ON THIS DAY 6 2 2023

This Day in History: June 2

Featured Event

1865




Confederate soldiers yielded to Federal troops in Galveston, Texas, marking the end of one of the final land operations of the American Civil War.

Featured Biography

Johnny Weissmuller
American athlete and actor




Johnny Weissmuller, byname of Peter John Weissmuller, original name Jonas Weissmuller, (born June 2, 1904, Freidorf, near Timişoara, Romania—died January 20, 1984, Acapulco, Mexico), American freestyle swimmer of the 1920s who won five Olympic gold medals and set 67 world records. He became even more famous as a motion-picture actor, most notably in the role of Tarzan, a “noble savage” who had been abandoned as an infant in a jungle and reared by apes.



Weissmuller, Johnny



Pete Desjardins (left) and Johnny Weissmuller returning to the United States after the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam
Weissmuller, whose parents immigrated to the United States when he was three, attended school only through the eighth grade but was trained in swimming at the Illinois Athletic Club in Chicago. He was a member of several championship relay and water-polo teams that represented the club during the 1920s. In individual freestyle swimming he was U.S. outdoor champion at 100 yards (1922–23, 1925 [no competition 1924]), 100 metres (1926–28), 200 metres (1921–22), 400 metres (1922–23, 1925–28 [no competition 1924]), and 800 metres (1925–27); and he was U.S. indoor titleholder at 100 yards (1922–25, 1927–28) and 220 yards (1922–24, 1927–28). At the 1924 Olympic Games he won three gold medals, for the 100-metre and 400-metre freestyle and the 4 × 200-metre relay (he also won a bronze medal as a member of the U.S. water-polo team); in 1928 he won two more gold medals, for the 100-metre freestyle and 4 × 200-metre relay.



Tarzan and the Leopard Woman

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