Way back when: Today in history
By GENE CURTIS on Sep 17, 2013, at 2:30 AM Updated on 9/17/13 at 4:38 AM
Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril (center), declared himself leader of Haiti after ousting Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy in a military coup. Associated Press
file
CONTACT THE REPORTER
Email
1965 - Train's end of the line
Frisco's once-jammed passenger train, the Meteor, that provided passenger service through Tulsa from Oklahoma City to St. Louis rolled into oblivion, carrying only 35 passengers on its final run. R.H. Coiner, Tulsa district sales manager for Frisco, said passenger service fell off rapidly after World War II and in later years the train's major business had been hauling freight. The Meteor had served the route since 1948. During World War II, the Meteor's predecessor sometimes had as many as 27 cars but eventually one car was ample. On the final run, the train consisted of the locomotive, four baggage cars, a coach car and a Pullman.
1984 - Getty richest American
For the second consecutive year, Gordon Paul Getty, 50, San Francisco composer, pianist and arts patron, was identified by Forbes Magazine as the richest person in the country with a fortune of $4.1 billion. The second richest person was Wal-Mart founder Sam Moore Walton, of Bentonville, Ark., with $2.3 billion. Getty, son of J. Paul Getty who once lived in Tulsa, had doubled his net worth from a year earlier after selling his family's interest in Getty Oil Co. to Texaco. They were among 10 men and two women worth more than $1 billion on Forbes' third annual ranking of the 400 richest Americans.
1988 - Haiti ruler ousted
Lt. Gen. Neri Namphy was ousted as Haiti's ruler in a military coup; Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril declared himself president the next day. Avril, a former military adviser to ousted President Jean-Claude Duvalier, said that the presidential guard had toppled Namphy because it was "sickened" by his government. Namphy, his wife and daughter were escorted to the Port-Au-Prince airport where they were put on a military plane and flown to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.
1991 - Koreas join U.N.
North and South Korea, for five years observers without voting rights, were among seven countries accepted as new members of the United Nations. The other new members accepted by the General Assembly at its 46th annual session were the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. The new members increased the U.N. size to 166 members.
CONTACT THE REPORTER
Email
