Milestones: April 16, 2024

April 16, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE — A VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT WITH A HISTORY OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ON APRIL 16, 2007, FATALLY SHOT 32 PEOPLE ON THE CAMPUS before taking his own life. The 23-year-old senior and English major Seung-Hui Cho began his shooting spree at 7:15 a.m., killing a freshwoman and a resident assistant in a dormitory. Armed with handguns and loads of ammunition, he entered a classroom building, chained and locked doors and then for the next 10 minutes shot faculty and students room-to-room before turning the gun on himself. Between the shootings, Cho had somehow managed to mail a package to NBC News containing photos and a diatribe about his classmates being “wealthy brats.” Only later did Cho’s professors and his classmates reveal that his academic writing contained angry and violent thoughts which concerned them greatly.

It would take four years, until 2011, for the U.S. Department of Education to complete its investigation and fine Virginia Tech for its failure to issue a prompt campus-wide warning after Cho shot his first two victims.

✰✰✰

NOW’S THE TIME — THE REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ON APRIL 16, 1963, WROTE HIS FAMOUS “LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL.” The letter, which many have since likened to one of the Epistles that the apostle Paul wrote while imprisoned, and that are now part of the New Testament canon, was a response to his critics, mostly other clergymen, defending his anti-segregation protests, which got him jailed. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.” Dr. King also pushed for violating unjust laws and urged believers in organized religion to “[break] loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity.”

The American Friends Service Committee soon published King’s letter as a pamphlet. Other magazines ranging from Ebony to Christian Century also published it as well. “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” was also published into the Congressional Record as part of NY Rep. William Fitts Ryan’s (D-Manhattan) testimony.

✰✰✰

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SECRETARY BLINKEN — THE CURRENT U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, ANTONY BLINKEN, MARKS HIS 62ND BIRTHDAY ON APRIL 16. Born in Yonkers, Blinken attended an international school in Paris, from where his mother and stepfather had emigrated. He already gained international experience, graduating with a French baccalauréat degree in 1980. Then matriculating at Harvard, Blinken was coeditor of the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies. His senior thesis, titled “The Formulation of East-West Policy in West: A Case Study of the Trans-Siberian Natural Gas Pipeline,” was later published in the 1987 book “Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe, and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis,” (Praeger Publishers). Blinken served as deputy secretary of state under Pres. Barack Obama from 2015 to 2017. President-elect Joe Biden nominated Blinken as secretary of state in November 2020 and the Senate confirmed him six days after the inauguration.

Blinken has had to deal with several concurrent international crises, including Iran’s unprecedented missile attack on Israel over the past weekend. The U.S. helped Israel intercept the missiles.

✰✰✰

THE SHREWD TRAMP — LEGENDARY ‘TRAMP’ AND HOLLYWOOD SILENT FILM ICON CHARLIE CHAPLIN WAS BORN ON APRIL 16, 1889, as Charles Spencer Chaplin. Introduced to the stage at the age of five, Chaplin became one of the most financially successful stars in Hollywood, with the film medium becoming his. Brainchild Charlie the Tramp made him a masterful silent film actor and pantomimist, bringing laughter and tears simultaneously from his audiences. Chaplin was a skillful negotiator, signing on with the Essanay company in 1915 for $1,250 a week plus a $10,000 bonus — thus raising his income exponentially from what Keystone had paid him. Later, Chaplin signed a contract with Mutual for $10,000 a week with a $150,000 bonus, requiring him to make 12 films annually — with him having complete creative autonomy. His 1918 contract with First National (later absorbed by Warner Brothers) won him $1 million for eight films. His first film with sound was the 1931 movie “City Lights,” but it only had background music, and the “Tramp” was still silent. His 1940 film, “The Great Dictator,” in which he mocked fascism, featured him speaking at last.

Chaplin founded United Artists Corporation in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and director D.W. Griffith.

✰✰✰

PULITZER BOARD HONORS HIP-HOP GENRE — RAPPER KENDRICK LAMAR WON THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR MUSIC ON APRIL 16, 2018, FOR HIS 2017 ALBUM, “DAMN,” marking the first time the award had been given to a musical work beyond classical music and jazz. The Pulitzer board, in unanimously awarding the prize to Lamar, also signaled the American cultural elite’s recognition of hip-hop as a legitimate artistic medium. The Pulitzer committee called “DAMN.” “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African American life.”

The classical music community had some who criticized this award, and many past winners and nominees praised the decision.

✰✰✰

‘WHO’S ON FIRST’? — THE CLEVELAND INDIANS (NOW THE CLEVELAND GUARDIANS) were the first Major League Baseball team to open a season, on April 16, 1929, with numbers on the back of each player’s jersey. Just three years prior, the Cleveland team had experimented with placing the players’ numbers on the sleeves of their jerseys. That lasted just a few weeks, though. However, many in baseball agreed that the numbers on jerseys facilitated the identification of players, especially for scorekeepers, broadcasters, and others who had to keep track of the team member’s moves. Every MLB team by 1937 displayed numbers on the backs of their players’ jerseys.

However, not until 1960 were players’ names also displayed, with the Chicago White Sox being the first team to initiate this practice.

See previous milestones, here.