April 3/history

[more] What else happened today

1855 — Rollin White files Patent #12,648 for the bored-through cylinder concept of revolver design. The existence of this patent (along with an unwillingness to pay royalties to Smith & Wesson, who had bought the license to it), prevented Colt from beginning development of bored-through revolver cylinders for metallic cartridge use for 14 years and a day - until April 4, 1869. 1882 — Jesse Woodson James was shot in the back by Robert Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri. Ford would never collect the promised $10,000 bounty placed on James by Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden. 1942 — World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the American and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Exactly four years to the day later, in 1946, Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma would be executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March.