This Day In History: 01/27/1888 - National Geographic Society - HISTORY

The National Geographic Society was founded, the Soviet army freed the prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 fire in This Day in History video. The date is January 27th.The National Geographic Society's goal was to distribute geographic knowledge. It was started by thirty-three world travelers.

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In this "This Day in History" video clip learn about different events that have occurred on January 1st. Some of these events include the enactment of the emancipation proclamation and the opening of Ellis Island. Also, David Dinkins becomes the first African-American mayor of New York City and dictator Batista is forced out of Cuba by revolution.

On this day in 1932, in a crime that captured the attention of the entire nation, Charles Lindbergh III, the 20-month-old son of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family's new mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey. Lindbergh, who became an international celebrity when he flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, and his wife Anne discovered a ransom note demanding $50,000 in their son's empty room. The kidnapper used a ladder to climb up to the open second-floor window and left muddy footprints in the room. The Lindberghs were inundated by offers of assistance and false clues. For three days, investigators found nothing and there was no further word from the kidnappers. Then, a new letter showed up, this time demanding $70,000. Soon after, the baby's body was discovered near the Lindbergh mansion. He had been killed the night of the kidnapping and was found less than a mile from home. The kidnapping looked like it would go unsolved until September 1934, when a marked bill from the ransom turned up. It was tracked back to a German immigrant and carpenter, Bruno Hauptmann. When his home was searched, detectives found a chunk of Lindbergh ransom money. The resulting trial was a national sensation. Money, handwriting, ladder evidence, and intense public pressure were enough to convict Hauptmann and he was electrocuted in 1935. In the aftermath of the crime--the most notorious of the 1930s--kidnapping was made a federal offense.

On this day in 1936, the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. The Hall of Fame actually had its beginnings in 1935, when plans were made to build a museum devoted to baseball and its 100-year history. A private organization based in Cooperstown called the Clark Foundation thought that establishing the Baseball Hall of Fame in their city would help to reinvigorate the area's Depression-ravaged economy by attracting tourists. To help sell the idea, the foundation advanced the idea that U.S. Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown. The story proved to be phony, but baseball officials, eager to capitalize on the marketing and publicity potential of a museum to honor the game's greats, gave their support to the project anyway. In preparation for the dedication of the Hall of Fame in 1939--thought by many to be the centennial of baseball--the Baseball Writers' Association of America chose the five greatest superstars of the game as the first class to be inducted: Ty Cobb was the most productive hitter in history; Babe Ruth was both an ace pitcher and the greatest home-run hitter to play the game; Honus Wagner was a versatile star shortstop and batting champion; Christy Matthewson had more wins than any pitcher in National League history; and Walter Johnson was considered one of the most powerful pitchers to ever have taken the mound. Today, with approximately 350,000 visitors per year, the Hall of Fame continues to be the hub of all things baseball. It has elected 278 individuals, in all, including 225 players, 17 managers, 8 umpires and 28 executives and pioneers.

Edwin Drake struck oil on September 27 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in this video clip from This Day In History. This would become the first successful oil well drilled in America. Russ Mitchell recaps other events occurring on this day as well. The Mariner 2 was launched by the US on September 27 to fly past Venus, and MIT researchers announced that they made a breakthrough in biotechnology by implanting a synthetic gene into a living cell. Also, a series of volcanic eruptions tore the Indonesian island of Krakatau apart.

Australia Day celebrates the founding of Australia led by Captain Arthur Phillip, the curtain goes up on the Phantom of the Opera and Condoleezza Rice is named the first woman Secretary of State in This Day in History video. The date is January 26th. Also on this day in history India wins independence from British rule.

On this day in 1493, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three "mermaids"--in reality manatees--and describes them as "not half as beautiful as they are painted." Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or "New World." Mermaids, mythical half-female, half-fish creatures, have existed in seafaring cultures at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. Typically depicted as having a woman's head and torso, a fishtail instead of legs and holding a mirror and comb, mermaids live in the ocean and, according to some legends, can take on a human shape and marry mortal men. Mermaids are closely linked to sirens, another folkloric figure, part-woman, part-bird, who live on islands and sing seductive songs to lure sailors to their deaths. Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren't made up, were most likely manatees, dugongs or Steller's sea cows (which became extinct by the 1760s due to over-hunting). Manatees are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces and paddle-like tails. It is likely that manatees evolved from an ancestor they share with the elephant. The three species of manatee (West Indian, West African and Amazonian) and one species of dugong belong to the Sirenia order. As adults, they're typically 10 to 12 feet long and weigh 800 to 1,200 pounds. They're plant-eaters, have a slow metabolism and can only survive in warm water. Manatees live an average of 50 to 60 years in the wild and have no natural predators. However, they are an endangered species.

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