May 20 in San Antonio history…

1927
In a spectacle, immensity of which almost took the breath away, 200 airplanes and a dirigible airship passed in aerial review before high ranking officers and the secretary of war at Kelly Field this morning.

1953
Threats by the City Council to replace members of the Library Board who do not support stamping Communist books fail to materialize today.  Time will tell if the council will follow through with the proposal.

1995
The San Antonio Central Library at 600 Soledad holds its grand opening.

March 18 in San Antonio history…

1909
The Detroit Tigers come to San Antonio for a spring training exhibition game against St. Louis College.  Tigers star slugger, Ty Cobb, is fanned by 17-year-old student Melvin “Bert” Gallia.  The Tigers win the game however, 10-2.  (Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s University.  Gallia, back row, far left.  Cobb, center, in white.)

1977
A millionaire Los Angeles woman leaves her brother-in-law, a member of a wealthy pioneer Hill Country family, almost $3 million – but only if he buries her next to her husband in her expensive Italian sports car with the seat “reclined at a comfortable angle.”

1995
Tejano superstar Selena plays her last San Antonio concert at Tejano Wave on Perrin-Beitel road.

February 9 in San Antonio history…

1958
Airman Donald Farrell is sealed in a cramped steel chamber at the School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph AFB, to simulate a space flight. The air pressure is half of what it is at sea level and Airman Farrell cannot stand up nor lie down. His test lasts for seven days.

1964
The Beatles make their American television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, broadcast on KENS Channel 5 at 7:00 p.m.  45.3% of U.S. TV households tune in, representing 73 million people — a record for an entertainment program up to that time.

1995
Bernard Harris, Jr., a 1974 graduate of San Antonio’s Sam Houston High School, becomes the first African-American to perform an EVA (spacewalk) during the second of his two flights aboard the Space Shuttle.

November 21 in San Antonio history…

1907
Bernice Lecompte, age 11, becomes the first San Antonio death attributed to an automobile after being struck at the corner of San Pedro and Elmira streets by a vehicle driven by W.B. Smith, the chauffeur of G.A.C. Halff.

1963
President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy are in San Antonio to dedicate the Aerospace Medical Health Center at Brooks Air Force Base. He is assassinated in Dallas the following day.

1992
Athens, Georgia-based band, R.E.M., films the video for their song “Everybody Hurts” on the unopened lower level of the $270 million “Downtown Y” highway expansion project, on I-10 between Cincinnati and Colorado streets.

November 20 in San Antonio history…

1909
The Gunter Hotel is completed and opened for business. The hotel stands on the former site of the Vance House. Previous to that, it was the site of U.S. Army barracks and was the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Department.

1951
Eyeing the sparse crowd at the Lionel Hampton concert due to the Tuesday night football game between Wheatley and Corpus Christi Coles in Alamo Stadium, promoter Johnny Phillips says, “It looks like we are going to lose some money on this one, like we did on the Ellington show here.  We’ll have to do better than this if we expect top flight bands to keep coming here.”  Wheatley wins, 19-14.

1995
52 years after his death, the body of Medal of Honor recipient William J. Bordelon is returned to San Antonio and buried in the cemetery of Ft. Sam Houston.  The body has lain in state in the Alamo since yesterday, flanked by Marine Honor Guards.  Bordelon is only the fifth person given this privilege.

June 15 in San Antonio history..

1895
Workmen began clearing out debris left in the Alamo after its use during the Civil War as a quartermaster storage barn.

1946
Deaths of San Antonians previously attributed to encephalitis have now been diagnosed as an unusual type of polio that has an abnormally high fatality rate among adults, say the San Antonio Epidemeological committee.

1995
The Texans, San Antonio’s new Canadian Football League franchise, lose their home opener in the Alamodome to the Baltimore Stallions, 28-23.

May 20 in San Antonio history

1946
Three new suspected polio cases were reported in San Antonio this morning.  The city opened its second week’s drive against the epidemic reinforced with a heavy portable DDT “fog” machine, and a new shipment of the insecticide.  N.A. Davis, sanitarian of the state health department will ask local theaters to fumigate with cyanide gas to kill rats, which have been seen in the aisles of local theaters in the past 30 days.

1973
Mike Vavala’s name is chosen from over 5,000 entries for suggesting the name of San Antonio’s new ABA basketball team: The San Antonio Spurs. He wins season tickets and a trip to the ABA playoffs.  The Aztecs was the second-most popular suggestion.

1995
The San Antonio Central Library at 600 Soledad holds its grand opening.

March 25 in San Antonio history…

1939
Two months after she was forbidden to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington D. C. because of her race, contralto Marian Anderson performs a concert in Municipal Auditorium.   Fifteen days later, on Easter Sunday, she performs a concert at the base of the Lincoln Memorial at the request of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  The concert is broadcast across the country.

1949
San Antonio Junior College (now SAC) board today voted approval of a bid for Transit Co. property on San Pedro.  Now located at 419 Alamo, the school has looked at several other sites.

1995
Van Halen and Collective Soul play the last concert in Convention Center Arena.

January 25 in San Antonio history…

1904
City Council approved Alderman Fentiman’s ordinance restricting speed of automobiles and bicycles in San Antonio’s city limits to 6 miles per hour.

1980
After many complaints, the statue of St. Anthony de Padua has been placed on a new pedestal along the Riverwalk.  The statue, a gift to the city from Portugal for Hemisfair, was removed from his original location near the Marriott hotel and carelessly laid upon a concrete slab without protection while construction was taking place in the area.

1995
The San Antonio Hard Rock Café (right) holds its grand opening celebration, featuring Cheap Trick and Selena y Los Dinos.

October 27 in San Antonio history…

1938
Sears, Roebuck & Co. moves from the Transit Tower location to their new downtown headquarters at Romana Plaza. In 1995, this location would become the San Antonio Central Library.

1940
H.G. Wells, in San Antonio to attend the 65th annual United States Brewers Convention, meets Orson Welles for the first time at the Plaza Hotel.  Welles stopped in the city briefly, en route to Tucson to scout a movie location.  He admitted to being apprehensive at meeting the “War of the Worlds” author.  The record an interview on KTSA, which you can listen to here.

1995
Barnes and Noble open their first two San Antonio stores at Fiesta Trails shopping center on DeZavala and the Ingram Festival shopping center on Loop 410 near Ingram Mall.