1866 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson spoke from a balcony at the Bates House Hotel in Indianapolis. A hostile crowd shouted him down and fighting broke out in the streets between supporters and opponents of his policies regarding Reconstruction. With the President in Indianapolis were Secretary of State William Seward and Army General Ulysses S. Grant.
1948 – Max Ehrmann died in his hometown of Terre Haute. He was an attorney, writer and poet. He attended DePauw University where he was editor of the school newspaper. He is best known for his prose poem “Desiderata.”
1983 – Legendary entertainer Cab Calloway performed with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at Clowes Hall. The Indianapolis Star reported that “the old hi-de-ho man was elegant in white tails and full of vim, vigor, and vitality.”
1992 – Six people were killed in a mid-air collision of two small planes near Greenwood. The death toll included the two pilots and four prominent community leaders of Indianapolis: Frank McKinney, Jr., John Weliever, R. V. Welch and Michael A. Carroll.
2001 – Terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York City. Within 24 hours, Task Force One from Indianapolis was assisting at Ground Zero.
2003 – Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon died from a stroke suffered in Chicago five days earlier. He was in the third year of his second term. He had served many years in the state senate and two terms as Lieutenant Governor under Evan Bayh.
Inscription on the cemetery monument for Governor Frank O’Bannon: Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as I can before turning it over to future generations. (George Bernard Shaw)