Moments in Time – April 16, 2025

#MiddleburyCT

• On April 28, 1953, inventor Howard Ross received a patent for his “double coat,” which contained an outer layer extendable to cover two people. It was designed to protect sports fans in athletic stadiums during rain.
• On April 29, 1945, Adolf Hitler, concerned that the cyanide capsules given to him and wife Eva Braun might be ineffective, tested one on his German shepherd, Blondi. The dog died and Braun took her dose the next day, while Hitler reportedly shot himself. The German public remained unaware of the couple’s relationship until after their deaths.
• On April 30, 2019, Emperor Akihito of Japan stepped down from the throne at the age of 85, becoming the first Japanese monarch to abdicate in more than two centuries, after having announced his desire to do so because of poor health a few years earlier.
• On May 1, 1955, golfer Babe Didrikson Zaharias won the Peach Blossom LPGA Tournament in Spartanburg, S.C., the 41st and final LPGA title of her career, even as she was battling the colon cancer that would end her life the following year.
• On May 2, 1963, more than a thousand Black schoolchildren marched through Birmingham, Alabama, in a protest against segregation that became known as the Children’s Crusade and Children’s March. Nearly 800 of them were arrested, including a 6-year-old girl, primarily for parading without a permit.
• On May 3, 1986, Willie Shoemaker, at age 54, beat 18:1 odds to become the oldest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. After retiring in 1990, he returned to the track as a trainer for another seven years. Shoemaker also authored three best-selling murder mysteries featuring jockey-turned-sleuth Coley Killebrew.
• On May 4, 2002, an Executive Airline Services twin-engine plane crashed and exploded in a densely populated section of the Nigerian town of Kano, after shearing off the roofs of dozens of homes and two mosques, killing 149 people and destroying almost three full blocks of buildings. An investigation ruled the cause of the crash to be pilot error.

© 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.