This day in history: Tennis star Billie Jean King interviewed champion figure skater Karen Magnussen in Spokane

From 1974: Tennis superstar Billie Jean King flew into Spokane for a brief meeting with another sports star, Karen Magnussen, the Canadian figure skater who was performing in the Ice Capades at the Coliseum.

King was in town to interview Magnussen for an upcoming TV special about women in sports.

King said she learned that she had “much in common’ with Magnussen – both had endured “long hours of dedicated and often tedious practice” to earn their success.

Both said they appreciated their athletic skills even more after nearly losing them due to injuries. King had recently recovered from two knee surgeries, and Magnussen had been forced to stay in a wheelchair for three months after various injuries.

From 1924: Raymond Le La Cheur of Spokane was swamped with marriage proposals from all over the country after he claimed “to have inherited $30,000 on condition that he marries a woman without bobbed hair within a year.”

“I do not desire a fortune and want only the love of a true man,” wrote an Indiana woman. “… As for bobbed hair, I would not wear it at any price.”

One California widow added that she thinks “short hair is disgusting.”

Le La Cheur said he believed he would “have no trouble making a choice.”

Also on this date

(From onthisday.com)

1835: The Treaty of New Echota is signed between the U.S. government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States, leading to the infamous Trail of Tears.