The Beatles, Lincoln & Jackie Robinson

Good morning my fellow Rotarians! This week in history had some big things happen that are worth noting…

April 10, 1970… The legendary rock band the Beatles spent the better part of three years talking about breaking up in the late 1960s, and even longer than that hashing out who did what and why. And by the spring of 1970, each of the Beatles was pursuing their own musical interests with solo album projects with no plans to record together as a group. The public thought it was a temporary thing, but Paul McCartney’s "self-interview" immediately attracted media from around the world as he made the official announcement of the Beatles breakup on April 10, 1970.

April 14, 1865… John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, effectively ending the American Civil War. The president was mortally wounded and died at 7:22 a.m. the next morning. Lincoln was 56, our 16th president and the first to be assassinated. Booth was eventually found and committed suicide when troops set fire to the barn he was trapped in. Eight others were charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed. Lincoln was buried on May 4, 1865, in Springfield, Illinois.

April 15, 1947… Jackie Robinson, age 28, becomes the first African-American major league baseball player playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The sport had been segregated for more than 50 years and then exactly 50 years later, on April 15, 1997, Robinson's ground breaking career was honored when his uniform #42 was retired in a ceremony attended by over 50,000 fans at New York City's Shea Stadium. Robinson's #42 was the first-ever number retired by all teams in the league to honor Robinson for his accomplishments. Pretty cool.

And that is this week in history as our Bottom of the News on this April 8th 2011! ###