HistorTweet Week in Review - W/E April 10, 2010

[SFX: CHURCHBELL] Greetings, History Lovers! Welcome to This Tweet in History, the Week In Review, podcasting to you on tape delay from our North American Studios.

Here are your top stories for the week ending April 10, 2010:

[SFX: SOUND827]World: DATELINE London, April 8, 1968 - Heroic Barbara Jane Harrison perishes after guiding her passengers to safety following crash: http://bit.ly/a2okLO
The Back-Story: [SFX: Wind Beneath My Wings] Shortly after takeoff, BOAC’s flight 712 out of Heathrow ran into problems when an engine caught fire and dropped off of the wing. Although the pilots got the plane safely to the ground, fire from the wing spread to the fuselage. When one flight attendant had to leave the plane to untangle the evacuation slide, the task of getting passengers out of the rear exit fell to young Barbara Jane Harrison alone. As the fire spread, she encouraged, and sometimes pushed, passengers onto the slide, until the fire made the rear exit impassable. Harrison then led the remaining passengers to another exit, but refused to leave herself, perishing rather than abandoning an elderly, disabled passenger who had been seated in one of the last rows. For her valor, she was awarded the George Cross for heroism, one of only four female awardees, all of the rest of whom received it for service in World War II. [SFX:I’m Not Moving]

[SFX: SOUND827]Sports: DATELINE Athens, April 6, 1896 - De Coubertin's dreams come true with revival of Olympic competition in Athens: http://bit.ly/SKQty
The Back-Story: [SFX: Fanfare for the Common Man] Duke Pierre de Coubertin was a man on a mission. Convinced that his native France had lost the Franco-Prussian war because of poor physical education, he set about to add a physical component to the too-intellectual French education system. Failing at that, de Coubertin stumbled upon a grander dream: a modern revival of the ancient Olympic games. In 1896, his dreams materialized over 10 days in Athens, with the King of Greece handing olive laurels, certificates, and medals to the first and second place winners in a variety of sports. De Coubertin’s dream of a venue that instilled national pride, inter-national cooperation, and world peace,
has been played out for more than a century, with breaks only for wold wars, in 1916, 1940, and 1944. [SFX:]

[SFX: SOUND827]: Entertainment: DATELINE Brighton, April 6, 1974 - Twice-incumbent Luxembourg meets its Waterloo at Brighton as Swedish quartet grabs Eurovision laurels: http://bit.ly/baeAUD
The Back-Story: [SFX:Waterloo; I Write the Songs] Luxembourg was on a roll, having won the Eurovision Song contest twice in a row when, in 1974, a new band from Sweden made its television debut with an upbeat, pop song, Waterloo, that captured the hearts of the world, and launched ABBA on the international stage. The song, which meets all of Bristol University physiologist Dr. Harry Witchel’s 7 crucial elements for sucecss at Eurovision:: pace and rhythm, an easily memorable song, a perfect chorus, key change, a clearly defined finish, dance routine and finish, was enshrined in 2007 as the best song in the 50-year history of the contest. [SFX:]

[SFX: SOUND827] This week’s birthdays:[SFX: In the Club]

April 4: Musician Muddy Waters
April 5: Slave turned statesman Booker T. Washington
April 6: Outlaw Butch Cassidy
April 7: Sitarist Ravi Shankar
April 8: UN General Secretary Kofi Annan
April 9: Singer Paul Robeson, and
April 10: Actor Omar Sharif

[SFX:GENERIC1MOTION]Thank you for joining us for This Tweet in History, the Week in review. Be sure to follow us on Twitter.com/histortweet, and check our archives at histortweet.blogspot.com