This Day In History: 04/15/1947 - Jackie Robinson Plays Ball - HISTORY

On this day in history in 1947, Jackie Robinson, age 28, becomes the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

RELATED CONTENT

Many historical events occurred on April 4th, and Russ Mitchell recaps them in this video clip from This Day In History. President William Henry Harrison became the first US President to die while in office when his cold turned into pneumonia. Congress passed and authorized what would become known as the American flag, with 13 strips, and then 20 stars with a blue background. Each state that would be added would add another star to the flag. Also, the first Mexican American, Henry Cisneros, became mayor of a major city, which was Texas. On Martin Luther King Jr.'s Memphis hotel balcony, James Earl Ray assassinated King.

It didn't begin as a grand vision to stage a generation-defining cultural event. It began as a minor item in a business plan to build a professional recording studio in the vicinity of Woodstock, New York. "Press Party," was what the entry near the bottom of the project outline read, and it was just enough to catch the eye of Joel Rosenman, who, along with his business partner John Roberts, was being pitched as a potential investor in the recording studio venture by two aspiring music-biz entrepreneurs named Mike Lang and Artie Kornfeld. Just as Roberts was preparing to say "No, thanks" to the proposal, his partner, Rosenman, posed a fateful question to Kornfeld: "Artie, what's this entry here about a press party?" The discussion that followed would eventually lead the four young men present to become partners in planning, promoting and staging the historic Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which opened its three-day run on this day in 1969.

The USS Maine explosion started the Spanish American War, Galileo was born, the teddy bear was introduced and inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, and the Canadian flag changed in This Day in History video. The date is February 15th. The USS Maine was blown up in Cuba's Havana harbor.

The first Super Bowl was held with Vince Lombardi on the sidelines, the Pentagon opened, Sara Jane Moore shot Gerald Ford in a presidential assassination attempt in This Day in History video. The date was January 15. Thomas Nash used the donkey to represent the Democratic party for the first time on this date.

The great San Francisco earthquake killed 3,000 people, Paul Revere's midnight ride took place, physicist, Albert Einstein died, and play ball began a Yankees and Red Sox game for the first time in This Day in History video. The date is April 18th. Paul Revere's ride resulted in the battles of Lexington and Concord and signaled the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

On this day in 1916, on Easter Monday in Dublin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization of Irish nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launches the so-called Easter Rebellion, an armed uprising against British rule. Assisted by militant Irish socialists under James Connolly, Pearse and his fellow Republicans rioted and attacked British provincial government headquarters across Dublin and seized the Irish capital's General Post Office. Following these successes, they proclaimed the independence of Ireland, which had been under the repressive thumb of the United Kingdom for centuries, and by the next morning were in control of much of the city. Later that day, however, British authorities launched a counteroffensive, and by April 29 the uprising had been crushed. Nevertheless, the Easter Rebellion is considered a significant marker on the road to establishing an independent Irish republic.

CLOSE

CLOSE

CLOSE

CLOSE