonwealth Immigrants Act in the United Kingdom received royal assent, removing free immigration from the citizens of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, requiring proof of employment in the UK. The law would go into effect on July 1.
What was described as a fireball (a brighter than usual meteoroid) exploded ten miles south of the town of Eureka, Utah at 8.15 pm local time. The burst of light was visible across the western United States, as far east as Kansas.
The first underground ballistic missile base in the U.S. became operational, with the delivery of the first nine Titan I missiles, to silos at Lowry Air Force Base Colorado. By September 28, all 54 Titans would be activated at bases in five western U.S. states.
The Strategic Hamlet Program was started by United States funding in South Vietnam, with the forcible move of residents of small villages to new locations that could be protected from Viet Cong infiltration. Within the first year, nearly eight million people were settled in more than 6,000 such hamlets.
After concluding that the sealing of East Germany's borders had been successful, the Politburo for the DDR's Germany's Communist Party, the SED, approved a new policy instructing police to make fewer arrests and for the courts to apply lesser penalties for violations of the law. In June, 6,000 prisoners would be released from prison.
On this day in 2012... my dear friend Audrey and I braved the Royal Easter Show in the rain
We started with the Poultry Pavilion, to keep out of the rain, and were amazed at all the different varieties of chooks
We met a lovely stallholder in the "World Bazaar" who seemed to enjoy showing us his gemstones as much as we were enjoying looking at them. He gave me a great price on a piece of rainbow haematite which will look fantastic in my coffee-table. I also bought a pretty piece of rhodonite and a lovely piece of idon'tknow (it is a pretty green and brown stone that I didn't recognise, so when I asked the stallholder what it was called he said "I don't know").
We spent most of our time in the three linked pavilions - the "Food", "Home" and "Craft" halls - as usual the decorated cakes were wonderful, as were the District Displays.
