Happy birthday to… Bruce McConnell

Bruce McConnell

A very happy birthday to Bruce McConnell, the former information technology chief at the Office of Management and Budget who went on to be the founder and head of McConnell International and Government Futures, which he recently sold.

Some of the events and birthdays on this date:

I’m watching NBC’s Meet the Press and Tom Brokaw, who is interviewing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), just noted that this is the anniversary that McCain was shot down. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. McCain fractured both arms and a leg, and nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake.[33] Some North Vietnamese pulled him ashore, then others crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him. McCain was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton.”

(A total aside, but… one of the analysts on Meet the Press this morning is Charlie Cook, who watches congressional races carefully in his Cook Political Report. Meet the Press is coming from Iowa today, but… he is going to be at IAC’s ELC 2008 tonight. Let’s hope there are no flight delays.)

On the other side, it’s the birthday of Sen. Hillary Clinton. (More over on the public radio’s Writer’s Almanac.)

It is the birthday of Mahalia Jackson, the American known as the queen of gospel singing, was born. Following her death on Jan. 27, 1972, her obituary appeared in The New York Times.

Big events on this date:

1774 The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.

1825 The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River in upstate New York. Again, from public radio’s Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. It was built to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes. The canal was 360 miles long, 40 feet wide, and four feet deep — just deep enough to float barges carrying 30 tons of freight. When the canal was finished, cannons were lined up along the towpath just barely in earshot of each other. They fired one after another from Lake Erie to New York City, finishing the relay in 81 minutes.

1881 The gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Ariz., as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and “Doc” Holliday confronted Ike Clanton’s gang. Three members of Clanton’s gang were killed; Earp’s brothers were wounded.

More events and birthdays after the break, including one of Charlie’s Angles and a country music star.