Way back when: Today in history
BY GENE CURTIS
Saturday, January 12, 2013
1/12/13 at 2:36 AM
1943 - Pleasure driving banned
Pleasure driving, already curtailed by the rationing of gasoline and tires, was further restricted when the Office of Price Administration banned driving to such things as charity events and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday ball.
The new curtailment applied only to Eastern drivers at first - the gasoline shortage was more critical there. The OPA explained that stopping on the way home from work for a drink was permissible as was driving to a nearby restaurant for dinner. But driving to dances, balls, theaters or other places of amusement or entertainment was considered pleasure driving.
1948 - OU's 1st black student
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher was entitled to a legal education by a state institution. The ruling came only four days after Fisher, a native of Chickasha and a graduate of Langston University, was denied admission to the University of Oklahoma law school because she was black.
She became the first black student admitted to the OU law school after the high court's ruling in the suit in which she was represented by the late Thurgood Marshall and the late Tulsa attorney Amos Hall.
1966 - Rio landslides kill 178
The heaviest rain in at least 80 years - some called it the worst ever reported in Brazil - caused landslides on Rio de Janeiro's hills, killing at least 178 people and creating a threat of disease and hunger.
Soldiers working beside police and firemen evacuated an estimated 100,000 residents from hillside slum shacks to safety in a stadium and an unfinished building, and an inoculation program was begun to combat typhoid and smallpox. The two airports were declared unsafe, trains were halted and roads into the mountains behind Rio were closed.
2006 - New nickels shipped
The U.S. Mint began shipping 80 million new 5-cent coins to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks that showed Thomas Jefferson looking straight ahead instead of in profile, as all coins depicted the presidents for nearly a century.
The new coins, with an image of Jefferson from an 1800 Rembrandt Peale portrait, were to be put into circulation over the next year. The new coin design also includes the word "Liberty" in Jefferson's handwriting and the phrase "In God We Trust." The reverse side has a picture of Jefferson's Virginia home, Monticello.
Associated Images:
Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher talks with OU President George Cross in 1948. Courtesy
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