Michigan Minute

1867: Birthday of pottery legend & MI Women's Hall of Fame member, Mary Chase Perry Straton. Born in Hancock, MI, her Pewabic Pottery (named after river near her birthplace in the Upper Peninsula) became world famous suppliers to architectural films. Straton went town to found the ceramic department at the University of Michigan. 1982: Zingerman's Deli founded in Ann Arbor.

1968: Three weeks before his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, Dr. Martin Luther King delivers his speech "The Other America" in Grosse Point, MI. Several interruptions were made throughout the evening by racist, segregationist attendees.

1872: After 25 years with a temporary location for our seat of government, MI Governor Baldwin calls for new Capitol Building to be built. Elijah E. Myers of Springfield, IL would design the still-used building in a design named "Tuebor." Latin for "I will defend," a phrase found on the Michigan State Seal.

1974: After public spectacles across US college campuses, the streaking phenomenon hits Ann Arbor with 5 baring all to an assembled crowd of thousands. A later attempt by Wolverine students in the same year drew 70 brave participants in less-than-their-skivvies, attracting a larger, yet still titillated crowd of onlookers.

1912: After concerns about excessive alcohol consumption, MI Governor Osborn asks legislature to outlaw state breweries from also opening & operating a saloon. 1836: Gov Stevens T. Mason signed the Township Act to subdivide the state into political units, rather a new concept at the time which other states would soon move to adopt.

1914: Michigan Board of Education decides to crack down on what they view as a "disgrace" to public school penmanship. 1919: Singer Marion Hutton (née Thornburg) is born near Battle Creek. Hutton would rise to fame after joining Glenn Miller's Band and become a war-time era staple in the early 1940s.

1901: After a fire destroys his factory and prototypes in Detroit, R.E. Olds moves his factory to Lansing, MI. 1976: After a 45 year ban in Michigan, Gov. Milliken signs legislation allowing manned hot air balloons to take flight across Michigan.

1887: Birthday of early aviator Philip Parmelee of Hubbardston, MI. Trained with the Wright Bros. & flew many aviary firsts - parachute drop; commercial flight; military reconnaissance; and bomb drop. Lansing's Capital Regional Int'l Airport has an historical marker to honor Parmelee.

1976: Detroit's Sheila Young takes three Olympic Speed Skating medals at the Innsbruck games, becoming first American to do so. 2019: US Representative John Dingell Jr. passes at 92 years old. He spent nearly 60 years in the house, as a representative for Michigan.

1877: Detorit Club members assembled to hear a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert broadcast via telephone wire. 1896: Charles King builds the first gas-powered automobile in Detroit, three years before Henry Ford. 2014: Two years after his retirement, the Detroit Red Wings retire the number of Nicklas Lindstrom, who played with the team for 20 years.