May 24, 2008

150 years ago
1858

Born on this date
Sam Barkley. U.S. baseball player. Mr. Barkley, an infielder, played for 5 teams in 6 seasons in the American Association from 1884-1889. His best season was his first, when he led the Toledo Blue Stockings with a .306 batting percentage. His career average was .258 in 582 games.

110 years ago
1898

Baseball
The highest run total of the season was scored in a 15-13 Baltimore Oriole defeat of the Chicago Orphans in Chicago. The pitchers yielded 36 hits‚ 10 walks‚ 2 wild pitches‚ and 3 hit batsmen. Pitcher Clark Griffith of Chicago‚ ejected from the game‚ spewed obscene language at umpire Tom Lynch‚ who threatened him with the Board of Discipline. Sporting Life noted "the only witness appears to be catcher [Frank] Bowerman of Baltimore‚ who is hardly likely to testify against Griffith."

90 years ago
1918

Died on this date
Ralph Sharman, 23. U.S. baseball player. Mr. Sharman, an outfielder, hit .297 in 13 games with the Philadelphia Athletics in September 1917. He was on an outing while training in the U.S. Army when he drowned while swimming in the Alabama River.

Abominations
Federal voting rights were granted to women throughout Canada.

Baseball
Stan Coveleski of the Cleveland Indians pitched a 19-inning complete game to defeat the New York Yankees 3-2. Former pitcher, now outfielder Smoky Joe Wood hit a home run, his second of the game, for the win.

80 years ago
1928

Opera
At the Canadian Folk Song and Handicraft Festival in Quebec City, singers presented Le jeu de Robin et Marion, a 13th Century comic opera written by the Trouvere Adam de la Halle. The opera, probably the first ever written, had been produced only once before in 300 years (at Arras, France in 1896).

Aviation
The Italian dirigible Italia reached the North Pole at 12:20 A.M., cruised around there for an hour, and started back for Spitzbergen, Norway. At the Pole, Gen. Umberto Nobile, the airship’s commander, dropped Italian and Milanese flags, as well as a cross blessed by Pope Pius XI. He then sent radiograms to Italian King Victor Emmanuel III, to Premier Benito Mussolini, and to Mrs. Nobile. The cross, which was six feet high with a metal base, had a repository in which was placed a message written in Latin by Pope Pius.

Business
The Consolidation Coal Company, controlled by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., announced that it was shutting down 10 mines, four in the Comerset coal fields of Pennsylvania, and six in the Fairmont field in West Virginia. Chairman R.C. Hill said, "About 2,500, or 20%, of the men in the two fields affected are being put out of work. But this means that for the remaining 80%, far better conditions will exist." Other soft coal mines were to follow suit. Labour officials were quoted in favour of the plan.

Disasters
Lightning killed eight women planting trees in a forest near Landsberg, Germany.

Baseball
In the first game of a doubleheader at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, a record 12 Hall of Famers played in the New York Yankees’ 9-7 victory over the Athletics. This number does not include non-playing Hall of Famers Herb Pennock and Stan Coveleski, managers Miller Huggins and Connie Mack, nor umpire Tom Connolly.

75 years ago
1933

On the radio
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Richard Gordon and Leigh Lovell, on NBC
Tonight's episode: The Singular Affair of the Aluminum Crutch

Baseball
Tommy Bridges of the Detroit Tigers tossed a 1-hitter in topping the Washington Nationals 3-1. Joe Kuhel's home run was the only Washington hit. It was the first time in American League history that a pitcher had allowed a home run in a 1-hitter.

50 years ago
1958

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): Catch a Falling Star--Perry Como (8th week at #1)

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): March from the River Kwai and Colonel Bogey--Mitch Miller and his Orchestra (7th week at #1)

#1 single in France (IFOP): Hello, le soleil brille--Annie Cordy (11th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (Record Mirror): Who's Sorry Now--Connie Francis (2nd week at #1)

U.S. top 10 (Cash Box)
1 All I Have to Do is Dream--The Everly Brothers (2nd week at #1)
2 Witch Doctor--David Seville
3 Twilight Time--The Platters
4 Return to Me--Dean Martin
5 Wear My Ring Around Your Neck--Elvis Presley
6 He's Got the Whole World (In His Hands)--Laurie London
7 Chanson d'Amour--Art and Dotty Todd
8 Big Man--The Four Preps
9 Sugar Moon--Pat Boone
10 Looking Back--Nat "King" Cole

Singles entering the chart were Leroy by Jack Scott (#46); Cha-Hua-Hua, with versions by the Pets; Eddie Platt and his Orchestra; and Hugo and Luigi (#51); Don't Go Home by the Playmates (#53); Bewitched by the Betty Smith Group (#56); What am I Living For by Chuck Willis (#58); Big Name Button by the Royal Teens (#59); I Know Where I'm Goin' by George Hamilton IV (#60); and Little Pixie by the Moe Koffman Quartette (also #60).

Baseball
The Detroit Tigers snapped a nine-game losing streak and broke the New York Yankees' 10-game winning streak with a 3-2 win behind Frank Lary, who improved his career record against the Yankees to 11-4.

40 years ago
1968

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand (RIANZ): The Legend of Xanadu--Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich (4th week at #1)

Edmonton’s top 10 (CJCA)
1 Master Jack--Four Jacks and a Jill (2nd week at #1)
2 Mrs. Robinson--Simon and Garfunkel
3 Honey--Bobby Goldsboro
4 Delilah--Tom Jones
5 I Wanna Live--Glen Campbell
6 A Beautiful Morning--The Rascals
7 Love is All Around--The Troggs
8 Me, the Peaceful Heart--Lulu
9 The Unknown Soldier--The Doors
10 Mony, Mony--Tommy James and the Shondells
Pick Hit of the Week: Hey Girl/My Girl--Bobby Vee
New this week: MacArthur Park--Richard Harris
Here Comes the Judge--Shorty Long
Stoned Soul Picnic--The 5th Dimension
Lydia Purple--The Collectors

The Collectors were from Vancouver, British Columbia, and achieved their greatest success after changing their name to Chilliwack in 1970.

On television tonight
The Immortal Story, directed, co-written by, and starring Orson Welles, was broadcast in France. It later received theatrical release in other countries.

World events
French President Charles de Gaulle delivered a national radio address, appealing for a return to law and order. He announced that he would submit a program of broad reform to the people through a referendum in June, and added that he would resign if his "mandate for renewal" should be turned down. Meanwhile, farmers in southwest France staged a protest, demanding price supports and subsidies. Banks closed and tax collectors walked off the job. More than half of France’s 19 million workers were on strike.

Disasters
14 were drowned when a ferry sank in the Yellow Sea off Kunsan, South Korea.

Boxing
Bob Foster (30-4) knocked out Dick Tiger (57-18-3) at 2:05 of the 4th round at Madison Square Garden in New York to win the world light heavyweight title.



30 years ago
1978

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): Rivers of Babylon--Boney M. (2nd week at #1)

Divorced on this date
Princess Margaret of Britain and her husband of 18 years, the Earl of Snowden, were divorced in London. The uncontested divorce was granted on grounds that "the marriage was irretrievably broken down."

War
A week after a French-Palestinian clash, Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat agreed to keep guerrillas out of southern Lebanon.

Diplomacy
The Chinese government accused the government of Vietnam of abusing and expelling 70,000 Chinese residents.

Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev concluded his two-day visit to Japan.

U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale addressed the United Nations General Assembly session on disarmament, criticizing the U.S.S.R. for its deployments in Europe and the Indian Ocean. Many diplomats felt that President Jimmy Carter’s absence showed that the U.S.A. gave priority to direct arms talks with the Soviet Union over disarmament talks in a U.N. context.

Crime
A Los Angeles jury acquitted two American Indian activists charged with the robbery and murder of a taxi driver in 1974. The trial and pre-trial hearings had lasted 3 ½ years and cost $1.25 million. Leaders of the American Indian Movement had claimed that Paul Skyhorse and Richard Mohawk were being prosecuted because of their political activities.

Baseball
In a Florida State League game‚ the Tampa Tarpons pushed 18 runs across the plate in the 4th inning of a 20-2 win over Daytona Beach. The bizarre frame‚ which lasted over an hour‚ featured 9 hits‚ 6 walks‚ 3 errors‚ 3 wild pitches‚ 2 passed balls‚ and an obstruction call. 15 runs scored before the inning's first out was recorded.

25 years ago
1983

Health
Edward Brandt, Jr., an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that the United States government had assigned the "No. 1 priority" to finding the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Some 1,500 cases of the disease had been reported within the past three years at an increasing rate. Mr. Brandt said that the department’s investigation had found that AIDS was spread "almost entirely through sexual contact, through the sharing of needles by drug abusers, and less commonly, through blood and/or blood products."

Most of the victims of AIDS, which has a high mortality rate, had been homosexual or bisexual males. Intravenous drug users, Haitian immigrants, and people suffering from hemophilia had also contracted the disease. Mr. Brandt announced that grants had been made for the search for an effective treatment and for means of prevention. The government’s action came after alarm was reported not only among the affected groups, but also among the general population as fears grew that AIDS might spread.

World events
South Africa claimed that bombs dropped by her fighter planes on alleged "terrorist camps" in Mozambique the day before had killed 64 people, mostly guerrillas.

Defense
The United States House of Representatives voted 239-186 to free $625 million for development of the MX missile.

Law
The United States Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the Internal Revenue Service could deny tax exemptions to private schools that practiced racial discrimination. Although the tax code provided exemptions for non-profit "religious, charitable or educational" institutions, the IRS had begun to make exceptions for institutions that diverged from public policy on racial equality. The IRS was then challenged by Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Goldsboro (North Carolina) Christian Schools. Both embraced religious views and had barred blacks from admission, although the university had relaxed its admissions policy in 1971.

The Supreme Court decision upheld a 1981 appeals court decision. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren Burger asserted that "racial discrimination in education violates deeply and widely held accepted views of elementary justice." He noted that the Court and Congress had on many occasions affirmed its opposition to racial segregation and discrimination in education, and rejected arguments by the schools that the IRS had exceeded its authority and that the First Amendment protected the right of schools to freely practice their religion. Civil rights groups praised the court’s ruling, but Bob Jones III, president of the university, deplored "the death of religious freedom." The court’s decision does seem suspicious in light of the fact that the discriminatory practice indulged in by BJU which prompted the loss of tax-exempt status was a ban on interracial dating, which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with education. In recent years BJU has lifted the ban on interracial dating. However, if the ban was motivated in the first place by BJU’s reading of scripture, what right did they have to change the policy? The fact that they changed the policy as a result of criticism from the world just shows that BJU’s behaviour wasn’t motivated by obedience to God, but by racial and cultural prejudice.

20 years ago
1988

Politics and government
In the contest for the U.S. presidential nominations, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis won the Democratic Party primary in Idaho.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan nominated two men to fill key vacancies in the Justice Department.

Economics and finance
President Reagan vetoed the trade bill and asked Congress to pass a new bill. His chief objection was to a provision requiring that workers get 60 days’ notice of layoffs or plant closings as the "humane thing to do." The House of Representatives voted 308-113 to override the veto. Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri said that the veto would not be helpful to the Republican Party.

Society
Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, was enacted.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Finals
Edmonton 3 @ Boston 3 (game called in 2nd period, power failure) (Edmonton led best-of-seven series 3-0)

Glen Wesley scored shorthanded and powerplay goals within a span of 1 minute 25 seconds in the 2nd period to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead, but Craig Simpson scored a powerplay goal for the Oilers with 3:23 remaining in the 2nd period to tie the score. At that moment, the power went out at Boston Garden, and didn't come back on. Power was not restored, and everyone went home. The National Hockey League ruled that game 4 was to be replayed in its entirety in Edmonton, with the Oilers leading the series 3 games to 0. All statistics from the aborted 4th game counted.



10 years ago
1998

Auto racing
Eddie Cheever won the Indianapolis 500 in a time of 3:26:40.524, with an average speed of 145.155 miles per hour. Buddy Lazier, the 1996 winner, finished second. It was a beautiful, sunny day at the speedway.

Hockey
NHL
Stanley Cup
Western Conference
Finals
Detroit 2 @ Dallas 0 (Detroit led best-of-seven series 1-0)

Basketball
NBA
Western Conference
Finals
Utah 96 @ Los Angeles Lakers 92 (Utah won best-of-seven series 4-0)

Baseball
The San Francisco Giants scored 3 runs in the top of the 17th inning to break a 6-6 tie and take a 9-6 decision from the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Center fielder Willie McGee got 4 hits for St. Louis, and Cardinals’ first baseman Mark McGwire hit his 24th home run of the season.