Today in history–April 10
1583: Jurist Huig de Groot (a/k/a Hugo Grotius), the founder of modern natural law theory and the first great exponent of international law, is born at Delft in the Netherlands.
1633: Grocer Thomas Johnson of Snow Hill, London, offers the first bananas for sale in England.
1816: The Second Bank of the United States is chartered.
1847: Joseph Pulitzer is born at Makó, Hungary. During his lifetime Columbia University will find him too unsavory to allow him to endow a journalism school, but after his death they decide that money is, after all, money.
1849: Walter Hunt of New York City receives a patent for the safety pin. Short of cash, he had thought up the idea, made the first model in three hours, and sold the rights for $400.
1912: The R.M.S. Titanic steams out of Portsmouth on its way to becoming the highest-grossing film of all time.
1931: Lebanese-born American poet Gibran Khalil Gibran (his original first name was lost as as the result of a registration snafu in a Boston public school) dies at New York City.
1937: A single issue of Collier’s magazine contains two short short stories that will subsequently be made into classic motion pictures: Stage to Lordsburg by Ernest Haycox (later Stagecoach with John Wayne) and Bringing Up Baby by Hagar Wilde (later starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn).
1944: Henry Ford II is named Executive Vice President of Ford Motor Co. Yes, sometimes it’s who you know.
1947: The Brooklyn Dodgers purchase the contract of infielder Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals, making him the first African-American in baseball’s major leagues.
1957: The Suez Canal, whose closing triggered enough maritime claims to fill several volumes, reopens for traffic.
1962: Stuart Sutcliffe, bass player for the Beatles, dies of a brain hemorrhage. He’s replaced by Paul McCartney. It was Sutcliffe who first adopted the “moptop” or “Beatles” haircut.
1985: Pitcher Dan Quisenberry signs a 40-year, $46 million (after tax) contract with the Kansas City Royals.