Good News in History, July 16

20 years ago today, Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois’s first and most ambitious early 21st-century architectural project, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley. Featuring a variety of public art, outdoor spaces, and venues, the park is bounded by Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street, Columbus Drive, and East Monroe Drive, the three-day opening celebrations were attended by some 300,000 people and included an inaugural concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. READ more about this iconic attraction… (2004)

Millennium Park is a portion of the 319-acre (129.1 ha) Grant Park, known as the “front lawn” of downtown Chicago, and has four major artistic highlights: the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, and the Lurie Garden. Millennium Park is considered one of the largest green roofs in the world, having been constructed on top of a railroad yard and large parking garages.

Almost all the features in the park were paid for by large corporate donations, reflecting the importance of Chicago to America’s corporate sector.

 MORE Good News on this Day:

• Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signed the first constitution of Ethiopia (1930)
• The Mont Blanc Tunnel linking France with Italy opened (1965)
• Larry Sanger, the Doctor of Philosophy and co-founder of Wikipedia who proposed implementing the wiki project as complementary to his 2000 Nupedia website—a wiki written by experts in their various fields (1968)
• The native Apache trout species in Arizona was upgraded from endangered to threatened on the US Endangered Species List after conservation efforts brought the creek dweller back from the brink (1975)
• The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation was signed by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation (2001)

255 years ago, Father Junípero Serra, a Spanish missionary, founded the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the second such mission in The Californias. This one would evolve over the years into the city of San Diego. San Diego is the 8th largest city in the country, and lies immediately adjacent to Mexico in what some scientists believe is the single best year-round climatic zone on Earth. Its natural deep-water harbor makes it a shipping powerhouse and has given it a long association with the US Navy.

Founded more or less by Serra, the Mission would eventually be sold off to a rancher for those who served against the War of Independence from Spain. Its multicultural history included habitation by Kumeyaay, Spanish, and Mexican people.

San Diego hosted the World’s Fair twice, with the central area centered around Balboa Park. The Spanish/Baroque structures built for the fairs remain to this day, as does the collection of exotic animals brought in 1915 for the menagerie exhibit at the fair. They exist still today as the San Diego Zoo.

Several massive electronic companies started or maintain headquarters in San Diego, including Qualcomm, Nokia, and LG Electronics.  (1769)

17 years ago today, The White Stripes played their ‘shortest live show ever’ at St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Jack White played a single C# note accompanied by a bass drum/crash cymbal hit from drummer Meg. At the end of the show, Jack announced, “We have now officially played in every province and territory in Canada.” They then left the stage and performed a full show later that night in St John’s.

By this time The White Stripes had already released every album that they would end up releasing, and it was on April of that year when the duo announced that they would embark on a tour of Canada.

“Having never done a tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog,” Jack said. “We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost. The best way for us to do that is ensure that we perform in every province and territory in the country, from the Yukon to Prince Edward Island.”

Another special moment of this tour was Jack coming to learn he was distantly related to two different Canadian fiddle players—which is pretty much exactly the kind of thing you would imagine would show up in a Rolling Stone interview with the rocker.

For The White Stripes’ Tenth Anniversary show in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14, Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac, with whom Jack had discovered he was related earlier in 2007, opened for them. It was also at this time that White learned he was related to another Canadian fiddle player, Natalie MacMaster. (2007)

58 years ago today, the virtuoso guitar and bass players Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce joined drummer Ginger Baker to form one of rock’s first power trios—Cream.

In their two years as a group, they recorded four LPs and classic songs like Sunshine of Your Love, Strange Brew, Crossroads, and White Room.

Regarded as the world’s first successful supergroup, their third album, Wheels of Fire (1968), was the first platinum-selling double album in history.

That year, Clapton wanted to end the band, which was having personnel disputes, to pursue a different musical direction. He formed Blind Faith with Stevie Winwood in the aftermath of the break-up. WATCH a ’68 performance of the iconic Crossroads… (1966)

Also, on this day in 1969, the first manned space mission that would land a man on the moon, Apollo 11, launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin.

The NASA photo below shows mission officials celebrating in the Launch Control Center after the successful Apollo 11 liftoff. From left to right are: Charles W. Mathews, Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight; Dr. Wernher von Braun, Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center; George Mueller, Associate Administrator for the Office of Manned Space Flight; Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, Director of the Apollo Program.

Also, on this day in 1918, George Mueller, “the father of the space shuttle”, was born. The electrical engineer was the NASA administrator who headed the Office of Manned Space Flight and ensured the success of the Apollo program that landed a man on the Moon and returned him safely to the Earth in 1969. NASA’s “most brilliant and fearless manager”, Mueller also played a key part in the design of Skylab, and championed the space shuttle’s development.

As a boy, George enjoyed reading science fiction and was curious about how things worked, building his own radios. Working part-time and attending college at night, he studied until he obtained a doctorate in physics. While at TRW working on missile systems, Mueller became convinced that “all-up testing” was essential, and pushed through that philosophy at NASA—convincing others with “impeccable reasoning” that testing one system without the integration of the whole, was not good enough. He also refused to work at NASA at all in 1963 unless they restructured the agency so that three centers would report directly to him—and took a substantial pay cut to do so.

And, 234 years ago today, Washington, D.C. was founded along the Potomac River to serve as the capital of the United States.

The Residence Act established the District of Columbia on property donated by the state of Maryland—and it was named after then-president George Washington, who chose the site himself.

Pierre L’Enfant designed the city with sweeping boulevards and ceremonial spaces reminiscent of his native Paris, France. Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught African-American mathematical genius, provided the calculations for surveying and laying out the city. (1790)

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