50 years ago in Expo history: Some Russian athletes were filmed in a promotional spot touting Spokane’s fair all the way from Moscow

Russia announced that two of its most famous Olympians – gymnasts Olga Korbut and Ludmilla Tourisheva – would perform at Expo ’74.

That wasn’t the only good news. A U.S. film crew was making a TV commercial in Moscow, starring Korbut. It would be used to promote attendance at Spokane’s fair.

She was expected to say, in English, “Come to the Expo ’74 World’s Fair in Spokane!”

Korbut was perhaps the most famous gymnast to emerge from the 1972 Olympics in Munich. She won four gold medals in individual events. Tourisheva won the overall gold and led the Russian team to gold.

They would be accompanied to Spokane by 60 other Russian athletes, who would stage exhibitions in basketball and ice-skating.

From 100 years ago: A rum-runner was confronted with a “hail of bullets” at Clark Ferry in Ferry County.

The bootlegger arrived in a car and found tribal police officer Hirum Runnells waiting for him at the ferry. The bootlegger spied the officer and tried to run him over.

When he failed, he jumped out of his car and tried to cross the icy San Poil River. Runnells peppered the ground around the bootlegger’s feet and eventually captured him.

The car was loaded with 12 cases of beer and 1½ cases of whiskey. The rum-runner was now in jail in Spokane.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1916: In retaliation for President Woodrow Wilson’s recognition of Mexico’s Carranza government, members of Pancho Villa’s revolutionary army take 17 U.S. mining engineers from a train and shoot 16 of them in cold blood.