50 years ago in Expo History: Bing Crosby misses Expo after surgery

Why wasn’t Bing Crosby, Spokane’s most famous son, performing at Expo ’74? After all, his movie sidekick, Bob Hope, had already performed.

The answer was found in an Associated Press interview, datelined Los Angeles.

Crosby had been “absent from show business for a year,” and was still recovering from surgery early in 1974 that “cost him half of his left lung.”

“I’m still a little stiff,” he told an interviewer. “The doctors made a big cut across my back, slicing through the nerves. I’m still a little numb.”

His health troubles had begun months before, with a pain in his shoulder. X-rays eventually showed a spot on his lung, which is why he underwent surgery. The growth was nonmalignant and was diagnosed as a “rare fungus that infects the lungs through the air.”

Crosby said he hoped to return to show business by fall.

From 100 years ago: A streetcar conductor fainted at the controls, and passenger William Wallace sprang into action.

He knew nothing about the controls of a streetcar “but managed to bring the car to a stop” and save “possible injury to several woman passengers on the car.”

The conductor soon came to and was treated at the emergency hospital. So was Wallace, who found the experience so traumatic that he had what was described as “a slight heart attack” after the event.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1908: Henry Ford’s company builds the first Model T car.