THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on May 15 in the years identified:

1957: Louis ‘ Satchmo’ Armstrong and his ‘All Stars’ Orchestra were given a big welcome at the Palisadoes Airport and is greeted by hundreds of fans and local musicians. A band headed by Lord Tanamo and Count Lasher plays local calypsoes including The Things Satchmo Said, a new song composed by Lord Tanamo.

1969: Minister of Local Government Leopold Lynch told the House of Representatives that the new water rates for the Corporate Area were the minimum needed to generate the revenue intake to make the Water Commission a financially viable organsation, and was a precondition of the World Bank financing of the Rio Cobre Water Supply Scheme. The information was given in a Ministry Paper which Lynch tabled in the House shorty before he begun his speech on the Budget.

1969: Dame Hilda Bynoe, governor of Grenada, addressing the Kingston Rotary Club luncheon at the Myrtle Bank Hotel, said that this was a rapidly changing age in the West Indies and this posed a challenge to Rotary and other service clubs in the area. Dame Hilda, the first female governor appointed in the Commonwealth and her husband, Mr Peter Bynoe, have been house guests at King’s House.

1974: Prime Minister Michael Manley announced to the House of Representatives and the nation that a production levy and a new rate of royalty on alumina are to be imposed by Government for an estimated yield of $177M, following the failure of last-minute efforts to reach an agreement with the bauxite companies operating in Jamaica on increased revenues to meet budgetary priorities.