Hello fellow Texans and friends of Texas. Today is Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= NASA astronauts died in flash fire during NASA launch simulation< On Jan. 27, 1967, Texas native Edward Higgins White II, and fellow astronauts Virgil Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee were killed when flash fire erupted aboard the Apollo spacecraft during a launch simulation test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The accident and later investigations led to the implementation of new safety measures that directly impacted the Apollo program. White was an Air Force test pilot, astronaut, and the first American to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), or space walk. White was born in San Antonio on Nov. 14, 1930, the son of Edward Higgins White Sr., an aeronautics pioneer and major general in the U.S. Air Force. As a child growing up in a military family, young Edward moved to various bases. At the age of 12, he flew in a T-6 trainer with his father. The experience proved to be profound and reinforced his love of flying. White attended Western High School in Washington, D.C., then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point where he received a bachelor of science in 1952. In September 1962 White and eight others were selected in what was called the second wave of astronauts. The group included Neil A. Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, James A. Lovell, Jr., James A. McDivitt, Elliot See, Jr., Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young. Upon selection, White and his family moved to Houston to be near the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center). After extensive training, White was selected as the pilot for the Gemini 4 space flight. On June 3, 1965, during the mission, White became the first American to walk in space when he conducted an extravehicular activity which lasted nearly 22 minutes. White had received Tau Beta Pi honors in engineering and Sigma Delta Psi honors in athletics. He had been an active member of Toastmasters International and was an associate member of the Institute of Aerospace Sciences. He was on the Executive Council of the Cub Scouts and coached Little League. He was buried at West Point Cemetery. In 1997 he was awarded, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Liberal Democrat leader, Ralph Yarborough, died in Austin at age 92< On Jan. 27, 1996, Ralph Webster Yarborough, a Texas Democratic politician who served in the U.S. Senate (1957 to 1971) died in Austin. Yarborough was regarded as leader of the liberal wing of his party in his many races for statewide office. As a senator, he was a staunch supporter and author of Great Society legislation that encompassed Medicare and Medicaid, the War on Poverty, federal support for higher education and veterans. He co-wrote the Endangered Species Act and was the only southern senator to vote for all civil rights bills from 1957 to 1970 (including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965). Yarborough was known as Smilin Ralph Yarborough and used the slogan Lets put the jam on the lower shelf so the little people can reach it in his campaigns. He was born in Chandler, near Tyler on June 8, 1903, the seventh of nine children and was appointed to West Point in 1919. He dropped out to become a teacher. Yarborough attended Sam Houston State Teachers College and University of Texas. He was urged to run again for state attorney general in 1952, and he planned to do so until he received a personal affront by Gov. Allan Shivers who told him not to run. Out of spite, Ralph Yarborough ran in the primaries for governor in 1952 and 1954 against the conservative Shivers, drawing support from labor unions and liberals. Yarborough denounced the corrupt Shivercrats for veterans fraud in the General Land Office and for endorsing the Republican ticket for President instead of Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952. Shivers portrayed Yarborough as an integrationist supported by communists and labor unions. The 1954, election was particularly nasty in its race-baiting by Shivers as it was the year that Brown v. Board of Education was decided, and Shivers made the most of the court decision in order to play on voters racism. When Price Daniel resigned from the Senate in 1957 to become governor, Yarborough ran in the special election to fill the empty seat. With no runoff, he needed only a plurality of votes to win. Yarborough won the special election with 38 percent of the vote to join Lyndon Johnson in the Senate. Yarborough worked for a bill signed by President John F. Kennedy to designate Padre Island as a national seashore. He rode in the Dallas motorcade where John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. Yarborough was in the same convertible as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, only two cars away from the presidential limousine. It was Yarborough who famously announced Kennedys death at Parkland Memorial Hospital by saying: Excalibur has sunk beneath the waves. In 1964, Yarborough again won the primary without a runoff and went on to general election victory with 56.2 percent in LBJs 1964 Democratic landslide. His Republican opponent was future president George H.W. Bush who attacked Yarborough as a left-wing demagogue and for his vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yarborough denounced Bush as an extremist to the right of that years GOP nominee for president Barry M. Goldwater and as a rich easterner and a carpetbagger trying to buy a Senate seat. Yarborough supported Johnsons domestic agenda but went public with his criticism of Johnsons foreign policy and the Vietnam War after Johnson announced his retirement. He supported Robert F. Kennedy until his assassination, then supported Eugene McCarthy until his loss in Chicago, and finally backed Hubert Humphrey for President in the pivotal campaign of 1968. In 1969, Yarborough became chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. In 1970, South Texan businessman and former congressman Lloyd Bentsen defeated Yarborough in the Democratic primary, ending his career. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Also on Jan. 27 in Texas: • In 1836, Alamo defender M.B. Clark, a Mississippi native, enlisted in the company of Capt. John M. Chenoweth in Texas. He may have been one of the volunteers who accompanied James Bowie to the Alamo. Louis Moses Rose, who left the Alamo before its fall, has been quoted as saying he saw Clark at the mission. • In 1838, Frederick Lemský advertised in the Telegraph and Texas Register offering his services as a music teacher and teacher of German and French. Born in Europe, he came to Texas in 1836. He was a musician in the army until December 1836 and is said to have played Come to the Bower on the fife at the battle of San Jacinto. • In 1839, Rev. Caleb Smith Ives reported the organization of Christ Church, Matagorda, probably the first Episcopal church in Texas. Formerly, during most of the period of Mexican Texas, Protestants could not practice their faith openly in Texas, since the Mexican government required allegiance to the Catholic Church. In 1838 Robert Chapman and Caleb Smith Ives were invited to open schools in the new Republic of Texas. • In 1884, Carlisle was annexed to Lubbock. It was named for rancher W.A. Carlisle and grew up around a school in the early 20th century. A congregation of the Church of Christ met there from 1918 to 1923. By 1927, the Carlisle school was one of 26 rural educational districts in the county. Carlisle combined with Hurlwood, Wolfforth and Foster to form the Frenship Rural School District in 1935. • In 1940, 13 Houston residents were rescued from a fire in the Salvation Armys Industrial Home at 915 McKee. Four employees of the Industrial Home died in the fire. Also in 1940, a bond election approved an expansion of the street fire alarm boxes. Firefighters on the scene communicated with the fire dispatcher either by telephone or fire box to call for more fire equipment. Telephones were not always available. • • • • • • Texas History Day-by-Day is compiled by retired newspaper journalist Bob Sonderegger (anglebob61@yahoo). A primary source of information is Handbook of Texas Online. Your comments or additions are welcome.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:28:03 +0000
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