Of course, we all remember that this date, April 4, is the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968. The civil rights activist was assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. A terrible day. A dark fold in history.
April 4 seems to run that way a little bit if you ask me.
Many other famous — perhaps not as famous — people have also died on this date, but we seem to forget about them, as MLK typically draws our attention.
Yet, this list would include President William Henry Harrison in 1841. Not our greatest president, but the first to die in office. Just three weeks after his inauguration speech, out there in the freezing cold, where he caught pneumonia and that was that.
In 1912, Isaac Kauffman Funk, the American publisher, passed away. He was the Funk, in Funk & Wagnalls, an encyclopedia that was near and dear to my heart. In his later years, Funk spent time on psychic research. Oh yes, he did. Funk was a believer in spiritualism. He wrote a book called The Widow’s Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena, which was published in 1904. In it, he defended a number of mediums and spirit photography. He was 72 when he passed, and I’m not sure how he went. But I hope he got a greeting on the other side.
There was Karl Benz in 1929. Old Karly was regarded as the inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. Of course, Benz, along with his wife Bertha, went on to found the Mercedes-Benz company. Karl, 84, had a respiratory infection. And just like that.
And none other than Gloria Swanson, the American actress. At least, that was her cover. I know you’ve heard my whole frozen food conspiracy. She passed in 1983. Just like Karl, she was 84. A heart ailment, they claim. I think it had something to do with TV dinners and frozen peas.
Over the years, many assassination attempts occurred on this date. But since they were all misses, I won’t recount them now.
Then there is this. Cheryl Crane. The only child of Lana Turner. The same Lana Turner, who was a famous Hollywood icon, starring in things like Peyton Place, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Three Musketeers, and more.
Yeah, all that.
But this is her daughter. On April 4, 1958, at the young age of 14, Cheryl Crane stabbed her mother’s boyfriend to death. Not just any boyfriend, but Johnny Stompanato. He was the bodyguard and enforcer for gangster Mickey Cohen and the Cohen crime family.
Stompanato was well known to have been abusive to women. In addition, he was extremely jealous of Turner. So jealous, he had previously pointed a gun at actor Sean Connery, her co-star in Another Time, Another Place. I’m thinking he wasn’t a great bodyguard, because Connery took the gun from him, beat him, and forced him to leave the movie set.
I’m not sure of the scenario with Cheryl Crane, but somehow that 14-year-old managed to stab Stompanato to death while protecting her mother. The killing was ruled a justifiable homicide.
So yes, it is the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. But everyone always sees that one in the news. While the other people’s deaths were not as significant to human rights, they were significant to someone.
It is a good thing to remember. About significance and importance.
We all matter to someone. We are making a difference in someone’s life. Somewhere. Somehow. That should always be remembered and cherished.
And as for this particular date? Four, four? It debunks the “bad things come in three’s” notion. Sometimes, bad things come in fours.
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“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
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“It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
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“We all matter – maybe less then a lot but always more than none.”
― John Green
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The big, bad things from the day, go on and on. Four. Four.
