Good News in History, April 3

Happy Birthday to Dame Jane Goodall who turns 90 years old today. The beloved British primatologist first observed chimpanzees creating tools in 1960 (and 2 years earlier had been a secretary). It was the first time that an animal was observed to modify an object to create a tool for a specific purpose. She studied at Cambridge, became Dr. Jane Goodall, and put forth another unconventional idea for the time: “It isn’t only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow.” READ more about her work… (1934)

She is best known for her 45-year study of wild chimpanzees’ social and family interactions in Tanzania. She left the jungle to become an activist; to save the dwindling numbers of chimpanzees.

In 1992, Goodall founded the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in the Republic of Congo to care for chimpanzees orphaned due to the bush meat trade. The rehabilitation houses over a hundred chimps over its three islands.

In 1994, Goodall founded the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education (TACARE or “Take Care”) pilot project to protect chimpanzees’ habitat from deforestation by reforesting hills around Gombe National Park while simultaneously educating neighboring communities on sustainability and agriculture training.

She is also the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. As of 2022, she is on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project. In April 2002, she was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Goodall is an honorary member of the World Future Council.

MORE Good News on this Date:

• Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan giving $5 billion in aid to 16 war-torn European countries to help them rebuild after World War II (1948)
• The Leadbeater’s possum (fairy possum) was rediscovered in Australia after 72 years (1961)
• The first handheld portable cell phone call was made in New York City (1973)
• Magicians Penn & Teller opened their Refrigerator Tour in New York City with a refrigerator being dropped on top of them from a height of about 20 feet (1991)
• The Iowa Supreme Court, citing the doctrine of equal protection under the law, declared the state’s ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional (2009)
• Apple Inc. released the first iPad, a touchscreen tablet computer that could play music, send and receive email and browse the web (2010)

51 years ago today, the world’s first-ever mobile phone call was made. At that moment in lower Manhattan, a Motorola employee named Martin Cooper called the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey while walking down Sixth Avenue between 53rd and 54th streets. The phone was bigger than the bricks used to build the surrounding structures.

It’s actually a great story, as the first mobile phone call in history was made for the purpose of gloating. Cooper worked for Motorola, but his friend, Joe Engel, worked for AT&T. The call was to prove his firm had beaten the government-backed AT&T to one of the most important inventions in history.

“There was silence at the other end of the line,” Cooper recalled to Bloomberg in 2015. “To this day, Joel doesn’t remember that call, and I’m not sure I blame him.”

Requiring 10 hours to charge fully, and capable of talking for 35 minutes, the “shoe” phone weighed two-and-a-half pounds. It took Cooper and Motorola another 10 years to cut the weight in half and establish a practical model for the low low price of just $4,000, called the Motorola DynaTAC. (1973)

On this day 101 years ago, Doris Day, a woman who seemingly had no limit on her talent, was born. As well as melting hearts with her beautiful voice that was equally at home on sultry or big band jazz, she was one of the biggest stars during the Golden Age of Cinema. Playing starring roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and The Thrill of it All, she received the Golden Globe and Grammy Lifetime Achievement awards, as well as the Medal of Freedom. As of 2020, she was one of eight record performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. WATCH her sing her film single Secret Love… 

A twenty-year solo career, spawned from a childhood listening to Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, and particularly Ella Fitzgerald on the radio, Day toured extensively around the country singing for Les Brown and his Band of Renown. Between 1947 and 1967 she recorded more than 650 songs. “The one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I’d sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words,” she said to a biographer.

Her debut records, Sentimental Journey, and My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time both reached #1 on the pop charts. Her music career flanked her film career, and even while breaking into Hollywood’s elite, she continued to produce #1 records, like Secret Love in 1953. She remains one of the seminal performers of Que Sera, Sera. (1922)

And, on this day 56 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. It was the last speech delivered by the Baptist minister, as the following day he was assassinated. Delivered like a prophecy at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, the speech included King talking about the possibility of an untimely death. The rousing conclusion contained this:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Hear the full speech on YouTube, or read the text. (1968)

And, 164 years ago today, the first successful Pony Express run, from Missouri to California, began. The service delivered newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, to Sacramento, California by horseback using a series of relay stations.

Vital for the new state of Calif., the service reduced the travel time for messages between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to 10 days. William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, was one of their best riders. On November 7, 1860, California’s newspapers received word of Lincoln’s election only seven days and 17 hours after the East Coast papers, an unrivaled feat at the time. Cody, just 16 years old, once rode 322 miles in less than 22 hours using 21 different horses, after the relay rider had been killed. Learn more about the Pony Express in these books and DVDs. (1860)

And, 63 years ago today, during recording sessions in Nashville, Elvis Presley recorded three of his top hits: It’s Now Or Never, Are You Lonesome Tonight, and Fever. Preparing his fourth studio album and working for RCA Records, it marked Presley’s return to recording after his discharge from the U.S. Army. LISTEN to The King’s soulful, bluesy Fever—‘What a lovely way to burn’… (1960)

Happy Birthday to comedian-actor Eddie Murphy who turns 62 today. Eddie took after his father, a transit cop in Brooklyn, who was an amateur comedian. Though he died when Eddie was young, by age 15 Murphy was performing and creating his own stand-up routines—and at 19 was hired for Saturday Night Live.

After four years on SNL, Eddie starred in blockbuster films like Beverly Hills Cop, and Trading Places (brilliantly paired with Dan Akroyd), and Shrek (voicing the donkey). He displayed his brilliance in 1996 playing every character in The Nutty Professor. Also a singer with three albums, his musical performance was nominated for an Academy Award in 2007 for Dreamgirls. For his enduring comedy chops, Murphy was awarded the Mark Twain Prize in 2015.

His latest plan to do stand-up comedy shows again was postponed by the pandemic, but he’s set to go on stage “as soon as it’s safe”. WATCH a fantastic interview about that, and what Richard Pryor did when they met, and what it was like filming Coming 2 America with his daughter. It’s so sweet just to hear him giggle again… (1961)

See his full collection of stand-up and films / Above photo by David Shankbone, CC license

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