Monday, April 7, 2008

It's World Health Day

This years theme is - the need to protect health from the adverse effects of climate change & establlish links between climate change and health and other development areas such as environment, food, energy, transport.

Here is your Today in History -

April 7, 1915 -
Eleanora Fagan, seminal influence on jazz and pop singers who, arguably changed the art of American pop vocals forever, was born on this day. Eleanora's (or as she was professionally known, Billie Holiday's) vocal style — strongly inspired by instrumentalists — pioneered a new way of manipulating wording and tempo, and also popularized a more personal and intimate approach to singing.




April 7, 1939 -
That little old italian wine maker, Francis Ford Coppola, (who also is a magazine publisher and hotelier) was born on this date. Oh yeah, he is a five-time Academy Award winning American film director, producer, and screenwriter.




April 7, 1943 -
Albert Hoffman produced LSD for the first time at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. That same day, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg. Calculate the distance between Salzburg and Basel. Speculate.




April 7, 1970 -
The X-rated movie Midnight Cowboy wins the Oscar for Best Picture.



April 7, 1989 -
Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Norwegian sea, with two nuclear reactors and two nuclear torpedoes aboard. 41 crewmembers die, and the submarine remains one mile below the surface of the ocean, with its nuclear weapons intact.




April 7, 1994 -
Courtney Love arrested on drug charges in Beverly Hills. What a surprise!



April 7, 1998 -
Wendy O. Williams, former porn star and singer for The Plasmatics, kills herself with a gun near her Connecticut home.



April 7, 1998 -
Pop singer George Michael is arrested by an undercover police officer after wanking in front him in a public toilet.



April 7, 1999 -
A bomb goes off in the "Valley of the Fallen" church, which is carved into a mountainside north of Madrid. The church houses the mortal remains of dictator Francisco Franco. The terrorist group GRAPO claims responsibility, and while there were no injuries, the damage was extensive. And the General steadfastly remains dead.

And so it goes.

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