April 7

This Day in History

Also on This Day

Lead Story
Civil war erupts in Rwanda, 1994
American Revolution
U.S. Navy captures first British warship, 1776
Automotive
Auto pioneer Henry Ford dies, 1947
Civil War
Battle of Shiloh concludes, 1862
Cold War
Eisenhower gives famous "domino theory" speech, 1954
Crime
The Rwandan genocide, 1994
Disaster
Twin ferry accidents on opposite ends of world, 1990
General Interest
Hammarskjold elected U.N. head, 1953
Tito is made president for life, 1963
Longtime “60 Minutes” journalist Mike Wallace dies, 2012
Hollywood
John Wayne wins Best Actor Oscar, 1970
Literary
William Wordsworth is born, 1770
Music
Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar is born, 1920
Old West
Lewis and Clark depart Fort Mandan, 1805
Presidential
JFK lobbies Congress to help save historic sites in Egypt, 1961
Sports
John McGraw, second all-time winningest baseball manager, is born, 1873
Vietnam War
North Vietnamese forces begin preparations for final offensive, 1975
World War I
Winston Churchill urges talks with Russia, 1918
World War II
Italy invades Albania, 1939
Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk by Allied forces, 1945

General Interest

Apr 7, 2012:

Longtime “60 Minutes” journalist Mike Wallace dies

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On this day in 2012, broadcast journalist Mike Wallace, a full-time correspondent for the pioneering TV newsmagazine "60 Minutes" from its debut in 1968 until 2006, dies at age 93 in New Canaan, Connecticut.  During his career, Wallace interviewed everyone from world leaders to Hollywood celebrities to scam artists, and was well-known for his hard-nosed style of questioning.

Myron Leon Wallace was born on May 9, 1918, in Brookline, Massachusetts. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants and his father worked as a wholesale grocer and insurance broker. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1939, Wallace was a radio news writer and announcer in Michigan and Chicago. He then enlisted in the Navy, serving as a communications officer during World War II.

In the 1950s, Wallace worked on TV talk shows and game shows in New York City, and also appeared in commercials and acted on Broadway. He developed his style as a tenacious interrogator on the TV interview show "Night Beat," which aired from 1956 to 1957. In 1962, the eldest of Wallace's two sons died at age 19 in a hiking accident in Greece, a tragedy that inspired Wallace to focus his career on serious journalism. In 1963, he became a correspondent for CBS News, and went on to report about the Vietnam War, among other stories.

"60 Minutes" premiered on CBS on September 24, 1968, and was co-hosted by Wallace and Harry Reasoner.  The show, with its trademark opening sequence featuring a ticking stopwatch, became hugely popular and influential, spawning a slew of other newsmagazine programs, such as "20/20" and "Primetime Live," and ranking among the top 10 programs in the United States from 1977 to 2000. Wallace became known for investigative pieces in which he used ambush interviews and hidden cameras to uncover corruption and scams. He also conducted scores of memorable interviews with newsmakers ranging from Clint Hill, the former U.S. Secret Service agent who was in President John Kennedy's motorcade when he was assassinated, to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini during the 1979 American hostage crisis.

Some of Wallace's reporting proved controversial. In the 1980s, he and CBS were embroiled in a $120 million libel lawsuit brought against them by General William Westmoreland for the way he was portrayed in a 1982 documentary about the Vietnam War. The general dropped the lawsuit in 1985, but Wallace later revealed that the pressure of the situation caused him to suffer a deep depression and attempt suicide.  In another incident, Wallace's 1995 interview for "60 Minutes" with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand and CBS's controversial handling of the story served as the basis of the 1999 movie "The Insider."

Wallace retired from "60 Minutes" in 2006 at age 88, but continued to contribute occasionally to the program. His final piece aired in 2008--an interview with baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, who was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs.

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This Week in History, Apr 7 - Apr 13

Apr 07, 1953
Hammarskjold elected U.N. head
Apr 07, 1963
Tito is made president for life
Apr 07, 2012
Longtime “60 Minutes” journalist Mike Wallace dies
Apr 08, 563 B.C.
Buddhists celebrate birth of Gautama Buddha
Apr 08, 1935
WPA established by Congress
Apr 08, 1953
Kenyatta jailed for Mau Mau uprising
Apr 09, 1939
Marian Anderson sings at Lincoln Memorial
Apr 09, 1940
Germany invades Norway
Apr 09, 1959
First astronauts introduced
Apr 09, 2005
Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles wed
Apr 10, 1919
Zapata assassinated in Mexico
Apr 10, 1942
Bataan Death March begins
Apr 10, 1972
Chaplin receives Oscar
Apr 11, 1970
Apollo 13 launched to moon
Apr 11, 1979
Idi Amin overthrown
Apr 12, 1864
The Fort Pillow Massacre
Apr 12, 1945
President Roosevelt dies
Apr 12, 1961
First man in space
Apr 12, 1981
First launching of the space shuttle
Apr 13, 1919
The Amritsar Massacre
Apr 13, 1941
Japan and USSR sign nonaggression pact
Apr 13, 1970
Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes

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