What Hoosier Olympic gold medalist was born this week in 1873?

1851 – Congregational Friends held a convention in Dublin, Ind., at which they adopted resolutions for political, social and financial rights for women. Men and women in attendance favored abolition, temperance and women’s suffrage.

1873 – Raymond Ewry was born in Lafayette. After a childhood spent in a wheelchair with polio, he overcame his illness to become a track star at Purdue University. He became one of the best standing jump champions of the world, winning a total of eight gold medals in Olympic games.

1894 – British author Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, gave a lecture at Plymouth Church in Indianapolis. Later that evening he had dinner with Hoosier Poet James Whitcomb Riley.

1932 – Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of former President Theodore Roosevelt, received an enthusiastic reception at the Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis. Nearly 5,000 attended the event which the Indianapolis Star called the “most remarkably distinctive women’s meeting in the history of Indiana politics.”

1932 – The cornerstone was laid for the new Indiana State Library on West Ohio Street in Indianapolis. Governor Harry G. Leslie said the event was “the realization of a dream of many years.” Items placed in the cornerstone included a printed copy of the Governor’s address, records of the building commission, state yearbooks and city newspapers.

1948 – President Harry Truman gave a major campaign address at the Indiana World War Memorial. He was introduced to the crowd of over 200,000 by Indianapolis Mayor Al Feeney. Later that day the President visited the Masonic Hall in Beech Grove.