This week in Indiana’s history …
1923 – Jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton performed in a recording session at the Gennett Studios in Richmond, Ind. The company made some of the earliest records of Morton, Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington.
1935 – The first academy for Indiana State Police Troopers began at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. The applicants were given physicals, underwent a character examination, took a written exam, and were personally interviewed by the superintendent and members of the State Police Board. Recruits were housed at the fairgrounds horse barn and their training lasted five weeks.
1945 – The USS Indianapolis left San Francisco just after dawn with a secret cargo that included parts to be used in the atomic bombs that would be dropped on Japan. On its return voyage, the ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, resulting in the deaths of 880 men.
1946 – Indiana colleges and universities prepared for a large influx of new students as veterans, home from World War II, took advantage of the GI Bill. Enrollments were 70 percent higher than pre-war peaks. School officials said that preferences were being given to Hoosiers and that most out-of-state applicants could not be accepted.
1959 – Fifteen-year-old Becky Collins, a swimmer at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, became the youngest athlete to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She was an award-winner and part of the United States team that set a world record at the 1959 Pan American Games. Her swim team had its home base at the local Riviera Club.
1979 – Breaking Away was released to theaters. Filmed almost entirely in Bloomington, the movie is a coming-of age comedy/drama about young men growing up in a college town where their parents work at the limestone quarry. The American Film Institute calls it one of the most inspiring movies of all time.