Born on this day
Thursday, April 3, 1924. : American singer and actress Doris Day is born.
Doris Day was born Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff on 3 April 1924, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She developed an interest in dance during her early years, and by her teens had formed a dance duo that performed locally in Cincinnati. A car accident damaged her legs and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer. However, while recovering, she took up singing. Soon she began to take lessons and at age 17 began performing locally. It was while working for local bandleader Barney Rapp that she adopted the stage name “Day” as an alternative to “Kappelhoff”.
After working with Rapp, Day worked with several other bandleaders, including Bob Crosby and Les Brown. It was while working with Brown that Day scored her first hit recording Sentimental Journey, which was released in early 1945. During her time with Les Brown, and a brief stint with Bob Hope, Day toured extensively across the United States.
Doris Day’s film career began in 1948 with her starring role in “Romance on the High Seas”. The success of this film established her as a popular movie personality, and provided her within another hit recording “It’s Magic”. She continued to make period musicals such as Starlift, On Moonlight Bay, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, and Tea For Two for Warner Bros., and in 1953 shot to stardom as Calamity Jane, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Secret Love”. She continued to star in many more films, branching out also into television. She retired from acting when her popular “The Doris Day Show” ended in 1973.
Following her acting career, Day then turned to Animal welfare activism, showing care and concern for all creatures great and small. Until her death on 13 May 2019, Doris Day was still heavily involved in this field. In 2006, The Humane Society of the United States merged with the Doris Day Animal League. Staff members of the Doris Day League took positions within The HSUS, and Day recorded some public service announcements for The HSUS, which is now managing Spay Day USA, the one-day spay neuter event she originated some years before.
Australian History
Monday, April 3, 1961. : Leadbeater’s Possum is rediscovered after it was believed to have become extinct.
The Leadbeater’s Possum, faunal emblem of Victoria, is a small marsupial, 30-40cm in length, believed to live only in the tall eucalypt forests of central Victoria, from Healesville and Marysville to Mt Baw Baw. First recorded in 1867, sightings decreased and the last recorded sighting for many decades was in 1909. The possum was believed to be extinct, but on 3 April 1961, it was rediscovered by naturalist Eric Wilkinson. Wilkinson identified two possums in mountain ash forest east of the town of Marysville and alerted the authorities.
Like many Australian animals, Leadbeater’s Possum is endangered because of habitat loss. It nests in the hollows of old trees, preferably those over 150-200 years old, but fewer of these trees are available due to drought, timber production and frequent bushfires in recent years. Leadbeater’s possum was placed on the IUCN Red list of endangered species in 2004. It is classified as “threatened” under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 of Australia.
World History
Tuesday, April 3, 1860. : The first successful Pony Express runs.
The Pony Express was the first fast mail line across the North American continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. Messages were carried on horseback across the prairies, plains, deserts, and mountains of the western United States, usually averaging around a ten day journey. The service was founded, owned and operated by William Hepburn Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B Waddel.
The first successful Pony Express commenced on 3 April 1860 and was completed on April 13. It ran from St Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. Later routes diverged to points north and south of the main track. The first west-bound rider out of St Joseph was Johnny Fry.
Pony Express stations were placed at intervals of about 16 km along the route, determined by the fact that it was the optimum distance a horse could travel at a gallop. The rider changed to a fresh horse at each station, taking only the mail pouch with him. There were a total of about 165 changing stations along the 3,200 km route. The Pony Express operated for around eighteen months before it was superseded by the completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph, on 24 October 1861
World History
Wednesday, April 3, 1974. : The largest tornado outbreak on record, known as the Super Outbreak, occurs in North America.
Tornadoes are violent spinning storms typically shaped like a funnel with the narrow end on the ground. They are extremely destructive and are almost always visible due to water vapour from clouds and debris from the ground. Tornadoes can form in storms all over the world, but they form most famously in a broad area of the American Midwest and South known as Tornado Alley.
Early in the afternoon of 3 April 1974, North America experienced the beginnings of a “Super Outbreak” of tornado activity. Over an eighteen hour period, 148 tornadoes hit in 13 states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and New York. One tornado, the only one to hit outside the United States, hit near Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The outbreak also broke the record for the most violent (F5 and F4) tornadoes, having six F5 tornadoes and 24 F4 tornadoes. Between 315 and 330 fatalities were recorded and another 5,484 people were injured. The costs of the damage reached the equivalent of $3.5 billion in 2005 figures.
World History
Saturday, April 3, 2004. : Islamic terrorists believed to be responsible for the Madrid explosions a month earlier commit suicide before they can be arrested.
On 11 March 2004, Madrid, Spain, became a target of terrorist attacks. A series of ten coordinated terrorist bombings which hit the city’s commuter train system between 7:39am and 7:42am left 191 people dead and nearly 1,800 wounded. The attacks were the deadliest assault by a terrorist organisation against civilians in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and the worst terrorist attack in modern Spanish history.
Evidence strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamist groups, with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group named as a focus of investigations. This group appeared to have links to Al-Qaeda. In October 2003, Osama bin Laden had issued a public threat to carry out suicide bombings against any countries joining the US-led invasion of Iraq. At the time, Spain had approximately 1,300 soldiers stationed in Iraq. In addition, bin Laden had spoken earlier of wishing to return the southern Spanish region of Andalucia to Muslim control, reversing the Reconquista of 1492. On 3 April 2004, as police were closing in on the suspected Islamic terrorists responsible for the explosions, the terrorists committed suicide by blowing themselves up with explosives.