On this Day… May 21
• In 1924, Bobbie Franks was kidnapped and killed – stabbed four times in the head with a chisel and disfigured by acid. The teenage killers of the 14-year-old millionaire’s son were Nathan Leopold, a sexual pervert, and Richard Loeb, who was fascinated by crime. Both were academically brilliant and both came from wealthy German-Jewish Chicago families. For them the kidnap plot and brutal killing were merely an intellectual exercise and, indeed, they nearly got away with it. But they made a mess of burying the body, and Leopold’s spectacles were found at the scene. They were each sentenced to life plus 29 years. Loeb was murdered in prison; Leopold was paroled in 1958. Leopold Sr. had begged Clarence Darrow to defend the boys, offering him $1 million (a really staggering amount at the time)! But when it actually came to paying the bill, all he would give Darrow was $30,000 – which was still big money in those days.
• In 1945, Bogey married Bacall in a quiet ceremony at the home of his friend Blomfield in Pleasant Valley, Ohio. The ceremony only lasted three minutes, and right in the middle of it the family’s boxer dog came in and lay down at the judge’s feet. The bride wasn’t in the slightest bit tearful but, unbelievably, Bogey cried all the way though!
— from Today’s the Day! By Jeremy Beadle
In Christian history
• In 1738, Charles Wesley was converted from a legalistic to an evangelical Christian faith. Charles entered the ministry the following year and became a gifted and tireless hymn writer known as “the sweet singer of Methodism.”
— from This Day in Christian History
By William D. Blake
In the Philippines
• In 1963, General Emilio Aguinaldo, while at the Veteran Memorial Hospital, signed a deed donating his historic house at Kawit, Cavite to the Philippine Government on condition that he will have the right to continue to live there until his death. Aguinaldo, the first Philippine president, continued to be confined at the hospital until his death on February 6, 1964. The house, now a national shrine called the Aguinaldo Shrine, was first built in 1845, made from wood and thatch, and reconstructed in 1849. It was in this house where the General was born on March 22, 1869. The independence of the Philippines from Spain was also declared in this house on June 12, 1898.
— www.kahimyang.info
In Cebu
• In 1908, the Philippine Commission passed Public Act. No. 1835 granting to the Insular Coal Company, Inc., a franchise to construct, maintain and operate a railway from the shore line at the port of Danao to the coal district of Camansi in the province of Cebu. This is but one of the many efforts, dating back to Spanish times, to exploit Cebu’s coal resources.
— from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos
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