JANUARY 5 — 1933 Construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge; 1859 Happy Birthday DeWitt Brace (relative motion on Earth); 1949 Truman announces Fair Deal; 2004 Pete Rose admits to betting while managing Reds on Good Morning America; 1976 Mal Evans, Beatles bodyguard, killed by police in L.A.
JANUARY 5
1933 – Construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge.
In 1916, more than four decades after railroad entrepreneur Charles Crocker’s call for a bridge across the Golden Gate Strait in 1872, James H. Wilkins, a structural engineer and newspaper editor for the San Francisco Call Bulletin, captured the attention of San Francisco City Engineer Michael M. O’Shaughnessy. Wilkins called for a suspension bridge with a center span of 3,000 feet, which was nearly twice the length of any existing bridges in the world.
The know-everything’s of the world naturally said it wouldn’t be done and would be a huge waste of $100 million. Because the know everything’s just know everything right? Not so fast. It was Joseph Baermann Strauss that came forward and said, yeah I can. Not only can it be done, but could be built for $25 to $30 million. Ansel Adams and members of the Sierra Club said it would be ugly and take away from the natural view. But the project continued forward, then the Great Depression hit.
Finally Bank of America agreed to by the project in the form of bonds to boost the economy, and on May 27, 1937, the longest bridge span in the world opened up. By 1965, since this is San Francisco we’re talking about here, the lead paint that was used for the bridge was replaced by an inorganic zinc silicate primer with acrylic emulsion topcoat which protects the steel components from the salt in the air.
1859 – Happy birthday DeWitt Brace. He’s best known for optical experiments especially in the relative motion of Earth and aluminiferous aether, or its ether drift.
1949 – Truman announces the Fair Deal. This deal recommended that All Americans have health care, that the minimum wage would get an increase, and that all Americans would be guaranteed equal rights. This didn’t go well with Congress. After all, America was trying to fight communism and this plan sunk with socialism. Besides WWII had just ended a few years earlier and America was leaning more on the conservative side.
The minimum wage was nearly doubled from 40 cents to 75 cents per hour, and the Housing Act provided 800,000 new houses for the poor. Congress would approve Truman’s extension of Social Security benefits but reject healthcare. The Fair Employment Practices Act would outlaw racial and religious discriminating in hiring. Congress passed the Employment Act in 1946 and clearly stated the government’s responsibility in helping to achieve full employment.
2004 – Good Morning America guest Pete Rose admits to betting while managing the Reds, though denied ever betting as a player. The truth would later come out that he did bet as a player as well. John Dowd, who led the original investigation, said “The mafia had a mortgage on Pete while he was a player and a manager.”
1976 –40 year old Mal Evans, a former roadie and bodyguard of The Beatles, is shot to death by police at his Los Angeles apartment. His girlfriend, Fran Hughes, found him upset and despondent and when friends couldn’t get Evans to release the unloaded rifle he was holding, they called police. Evans supposedly pointed the gun at police and they opened fire.