Good News in History, April 29

125 years ago today, the musician and composer Duke Ellington, one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time, was born in Washington, DC. The pianist composed (or co-wrote) more than 1,000 pieces, many of which became popular standards like Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, and I’m Beginning To See the Light. He led his renowned 15-piece orchestra for almost 50 years until his death in 1974. READ more and watch a mini tribute… (1899)

In the 1960s, Ellington made recordings with a number of stars, including Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Coleman Hawkins—and he won 13 Grammys, and many other awards, during his lifetime.

MORE Good News on this Date:

• Joan of Arc arrived to relieve the Siege of Orleans, turning the tide against English domination in France during the Hundred Years War (1429)
• Happy 68th Birthday to Jerry Seinfeld, the stand-up comedian, producer, actor, and writer who co-created and starred in Seinfeld, one of the most popular sitcoms of all time (1954)
• Wide World of Sports debuts in the U.S. on ABC television (1961)
• The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 entered into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons by its signatories (1997)
• New Zealand allowed its first civil union marriage to take place (2005)
• The Royal Wedding: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, married Catherine “Kate” Middleton in a wedding at Westminster Abbey (2011)

Happy 91st Birthday to Willie Nelson, the prolific American music icon who wrote his first song at age 7. He scored his first number-one hit in 1975 with a cover of Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Nelson’s version of Always on My Mind won three Grammys in 1982 and he collaborated with Waylon Jennings on the first-ever platinum album in country music history. The two continued to produce hits like Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys. As a songwriter, Nelson penned the phenomenal Patsy Cline hit, Crazy—and for the movie Honeysuckle Rose he wrote On the Road Again, which became his signature song.

His many recording partners over the years included Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Wynton Marsalis, Neil Young, and even First Lady Rosalynn Carter on the lawn of the White House, singing Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother. (He also topped the charts with Julio Iglesias in To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.) Nelson is included by Rolling Stone in both its 100 Greatest Singers and 100 Greatest Guitarists lists.

He launched the critically-acclaimed television concert series Austin City Limits for PBS in 1974 and has penned or co-authored several books and autobiographies, including, The Facts of Life: And Other Dirty Jokes, a collection of musings from the road. Nelson rescues horses, lobbies for the reform of marijuana laws, and advocates for bio-diesel, which he manufactures under the name Bio-Willie. He co-founded Farm Aid with Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985 to assist and promote family farms.

Nelson, who has a fifth-degree black belt in martial arts, has one house in Maui, Hawaii, in a largely self-sustaining community where all the homes use only solar power and neighbors include Kris Kristofferson, Woody Harrelson, and Owen Wilson. After repeated illness through the years, Nelson, who had been a heavy smoker, underwent stem-cell therapy in 2015 to improve the state of his lungs. Check out all his music on Amazon (1933)

4 years ago today, the World Meteorological Association agreed that a lighting flash that occurred over the southern United States was the longest single bolt of lighting ever recorded by man. At 477 miles long, the bolt reached from Texas, all the way across Louisiana, and into Mississippi. For Europeans, it was 789 kilometers, stretching from London to Hamburg. (2020)

Furthermore, the longest duration of a single lighting flash was also recorded in 2020; down in Uruguay where a bolt shined for 17.1 seconds.

“These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events. Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments. It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves,” said Professor Randall Cerveny, rapporteur of Weather and Climate Extremes for WMO.

In the video below, it’s unclear, but possible, that the recorded lighting flashes were part of the real event.

73 years ago today, Dale Earnhardt was born—one of the greatest stock car drivers who ever hit the track.

He tied the record for seven lifetime Nascar championships, having won a total of 76 Winston Cup races over the course of his 4-decade career,

Earnhardt, Sr. died at age 49 in a sudden last-lap crash during a Daytona 500 race twenty years ago (1951–2001)

On this day 79 years ago, Operation Manna was launched. At the end of World War II, Lancaster bomber pilots of the Royal Air Force dropped 6,680 tons of food into parts of the occupied Netherlands to feed starving people during the Dutch famine.

With the consent of occupying German forces, almost 3,300 sorties (flights) were flown over nine days during Operation Manna. In addition, 400 American B-17s dropped 800 tons of edible K-Rations. The photo above was taken over Holland and captures the “Many Thanks” spelled out in tulips—a message to their aviator saviors. (1945)

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