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Today in History

Mike K.

One Too Many
Messages
1,479
Location
Southwest Florida
1944

Allied forces liberate Paris from the Nazis.
paris-liberation.jpg
 

Prairie Dog

A-List Customer
Messages
338
Location
Gallup, NM
August 26, 1939

s4a.jpg

First Televised Major League Baseball Game.
On this day in 1939, the first televised Major League baseball game is broadcast on station W2XBS, the station that was to become WNBC-TV. Announcer Red Barber called the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York.

At the time, television was still in its infancy. Regular programming did not yet exist, and very few people owned television sets--there were only about 400 in the New York area. Not until 1946 did regular network broadcasting catch on in the United States, and only in the mid-1950s did television sets become more common in the American household.

In 1939, the World's Fair--which was being held in New York--became the catalyst for the historic broadcast. The television was one of fair’s prize exhibits, and organizers believed that the Dodgers-Reds doubleheader on August 26 was the perfect event to showcase America's grasp on the new technology.

By today's standards, the video coverage was somewhat crude. There were only two stationary camera angles: The first was placed down the third base line to pick up infield throws to first, and the second was placed high above home plate to get an extensive view of the field. It was also difficult to capture fast-moving plays: Swinging bats looked like paper fans, and the ball was all but invisible during pitches and hits.

Nevertheless, the experiment was a success, driving interest in the development of television technology, particularly for sporting events. Though baseball owners were initially concerned that televising baseball would sap actual attendance, they soon warmed to the idea, and the possibilities for revenue generation that came with increased exposure of the game, including the sale of rights to air certain teams or games and television advertising.

Today, televised sports is a multi-billion dollar industry, with technology that gives viewers an astounding amount of visual and audio detail. Cameras are now so precise that they can capture the way a ball changes shape when struck by a bat, and athletes are wired to pick up field-level and sideline conversation.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
August 28, 1933

SHANTY TOWN ANTI-FREEZE ORGY KILLS FOUR
-- New York Daily News, 8/28/33, page 3

An all-day drinking bout with anti-freeze solution in the wassail bowl accounted for four deaths yesterday and sent police searching a square mile of weed-covered wasteland for a fifth guest.

The lethal orgy was held in a ramshackle lot at 16 E. 68th Street, Brooklyn, one of a colony of shacks called Pigtown behind the Brooklyn Hospital for the Insane.

WOMAN, 60, FIRST TO DIE

First to succumb to the potent potion was Mrs. Anna Comma, 60, of 1364 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, who was found unconscious in a nearby field at 5:30 Saturday evening. She was taken to Kings County Hospital, where she died a few hours later.

During the night the nude form of Jack Pennington, 47, of 525 Winthrop Street, Brooklyn, was discovered in a sandpit near the shack and at dawn police dragged Harry Williams, 48, the host from beneath an overturned table in the the hut. Both died at Kings County Hospital.

The fourth victim was Michael Miscale, 55, whose address is unknown.

Informed that the party had numbered five, an emergency squad began combing the underbrush in the district for another possible dead or stupefied guest.

FIFTH GUEST SURVIVES

After the search had lasted several hours, Thomas Donigan, 45, of 662 Fenimore Street, known in the neighborhood as "Gong-Gong", reported he was the firth member of the party. He had drunk only a small amount, he said.

Capt. John J. McGowan said the anti-freeze solution, a low grade of wood alcohol, could be purchased for fifty cents a gallon and was mixed with water to make a palatable but extremely unhealthy drink.
 

LizzieMaine

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August 31, 1933

AL WILLIAMS WON'T ADMIT TO SOCKING HUEY
by Warren Hall
New York Daily News, 8/31/33

That diamond studded crown that may be bought by national subscription for the fistic nemesis of Senator Huey Long rested lightly yesterday on the blonde head of Lieut. Alford J. Williams, as expert a flyer as you'll see in an airplane and as forceful a puncher as you'll find outside a prize ring.

It rested lightly because the modest young businessman shook it off with a smiling denial of the flattering accusation, thereby becoming a charter member of the I Didn't Sock Huey Society.

Despite his carefully-worded insistence, the conviction grew that it was none other than the Navy's former champion pilot who let fly a bunch of indignant knuckles in the washroom of the Sands Point Bath Club last Saturday night and inflicted an inch-wide gash over the heavy-lidded orb of the Louisiana Kingfish.

FLIERS HIT THE CEILING

Senator Long, it was unanimously agreed by all those interviewed yesterday, was quite obstreperous. But as indignant as the rest of the 600 guests may have been, their dudgeon failed to reach the altitude acquired by members of the flying profession who were present. Three of them, Al Williams, Clarence Chamberlin, and Major J. Nelson Kelly, manager of Floyd Bennett Field, admitted yesterday that they had been in the washroom at "just about" the time the Kingfish got the hook.

Did they sock him? Of course not! Did they see who did it? Indeed they didn't! But when the results of the triple interview were summed up, there seemed to be just one obvious answer: Al Williams' name is ninth on the list of consecutive conquerors of One-Round Huey Long.

NEWS TO ME, SAYS AL

"It's news to me," said Williams over long distance phone from his Pittsburgh desk as vice-president of the Gulf Refining Company. "Furthermore, it's news to me that any of my friends would think such a thing of me." But his voice didn't sound surprised or alarmed, and there wasn't the slightest trace of indignation.

Williams, 190 pound six-footer, a former Fordham football and baseball ace, is usually good-natured but has a quick temper. Friends recalled the time his car was stopped in front of a trolley in a traffic jam. "Get that car out of the way, you blankety-blank," the motorman roared. Al's wife was with him. He stepped out of the car, hit the motorman just once, and knocked him out, climbed back into the machine, and drove off.

That's Al Williams.

IN THE WILLIAMS PARTY

Guests at the Sands Point affair recall that the Louisiana senator was a member of the Williams party, whenever he calmed his roving instincts long enough to remain in any one group. A group photograph taken just before the festivities started showed Williams and his wife, Gene Buck and Mrs. Buck, Mr. and Mrs. Edward P. Mulrooney, Huey Long, and Elaine Hyland.

But if Williams was slightly unconvincing in his denials, a much more willing would-be hero was uncovered in the person of Police Chief Steve Webber of Port Washington. The chief, who could hardly be described as "retiring," hastened to admit that he not only was at the party, but was one of that select coterie in the washroom just before the lightning struck.

And was he the man who did the deed?

"You can say anything you want to, but you also better put in that I denied doing it," he told one interviewer. Later, he told another reporter, "I didn't do it, but I know who did, and he's a mighty good friend of mine. I'd be a rat if I told."

HE'S A FRIEND OF AL

Chief Webber, incidentally, is on very friendly terms with Al Williams, whom he knew when he was an Army sergeant attached to Mitchell Field.

Another member inducted into the I. D. S. H. L. Society yesterday was Bradley Clarke, a young stockbroker of 50 Pine Street. He admitted he was there, that he had plenty of reasons for wanting to sock Huey, but he regretted to say he hadn't done it. "I've seen some offensive persons in my time," said Clarke, "but I don't think I ever saw anyone who could make a complete nuisance of himself in so short a space of time as Huey Long. Everybody wanted to throw him out, but after they found out who he was, they sort of toned down. I didn't know myself until I asked someone."

"Finally, he sat down at my table, grabbed a bottle, and tried to force a drink on the lady who was with me. Just when I thought I couldn't hold back any longer, he wandered off somewhere else. I didn't see him again until he staggered out of the washroom with blood streaming out of his forehead."
 

WH1

Practically Family
Messages
967
Location
Over hills and far away
LizzieMaine said:
AL WILLIAMS WON'T ADMIT TO SOCKING HUEY
by Warren Hall
New York Daily News, 8/31/33

That diamond studded crown that may be bought by national subscription for the fistic nemesis of Senator Huey Long rested lightly yesterday on the blonde head of Lieut. Alford J. Williams, as expert a flyer as you'll see in an airplane and as forceful a puncher as you'll find outside a prize ring.

It rested lightly because the modest young businessman shook it off with a smiling denial of the flattering accusation, thereby becoming a charter member of the I Didn't Sock Huey Society.

Despite his carefully-worded insistence, the conviction grew that it was none other than the Navy's former champion pilot who let fly a bunch of indignant knuckles in the washroom of the Sands Point Bath Club last Saturday night and inflicted an inch-wide gash over the heavy-lidded orb of the Louisiana Kingfish.

FLIERS HIT THE CEILING

Senator Long, it was unanimously agreed by all those interviewed yesterday, was quite obstreperous. But as indignant as the rest of the 600 guests may have been, their dudgeon failed to reach the altitude acquired by members of the flying profession who were present. Three of them, Al Williams, Clarence Chamberlin, and Major J. Nelson Kelly, manager of Floyd Bennett Field, admitted yesterday that they had been in the washroom at "just about" the time the Kingfish got the hook.

Did they sock him? Of course not! Did they see who did it? Indeed they didn't! But when the results of the triple interview were summed up, there seemed to be just one obvious answer: Al Williams' name is ninth on the list of consecutive conquerors of One-Round Huey Long.

NEWS TO ME, SAYS AL

"It's news to me," said Williams over long distance phone from his Pittsburgh desk as vice-president of the Gulf Refining Company. "Furthermore, it's news to me that any of my friends would think such a thing of me." But his voice didn't sound surprised or alarmed, and there wasn't the slightest trace of indignation.

Williams, 190 pound six-footer, a former Fordham football and baseball ace, is usually good-natured but has a quick temper. Friends recalled the time his car was stopped in front of a trolley in a traffic jam. "Get that car out of the way, you blankety-blank," the motorman roared. Al's wife was with him. He stepped out of the car, hit the motorman just once, and knocked him out, climbed back into the machine, and drove off.

That's Al Williams.

IN THE WILLIAMS PARTY

Guests at the Sands Point affair recall that the Louisiana senator was a member of the Williams party, whenever he calmed his roving instincts long enough to remain in any one group. A group photograph taken just before the festivities started showed Williams and his wife, Gene Buck and Mrs. Buck, Mr. and Mrs. Edward P. Mulrooney, Huey Long, and Elaine Hyland.

But if Williams was slightly unconvincing in his denials, a much more willing would-be hero was uncovered in the person of Police Chief Steve Webber of Port Washington. The chief, who could hardly be described as "retiring," hastened to admit that he not only was at the party, but was one of that select coterie in the washroom just before the lightning struck.

And was he the man who did the deed?

"You can say anything you want to, but you also better put in that I denied doing it," he told one interviewer. Later, he told another reporter, "I didn't do it, but I know who did, and he's a mighty good friend of mine. I'd be a rat if I told."

HE'S A FRIEND OF AL

Chief Webber, incidentally, is on very friendly terms with Al Williams, whom he knew when he was an Army sergeant attached to Mitchell Field.

Another member inducted into the I. D. S. H. L. Society yesterday was Bradley Clarke, a young stockbroker of 50 Pine Street. He admitted he was there, that he had plenty of reasons for wanting to sock Huey, but he regretted to say he hadn't done it. "I've seen some offensive persons in my time," said Clarke, "but I don't think I ever saw anyone who could make a complete nuisance of himself in so short a space of time as Huey Long. Everybody wanted to throw him out, but after they found out who he was, they sort of toned down. I didn't know myself until I asked someone."

"Finally, he sat down at my table, grabbed a bottle, and tried to force a drink on the lady who was with me. Just when I thought I couldn't hold back any longer, he wandered off somewhere else. I didn't see him again until he staggered out of the washroom with blood streaming out of his forehead."


Wow interesting news story, but I am most impressed with the use of words such as obstreperous, dudgeon and coterie in a daily news article. If they used high falutin words like that today most young peoples IPhones would explode.lol
 

LizzieMaine

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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
WH1 said:
Wow interesting news story, but I am most impressed with the use of words such as obstreperous, dudgeon and coterie in a daily news article. If they used high falutin words like that today most young peoples IPhones would explode.lol

Heh -- and keep in mind that the Daily News was a cheap tabloid aimed at the working class.

The point that I thought was most entertaining was the unspoken assumption that the proper and respectable way to deal with the obstreperous and offensive was to sock them in the moosh. If a sitting US Senator today were to cut up rough and drunk at a party, one could hardly expect the guests to rise to the occasion in such a fitting manner.
 

Absinthe_1900

One Too Many
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1,628
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The Heights in Houston TX
Why Huey got punched one of the theories :eek: :
http://motac.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4EC640AAC91CB84E!382.entry


One evening in 1933, Huey was out with friends at the Sands Point Casino night club on Long Island. With several Sazeracs under his belt, Huey made a spectacle of himself, eating food off other patrons’ plates, dragging women out on to the dance floor, and generally behaving like a dog.

During a visit to the men’s room, unable to find an empty urinal, Huey proceeded to take aim between the legs of one of the men standing before him. His aim was not the best, and it netted Huey a cut above his eye seen in photos that graced the tabloid newspapers for days.
 

WH1

Practically Family
Messages
967
Location
Over hills and far away
Absinthe_1900 said:
Why Huey got punched one of the theories :eek: :
http://motac.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4EC640AAC91CB84E!382.entry


One evening in 1933, Huey was out with friends at the Sands Point Casino night club on Long Island. With several Sazeracs under his belt, Huey made a spectacle of himself, eating food off other patrons’ plates, dragging women out on to the dance floor, and generally behaving like a dog.

During a visit to the men’s room, unable to find an empty urinal, Huey proceeded to take aim between the legs of one of the men standing before him. His aim was not the best, and it netted Huey a cut above his eye seen in photos that graced the tabloid newspapers for days.

AAAAHHHH!! A SEA OF LARRY CRAIG INSPIRED JOKES IS FLOODING MY SENSES. (Self Censoring) Don't want to get tossed from the joint by a bar tender!:D
 

LizzieMaine

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September 1, 1939

"War it is, with Germany and Poland fighting a major campaign tonight -- and Great Britain and France about to plunge in.

"It's a heavyhearted thing tonight to begin the reciting of war bulletins. Today the German command announced an advance all along the line, drives into Poland on three sides, pushing on everywhere -- "lightning advances," Berlin calls it.

"Warsaw was bombed several times today.

"London and Paris took simultaneous action. Each instructed its ambassador in Berlin to present Hitler with an ultimatum. If Nazi Germany doesn't draw back at this last moment and recall its armies from Poland, Great Britain and France will intervene in the struggle.

"Chamberlain declared that Great Britain and Poland were still ready to negotiate when Hitler struck this morning.

"With war breaking out, Premier Molotiv today addressed the Supreme Soviet, the Communist parliament, and played up that suddenly-discovered comradeship between Stalin and Hitler. He was just as emphatic about it as the Nazi Fuhrer had been earlier in the day.

"Every American is thinking -- what about ourselves? Will we be drawn in? That question was answered today by President Roosevelt. I think the President was echoing the vast majority of Americans -- let's do all we can to keep out of it! And so long -- until tomorrow."

--- Lowell Thomas, Sunoco's News Voice Of The Air, NBC Red network, 6:45 pm.
 

Fletch

I'll Lock Up
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8,865
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Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
9139.jpg

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I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

– W. H. Auden
"September 1, 1939"
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Meanwhile, in London, as officious ARP wardens ensured every citizen carried their issued gas mask, and spivs began quietly gathering up as many air raid shelter tickets as they could get hold of for resale, the BBC television service abruptly signed off the air at 12:35pm, following a showing of the 1933 Disney cartoon short "Mickey's Gala Premiere." Television service would not resume in Britain until seven years and a world war later -- with the initial offering being that very same cartoon.
 

LizzieMaine

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September 3, 1939

The world hears the voice of a broken man.

"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

"You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful.

"Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland, whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

"The proposals were never shown to the Poles, nor to us, and though they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier the next morning.

"His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

"We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. We have a clear conscience - we have done all that any country could do to establish peace.

"The situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe, has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage.

"At such a moment as this the assurances of support which we have received from the empire are a source of profound encouragement to us.

"When I have finished speaking, certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the government. Give these your closest attention. The government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead...

"Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that right will prevail."

-- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
 

LizzieMaine

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September 7, 1933

330907.jpg


GUARD AMERICANS
Rush To Hotel As Red Mobs Threaten

Havana, Sept. 6 (UP) -- Communist threats against the lives of American residents and outbreaks of disorder in Santiago, Havana, and interior points led today to concentration of frightened American residents in the National Hotel, where they are under armed guard by volunteers from the American Legion post.

Army dissension and hostility of the more conservative revolutionary elements that drove Gerardo Machado from office threatened the shaky power siezed yesterday by a junta of five professional men after a revolt of the rank and file of the army had ousted Machado's successor, President De Cespedes. Civil war was feared a possibility.

ARMED RED YOUTHS SPEED THROUGH STREETS

Concentration of the Americans at the hotel, under the guns of the American destroyer Macfarland in the harbor, began spontaneously last night. It was hastened this afternoon by a radio broadcast from an allegedly communist station. The speaker said: "Comrades, the time is now nearing to act. Select Americans so that when the time comes, you can leave them in their tracks when you meet them."

At the same time, bands of youths, the majority under 20 years old, appeared fully armed on Havana streets. They speed through the streets in high-powered motor cars, the confiscated property of fugitive Machadistas.

Threat of the U. S. intervention in the Cuban crisis today saved Matthew Molanphy, head of the United Fruit Company in Havana and his family from radical terrorists who attempted to remove them from the steamer Morro Castle. As the mob threatened to board the steamer, Capt. Willmot, master of the Morro Castle, shouted from the deck that if they took a step up the gangplank he would sound the steamer's whistle, bringing U. S. Marines to the scene from the nearby destroyer McFarland in five minutes.

During the excitement an emissary from the American Embassy arrived at the dock. He warned leaders of the mob that the incident might provoke American intervention, declaring "If you want to preserve the sovereignty of Cuba, get back!" The mob moved away. The mob moved away, the frightened Molanphy family remained below deck.
 

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