50 years ago in Expo history: Fire, dancing and jug-juggling made for just another colorful day at the fair

Expo ’74’s Chinese Acrobatic Spectacular thrilled a crowd at the Spokane Coliseum in what was described as a combination “circus, ballet and colorful pageant.”

A troupe of 75 performers from the Republic of China (i.e., Taiwan) leapt through hoops of fire, balanced on each other’s heads and juggled large earthenware jugs.

And then came the unicyclists, the ribbon dancers and the martial arts experts. John J. Lemon of the Spokane Chronicle called it “one of Expo’s entertainment highlights.”

Meanwhile, the show over at the Opera House, featuring Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, was a bit more staid but just as crowd-pleasing.

Chronicle reviewer Gordon H. Coe noted that the show was remarkably similar to the shows Lombardo had brought to Spokane’s Garden Dancing Palace in the 1930s.

Some members of the audience surely remembered those shows, because Coe noted that the crowd consisted of “mostly middle-aged and older music lovers.”

“The music is still the sweetest this side of heaven,” Coe wrote.

From 100 years ago: An Army colonel in charge of National Guard affairs warned that the Pacific coast was “the most vulnerable spot in the United States” to attack.

“The initial protection of the Pacific coast must come, in great measure, from the National Guard of the western and Pacific coast states,” he said.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1901: Theodore Roosevelt renames the “Executive Mansion” as “The White House.”