Earth Day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, a staunch environmentalist who hoped to provide unity to the grassroots environmental movement and increase ecological awareness. “The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy,” Senator Nelson said, “and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.”

The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's book _Silent Spring—_about the effects of pesticides—is often cited as the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the U.S. Sustainability, organic eating and the “back-to-the-land” movement continued to gain steam throughout the 1960s.

The first Earth Day indeed increased environmental awareness in America, and in July of 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was established by special executive order to regulate and enforce national pollution legislation. Earth Day also led to the passage of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts.

On April 22, 1990, the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, more than 200 million people in 141 countries participated in Earth Day celebrations. Senator Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton in September 1995. (He died in 2005.)

Earth Day has been celebrated on different days by different groups internationally. The United Nations officially celebrates it on the vernal equinox, which usually occurs about March 21.

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“The Big Mac resulted from our need for a larger sandwich to compete against Burger King and a variety of specialty shop concoctions,” noted McDonald's mastermind Ray Kroc in his 1977 autobiography Grinding It Out. “The idea...was originated by Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh.”

Kroc would make a fortune from it, but first he stood in its way. Beginning in 1965, Delligatti had lobbied the company for a bigger burger and was repeatedly rebuffed. McDonald’s did allow him to experiment, but on one condition: Use only ingredients already on hand. He bent the rules anyway by ordering a three-part bun to better hold it all together.

The gamble worked. McDonald's took the Big Mac national in 1968.

By 1974, its build was immortalized in an advertising jingle many can still recite: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun.”

By 1986, the Big Mac was so ubiquitous that The Economist introduced the Big Mac Index, using its price to compare currencies worldwide.

When Delligatti died at 98, obituaries celebrated the burger he created—and noted he reportedly ate at least one a week for decades.

All but lost to history, however, was another Delligatti invention recalled by Kroc: the Farkelberry Snickerdoodle, a cookie that never caught on. Maybe it just needed a better jingle.

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Toxic smoke has been used occasionally in warfare since ancient times, and in 1912 the French used small amounts of tear gas in police operations. At the outbreak of World War I, the Germans began actively to develop chemical weapons. In October 1914, the Germans placed some small tear-gas canisters in shells that were fired at Neuve Chapelle, France, but Allied troops were not exposed. In January 1915, the Germans fired shells loaded with xylyl bromide, a more lethal gas, at Russian troops at Bolimov on the eastern front. Because of the wintry cold, most of the gas froze, but the Russians nonetheless reported more than 1,000 killed as a result of the new weapon.

On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Known as the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the enemy’s line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across no-man’s land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front with the wind-blown poison gas and decimated two divisions of French and Algerian colonial troops. The Allied line was breached, but the Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies held most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back, and by May they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however, would have great significance in World War I.

Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, France and Britain began developing their own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches of World War I. Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the enemy’s ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that essentially negated the strategic importance of chemical weapons.

The United States, which entered World War I in 1917, also developed and used chemical weapons. Future president Harry S. Truman was the captain of a U.S. field artillery unit that fired poison gas against the Germans in 1918. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical weapons agents were used in World War I, some 500,000 troops were injured, and almost 30,000 died, including 2,000 Americans.

In the years following World War I, Britain, France, and Spain used chemical weapons in various colonial struggles, despite mounting international criticism of chemical warfare. In 1925, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in war but did not outlaw their development or stockpiling. Most major powers built up substantial chemical weapons reserves. In the 1930s, Italy employed chemical weapons against Ethiopia, and Japan used them against China.

In World War II, chemical warfare did not occur, primarily because all the major belligerents possessed both chemical weapons and the defenses–such as gas masks, protective clothing, and detectors–that rendered them ineffectual. In addition, in a war characterized by lightning-fast military movement, strategists opposed the use of anything that would delay operations. Germany, however, did use poison gas to murder millions in its extermination camps.

Since World War II, chemical weapons have only been used in a handful of conflicts–the Yemeni conflict of 1966-67, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88–and always against forces that lacked gas masks or other simple defenses. In 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to cut their chemical weapons arsenals by 80 percent in an effort to discourage smaller nations from stockpiling the weapons. In 1993, an international treaty was signed banning the production, stockpiling (after 2007), and use of chemical weapons. It took effect in 1997.

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Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than 40 universities began a march to Tiananmen on April 27. The students were joined by workers, intellectuals and civil servants, and by mid-May more than a million people filled the square, the site of Communist leader Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. On May 20, the government formally declared martial law in Beijing, and troops and tanks were called in to disperse the dissidents. However, large numbers of students and citizens blocked the army’s advance, and by May 23 government forces had pulled back to the outskirts of Beijing.

On June 3, with negotiations to end the protests stalled and calls for democratic reforms escalating, the troops received orders from the Chinese government to reclaim Tiananmen at all costs. By the end of the next day, Chinese troops had forcibly cleared Tiananmen Square and Beijing’s streets, killing hundreds of demonstrators and arresting thousands of protesters and other suspected dissidents. In the weeks after the government crackdown, an unknown number of dissidents were executed, and Communist hard-liners took firm control of the country.

The international community was outraged by the incident, and economic sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries sent China’s economy into decline. However, by late 1990, international trade had resumed, thanks in part to China’s release of several hundred imprisoned dissidents.

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In February 1950, Senator McCarthy charged that there were over 200 “known communists” in the Department of State. Thus began his dizzying rise to fame as the most famous and feared communist hunter in the United States. McCarthy adeptly manipulated the media, told ever more outrageous stories concerning the communist conspiracy in the United States, and smeared any opponents as “communist sympathizers” to keep his own name in the headlines for years. By 1954, however, his power was beginning to wane. While he had been useful to the Republican Party during the years of the Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman, his continued attacks on “communists in government” after Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower took over the White House in 1953 were becoming political liabilities.

In an effort to reinvigorate his declining popularity, McCarthy made a dramatic accusation that was a crucial mistake: in early 1954, he charged that the United States Army was “soft” on communism. McCarthy was indignant because David Schine, one of his former investigators, had been drafted and the Army, much to McCarthy’s surprise, refused the special treatment he demanded for his former aide. In April 1954, McCarthy, chairman of the Government Operations Committee in the Senate, opened televised hearings into his charges against the Army.

The hearings were a fiasco for McCarthy. He constantly interrupted with irrelevant questions and asides; yelled “point of order” whenever testimony was not to his liking; and verbally attacked witnesses, attorneys for the Army, and his fellow senators. The climax came when McCarthy slandered an associate of the Army’s chief counsel, Joseph Welch. Welch fixed McCarthy with a steady glare and declared evenly, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” A stunned McCarthy listened as the packed audience exploded into cheers and applause. McCarthy’s days as a political power were effectively over. A few weeks later, the Army hearings dribbled to a close with little fanfare and no charges were upheld against the Army by the committee. In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy for his conduct. Three years later he died of complications from cirrhosis of the liver.

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Nixon is most often remembered for his involvement in the Watergate scandal as president and for his Cold War-era persecution of suspected communists while serving as a U.S. senator. However, Nixon left a legacy as complex as his personality.

Nixon did not owe his success in politics to personality or charm: in fact, even many of his staunch supporters described him as cold, aloof, crude, arrogant and paranoid. President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself, whom Nixon served as vice president, claimed that Nixon would never win the presidency because the people don’t like him. After proving his former boss wrong, Nixon left the office in disgrace, resigning in the face of impending impeachment. His paranoia of political sabotage by his opponents had inspired him to authorize the wire-tapping of enemies and supporters alike. Ironically, it was the conversations he taped in his own office that led to his ultimate downfall.

Despite the immense disappointment and distrust in government that the Watergate scandal inspired in most Americans, Nixon was correct in assuming that some aspects of his leadership would be judged favorably with the passage of time. These include his bold efforts to improve diplomatic relations with China and Russia, as well as pushing lasting and influential legislation through Congress. Nixon’s legislative legacy includes the National Environmental Policy Act, passed in 1969, which created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. He also lowered the voting age to 18, established Amtrak, launched the space-shuttle program and authorized the formation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). During his retirement, several subsequent presidents consulted Nixon for his expertise in international affairs.

Nixon and his wife Pat are both buried on the grounds of his birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. The site is also the home of the Richard Milhous Nixon Presidential Library.

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The nearly two million acres of land opened up to white settlement was located in Indian Territory, a large area that once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma. Initially considered unsuitable for white colonization, Indian Territory was thought to be an ideal place to relocate Native Americans who were removed from their traditional lands to make way for white settlement. The relocations began in 1817, and by the 1880s, Indian Territory was a new home to a variety of tribes, including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Cheyenne, Commanche and Apache.

By the 1890s, improved agricultural and ranching techniques led some white Americans to realize that the Indian Territory land could be valuable, and they pressured the U.S. government to allow white settlement in the region. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison agreed, making the first of a long series of authorizations that eventually removed most of Indian Territory from Indian control.

To begin the process of white settlement, Harrison chose to open a 1.9 million-acre section of Indian Territory that the government had never assigned to any specific tribe. However, subsequent openings of sections that were designated to specific tribes were achieved primarily through the Dawes Severalty Act (1887), which allowed whites to settle large swaths of land that had previously been designated to specific Indian tribes.

On March 3, 1889, Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22. Anyone could join the race for the land, but no one was supposed to jump the gun. With only seven weeks to prepare, land-hungry Americans quickly began to gather around the borders of the irregular rectangle of territory. Referred to as “Boomers,” by the appointed day more than 50,000 hopefuls were living in tent cities on all four sides of the territory.

The events that day at Fort Reno on the western border were typical. At 11:50 a.m., soldiers called for everyone to form a line. When the hands of the clock reached noon, the cannon of the fort boomed, and the soldiers signaled the settlers to start. With the crack of hundreds of whips, thousands of Boomers streamed into the territory in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. All told, from 50,000 to 60,000 settlers entered the territory that day. By nightfall, they had staked thousands of claims either on town lots or quarter section farm plots. Towns like Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, and Guthrie sprang into being almost overnight.

An extraordinary display of the American settler lust for land, the first Oklahoma land rush was also plagued by greed and fraud. Cases involving “Sooners”–people who had entered the territory before the legal date and time–overloaded courts for years to come. The government attempted to operate subsequent runs with more controls, eventually adopting a lottery system to designate claims. By 1905, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory. Two years later, the area once known as Indian Territory entered the Union as a part of the new state of Oklahoma.

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Throughout the 1970s, long-simmering conflict between two main political parties had escalated into widespread violence. On one side stood the reigning democratic socialist People’s National Party, led by Prime Minister Michael Manley. On the other was the conservative Jamaica Labor Party, led by political rival Edward Seaga. Paramilitary street gangs funded by the two factions fought, neighborhood by neighborhood, for control of the electorate.

It wasn't the first peace concert for Jamaica. In early December 1976, Marley, a well-known advocate for peace and social change, had accepted an invitation to appear at the “Jamaica Smile” concert, organized by the prime minister’s office to try and defuse tensions. But two days before the event, gunmen ambushed and shot Marley, his wife and two associates. Miraculously, they all survived. Marley played the concert with a bullet lodged in his arm and a wound in his chest, then fled the island, viewing its politics as irreparably broken.

Two years later, the idea for another music-for-peace event emerged—launched, ironically, by two rival party-affiliated gang leaders incarcerated in the same jail cell. As the idea grew, organizers spirited Marley back from exile in London to headline the One Love Peace Concert. It would be dubbed by many observers as the “Jamaican Woodstock.”

On April 22, 1978, nearly 35,000 spectators converged in Kingston's National Stadium to hear performances by reggae stars both established and emerging, including Jacob Miller, the Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh and Marley. The show’s climax came during the song “Jamming,” when Marley called rival politicians Manley and Seaga onstage—and held their hands aloft together to symbolize love, peace and unity. The two men, on whose behalf hundreds, if not thousands, had been killed, appeared uncomfortable.

While the event itself unfolded peacefully, it did nothing to alleviate Jamaica’s deep political divisions—or quell its political violence, which soared in subsequent years. Marley died of cancer in May 1981.

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Ohio’s seduction law was not the first of its kind. A Virginia law made it illegal for a man to have an “illicit connexion (sic) with any unmarried female of previous chaste character” if the man did so by promising to marry the girl. An 1848 New York law made it illegal to “under promise of marriage seduce any unmarried female of previous chaste character.” Georgia’s version of the seduction statute made it unlawful for men to “seduce a virtuous unmarried female and induce her to yield to his lustful embraces, and allow him to have carnal knowledge of her.”

These laws were only sporadically enforced, but a few men were actually prosecuted and convicted. In Michigan, a man was convicted of three counts of seduction, but the appeals court did everything in its power to overturn the decision. It threw out two charges because the defense reasoned that the woman was no longer virtuous after the couple’s first encounter. The other charge was overturned after the defense claimed that the woman’s testimony—that they had had sex in a buggy—was medically impossible.

On some occasions, women used these laws in order to coerce men into marriage. A New York man in the middle of an 1867 trial that was headed toward conviction proposed to the alleged victim. The local minister was summoned, and the trial instantly became a marriage ceremony.

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Toxic smoke had been used occasionally in warfare since ancient times, and in 1912, the French used small amounts of tear gas in police operations. At the outbreak of World War I, however, the Germans began to actively develop chemical weapons. In October 1914, small tear-gas canisters were placed in shells that were fired at Neuve Chapelle, France, but Allied troops were not exposed. In January 1915, the Germans fired shells loaded with xylyl bromide, a more lethal gas, at Russian troops at Bolimov on the Eastern Front. Because of the wintry cold, most of the gas froze, preventing it from being effective.

On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Now referred to as the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the enemy’s line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across no-man’s land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front with the wind-blown poison gas, decimating two divisions of French and Algerian colonial troops. The Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies managed to hold most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back, and, by May, they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however, would have great significance in World War I.

Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, the French and British began developing their own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches during the next several years of war. Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes and lungs, and killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the enemy’s ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that eventually negated the strategic importance of chemical weapons.

The United States, which entered World War I in 1917, also developed and used chemical weapons. Future President Harry S. Truman was the captain of a U.S. field artillery unit that fired poison gas against the Germans in 1918. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical weapons agents were used in World War I, some 500,000 troops were injured from their use and almost 30,000 died, including 2,000 Americans.

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"The Athletics should have won the game," the newspaper added, "but their fielding was poor." Betting on the game was "about even," according to the Inquirer.

While this was the first official National League game, the teams were not the first in professional baseball—the first pro team was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. Nor was the NL the first major professional baseball league—the first league was the National Association of Professional BaseBall Players, formed in 1871.

However, the National Association was loosely configured and had no central leadership or authority to govern its teams. Therefore, corruption, gambling, drunkenness and other malpractices became commonplace by 1875 and the league folded. That allowed William Hulbert, an Illinois businessman and owner of the Chicago White Stockings, to emerge as the founder of the much more stable National League.

Hulbert took the six strongest clubs from the National Association—the Boston Red Stockings (which became the Red Caps), Philadelphia Athletics, Hartford Dark Blues, St. Louis Brown Stockings, Chicago White Stockings and New York Mutuals—and the Louisville Grays and Cincinnati Reds to form the National League.

Hulbert put new rules in place that gave the new league a better chance for success than its predecessor. It was an invite-only league and teams had to pay substantial league dues and were subject to league discipline for misbehavior.

In 1876, the pitching mound was 45 feet from home plate instead of today's 60 feet, six inches. Pitches were supposed to be delivered underhanded, but pitchers "violated that rule with impunity," says John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian. Nine errant balls walked a batter instead of four in the modern game. Before an at-bat, a batter could specify a high strike zone (waist to shoulders) or low one (waist to shin).

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Three days prior to the explosions, the residents of a working-class neighborhood in Guadalajara noticed a foul smell in the air. The people experienced stinging in their eyes and throats. Some felt nauseous. Despite complaints, the local authorities did not seriously investigate the issue.

On April 22, at about 11:30 a.m., a series of powerful explosions began. They took place in an area about one mile long and seemed to come from 35 feet below-ground along the sewer system. Twenty square blocks of Guadalajara were leveled or seriously damaged. In two places, craters nearly 300 feet deep opened up, swallowing the surrounding buildings, roads, cars and buses.

Children home for Easter break were a substantial portion of the casualties. It took a week to find and record the deaths and injuries. About 1,500 people were hospitalized and 25,000 people had to be evacuated.

A subsequent investigation found that a leaky water pipe had caused a gas pipeline below it to rust. The gas then leaked into a sewer line, where it set off the powerful blasts. Mayor Enrique Dau Flores was indicted for ignoring the warnings; he subsequently resigned from office. Eight others in the government and PEMEX, the national oil company, were also charged in the case. PEMEX was still reeling from a 1984 Mexico City propane explosion that killed 450 people and for which they had also been found responsible. The case brought to light a continuing problem in Mexico: the contamination of sewage by industrial waste and hazardous chemicals and its effect on the underground piping system.

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The duo came complete with a made-up origin story. According to SNL's Paul Shaffer, who introduced the new act, it was Marshall Checker, of the legendary Checker brothers, who first discovered them in the gritty blues clubs of Chicago’s South Side in 1969 and handed them their big break nine years later with an introduction to music-industry heavyweight and host of television’s Rock Concert, Don Kirshner.

The characters and the band that Belushi and Aykroyd unveiled that night took more than two years to evolve. The first incarnation came during SNL‘s first season, in a January 17, 1976, appearance singing “I’m a King Bee” as “Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band.” There were no dark suits, skinny ties or Ray-Bans at that point, but the appearance did feature Aykroyd on the harmonica and Belushi on vocals belting out a blues classic very much in the style of the future Elwood and “Joliet” Jake Blues, albeit while wearing bee costumes.

The Blues Brothers’ look—and much of their repertoire—would come together after Belushi’s trip to Eugene, Oregon, during the hiatus between SNL seasons two and three to film Animal House. It was there that Belushi, a committed rock-and-roll fan, met a 25-year-old bluesman named Curtis Salgado, future harmonica player for Robert Cray, frontman for Roomful of Blues and a major figure on the burgeoning Pacific Northwest blues scene of the 1970s. Belushi became a regular visitor to the Eugene Hotel to catch Salgado’s act during the filming of Animal House, and it was from that act and from Salgado himself that he picked up a passion for the blues as well as the inspiration for the Blues Brothers’ sound and look.

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Patrick Daniel Tillman was born the oldest of three brothers on November 6, 1976, in San Jose, California. He played linebacker for Arizona State University, where during his senior year he was named Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. In 1998, Tillman was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals. He became the team’s starting safety as well as one of its most popular players. In 2000, he broke the team record for tackles with 224. In May 2002, Tillman turned down a three-year, multi-million-dollar deal with the Cardinals and instead, prompted by the events of 9/11, joined the Army along with his brother Kevin, a minor-league baseball player. The Tillman brothers were assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington, and did tours in Iraq in 2003, followed by Afghanistan the next year.

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed by gunfire while on patrol in a rugged area of eastern Afghanistan. The Army initially maintained that Tillman and his unit were ambushed by enemy forces. Tillman was praised as a national hero, awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals and posthumously promoted to corporal. Weeks later, Tillman’s family learned his death had been accidental. His parents publicly criticized the Army, saying they had been intentionally deceived by military officials who wanted to use their son as a patriotic poster boy. They believed their son’s death was initially covered up by military officials because it could’ve undermined support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A criminal investigation was eventually launched into the case and in 2007 the Army censured retired three-star general Philip Kensinger, who was in charge of special operations at the time of Tillman’s death, for lying to investigators and making other mistakes. “Memorandums of concern” were also sent to several brigadier generals and lower-ranking officers who the Army believed acted improperly in the case.

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On December 16, 1996, 14 Tupac Amaru terrorists, disguised as waiters and caterers, slipped into the home of Japanese Ambassador Morihisa Aoki, where a reception honoring the birthday of the Japanese emperor was being held. The armed terrorists took 490 people hostage. Police promptly surrounded the compound, and the rebels agreed to release 170 women and elderly guests but declared they would kill the remaining 220 if their demands were not met.

The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) was founded in 1984 as a militant organization dedicated to communist revolution in Peru. A few days after the hostage crisis at the Japanese ambassador’s home began, the rebels released all but 72 hostages and demanded the release of 400 MRTA members imprisoned in Peru. Among the important officials held hostage in the Japanese ambassador’s home were the brother of President Fujimori, Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela; supreme court judges; members of the ruling party; and a number of foreign ambassadors from Japan and elsewhere. President Fujimori, who was known for taking a hard-line stance against leftist guerrillas in Peru, did not give in to the key points of the rebels’ demands and in April 1997 ordered an assault on the complex by a 140-man special forces team.

After secretly warning the hostages 10 minutes before the attack, the special forces team set off a blast in a tunnel underneath the building, which surprised the rebels and killed eight of the 14 immediately. The rest of the elite soldiers attacked from several other directions, overwhelming the remaining terrorists. All 14 rebels were killed in the assault, including the leader, Nestor Cerpa, who was shot multiple times. Only one hostage, Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti, was killed in the attack, and of the several soldiers wounded during the rescue operation, two later died from their injuries.

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In 1959, Elijah "Pumpsie" Green was the first Black player on the Boston Red Sox, the last Major League Baseball team to integrate.

After playing in the declining Negro Leagues, Kennedy signed with the Phillies in October 1956 and was invited to spring training in 1957. He received an endorsement from Phillies scout Bill Yancey, who compared Kennedy's swing to future Hall of Famer Ernie Banks's and predicted he would become one of baseball's better hitters.

In spring training, Kennedy sparkled, hitting .333 (second on the team) and making only one error at shortstop. But 10 days before the opener, the Phillies spent $75,000 to acquire Cuban shortstop Chico Fernandez from the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1957, Fernandez played in 149 games for the Phillies. Kennedy, 30, played in only five, getting two at-bats and no hits.

"I would not say they made a huge commitment to the development of John Kennedy," Chris Threston, author of The Integration of Baseball in Philadelphia, told BillyPenn.Com in 2017. "They just wanted to get it over with."

Kennedy never made it back to the majors after 1957. "I was up for a few weeks. Some... Negro League players never even got that," he told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1997.

Kennedy died on April 27, 1998.

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Almost as confirmation of Hitler’s assessment, a Soviet mechanized corps reaches Treuenbrietzen, 40 miles southwest of Berlin, liberates a POW camp and releases, among others, Norwegian Commander in Chief Otto Ruge.

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