DATE=04/04/02

TYPE=English Programs Feature

NUMBER=7-36150

TITLE=AMERICAN MOMENTS 04/14/02 to 04/20/02

BYLINE=Keming Kuo

TELEPHONE=619-0936

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Ted Landphair

CONTENT=

U-S Jets Bomb Libya 1986

(For Use 04/14)

NARR: On April 14th, 1986, American warplanes bombed what President Ronald Reagan called "terrorist-related targets" in Libya. Mr. Reagan said he ordered the air strikes in retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub in which an American serviceman was killed. Evidence pointed to Libyan-supported terrorists as the culprits in that bombing. President Reagan said he hoped the attacks on targets in and near Tripoli and Benghazi would deter future Libyan-directed terrorism. He also warned Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, to cease his support of anti-American terrorism. White House spokesmen said the American jets bombed what they called "Gaddafi's terrorist infrastructure" as well as some Libyan military sites. (BEGIN OPT) Of the dozens of U-S jets that took part in the raids, only one was lost. U-S military spokesmen described the attacks as "surgical," but acknowledged a number of bombs apparently went astray and killed an unknown number of Libyan civilians. [END OPT]

President Lincoln Assassinated 1865

(For Use 04/14)

TAPE: CUT ONE -MUSIC ["LINCOLN'S FUNERAL MARCH" (:55), IN FULL TO :14, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT

NARR: On April 14th, 1865, the actor John Wilkes Booth shot and fatally wounded President Abraham Lincoln. Booth shot the President in the back of the head as Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln watched a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D-C. The President was carried to a house across the street from the theater, where he died the next morning. On hearing the news of the death of the President, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is said to have whispered, "Now he belongs to the ages." The assassin Booth fled to Maryland and then to Virginia. Twelve days later, federal troops located Booth on a farm near the village of Bowling Green, Virginia. He was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the soldiers.

Singer Bessie Smith Born 1894

(For Use 04/15)

NARR: Singer Bessie Smith, who would become known as "the Empress of the Blues," was reportedly born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 15th, 1894. When she was trying to break into show business, she was helped by Ma Rainey -- who is often regarded as the first great blues singer. Bessie Smith's first recording was made in 1923. There would be many more:

TAPE: CUT TWO -MUSIC [BESSIE SMITH WITH BUCK AND HIS BAND, "GIMME A PIGFOOT" (2:06), IN FULL TO :37, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT

NARR: In 1937, Bessie Smith died of injuries she sustained in an automobile accident in Mississippi. Years after her death, the hospital in Clarksdale, Mississippi to which Smith had been taken after her accident became the Riverside Hotel, a popular stop for other blues artists.

D.C. Becomes the Nation's Permanent Capital 1791

(For Use 04/15)

NARR: On April 15th, 1791, ceremonies were held to mark the boundaries of the District of Columbia, which was to become the permanent capital of the United States. The government had moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to New York City and then to Philadelphia during the years after independence was declared in 1776. On several occasions, the government had to flee from British troops during the Revolutionary War. President George Washington selected the 256-square-kilometer site along the Potomac River for the Nation's Capital. The land was donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia. (BEGIN OPT) Many factors were considered in the decision to locate the capital at that site; among them was a compromise placing it about midway along the coast -- between the northern and southern states. (END OPT) Nine years after the location was dedicated, the Congress, President John Adams and all 140 employees of the federal government moved to the still-unfinished capital city of Washington from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Texas City Explosion 1947

(For use 04/16)

NARR: Fifty-five years ago today, on April 16th, 1947, fires and explosions all but destroyed the port city of Texas City, Texas. It took a month to account for all the casualties, which exceeded five hundred dead and more than three thousand injured. The initial explosion occurred on the docked French freighter Grandcamp. A small fire, thought to have been started by a carelessly discarded cigarette, reached the ship's cargo of ammonium nitrate, which was being shipped to France to make fertilizer. The chemical also can be used in making explosives. [BEGIN OPT] It was used in 1995 to blow up a federal office building in Oklahoma City. [END OPT] The blast in Texas City set off fires and more explosions at chemical and petroleum refineries adjacent to the Grandcamp's dock. Much of the city had to be rebuilt. Texas City is located about twenty kilometers north of Galveston, Texas on the Gulf of Mexico. The explosions in April 1947 shook buildings more than 250 kilometers away, and their force was recorded on seismographs in Denver, Colorado in the distant Rocky Mountains.

Slavery Banned in the Nation's Capital 1862

(For Use 04/16)

TAPE: CUT THREE -MUSIC ["GREAT EVENTS" 1:25), IN FULL TO :17, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT

NARR: One-hundred-forty years ago today, on April 16th, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the law that abolished slavery in Washington, D-C. The measure included a provision to pay slave-holders an average of four hundred dollars for each slave that they freed under the new law. (BEGIN OPT) The Congress also included in the law a fund of one-hundred-thousand dollars to pay the transportation to Haiti or Liberia of any former slaves who wished to leave the United States. (END OPT) President Lincoln had promoted the law as part of his pre-Civil War efforts to gradually end slavery in the United States. Lincoln believed that southerners might voluntarily accept the end of slavery if it came gradually and if they were compensated for the loss of their slaves. But the law did not please southerners, nor did it satisfy northern abolitionists who had wanted an immediate end to all slavery.

Bay of Pigs Invasion 1961

(For Use 04/17)

NARR: On April 17th, 1961, American-trained and supplied Cuban exiles invaded their home island, seeking to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. The invasion at the Bay of Pigs failed, and many of the Cuban exiles were killed or captured. U-S President John F. Kennedy accepted full responsibility for the failed mission, because he had agreed to go forward with it. Its planning had actually begun during the Eisenhower presidential administration, before Mr. Kennedy took office.

TAPE: CUT FOUR PRES. JOHN KENNEDY :29

"(There is) an old saying that 'victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.' I've said as much as I feel can be usefully said by me in regard to the events of the past few days. Further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility, because I'm the responsible officer of the government, but merely because I do not believe that such a discussion would benefit us during the present difficult situation."

NARR: President Kennedy later approved the ransom of the Cuban exile prisoners for farm equipment and medical supplies. (BEGIN OPT) He also welcomed them back to the United States at a mass rally in Miami, Florida. [END OPT]

Sirhan B. Sirhan Found Guilty of Murdering RFK 1969

(For Use 04/17)

NARR: On April 17th, 1969, a Los Angeles, California, jury found Sirhan Bishara [PRON: "sir-HAHN bih-SHAH-rah"] Sirhan guilty of the first-degree murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The twenty-five-year-old Palestinian shot Kennedy in the head the previous June, moments after the senator thanked his supporters for helping him win the Democratic presidential primary election in California. Senator Kennedy died the next day. At Sirhan's trial, the prosecution based most of its case of premeditated murder on notebooks found in the defendant's room. Sirhan had written that Senator Kennedy and others must die. Sirhan testified that he did not remember the shooting and did not recall writing in any notebooks. However, he expressed hatred for Robert Kennedy because of Kennedy's support of Israel.

(BEGIN OPT) One week after finding him guilty, the trial jury met again, under California law, to recommend sentencing. The jury told the presiding judge that Sirhan should be executed for his crime. In 1972 the California State Supreme Court struck down the death penalty and changed Sirhan Sirhan's sentence to life in prison. Over the years, his applications for parole have been turned down, and he remains in prison today. (END OPT)

San Francisco Earthquake 1906

(For Use 04/18)

NARR: At 5:13 on the morning of April 18th, 1906, most of San Francisco, California, was asleep under a foggy blanket. Then, underground, the San Andreas [PRON: "ann-DRAY-uhs"] Fault moved. The earthquake caused by the sudden slip toppled buildings in the thriving port city. City Hall was one of the first to fall, followed soon by the Palace Hotel and its glass dome, which shattered into countless shards. When the earth stopped shaking, fires from broken natural gas lines erupted and spread throughout the city. San Francisco's firefighters were helpless because underground water pipes also snapped in the quake. The earthquake and four days of fire took at least five hundred lives, left tens of thousands of people homeless and devastated twelve-hundred hectares of the heart of the city. Damage was estimated at four-hundred-million dollars. Shocked but determined, the survivors rebuilt San Francisco. They celebrated their success by hosting an international exposition in 1915 and showing off their city.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere 1775

(For Use 04/18)

NARR: On April 18th, 1775, a Boston silversmith, Paul Revere, set off on one of the most famous horseback rides in American history. Revere and William Dawes, members of the pro-independence Sons of Liberty, were sent to warn patriots that British troops were coming to seize their supply of arms and gunpowder at the village of Concord, Massachusetts. Historian Joel Cohen of the University of Rhode Island says the attempt to warn the patriots nearly failed when the riders were stopped by a British patrol in the town of Lexington, on the road to Concord.

TAPE: CUT FIVE - JOEL A. COHEN :19

"Revere and Dawes were caught by the British, as was Dr. Samuel Prescott, who had joined them. But Prescott managed to break free and was able to ride on to Concord to warn the citizens of Concord that the British were coming. And so they began to remove the arms and ammunition that they had stored there."

NARR: Paul Revere was soon released by the British. Later, during the Revolutionary War, he served the American side as a messenger. He also manufactured gunpowder and designed and printed money for his fellow Americans. Today Paul Revere is remembered in part for his craftsmanship as a silversmith. But it is for his legendary "midnight ride," immortalized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that he is best known. The poem ignores history and emphasizes Revere's role in an act of heroism that he in fact shared with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.

Standoff Near Waco Ends Violently 1993

(For Use 04/19)

NARR: On April 19th, 1993, a fifty-one-day standoff between the U-S government and a religious group known as the Branch Davidians [PRON: duh-VID-ee-uhnz] reached a fiery climax outside Waco, Texas. On February 28th, government agents had staged a raid on the Branch Davidians' compound, as part of an investigation into the group's alleged possession of illegal firearms and explosives. The ensuing gun battle left four federal agents and six Branch Davidians dead, with others on both sides wounded and each side accusing the other of firing first.

Later, federal agents cut electricity and telephone lines to the compound, shone floodlights into the windows day and night, and broadcast irritating music and other sounds in an effort to force sect members out. Thirty-seven people, twenty-one of them children, did leave the compound and turn themselves over to federal agents, but most members of the sect remained inside. When more than seven weeks of negotiations failed to produce a peaceful settlement, U-S Attorney General Janet Reno approved a plan for government combat vehicles to punch holes in the compound's buildings so that tear gas could be thrown in, in order to force Branch Davidians to leave. Early on the morning of April 19th, federal agents launched the assault. But instead of surrendering, some sect members put on gas masks and fired at the vehicles. Over a period of about six hours, government agents fired at least one-hundred tear gas canisters. Then a fire erupted at one or more locations on the Branch Davidian compound. To this day, there are disputes over whether the sect members or the government agents started the fire. What is known is that the compound became engulfed in flames. Nine people escaped the burning buildings, but Branch Davidian leader David Koresh [PRON: kor-ESH] and at least eighty of his followers, many of them children, were killed. In the years to follow, charges were traded in connection with the deaths. The government argued that the Branch Davidians were killing themselves or killing dissenters who were trying to escape. In 1999, after six years of denials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted that its agents had used incendiary tear gas grenades in the assault on the compound, and that those grenades theoretically could have ignited its wooden walls. The dispute over the incident in Waco continues, and Waco still serves as a rallying cry for other groups and individuals who oppose the federal government.

The Oklahoma City Bombing 1995

(For Use 04/19)

NARR: On the morning of April 19th, 1995, a terrorist attack on U-S soil took place in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A massive explosion ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where more than 350 federal workers and visitors were beginning their business day. The blast killed 168 people, including children in a day-care facility on the premises. As would later be learned, the cause of the explosion was a homemade bomb made of fertilizer and fuel, placed in a rented truck that was left hear the daycare center. About ninety minutes after the bombing, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer stopped twenty-seven-year-old Timothy McVeigh [pron: mick-VAY] on a minor traffic violation. The presence of weapons in McVeigh's vehicle led to his being taken into custody.

Two days later, McVeigh was charged in connection with the bombing after he matched an eyewitness description of a man seen in the area of the crime. An acquaintance from McVeigh's U-S Army service, Michael Fortier [pron: for-TEER], was also taken into custody in that case. Fortier agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison for failing to warn authorities about the bombing plan. The harshest punishment was saved for Timothy McVeigh, who had parked the lethally rigged truck outside the federal building. On June Second, 1997, more than two years after the Oklahoma City bombing, a jury convicted McVeigh of multiple counts of murder and conspiracy. On August 14th, under the unanimous recommendation of the jury, McVeigh was sentenced to die by lethal injection. The Oklahoma City bombing case called attention to right-wing extremist groups whose anti-government philosophies had influenced such McVeigh. In Texas, McVeigh had visited the religious sect known as Branch Davidians, many of whose members were killed in a confrontation with federal agents on April 19th, 1993 - exactly two years before the explosion in Oklahoma City.

The Killings at Columbine High School 1999

(For Use 04/20)

NARR: On April 20th, 1999 at a high school in Littleton, Colorado, two teenage boys armed with guns and bombs killed twelve of their fellow students and a teacher. The two gunmen then shot themselves to death. More than thirty people were wounded, some seriously or critically, in the violence at Columbine [PRON: KAHL-uhm-bine] High School. It was the worst of a series of shootings by American students at their schools. Local and federal police evacuated the school and searched the premises. In addition to the bodies of the dead -- most of which were in the school library -- they found several weapons and many bombs. A bomb had exploded in the library and another in a car in the parking lot. Many of those killed at Columbine High were athletes, who generally were popular figures at the school. The dead assailants, eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold [pron: KLEE-bold], were part of a small group of outcasts at Columbine, some of whom were interested in Nazi lore. The attack came on the April 20th birth date of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and the size of the boys' arsenal suggested it had been long planned. Entries in Harris's diary indicated that the plan was to kill as many as five-hundred people. On his Internet site, Harris had provided information on building a bomb. Authorities found fifty-one bombs around the school and at Harris's home. The killings at Columbine High School raised new concerns among many Americans about the alienation of young people, and re-ignited long-standing controversies over the ready availability of weapons.

First Electric Train Test Fails 1851

(For Use 04/20)

NARR: On April 20th, 1851, a test of the first electric-powered railroad train in the United States failed. Inventor Charles Page of Boston, Massachusetts, designed the electric locomotive to travel on tracks between Washington, D-C. and Baltimore, Maryland. He connected several dozen crude chemical batteries to an electric motor mounted on a railroad car. Page hoped to reach Baltimore, seventy kilometers from Washington, but the batteries provided only enough electricity to move the vehicle, at the speed of a fast walk, a distance of seven kilometers. The idea of electric trains did not die, however. Today, electricity powers most of the trains that move north and south the busy Northeast Corridor between Washington and Baltimore, and beyond to New York City and Boston, Massachusetts.

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