Category: Today in history

News of Sir Edmund Hillary’s death due to heart attack is plastered all over the web now.

Reuters has a brief video with more information about Hillary’s life and Mt. Everest accomplishments.

The History Channel has lots of cool information on Thor Heyerdahl’s 4300 mile oceanic journey aboard the balsa wood Kon-Tiki raft in 1947. And with a name like Thor, how could I resist posting about it?

On this day in 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.

Secretly, I think Heyerdahl was trying to impress some woman. That’s pretty much the primary motivator for 95% of what we men do, after all. We try to impress chicks, so we can have the sexx0ring with them. Any other behavior is driven by need for sleep or food.

Yes, we’re really that shallow, ladies.

[tags]Today in history, Thor Heyerdahl, Balsa, Kon-Tiki, raft[/tags]

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There are very few female serial killers. Whether it is because they are better at evading detection and capture (doubtful) or just because there are fewer women with psychopathic tendencies (psychotic – almost all of them; psychopathic – not so much), I don’t know. However, one of the few of this breed is Della Sorenson. On this date in 1918, Ms. Sorenson kills the infant daughter of her sister-in-law.

…Over the next seven years, friends, relatives, and acquaintances of Sorenson repeatedly died under mysterious circumstances before anyone finally realized that it had to be more than a coincidence.

. . .

Early in 1923, Sorenson killed her own daughter, Delia, on her first birthday. When Sorenson’s friend brought her infant daughter for a visit only a week later, the tiny infant was also poisoned. After an attempt on Sorenson’s second husband’s life left him sick–but not dead–authorities began to think that there might be a connection between these series of deaths.

I honestly believe that this type of killer would have a much shorter career in the modern era, but before the FBI get deeply involved in studying and classifying serial criminals it was easier. Especially since it was almost unthinkable back then that a woman could be a cold-blooded murderer.

Oddly, finding any information on Ms. Sorenson different from that available on The History Channel website has proven challenging. I have read about her in one of my serial killers books, but cannot find any more information about her online after a cursory search.

[tags]Della Sorenson, Today in History, Serial criminals, Female killers[/tags]

On this day, 66 years ago, the first commercial television station began broadcasting. Now known as WNBC, this New York station was originally broadcast as WNBT television station, operating under license from the FCC issued originally as W2XBS. The station was one of 10 authorized commercial television stations granted license by the FCC, and the first to go live.

NewsChannel 4 signed on the air as WNBT on July 1, 1941, at 1:29 p.m. This historic event was the beginning of commercial television in the United States.

At 2:30 p.m. the same day, WNBT again made history when 4,000 television sets were tuned to the station’s first telecast, a game at Ebbets Field between Brooklyn and Philadelphia, followed by the P&G sponsored “Truth or Consequences” and “Uncle Jim’s Questions Bee.”

Signing-On
The telecast also brought the first sponsor to the air. The Bulova clock filled the lower right hand quadrant of the test pattern and an announcer read the time. Bulova paid $4 for the first commercial and $5 for the use of facilities. And, America saw its first pair of televised dishpan hands — those of Irene Hubbard, the original star of the Ivory soap commercials. Operating out of Studio 3H, the first simulcast of a news program featured Lowell Thomas, in a Sunoco sponsored 15-minute report at 6:45 p.m. WNBT actually evolved from W2XBS, a pioneer RCA television lab and experimental station. W2XBS began in 1928, when RCA started operating from a transmitter in Van Cortlandt Park. On January 16, 1930, a television program originating from NBC’s Fifth Avenue studios was transmitted onto a six-foot screen for an audience at the Proctor Theater on Third Avenue and 58th Streets. NBC assumed control of the operation of W2XBS from RCA on July 30, 1930.

Also of note on this date, in reference to television, is the first commercial television station news telecast on WCBW, now known as CBS. This 15 minute broadcast started at 2:30 PM.

Note that these dates are for the first commercial television stations. There were television stations operating prior to this date, but they were considered experimental broadcasts by the FCC through the periods leading up to July 1^st, 1941.

[tags]Today in history – first commercial television[/tags]

At the American Toy Fair in New York city, Barbie made her debut today in 1959.

Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. The woman behind Barbie was Rith Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing her young dauther ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.

Barbie’s appearance was modeled on a doll named Lilli, based on a German comic strip character. Originally marketed as a racy gag gift to adult men in tobacco shops, the Lilli doll later became extremely popular with children.

A brief video of Barbie’s beginning plus a lot more information on her origins at the link above.

[tags]Today in history 1959 – Barbie debuts, Barbie’s 1959 beginnings[/tags]

A video presentation from the History channel gives us this news about the long-delayed rescue of the Donner party in 1847.

On this day in 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

In the summer of 1846, in the midst of a Western-bound fever sweeping the United States, 89 people – including 31 members of the Donner and Reed families – set out in a wagon train from Springfiled, Illinois. After arriving at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the emigrants decided to avoid the usual route and try a new trail recently blazed by California promoter Lansford Hastings, the so-called “Hastings Cutoff.” After electing George Donner as their captain, the party departed Fort Bridger in mid-July.

If you are somehow unfamiliar with the Donner Party, let’s just say the short-cut wasn’t, nor was the party a party. The group was stuck in the mountains by an early and harsh winter set-in, and stranded there for 4 months. The survivors had to turn to cannibalism to make it until then, as all other supplies ran out long before rescuers arrived.

[tags]Today in History, Donner Party finally rescued this date in 1847[/tags]

The headline covers almost everything that matters: this date in 1856 saw a convening in Philadelphia by the Know-Nothing political party to nominate its first presidential candidate.

The Know-Nothing movement began in the 1840s, when an increasing rate of immigration led to the formation of a number of so-called nativist societies to combat “foreign” influences in American society. Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Italy, who were embraced by the Democratic Party in eastern cities, were especially targeted. In the early 1850s, several secret nativist societies were formed, of which the “Order of the Star-Spangled Banner” and the “Order of United Americans” were the most significant. When members of these organizations were questioned by the press about their political platform, they would often reply they knew nothing, hence the popular name for the Know-Nothing movement.

When their candidate, former President Fillmore, failed to win anywhere except Maryland, the party effectively ceased to exist. Although the name might lead you to think they merely changed their name to the Democrats, they really did go away (which I know some of you wish would happen to the Democrats).

[tags]Today in History, The Know-Nothing party[/tags]