On This Day:
Wednesday April 9, 2014 This is the 99th day of the year, with 266 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: Chisholm Trail The Chisholm Trail, a 900-mile cattle trail out of Texas, is named after 19th-century trader Jesse Chisholm. Between 1867 and 1884 around three million head of cattle traveled north from Texas on the trail, which accommodated herds as large as ten thousand. The trail began south of San Antonio, Texas, ran through Oklahoma, ending at Abilene, Kansas. It became significant in 1867 after a cattle-shipping depot on the Kansas Pacific Railroad was established in Abilene. The cattle drives along the Chisholm and other trails gave birth to the American cowboy legend. After 1871, as more railroad branch lines were being established, the Chisholm Trail began to lose its importance. Abilene became a very prosperous and famous cattle town during this period.
Holidays Feast day of St. Madrun, St. Uramar, St. Hugh of Rouen, St. Gaucherius, St. Mary Cleophas, and St. Waldetrudis.
United States: National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day.
Tunisia: Martyrs' Day.
Events 1682 - French explorer Robert La Salle reached the lower Mississippi River and claimed it and all lands that touched it for France.
1770 - English navigator James Cook became the first European to arrive in Botany Bay, Australia.
1833 - The nation's first tax-supported public library was founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
1865 - Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, ending the Civil War.
1866 - The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 was passed by Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, granting blacks the rights and privileges of American citizenship.
1869 - The Hudson Bay Company agreed to transfer its territory to Canada.
1939 - Singer Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after she was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race.
1940 - During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded neutral Norway and also Denmark.
1959 - NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Donald Slayton.
1965 - The Houston Astrodome opened in Texas.
1970 - Paul McCartney announced the official breakup of the Beatles.
1991 - The parliament of Georgia voted to have independence from USSR.
Births 1821 - Charles Baudelaire, French poet.
1879 - W.C. Fields (Claude William Dukenfield), American actor, screenwriter, comedian.
1898 - Paul Robeson, American singer, actor.
1903 - Gregory Pincus, American endocrinologist whose discoveries led to the development of the first birth-control pill.
Deaths 1959 - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect.
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