1897 Boston, Sports: John McDermott (pictured below) won the first Marathon at Boston. Ten of the fifteen starters finished. John Graham had attended the 1896 Athens Olympics and that fired his imagination for long-distance, endurance running. Women officially joined the race in 1972, but a few stalwart women had raced earlier in disguise. Apart from the Olympics, it is the oldest continuous marathon race. In 2018 there were nearly 30,000 starters. I know a few who have done it and lived to tell the tale.
1934 Hollywood, Cinema: Five-year old Shirley Temple appeared in her first feature film, ‘Stand Up and Cheer’ and she stole the show singing and dancing and dimpling. The studio executives realised that and ten more followed in 1934. She had already appeared in dozens of shorts, usually uncredited in the previous two years. She quit the silver screen at age 29 after racking up 60 credits.
1982 Houston, Space: NASA named Sally Ride as its first female astronaut. She went into space twice on Challenger, as shown below. She had been selected from 8000 applicants (men and women). When Ride left NASA she became a professor of physics at the University of California.
1984 Advance Australia Fair began putting listeners to sleep as the national anthem, selected in a plebiscite. Forty-three percent of nitwits voted for it while 28% of the discerning citizens voted for Banjo Paterson’s ‘Waltzing Matilda.’
2011 Havana, Politics: Fidel Castro resigned as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of Cuba after forty-five years as El Jefe. Seen below in 1979 when he once again heaped abuse on what he called rich nations and then demanded their largess at the United Nations. Travellers tell me his picture is still everywhere in Havana.
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