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`1974: Aaron sets new home run record
On this day in 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 714 homeruns. A crowd of 53,775 people, the largest in the history of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, was with Aaron that night to cheer when he hit a fourth inning pitch off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Al Downing. However, as Aaron was an African-American who had received death threats and racist hate mail during his pursuit of one of baseball’s most distinguished records, the achievement was bittersweet.
0564: Buddhists celebrate birth of Gautama Buddha
On this day, Buddhists celebrate the commemoration of the birth of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, thought to have lived in India from 563 B.C. to 483 B.C. Actually, the Buddhist tradition that celebrates his birthday April 8 originally placed his birth in the 11th century B.C., and it was not until the modern era that scholars determined that he was more likely born in the sixth century B.C., and possibly in May rather than April.
1916: California road race kills three
On this day in 1916, at the Boulevard Race in Corona, California, a racing car careened into a crowd of spectators, killing the driver and two others. At the time, racing events were still a relative rarity and the fatal accident helped encourage organizers to begin holding races on specially built tracks instead of regular streets. The first organized race of “horseless carriages,” as they were then called, was held in France in 1894. The winning speed was less than 10 miles per hour and the winner was disqualified because his steam-driven tractor was deemed not to be a practical vehicle. The first Grand Prix was held 12 years later.
1994: Kurt Cobain is found dead
On April 8, 1994, rock star Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home outside Seattle, Washington, with fresh injection marks in both arms and a fatal wound to the head from the 20-gauge shotgun found between his knees. Cobain’s death brought an end to a life marked by far more suffering than is generally associated with rock superstardom. But rock superstardom never did sit well with Cobain, a committed social outsider who was reluctantly dubbed the spokesman of his generation. “Success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall,” said friend Greg Sage, a musical hero of Cobain’s from the local punk rock scene of the 1980s. “There was nowhere else to go but down.”
2005: Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty
Eric Rudolph agreed to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, in order to avoid the death penalty. He later cited his anti-abortion and anti-homosexual views as motivation for the bombings. Eric Robert Rudolph was born September 19, 1966, in Merritt Island, Florida. He served a brief stint in the U.S. Army and later supported himself by working as a carpenter. On July 27, 1996, a 40-pound pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 people. A security guard named Richard Jewell was initially considered the prime suspect in the case. Then, on January 16, 1997, two bombs went off at an Atlanta-area medical clinic that performed abortions, injuring seven people. In February of that same year, a bomb detonated at a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, injuring four people. On January 29, 1998, a bomb exploded at a Birmingham, Alabama women’s health clinic, killing a security guard and critically injuring a nurse.