Today in History

[MisterCairo]

The music died. Buddy Holly, Richard Valenzuela and J.P. Richardson died, along with poor forgotten pilot Roger Peterson, killed in a plane crash.

(Buddy Holly was the King of Rock and Roll. Sorry Elvis, you did not write a note of music, but your estate thanks the Colonel for insisting on the occasional "credit".)

NYPD cop Frank Serpico was shot in the head, inspiring a book and movie.

The Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament was destroyed in a fire, giving rise to the new Centre Block and Peace Tower we know today (now closed for a decade for renovations!).

 

[2jakes]

Remembering Buddy Holly.

At the time, the promo poster had them
billed as "The Crickets.

No special equipment was required to enhance his voice.
He just went to the mic and belted his songs.
An original talented young man of R&R who was gone way before his time.

 

[MisterCairo]

Don't get me wrong, Elvis was one talented singer and performer, but man, Buddy was the real deal. Musician, composer, singer, and presence. What he did without making it to age 23. Imagine if he'd lived....

 

[Peacoat]

Charles Hardin Holly, better known to his millions of fans as Buddy Holly , was killed in a plane crash on this day, 60 years ago.
Since his untimely death at just 22-years-old, there have been countless theories as to what really happened on February 3rd, 1959.

His death even inspired he iconic song, American Pie by Don McLean, who describes his passing as "the day the music died." Holly made the fateful decision to get on board the plane in the middle of the gruelling: "The Winter Dance Party," tour.

Travel time had not been factored into the punishing schedule and Holly wanted to grab some rest and wash his clothes before his next performance. But he was not alone on the plane.

He was sharing the flight with other juggernauts of the rock and roll hall of fame. Ritchie Valens was just 17 when he was killed in the fireball and DJ JP Richardson, known as The Big Bopper, was also a passenger. Chillingly, Valens shouldn't have even been on the plane and had flipped a coin with guitarist, Tommy Allsup, who was originally destined to travel on the flight. At the time he said: "It's the first thing I've ever won."

The plane carrying the superstars hit the ground at 170mph, with the right wing tip making contact first.
It cartwheeled across the field for 540 feet before slamming into a fence. The wreckage was discovered the following day when a second plane was sent to find out what had happened. In the days after the fatal crash, the official explanation was that it had been caused by pilot error.

But the conspiracy theories continue to this day. Tommy had to live with the fact that his life was another's death until he died, in January 2017, at the age of 85.

To add a few points here: J.P. Richardson was more than a DJ. He had a current hit with Chantilly Lace; that is why he was with he tour.

Roger Peterson was the 21 year old pilot with Dyer's Flying Service. Although he was young I have read that he had been flying since age 16 and had 700 total hours with a little over 200 in type. He had been flying charter for about a years and had his instructor's rating. I haven't found any mention of an instrument rating, which is very helpful in night flight.

He crashed at 170 MPH (estimated) with the right wing slightly low only 4 minutes after take off. There was no fire and no mention in the reports of a smell of Av gas at the scene. Had it been refueled after the last flight? * Top speed of the Bonanza was 210 MPH, with a cruising speed of 203 MPH and a stall speed (landing with full flaps) at 63 MPH. I mention this because one witness said the landing light was on, and there is some speculation that Roger was attempting to land (because of trouble with the aircraft).

I find it unlikely he would have been attempting to land at 170 MPH, unless, of course, there had been sudden and catastrophic engine failures. The magneto for one engine was in the off position, a good indicator Roger was attempting to recycle the magneto because of a failure. But then he had another engine.

My initial feeling was this was an inexperienced pilot who was in over his head with night flying and clouds and snow in the area. I didn't know he had that many hours. When I had 700 hours, I was an experienced pilot.

I have seen reports that the weather at the time was clear and that it didn't start snowing for several hours after the crash. It is seldom one event that kills pilots; it is usually a cascade of events. One problem the pilot can usually handle, but two or more overwhelm him. So perhaps Roger had to deal with a magneto failure while flying at night. Or perhaps he ran out of fuel because the plane hadn't been refueled after the last flight?

The NTSB ruled it pilot error due to flying in marginal weather conditions without proper training and certification for instrument flight. Was it pilot error, or was it a magneto problem coupled with night flying? Unlikely we will ever know.
________
* It seems unlikely that the plane would have been flown on the last flight so long that only 4 minutes of fuel remained. Even considering that take off and climb out consumes twice the amount of fuel as cruise, that would mean that only 8 minutes of fuel remained when the Bonanza had been landed. That pilot would have been cutting it way too close.

 

[2jakes]

Outstanding detailed information.
Thank you.

 

[GHT]

For the conspiracy theorists, pilot error has always been too ordinary an explanation to accept. Rumours a gun was found on board the plane only fuelled the speculation that Holly's death was not as straightforward as officials would have people believe.
(Who started such rumours?)

Holly and his wife Maria Elena were both said to have had disturbing dreams in the months before that fateful night. Maria Elena is reported as having a terrifiying nightmare about a fireball plummeting to earth, followed by an explosion and a huge whole in the ground. When she woke and told her husband he had also had a bizarre dream. It has been claimed he told her he dreamed he, his wife and brother were all in a plane and he was persuaded to leave his wife on the roof of a building. Maria had been due to travel with Holly on his Winter Wonderland tour but he told her to stay at home as she was suffering from morning sickness.
(Who is it that knows of disturbing dreams?)

The rock and roll superstar described his tour of the UK the year before his death as "very strange". British recording engineer and producer, Joe Meek, is said to have gone to a tarot reading during Holly's tour. There were claims he had been given a message from spirits that "February 3, Buddy Holly dies." Holly was unconcerned about the warning at the time as February 3 had already passed that year. He was killed on Febraury 3 the following year.
(A tarot reading, The UK tour was so tight for time, there was hardly time to go to the bathroom.)

Holly had embarked on The Winter Dance Party to provide for his wife and the child she was carrying. But the tour was plagued with problems. Heaters didn't work on the tour buses, which also regularly broke down. Both the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens fell in during the tour and Holly's drummer, even suffered frostbite on his feet because of the freezing temperatures.

Tragically, after the tragic plane crash Maria Elena suffered a miscarriage of Holly's only child. Rumours started almost immediately after the fatal crash that Buddy Holly's gun had been found in a field close to the crash site. There are also, unproven, claims that there were bullet holes in the back of the pilot's seat, fuelling rumours a shot had killed Roger Peterson. Peterson's son had his father's body exhumed in 2007 and it was found he had died of massive internal injuries and not a gun shot wound.

Conspiracy theorists, what nonsense, my view is that it's journalists with copy to sell. It was a tragic accident that no amount of conspiracy will ever bring the victims back. Such remarks only prolong the bereavement of the relatives.
I was too young to get to see Buddy on the UK tour, but I did see the Crickets some 25 years later.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Whatever it was that caused the crash, it was immensely tragic and shocked people the world over. Buddy's songs are timeless, and Ritchie's and the Bopper's hits are classics of the era. @2jakes, wow man, what a lineup at the Municipal Auditorium! That would've been so cool. About the time I turned 20, in 1989, I was privileged to see Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, the Everly Bros, Leslie Gore and Col Joye at a big concert in Sydney. It was amazing. I can only imagine what seeing them in their prime in the 1950s must have been like.

 

[2jakes]

....I can only imagine what seeing them in their prime in the 1950s must have been like.

We were all very young to fully appreciate
these young original artistic R&R talent that were gathered on stage.

We took it for granted that they'd be here forever.
This was our music which we would hear on the top R&R hits played by the DJ on radio.

At times having to sneak at night to listen
to Fats or Little Richard.
They're gone, but their music lives on.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1789, George Washington was elected as the first U.S. president.

On this day in 1826, James Fennimore Cooper's novel, The Last of The Mohicans, was published.

On this day in 1961, the movie, The Misfits, was released.

On this day in 1938, Disney's, Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, went on general release.

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1913, Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.

On this day in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched his Friendface social media site, which became known as Facebook

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1922, the General Electric Company signed on in Schenectady, New York with radio station WGY. An immediate force in both programming and technical innovation, WGY in the summer of 1922 became the birthplace in the United States of radio drama, with its own stock company, the "WGY Players," pioneering the development of microphone acting technique. With its adoption of Charles Hoxie's "Pallophotophone" film recording equipment, WGY also became the first station in the world to pre-record broadcasts, using the device to capture speeches by various dignitaries, including President Coolidge, for airing at a more convenient time. The WGY Players in 1928 would produce the first television drama ever broadcast in the United States over a GE experimental system.

WGY remained under GE ownership until 1983, and has gone thru several wrenching changes of ownership since then, degrading from one of the powerhouse stations of the Northeast to just another indistinguishable mouthpiece for syndicated talk-show crackpot propaganda. The station is currently owned by the savagely-misnamed "I Heart Radio" corporation, a vicious organization which has done more than any other enterprise to destroy local broadcasting in the United States.

 

[GHT]

On this day in 1900 The United States and the United Kingdom sign treaty for Panama Canal.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1919, United Artists, was created by Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks & Charlie Chaplin.

 

[2jakes]

1922 - Readers Digest First Published
DeWitt Wallace and his wife Lila Wallace publish the first Reader's Digest magazine designed to provide abridged articles on a wide variety of subjects, for easy reading. They publish and direct market the magazine themselves, the success of the magazine has led to a circulation of over 10 million copies in the United States and is still believed to be the best-selling consumer magazine in the country."

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1929, Germany formally accepted the Kellogg-Briand pact.

On this day in 1933, Germany instituted its broad censorship of the press, printed works, and all forms of media at the time.

Today in 1788, Mass. became the 6th State to formally ratify the Constitution

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1964, The Beatles come to the U.S. for the first time.

On this day in 1914, Charlie Chaplin's iconic chararcter, 'the tramp', had his first screen appearence with the release of the silent film, 'Kid Auto races at Venice.'

 

[Peacoat]

On this date in 1931, Amelia Earhart married George Putnam (many of the youth today incorrectly believe she was married to Charles Lindbergh). She unfortunately disappeared July 2, 1937 in one of this country's greatest mysteries.

In the late 1990s, World War II historian Peter McQuarrie stumbled upon a file in the national archives in the Republic of Kiribati (in Micronesia) titled “Discovery of Human Remains on Gardner Island” (now Nikumaroro Island). The documents note that a partial human skeleton, badly damaged by coconut crabs, had been discovered on the island in 1940, alongside the remains of birds, a turtle and a campfire. Artifacts found with the bones included the sole of a shoe thought to belong to a woman, a Benedictine liquor bottle and a box that held a sextant. Fred Noonan, her navigator, would have used a sextant as a backup.

Earhart’s plane has also remained missing, though in 2014, TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) researchers found an “anomaly” on the seafloor off Nikumarorothat they said needed closer examination. I could find no further information on this anomaly, but it may be there with additional digging, the time for which is lacking this morning.

So, today, 82 years after her disappearance, the mystery continues.

 

[MissMittens]

On this day in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

On this day in 1931, James Dean was born.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1943, seventeen year old Lepa Radic of Gasinca, in the nation then known as Yugoslavia, was executed by the SS for her participation in the resistance. A zealous member of the communist Yugoslav Partisans, Radic was helping to pull wounded comrades from the field of battle when she took up a rifle and opened fire on the invaders. She was captured and tortured in hopes of extracting the names of her fellow resistance cell members -- but she refused to name names.

Just before her execution on the morning of February 8th, Radic was given one last chance to give up her fellow fighters. Her last words have been translated into English in various ways, but the most succinct is this: "My comrades will identify themselves when they avenge my death by wiping you evildoers out to the last man."

 

[Peacoat]

She was a brave and strong woman.