April 23rd

On this day in 1962...

• The American Ranger 4 satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, at 2.50p.m. local time, with the objective of gathering data from the Moon. 

• Transport Minister Dr. Richard Beeching initiated a study of traffic flows on all the railway lines in the UK.
• At a motor racing meeting at Goodwood Circuit in the UK, Graham Hill won the 1962 Glover Trophy and Bruce McLaren won the 1962 Lavant Cup.

April 22nd

On this day in 1962...

• 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.

April 21st

On this day in 1962...

• 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.

April 20th

On this day in 1962...

• 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.

April 19th

On this day in 1962...

• 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.

April 18th

On this day in 1962....

• 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.

April 17th

On this day in 1962...

• 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.

April 16th

On this day in 1962...

• Folk singer Bob Dylan made the first public performance of what would become his signature song Blowin' in the Wind. The setting was Gerde's Folk City, a jazz club in New York's Greenwich Village.

• Walter Cronkite replaces Douglas Edwards as the anchorman for the CBS Evening News. Cronkite, who would be nicknamed "The Most Trusted Man in America", would anchor the news until his retirement in 1981.

April 15th

On this day in 1962...

• H.M.S. Defiant was released in the UK starring Alec Guinness and Dirk Bogarde. It tells the story of a mutiny aboard the fictitious ship of the title. The movie was released as Damn the Defiant! in the United States.

• Shelley Fabares, The Shadows, and Tony Renis are still at No. 1 in the charts in the U.S.A., U.K. and Italy respectively. In Australia Elvis Presley is at No. 1 with Good Luck Charm.

April 14th

On this day in 2012...

• I had a lovely time trawling through the Mittagong Antiques Centre and bought some 1960s sewing patterns and two May 1962 magazines.
• I just finished watching Casablanca in honour of the passing away of its Director Michael Curtiz (see April 10th). What a great screen classic!

By the way, before you start quoting Rick, he never actually said "Play it again Sam" - he actually said "Play it Sam, you played it for her, you can play it for me". The misquote is so widespread, however, that it even made it into the 1992 re-release trailer. Go figure.


On this day in 1962...

• Perry Mason Series 5, Episode 26  - The Case of the Borrowed Baby was broadcast.

• Michel Debre resigned the office of Prime Minister of France after more than three years, bringing to a close the longest French parliamentary government since the 18th century. He was replaced by Georges Pompidou, who would succeed Charles de Gaulle as President of France.
• Dictator Fidel Castro, "in an unexpected burst of generosity", allowed 60 of the 1,179 Bay of Pigs invaders to be released from Principe Prison for reasons of health, and to be flown from Havana to Miami on a Pan American World Airways jet, without conditions.

April 13th

On this day in 1962...

• This date was The Beatles' first at Hamburg's Star-Club, the city's newest rock 'n' roll venue. The group spent the following seven weeks performing at the venue, notching up 172 hours of stage time over 48 nights. 
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• Further to the story from 6th April...  U.S. Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg met privately in New York City with U.S. Steel Chairman Roger Blough and outlined the steps that the Kennedy administration would take if the steel price increase continued. At 3.05p.m. Kaiser Steel rescinded its price increase, followed by Bethlehem Steel at 3.21p.m. The largest of the companies, U.S. Steel, capitulated at 5.25p.m., followed by Republic Steel at 5.57p.m., Pittsburgh Steel at 6.26p.m., Jones & Laughlin 6.37p.m., National Steel at 7.33p.m. and Youngstown Sheet & Tube 9.09p.m. 

April 12th

On this day in 1962...

• The number one song in Australia was "Midnight in Moscow" by Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen

• The number one song in Italy was "Quando, Quando, Quando" by Tony Renis

• The movie "Cape Fear" is released in the USA starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen. 

April 11th

On this day in 1962...

• As three other American steelmakers announced a price hike, President Kennedy denounced "Big Steel" in a press conference "with the strongest language he has leveled at anyone or anything since becoming President". Earlier in the month the U.S. Department of Labor had helped mediate a contract between the United Steelworkers of America and the companies, with the union agreeing to a smaller wage increase in order to prevent a price rise.

• The New York Mets played their first game, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals, 11-4, at St Louis.

• George Poage the first African-American athlete to win an Olympic medal, passes away aged 81
• The movie "Follow That Dream" was released in USA, staring Elvis Presley as Toby Kwimper. When the Kwimper family car runs out of gas on a new Florida highway and an officious state supervisor tries to run them off, Pop Kwimper digs in his heels and decides to do a little homesteading. 

April 10th

On this day in 1962...

• Stuart Sutcliffe, the original bass player for The Beatles until he left the band to pursue a career as an artist, died in Hamburg from an aneurysm - he was only 21.

John, George, Pete, Paul & Stu

Stu and George in Hamburg

• Michael Curtiz, the Hungarian-American director passed away aged 75. He directed more than fifty films in Europe and more than one hundred in the United States, many of them cinema classics, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Dodge City, The Sea Hawk, Angels with Dirty Faces, Casablanca, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and White Christmas.

• Further to the unfolding story from 6th April...  U.S. Steel Chairman Roger Blough informed President Kennedy, at a 5.45p.m. meeting at the White House, that the largest steel manufacturer in the world was planning to raise its prices by six dollars per ton at 12.01a.m.  Kennedy reportedly told Blough "You've made a terrible mistake." As Blough's press release reached American newspapers the President announced that he would have a special press conference on Thursday.
• Jamaica held elections to determine its government in advance of its independence from the United Kingdom.

* thanks to Wikipedia contributors. "April 1962." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

April 9th

On this day in 1962...

• The 34th Academy Awards ceremony is held; West Side Story wins Best Picture and nine other awards; Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg all win two 

 

• The United States Marine Corps' involvement in the Vietnam War began when HMM-362 arrived at Soc Trang south of Saigon.
• The Cosmonautics Day holiday was established in the Soviet Union, a year after the first manned space flight.
• Police in Marseilles recovered eight Paul Cezanne paintings in a parked car in a street in Marseille, they had been stolen on August 13 while on loan to a museum in Aix-en-Provence.  Police initially suspected the car was used for some sort of crime after a check discovered it had false licence plates. They observed it for one day hoping someone would return for the stolen paintings, which were sitting in the back seat. No one ever did.

The Card Players

Reflections in the Water

April 8th

In 1962...

• In France 9 out of 10 voters voted in favor of letting French Algeria become its own independent nation.

• Juan Belmonte, the Spanish bullfighter who revolutionized the sport, died.

April 7th

A long night packing things away for the party (and the party itself) put me a bit behind...

On April 7th 1962...

• Perry Mason S5, Ep25 - The Case of the Angry Astronaut was broadcast

• RCA Victor rush out Sam Cooke's album "Twistin the Night Away"

And on this day in 2012 it was Party, Party, Party!

I had a great time celebrating with my friends from church, work and even school days.

Great food, great friends, great bubbles, great cake, great fun!!!

April 6th

On April 6th 1962...

• The United Steel Workers of America and steel manufacturers agreed to a new contract, brokered by the U.S. Department of Labor, in which the union reduced its demands for a wage increase from 17 cents to 10 cents an hour, based upon the White House's determination to hold down prices. [Four days later, the steel makers raised their prices anyway and a furious President Kennedy forced U.S. Steel and other companies to rescind the increase on April 13.]
• Leonard Bernstein caused controversy by his remarks before a concert featuring Glenn Gould with the New York Philharmonic.

April 5th

On this day in 1962...

• The #1 song in the U.S.A. was Johnny Angel by Shelley Fabar

• The 17-nation Geneva disarmament conference meets informally to study measures for reducing world tensions as a prelude to disarmament.
• The formation of an Angolan rebel government-in-exile is announced in Leopoldville, Congo Republic.
• The American model and actress Lana Clarkson was born in California. Sadly she is now probably best known for being murdered by Phil Spector in 2003.

April 4th

On this day in 1962...

• Peronist Leaders in Buenos Aires warn their will be a "fight to the last consequences" if Peronist candidates who won a seat in the March 18 election are barred from taking office.
• The U.S. Department of Defense closed off a rectangular area 600 by 800 nautical miles centered on Christmas Island in the Pacific will be closed to shipping and air traffic until April 15 in preparation for U.S. nuclear tests.

Aerial photograph of Christmas Island taken by a NASA Space Shuttle.

On this day in 2012...

• I had lunch with my friend Jenni (cheese and bacon melt - mmmmm)
• Our Bible Study group had lots of interesting discussions on John Chapter 5
• Nellie and I finished off the vanilla mud cake, mmmm

All gone now

2012 sounds like more fun to me :)

April 3rd

April 3 - so what happened on this day in 1962?

I was born

Well a few other things happened too...

• The Number One Album on both sides of the Atlantic was "Blue Hawaii" by Elvis Presley

• The Number One Single in Australia was "The Wanderer" by Dion

• The Number One Single in the U.K.  was "Wonderful Land" by The Shadows

• The U.S. Defense Department ordered the desegregation of all National Guard units
• Ecuador broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, Poland and Czechoslovakia

So what happened on this day in 2012?

• I hosted the Easter Morning Tea for the Social Club at work
• I had a lovely lunch with my lovely friends Fran and Sin Man
• My fabulous workmates held a surprise afternoon tea for me
• I had dinner at home with Audrey and Nellie - mmm mud cake, mmm bubbly

In my fabulous Manuhealii shirt with the card from my 

workmates and beautiful roses from Marilyn