On April 26, 1865, Federal troops locate John Wilkes Booth hiding in the tobacco barn of the Garrett farm near Port Royal, VA. After fatally shooting President Lincoln in the balcony of Ford's Theatre on April 14, Booth leaped from the balcony to the stage below, injuring his leg on landing. He nevertheless escaped with the help of accomplice David Herold, and avoided capture for the next two weeks with the help of various Confederate sympathizers, including Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set his leg. On April 24, a former Confederate cavalryman led them to Richard Garrett, who (not knowing about the assassination), allowed them space in his barn. Federal troops searching for Booth soon apprehended the cavalryman and learned of his location. Herold quickly surrendered, but Booth refused and was shot, allegedly saying before death,"Tell my mother I died for my country."


On April 26, 1954, leaders of the US, USSR, France, Great Britain and China meet in Geneva to discuss the Vietnam issue. The French were tiring of the 8-year long war to maintain their colonial control of the country against the communists forces of Ho Chi Minh. But with no other nation (read: the US) willing to commit to back the French, they were prepared to pull out. By July, the attending nations hammered out an agreement to split the nation at the 17th Parallel, pending results of the scheduled 1956 national elections. But the U.S., fearing Ho's potential win in the election, soon began establishing an anti-communist government in South Vietnam, assuring US involvement in the continuing war for the nation. (Ho Chi Minh, 1947 photo)


On April 26, 1977, Studio 54 opens at 254 West 54th Street in NYC. The building was originally an opera house when built in the 1920s, and later was converted to a TV studio by CBS, shooting many of their early game shows (including The $64,000 Question) and long-running children's program Captain Kangaroo there. In 1977, entrepeneurs Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager acquired the property and converted it into a nightclub, using leftover TV and theatre props as decor. Studio 54 would quickly become the unofficial home base of the disco era and the "in" place to be for A-list celebrities ranging from Freddie Mercury to Donald Trump. But the club's success was mercurial; Rubell and Schrager were convicted of tax evasion in early 1980 and Studio 54 closed shortly after. The location is now a theatre that mostly hosts Broadway revival productions.

On April 27, 1865, the worst maritime disaster in US history occurs when the steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis. The Sultana had departed New Orleans two days earlier, bound for St. Louis carrying barely a third of its rated capacity of 376 passengers. But it stopped in Vicksburg and picked up up more than 2,000 Union soldiers recently paroled as prisoners of war (the government was paying $5 per soldier to return them home). Her captain also noticed Sultana's boilers needed repair, but decided to put off the work until reaching St. Louis. North of Memphis, the faulty boiler exploded, and more than 1,700 went down with the ship. The course of the river has changed since 1965, and in 1982 the wreckage of Sultana was discovered in a soybean field in Arkansas, two miles from the existing channel.

Not really. The plains along the river are full of lakes that were once part of the main channel. False River north of Baton Rouge is an example, its about 3 miles from the current river at its closest point.

On April 29, 1945, the U.S. 45th Infantry, 7th Army, liberates the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Established in 1933 near a small town of the same near near the city of Munich, Dachau was the Nazis' first concentration camp. Its internees were relegated to slave labor and medical experiments. U.S. troops liberated 30,000 prisoners and discovered about 30 railroad boxcars containing an estimated 9,000 bodies. Troops were reportedly so appalled by the site that they executed a couple of dozen captured German guards on the spot. The residents of Dachau town were later forced to bury the bodies discovered at the camp.


On April 29, 1974, President Richard Nixon announces he will release the transcripts of 46 taped Oval Office conversations relating to the 1972 break-in of the National Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate hotel by Nixon campaign operatives. The Justice Department accepted some 1,200 pages of material the following day, but demanded the tapes themselves. The following July, the Supreme Court would reject Nixon's claim of "executive privilege" in withholding some of the tapes. On one of the withheld tapes, investigators would find their "smoking gun"; an order by Nixon to the FBI to end its investigation of the break-in. The revelation sealed Nixon's involvement in the matter in the eyes of many citizens, leading to his August 8th resignation from office.


April 29, 2004 sees the end of America's oldest car manufacturer, as the last Oldsmobile rolls off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan. Ransom E. Olds founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in 1897, beating Ford to the punch by 6 years. The vehicle that would give the company a new name, the Curved Dash Oldsmobile (below), made its debut in 1901. The newly-established General Motors acquired Oldsmobile as it second brand (after Buick) in 1908. By the end of its 106-year long run, more than 35 million Oldsmobiles were constructed. The last Olds, a dark metallic red Alero (also below) was originally sent to the Ransom E. Olds Museum, but was sold to a private collector in 2017.

May 4, 1904 is "Acquisition Day." The U.S. acquires the rights to build, and subsequently administer, the Panama Canal. The French had first attempted to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, but accidents and jungle diseases claimed more than 20,000 lives and the project was abandoned after about a decade. The U.S. government soon became interested in the project, and in exchange for its help in gaining independence from Colombia, the Panamanian separatists struck the deal with President Theodore Roosevelt. A year later, chief project engineer John F. Stevens (below) would conclude that the French attempt at a sea level canal as unfeasible, and proposed an above-sea level canal with locks at each end.


On May 4, 1961, the first "Freedom Riders" depart Washington D.C on a Greyhound Bus journey to New Orleans. The Riders, mostly teenagers, sit in racially-integrated pairs on the bus in protest of Greyhound's "separate but equal" policy, which segregated riders in defiance of Supreme Court rulings banning the practice. The first Freedom Riders were met with violence at several stops on their journey, and were forced to abandon the ride in Jackson, MS. But more than 400 others would follow over the course of the ensuing summer, and the publicity generated by the attempts eventually led to true desegregation of the buses.


On May 4, 1966, San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays hits his 512th career home run, breaking Mel Ott's National League record. Mays, arguably the best all around player in baseball history, would eventually hit 660 homers, 3rd best in major league history at the time of his retirement (Mays' career was interrupted for nearly two full seasons when he was drafted into the Army in the early '50s).

I knew all this; one of the first school assignments I did when I moved from Gretna to Morgan City as a 7th grader was a book report on Ott. Something else people may not know; Leo Durocher was referring to Ott (after Ott had retired as a ball player and become a less-than-successful manager for the Giants) when he said "Nice guys always finish last."