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Chicago Tribune
29-05-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to race the Indianapolis 500
Today is Thursday, May 29, the 149th day of 2025. There are 216 days left in the year. Today in history: On May 29, 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place (A.J. Foyt won the race for his record fourth Indy 500 victory). Also on this date: In 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th and final original colony to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1914, the Canadian ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebec after colliding with the Norwegian cargo ship SS Storstad; of the 1,477 people on board the Empress of Ireland, 1,012 died. In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. In 1985, 39 people were killed at the European Cup Final in Brussels, Belgium, when rioting broke out and a wall separating British and Italian soccer fans collapsed. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev began their fourth summit meeting, in Moscow. In 2004, the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated by President George W. Bush. In 2009, a judge in Los Angeles sentenced music producer Phil Spector to 19 years to life in prison for the murder of actor Lana Clarkson. (Spector remained in prison until his death in January 2021.) In 2020, fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. (Chauvin was convicted in April 2021 on those charges as well as unintentional second-degree murder.) Today's Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Famer Richie Guerin is 93. Actor Anthony Geary is 78. Singer Rebbie Jackson is 75. Musician-composer Danny Elfman is 72. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, is 71. Singer La Toya Jackson is 69. Actor Ted Levine is 68. Actor Annette Bening is 67. Actor Rupert Everett is 66. Musician Melissa Etheridge is 64. Musician Noel Gallagher is 58. Actor Laverne Cox is 53. Singer Melanie Brown (Spice Girls) is 50. Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony is 41. Actor Riley Keough is 36.
Boston Globe
29-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Today in History: May 29, Hillary and Norgay first to summit Mount Everest
In 1914, the Canadian ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebec after colliding with the Norwegian cargo ship SS Storstad; of the 1,477 people on board the Empress of Ireland, 1,012 died. In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Advertisement In 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place (A.J. Foyt won the race for his record fourth Indy 500 victory). In 1985, 39 people were killed at the European Cup Final in Brussels, Belgium, when rioting broke out and a wall separating British and Italian soccer fans collapsed. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev began their fourth summit meeting in Moscow. Advertisement In 2004, the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated by President George W. Bush. In 2009, a judge in Los Angeles sentenced music producer Phil Spector to 19 years to life in prison for the murder of actor Lana Clarkson. (Spector remained in prison until his death in January 2021.) In 2020, fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. (Chauvin was convicted in April 2021 on those charges, as well as unintentional second-degree murder.)
Winnipeg Free Press
17-05-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Peril in the St. Lawrence
When it comes to maritime disasters, the 'big' events spring to mind. In 1912, the RMS Titanic gets eviscerated by an iceberg. Three years later, a wartime torpedo impales the RMS Lusitania. Both ships take hundreds of passengers and crew to watery graves in the North Atlantic and Irish Sea, respectively. In the ensuing decades, each ship is immortalized on screen and stage, in books and song. (Thank you, Celine Dion.) But in Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, Vancouver-based investigative journalist and podcaster Eve Lazarus does a deep dive into a national maritime tragedy that rivals Titanic and Lusitania for 'big event' status. CANADIAN PRESS FILES The RMS Empress of Ireland, owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, sank in May 1914 in the St. Lawrence River. On May 29, 1914, the RMS Empress of Ireland, owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), was t-boned in dense fog by the SS Storstad, a Norwegian coal ship. Fourteen minutes after impact, the 170-metre long Empress plunged to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. Only four of its 40 lifeboats were lowered; more than 1,000 passengers and crew drowned. This would have been the liner's 192nd Atlantic crossing. Today, the Empress of Ireland rests 45 metres (130 feet) below the river's surface, and 8.3 kilometres (5 miles) offshore, near Rimouski, Que. Officially discovered in 1964, the wreck has long been an exploratory site for seasoned divers. In 2009, it received National Historic Site status; a modest museum and river buoy mark the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history. So how come so few of us know so little about this story? In her 11th book, Lazarus, a self-professed lover of non-traditional history, explores why such a huge calamity has garnered so little attention, compared to its 'big event' cousins. One reason, she writes, is because the Empress was a basic workhorse, whose main job was moving immigrants and mail between Canada and Europe. The Empress was well-travelled, shipboard luxuries were few and steerage-housed migrants were many. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The liner's manifest supports this premise: there are no Astors or Guggenheims to be found on the Empress like there was on the Titanic. Rather, the Empress' largest contingent among the 840 passengers was 170 Canadian Salvation Army personnel and their families, en route to a Liverpool conference. Also diverting public attention away from the sinking and its post-disaster inquiries was the assassination of the Austria's Duke Ferdinand, which ignited the First World War in July 1914. It all adds up, she says. To label Beneath Dark Waters 'well-researched' is almost a misnomer. The tone of Lazarus' newsy prose may not hook a reader like others in the shipwreck genre (think Erik Larson's Dead Wake or David Grann's The Wager). But Lazarus has gone one better, accessing private journals, photos and public reports, plus countless personal interviews with survivors' families and site visits, to leave no informational stone unturned. It's all packaged and delivered in her succinct writing style and approachable layout. REBECCA BLISSETT PHOTO Eve Lazarus The result? A solid read for lovers of maritime mishaps. Lazarus makes her case as to why the Empress of Ireland story resonates in 2025 and the imprint — the legacy — it has left on our national psyche. 'The Empress sank in just 14 minutes, so not nearly enough time to make a motion picture about it,' she writes. 'Mostly though, it was a Canadian story, and as Canadians, we like to bury the lede.' GC Cabana-Coldwell is a Winnipeg-based freelance writer who loves maritime disasters and tries to never buy a lede. Beneath Dark Waters
