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Ray’s Today in History – August 3
This is Ray Mossholder from the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Today in History. These are the stories that have made news throughout history – stories that happened on
AUGUST 3
For example 1492, this was the day Italian explorer Christopher Columbus began his historic voyage to the New World. He sailed from the Spanish port of Palos, in command of three ships—the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria — on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.
On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.
During his lifetime, Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the New World, discovering various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South and Central American mainland, but never accomplished his original goal—a western ocean route to the great cities of Asia. Columbus died in Spain in 1506 without realizing the great scope of what he did achieve: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
It was on August 3, 1476, that Pope Sixtus IV issued the papal bull Salvator noster, which claimed to extend indulgences that would release people from purgatory and to allow the merits of the saints, Mary, and Christ to become effective for those who had never received Christ. Many Catholic theologians protested and the poor were the most affected. Yet the indulgences would continue to be sold for more than 100 years. A hired announcer would come into each town and city shouting the jingle “When you make the coffers ring, another soul from purgatory you will spring!”
August 3, 1521 – An order of the French parliament was published throughout Paris to the sound of trumpets, commanding all booksellers, printers, and others with Martin Luther’s books in their possession, to give them up within eight days or face imprisonment and a fine.
- 1527 – The first known letter from North America was sent by John Rut while at St. John’s, Newfoundland.
On this day in 1797, Jeffrey Amherst, who twice refused the position of commander of British forces against the rebelling American patriots, died at his estate, called Montreal, in England.
Amherst is remembered foremost for victory against the French in the Seven Years’ War, culminating in the surrender of Montreal–after which Amherst named his estate–and Canada by the French to the British in 1760. This triumph was matched in magnitude by the notoriety he gained through his mishandling of Indian affairs following the war. Amherst ignored British Superintendent of Indian Affairs Sir William Johnson’s advice to continue the tradition of gift exchange with British-allied Indians following the surrender of Canada; Amherst believed in the efficacy of punishment for poor behavior instead of rewards for good behavior. Thus, he curtailed gift-giving and would eventually become the first military strategist to knowingly engage in biological warfare. Most infamous was Amherst’s use of smallpox-infected blankets to spread the deadly disease among Native Americans.
Western Indians had begun a series of frontier attacks known as Pontiac’s Rebellion in the spring of 1763. After this pan-native uprising enjoyed some success, Amherst suggested to Colonel Henry Bouquet that the British might expose the rebelling Indians to smallpox. Bouquet suggested infected blankets as an effective means of achieving Amherst’s goal, a supposition that proved correct when a smallpox epidemic engulfed Ohio Valley natives a few months later. Although exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, typically three-quarters of the population died in such outbreaks.
Although Amherst became the governor of Virginia in 1759 as a reward for his military success, he never served in the role, returning to Britain in November 1763. He was later twice asked to return to North America to lead Britain’s efforts to put down the Patriot rebellion, but he declined, first in 1775 and again in 1778.
In 1823 Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish revolutionary who later served as a general in the Union army during the U.S. Civil War, is born in Waterford, Ireland on this day.
A Catholic, Meagher was educated by Jesuits, and studied law in Dublin. As a young man, he became deeply involved in Young Ireland, a nationalistic organization that opposed British rule in Ireland. Meagher was a fiery orator, and directed his invective against Ireland’s British overseers.
After participating in the aborted Irish rebellion of 1848, Meagher was convicted of high treason. Authorities commuted his death sentence to hard labor and exiled him, like many Irish nationalists of his day, to Tasmania. After four years, he escaped and made his way to New York City. He married into a prosperous merchant’s family and became a leader within the Irish-American community.
When the war broke out, Meagher became a captain in the 68th New York militia, an Irish unit that became the nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. In February 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of the unit. Meagher served in all of the army’s major campaigns in Virginia, and the Irish brigade distinguished itself at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. However, he was criticized for his unit’s high casualty rates, which were rumored to be a result of his heavy drinking.
Meagher resigned his commission in 1863 when General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, refused his request to return to New York and recruit Irish replacements for the brigade. He continued his work in the New York Irish-American community, but he returned to duty and served in the Army of the Tennessee in early 1865.
After the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed Meagher secretary of Montana Territory. He died at Fort Benton, Montana, on July 1, 1867, after falling from the deck of a riverboat on the Missouri River. He was dead drunk. His body was never recovered.
Nevertheless, Meagher is honored today with a statue in front of the Montana capitol in Helena.
On this day in 1846, an ominous sign of the troubles to come, the Donner party found a note warning the emigrants that their expected route through the mountains ahead is nearly impassable.
The Donner party had left Springfield, Illinois, three months earlier. Led by two wealthy brothers, Jacob and George Donner, the emigrants initially followed the regular California Trail westward to Fort Bridger, Wyoming. From there, however, the emigrants decided to leave the established trail and take a new and supposedly shorter route to California laid out by a unscrupulous trail guide named Lansford Hastings. Hastings was not at Fort Bridger at the time-he was leading an earlier wagon train along his new route. He left word for the Donner party to follow, promising that he would mark the trail for them.
Reassured, the group of 89 emigrants left Fort Bridger with their 20 wagons and headed for Weber Canyon, where Hastings claimed there was an easy passage through the rugged Wasatch Mountains. On this day in 1846, they reached the head of the canyon, where they found the note from Hastings attached to a forked stick. Hastings warned the Donner party that the route ahead was more difficult than he had thought. He asked the emigrants to make camp there and wait until he could return to show them a better way.
Hastings’ note troubled the emigrants. To return to Fort Bridger to pick up the established route would have meant wasting several days. They decided to wait for Hastings. After eight days, when Hastings had still not arrived, the emigrants sent a messenger up the canyon to find the guide. The messenger returned several days later with instructions from Hastings to follow another trail, and the emigrants complied. The alternate route, however, turned out to be even worse than the Weber Canyon road, and the emigrants had to carve a fresh road through thick trees and boulder-strewn ground.
The Donner party finally made it through the Wasatch Mountains and arrived at the Great Salt Lake. Hastings’ route had cost them 18 valuable days. Unfortunately, their difficulties were only beginning. The “short cut” to California had cost them many wasted days, and the Donner party crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains late in the season. On October 28, a heavy snowfall blocked the high mountain passes, trapping the emigrants in a frozen wilderness. Eventually reduced to cannibalism to survive, only 45 of the original 89 emigrants reached California the following year.
- 1852 – Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also the first American intercollegiate athletic event ever held.
- 1860 – The Second Maori War begins in New Zealand.
The last entry of the serialized novel Great Expectations was published on this day in 1861. The book had been serialized in Dickens’ literary circular, All the Year Round. The novel tells the story of young Pip, a poor orphan who comes to believe he will inherit a fortune.
Dickens had become one of the most popular writers in England nearly three decades earlier with the publication of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. The short sketches, which Dickens published under the pseudonym “Boz,” were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings.
Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown in debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.
In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories, Sketches by Boz,was published. The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children.
In 1838, Dickens published Oliver Twist, followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the U.S., where he was hailed as a literary hero. Dickens churned out major novels every year or two, usually serialized in his own circular. Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
In the late 1850s, he began a series of public readings, which became immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.
On August 3, 1900 Ernie Pyle was born. Ernie, the best known and much loved newspaper correspondant during WW II, was born. He ended up yet another casualty of the war he so marvelously and powerfully described. But Ernie would have written “My death was worth it on the way to forever stopping Adolf Hitler.”
The Black Sox Scandal took place during the play of the 1919 World Series. The Chicago White Sox lost the series to the Cincinnati Reds, and eight White Sox players were later accused of intentionally losing games in exchange for money from gamblers. The players were declared innocent after a court trial, but nevertheless, they were all banned for life from baseball.
Club owner Charles Comiskey was widely disliked by the players and was resented for his miserliness. Comiskey long had a reputation for underpaying his players, even though they were one of the top teams in the league and had already won the1917 World Series. Because of baseball’s reserve clause, any player who refused to accept a contract was prohibited from playing baseball on any other professional team. Because of the clause, players were prevented from changing teams without permission from the owner of their team, and without a union the players had no bargaining power. Comiskey was probably no worse than most owners — in fact, Chicago had the largest team payroll in 1919.
In the era of the reserve clause, gamblers could find players on many teams looking for extra cash — and they did.[1][2] In addition, the clubhouse was divided into two factions. One group resented the more straitlaced players (later called the “Clean Sox”), such as second baseman Eddie Collins, a graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University, catcher Ray Schalk, and pitcher Red Faber. By contemporary accounts, the two factions almost never spoke to each other on or off the field, and the only thing they had in common was a resentment of Comiskey
Third baseman George “Buck” Weaver was one of those who attended a meeting where a fix was discussed. However, he decided not to take part and played to the best of his ability during the series, batting .324 with 11 hits in 34 at-bats, which was higher than some of his batting averages in previous years. Weaver had a career batting average of .272.
A meeting of White Sox ballplayers–including those committed to going ahead and those just ready to listen–took place on September 21, in second baseman’s Chick Gandil’s room at the Ansonia Hotel in New York. It was a meeting that would eventually shatter the careers of eight ballplayers, although whether all eight were actually in attendance is a matter of dispute. Weaver was the only player to attend the meetings who did not receive money. Nevertheless, he was later banned with the others for knowing about the fix but not reporting it. Although he hardly played in the series, utility infielder Fred McMullin got word of the fix and threatened to report the others unless he was in on the payoff.
Even before the Series started on October 2, there were rumors among gamblers that the series was fixed, and a sudden influx of money being bet on Cincinnati caused the odds against them to fall rapidly. These rumors also reached the press box where a number of correspondents, including Hugh Fullerton of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and ex-player and manager Christy Mathewson, resolved to compare notes on any plays and players that they felt were questionable. Despite the rampant rumors, gamblers continued to wager heavily against the White Sox. However, most fans and observers were taking the series at face value
After throwing a strike with his first pitch of the Series, Eddie Cicotte’s second pitch struck Cincinnati leadoff hitter Morrie Rath in the back, delivering a pre-arranged signal confirming the players’ willingness to go through with the fix.[5]
Williams, one of the “Eight Men Out,” lost three games, a Series record. Dickie Kerr, who was not part of the fix, won both of his starts. Cicotte bore down and won Game 7 of the best-of-9 Series; he was angry that the gamblers were now reneging on their promised payments, as they claimed that all the money was in the hands of bookies. Joseph J. “Sport” Sullivan, the gambler who initiated the fix, then paid infamous gangster Harry F to threaten to hurt Lefty Williams and his family if he did not lose the upcoming game 8.[6] The White Sox lost Game 8 on October 9, ending the series.[7] Whatever Williams had been told made its impression. In the first inning throwing nothing but mediocre fastballs, he gave up four straight one-out hits for three runs before manager Kid Gleason relieved him.
The rumors dogged the White Sox throughout the 1920 season as they battled the Cleveland Indians for the American League pennant, and stories of corruption touched players on other clubs as well. At last, in September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate; Eddie Cicotte and Shoeless Joe Jackson confessed their participation in the scheme to the grand jury on September 28.[8]
On the eve of their final season series, the White Sox were in a virtual tie for first place with the Indians. The Sox would need to win all three of their remaining games and then hope for Cleveland to stumble, as the Indians had more games in hand. Despite the season being on the line, Comiskey suspended the seven White Sox still in the majors (Chick Gandil had not returned to the team in 1920 and was playing semi-pro ball). He said that he had no choice but to suspend them, even though this action likely cost the White Sox any chance of winning that year’s American League pennant. The White Sox lost two of the three games in the final series against theSt. Louis Browns and finished in second place, two games behind Cleveland.
The trial began on June 27, 1921 in Chicago.[9] Player Shano Collins was named as the wronged party in the indictments, accusing his corrupt teammates of having cost him $1,784 as a result of the scandal.[11] Before the trial, key evidence went missing from the Cook County courthouse, including the signed confessions of Cicotte and Jackson, who subsequently recanted their confessions. Some years later, the missing confessions reappeared in the possession of Comiskey’s lawyer.[12]
The jury deliberated for less than three hours before returning verdicts of not guilty on all charges for all of the accused players.[9]
Long before the scandal broke, many of baseball’s owners had nursed longstanding grievances with the way the game was then governed by National Commission. The scandal and the damage it caused to the game’s reputation would give owners the resolve to make major changes to the governance of the sport. As a result, federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed the first Commissioner of Baseball prior to the start of the 1921 season, with virtually unlimited powers over every person in both the major and minor leagues.
Following the players’ acquittals, Landis was quick to quash any prospect that he might reinstate the implicated players. On August 3, 1921, the day after the players were acquitted, the Commissioner issued his own verdict:
Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.[13]
With the unprecedented powers granted to him by the owners, and using a precedent that saw Babe Borton, Harl Maggert,Gene Dale, and Bill Rumler banned from the Pacific Coast League for match fixing,[14] Landis placed all eight accused players on an “ineligible list“, banning them from organized baseball. Landis took the line that while the players had been acquitted in court, there was no dispute they had broken the rules of baseball, and none of them could ever be allowed back in the game if it were to regain the trust of the public. Comiskey supported Landis by giving the seven who remained under contract to the White Sox their unconditional release.
Following the Commissioner’s statement it was universally understood that all eight implicated White Sox players were to be banned from Major League Baseball for life. Two other players believed to be involved were also banned. One of them was Hal Chase, who had been effectively blackballed from the majors in 1919 for a long history of throwing games and had spent 1920 in the minors. He was rumored to have been a go-between between Gandil and the gamblers, though it has never been confirmed. Regardless of this, it was understood that Landis’ announcement not only formalized his 1919 blacklisting from the majors, but barred him from the minors as well.
Eight members of the White Sox baseball team were banned by Landis for their involvement in the fix:
- Eddie Cicotte, pitcher, died on May 5, 1969, had the longest life; living to the age of 84. Admitted involvement in the fix.[8]
- Oscar “Happy” Felsch, center fielder, died on August 17, 1964, at 72.
- Arnold “Chick” Gandil, first baseman. The leader of the players who were in on the fix. He did not play in the majors in 1920, playing semi-pro ball instead. In a 1956Sports Illustrated article, he expressed remorse for the scheme, but claimed that the players had actually abandoned it when it became apparent they were going to be watched closely. According to Gandil, the players’ numerous errors were a result of fear that they were being watched.[15][16] He died on December 13, 1970, at 82.
- “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, the star outfielder, one of the best hitters in the game, confessed in sworn grand jury testimony to having accepted $5,000 cash from the gamblers. He later recanted his confession and protested his innocence to no effect until his death on December 5, 1951, at 64; he was the first of the eight banned White Sox players to die. Years later, the other players all said that Jackson had never been involved in any of the meetings with the gamblers, and other evidence has since surfaced that casts doubt on his role.[5]
- Fred McMullin, utility infielder. McMullin would not have been included in the fix had he not overheard the other players’ conversations. He threatened to tell all if not included.[citation needed] His role as team scout may have had more impact on the fix, since he saw minimal playing time in the series. He died on November 20, 1952, at 61.
- Charles “Swede” Risberg, shortstop. Risberg was Gandil’s assistant and the ‘muscle’ of the playing group. He went 2-for-25 at the plate in the World Series. The last living player among the Black Sox, he lived on until October 13, 1975, his 81st birthday.
- George “Buck” Weaver, third baseman. Weaver attended the initial meetings, and while he did not go in on the fix, he knew about it.[9] Landis banished him on this basis, stating “Men associating with crooks and gamblers could expect no leniency.” On January 13, 1922, Weaver unsuccessfully applied for reinstatement. Like Jackson, Weaver continued to profess his innocence to successive baseball commissioners to no effect. He died on January 31, 1956, at 65.
- Claude “Lefty” Williams, pitcher. Went 0–3 with a 6.63 ERA for the series. Only one other pitcher in baseball history – reliever George Frazier of the 1981 New York Yankees – has ever lost three games in one World Series, although it should be noted that the third game Williams lost was Game Eight – baseball’s decision to revert to a best of seven Series in 1922 significantly reduced the opportunity for a pitcher to obtain three decisions in a Series.[citation needed] Williams died on November 4, 1959, at 66.
Also banned was Joe Gedeon, second baseman for the St. Louis Browns. Gedeon placed bets since he learned of the fix from Risberg, a friend of his. He informed Comiskey of the fix after the Series in an effort to gain a reward. He was banned for life by Landis along with the eight White Sox.[17]
The indefinite suspensions imposed by Landis in relation to the Black Sox Scandal remain the most to be imposed simultaneously in the history of organized baseball, and were the most suspensions of any duration to be simultaneously imposed until 2013 when thirteen player suspensions of between 50 and 211 games were announced following the doping-related Biogenesis scandal.
Years later, all of the implicated players said that “Shoeless Joe Jackson was never present at any of the meetings they had with the gamblers. Lefty Williams, Jackson’s roommate, said that they only brought up Jackson in hopes of giving them more credibility with the gamblers.
On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, hours after the death of President Warren G. Harding.
Born July 4, 1872, in Plymouth, Vermont, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts and worked his way up in the political ranks in that state as a Republican, from city councilman in Northampton in 1898 to governor in 1918. Coolidge made it onto the Republican ticket in 1920 as Harding’s running mate, and they won a decisive victory over a Democratic pairing of James Cox and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In 1923, Harding’s administration was tainted by the emergence of corruption scandals involving Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and other high government officials, a group known as the Ohio Gang. A distraught Harding sought refuge from Washington during a summer vacation but died suddenly in a San Francisco hotel late on August 2, after suffering a heart attack or stroke. Coolidge got the news of Harding’s death early the next morning, while visiting family in Vermont. He took the oath of office by the light of a kerosene lamp; his father, a notary public, administered it using the family’s Bible.
Coolidge immediately began working to rehabilitate the tarnished image of the government’s executive branch, projecting an image of old-fashioned New England values and Puritan austerity that reassured a troubled public. A man of few words—he was known as “Silent Cal”—Coolidge became an extremely popular president, winning more than 54 percent of the popular vote when he was reelected in 1924. His time in the White House coincided with an era of unprecedented material prosperity and technological advances, with consumers snapping up widely available new products such as automobiles, radios and household appliances like vacuum cleaners and washing machines.
Strongly conservative, Coolidge believed the government should do little to interfere with business and industry, whether it was to check the growing power of big corporations or to aid struggling industries such as agriculture. He supported tax cuts for businesses and high tariffs to protect U.S. goods, but vetoed aid to farmers as well as a plan to produce electric power cheaply on the Tennessee River. Taking office just five years after the First World War ended, Coolidge favored isolationism in foreign policy, and opposed American membership in the League of Nations.
Though he almost certainly would have won reelection in 1928, Coolidge decided not to run, retiring from politics before the stock market disaster of November 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression that crippled the country. He died of a heart attack in January 1933. Though remembered fondly for restoring dignity to the White House, the Coolidge era also went down in history as a time of governmental complacency in the face of impending economic disaster.
August 3, 1934 – In London, Evangeline Cory Booth, 69, the seventh child of founder William Booth, became the fourth elected commander and the first woman general of the Salvation Army.
On August 3, 1941, a sweet little bundle of joy was born who was given the name Martha Stewart. Martha has become a highly successful businesswoman, publisher, author, and even a short time prison inmate. She is the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
August 3, 1944, Lutheran theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from a Nazi prison: ‘The Church must not underestimate the importance of human example; it is not abstract argument, but example, that gives its word emphasis and power.’
On August 3, 1946, Founder Sidney N. Correll established United World Mission. This interdenominational agency focuses on evangelism, church planting and Christian education. Totally Christ centered, it began with ministry to 13 countries and today sends missionaries to 42 countries.
On this day also in 1946, Santa Claus Land, the world’s first themed amusement park opened in Santa Claus, Indiana, much to the joy of children of all ages.
On August 3, 1948, in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Whittaker Chambers accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. The accusation set into motion a series of events that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of Hiss for perjury.
Chambers was a little known figure prior to his 1948 appearance before HUAC. He was a self-professed former member of the Communist Party. Chambers also admitted to having served as a spy for the Soviet Union. He left the Communist Party in 1938 and offered his services to the FBI as an informant on communist activities in the United States. By 1948, he was serving as an editor for Time magazine. At that time, HUAC was involved in a series of hearings investigating communist machinations in the United States. Chambers was called as a witness, and he appeared before the committee on August 3, 1948. He dropped a bombshell during his testimony. Chambers accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been a communist and a spy during the 1930s. Hiss was one of the most respected men in Washington. He had been heavily involved in America’s wartime diplomacy and attended the Yalta and Potsdam conferences as an American representative. In 1948, he was serving as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Hiss angrily denied the charges and declared that he did not even know Whittaker Chambers. He later admitted that he knew Chambers, but at the time he had been using a different name–George Crosley. In the weeks that followed Chambers’ appearance before HUAC, the two men exchanged charges and countercharges and their respective stories became more and more muddled. Finally, after Chambers publicly declared that Hiss had been a communist “and may be one now,” Hiss filed a slander suit.
During the course of that trial, Chambers produced microfilmed copies of classified State Department documents from the 1930s, which he had hidden in hollowed-out pumpkins on his farm. The “Pumpkin Papers” were used as evidence to support his claim that Hiss had passed the papers to him for delivery to the Soviets. Based on this evidence, Hiss was indicted for perjury for lying to HUAC and a federal grand jury about his membership in the Communist Party. The statute of limitations had run out for other charges related to his supposed activities in the 1930s. After the first trial ended with a hung jury, Hiss was convicted in January 1950 and served 44 months in jail. Hiss always maintained his complete innocence. For his part, Chambers remained equally adamant in his accusations about Hiss.
On this day in 1949, after a damaging three-year battle to win both players and fans, the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merged to form the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The BAA incorporated in 1946, challenging the foundation of the nine-year old NBL. The BAA established itself in bigger cities than the NBL, which existed only in small Midwestern cities like Fort Wayne, Sheboygan and Akron. While the NBL held its games in small gymnasiums, the upstart BAA played its games in large major-market arenas such as the Boston Garden and New York City’s Madison Square Garden. By the 1948-49 season, the BAA had begun to attract some of the country’s best players, and four NBL franchises–Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Rochester–moved to the BAA, bringing their star players with them. George Mikan, the biggest attraction in either league who by himself could virtually assure a team’s success, defected to the new league with the Minneapolis Lakers.
On August 3, 1949, representatives from the two leagues met at the BAA offices in New York’s Empire State Building to finalize the merger. Maurice Podoloff, head of the BAA since its inception, was elected head of the new league. The new NBA was made up of 17 teams that represented both small towns and large cities across the country. Through the 1950s, though, the number of teams dwindled, along with fan support, and by the 1954-55 season, only eight teams remained. That year, the league transformed the game with the creation of the 24-second clock, making play faster-paced and more fun to watch. Fans returned, and the league, now financially solvent, expanded throughout the 1960s and 70s. Today, the NBA has 30 franchises and attracts players—and millions of fans—from countries around the world.
On August 3, 1955 Hurricane Connie began pounding US for 11 straight days.
On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplished the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.
The USS Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus’ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.
Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots.
In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and on July 23, 1958, departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on “Operation Northwest Passage”–the first crossing of the North Pole by submarine. There were 116 men aboard for this historic voyage, including Commander William R. Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and four civilian scientists. The Nautilus steamed north through the Bering Strait and did not surface until it reached Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Beaufort Sea, though it did send its periscope up once off the Diomedes Islands, between Alaska and Siberia, to check for radar bearings. On August 1, the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap.
The submarine traveled at a depth of about 500 feet, and the ice cap above varied in thickness from 10 to 50 feet, with the midnight sun of the Arctic shining in varying degrees through the blue ice. At 11:15 p.m. EDT on August 3, 1958, Commander Anderson announced to his crew: “For the world, our country, and the Navy–the North Pole.” The Nautilus passed under the geographic North Pole without pausing. The submarine next surfaced in the Greenland Sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland on August 5. Two days later, it ended its historic journey at Iceland. For the command during the historic journey, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decorated Anderson with the Legion of Merit.
After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.
On August 3, 1959 – Portugal’s state police force fired upon striking workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing over 50 people
Also on this third day of August 1959, English apologist and author of many books including The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis wrote “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.”
1963 Allan Sherman releases “Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, here we are at Camp Granada. It is very entertaining. And will even go outside if it stops raining. “
On August 3, 1966, comedian Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose
August 3, 1969 The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 19-17. Even the losing team increased its batting averages!
- 1961 – The New Democratic Party of Canada was founded by the merger of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congre
On August 3, 1972, The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile(ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles.[1]
Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years.[2] Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in 1997 the United States and four former Soviet republics agreed to continue the treaty. But in June 2002 the United States withdrew from the treaty, leading to its termination.
Congratulations was due when on August 3, 1970 Mairiam Hargrave of Yorkshire, England, passed her driving test on her 40th try.
And on August 3, 1971 Paul McCartney announced the formation of his group Wings
1973 On Britain’s Isle of Mann a flash fire killed 51 people at an amusement park.
Three major events took place in the same day – August 3, 1975.
The only happy event was the dedication of Louisiana’s Superdome.
But on the other side of the world, On this day in 1975, a chartered Boeing 707 jetliner crashes in the Atlas Mountains near Agadir, a coastal city in southern Morocco. All 188 people aboard the plane were killed, in the fourth worst air disaster to that date.
Owned by the Jordanian airline Alia and chartered to Royal Air Maroc, the 707 left LeBourget Airport in Paris at 2:20 a.m. on the morning of August 3, 1975. Apart from four Europeans, all of the passengers on board were Moroccan citizens who worked in France and were traveling home for their summer holidays. The flight disappeared from Agadir airport-control radar at 4:28 a.m.; an airport official had spoken via radio with the pilot moments earlier, with no hint of trouble. The plane was scheduled to land in Agadir just two minutes later, at 4:30 a.m., and was descending for approach in heavy fog when the right wing tip and one of the engines struck a peak at an altitude of 2,400 feet. The pilot lost control of the plane, which crashed into a ravine, exploded and burned near the small, remote village of Imzizen. All 181 passengers were killed, along with seven crewmembers.
The incident outside Agadir marked the fourth worst air disaster in history, after a Turkish DC10 that crashed March 3, 1974 north of Paris, killing all 345 passengers and crew; a U.S. military plane that went down outside Saigon on April 4, 1974, killing more than 200; and a chartered Dutch DC8 jetliner that crashed in Sri Lanka on December 4, 1971, killing 191.
The Boeing 707 first went into service in 1958, having been developed to meet the need of airlines (particularly Pan-American) for a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a large seating capacity. With its four engines, the 707 was capable of traveling some 6,000 miles (enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean) nonstop, and boasted a seating capacity of up to 190 people. Thanks to the popularity of the 707 among international airlines, Boeing became world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer, pushing aside rival Douglas Aircraft Company (later the McDonnell Douglas Corporation).
The Morocco crash of August 1975 was the second crash of a Boeing 707 to occur over the course of the 1970s; a Jordanian 707 had crashed at Nigeria’s Kano Airport in January 1973, killing 176 people. After the introduction of its larger, quieter and more fuel-efficient 747 jumbo jet in January 1978, Boeing ended production of the 707. U.S. airlines sold most of their remaining 707s to Third World carriers, some of them priced as low as $1 million.
And as if all those deaths weren’t enough, on this same day in 1975 two riverboats collided in China’s West River and 500 people were drowned.
On August 3, 1977, Senate hearings began on Project MKUltra — sometimes referred to as the CIA’s mind control program — was the code name given to an illegal program of experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control.
Organized through the Scientific Intelligence Division of the CIA, the project coordinated with the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps.[1] The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in 1973.[2]
The program engaged in many illegal activities;[3][4][5] in particular it used U.S. and Canadian citizens completely unaware that they were test subjects. MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people’s mental states and alter brain functions, including the heavy administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.[9]
The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.[10] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.[11] As the US Supreme Court later noted, MKULTRA was:
concerned with “the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in secret operations to control human behavior.” The program consisted of some 149 subprojects which the Agency contracted out to various universities, research foundations, and similar institutions. It involved thousands of human guinea pigs. Because the Agency funded MKULTRA indirectly, many of the participating institutions were unaware that they were dealing with the CIA.[12]
Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the U.S. Congress, and a Gerald Ford commission to investigate CIA activities within the United States. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms’ destruction order.[13]
Although the CIA insists that MKUltra-type experiments have been abandoned, some CIA observers say there is little reason to believe it does not continue today under various sets of titles.[49] Victor Marchetti, author and 14-year CIA veteran, stated in various interviews that the CIA routinely conducted disinformation campaigns and that CIA mind control research continued. In a 1977 interview, Marchetti specifically called the CIA claim that MKUltra was abandoned a “cover story.” Many Americans believe it would be extremely naïve to think that this kind of research has completely stopped, given the multitude of institutions involved in all of the research. The CIA remains highly secretive today.
It was better news on this same day in 1977 when RadioShack, which is no longer in existence, announced the Tandy Corporation’s TRS–80, which is no longer in existence either, but one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers were available for purchase at their stores.
This I include to show you how much America has changed in the last 30 years: In August 3, 1982, Michael Hardwick was arrested for sodomy after a police officer observed him having sex with another man in his own bedroom in Georgia. Although the district attorney eventually dropped the charges, Hardwick decided to challenge the constitutionality of Georgia’s law.
“John and Mary Doe,” who joined in Hardwick’s suit against Michael Bowers, the attorney general of Georgia, maintained that the Georgia law “chilled and deterred” them from engaging in certain types of sex in their home. But in 1986, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruling by a 5-4 vote that states could continue to treat certain types of consensual sex as criminal acts.
Apparently, Justice Byron White had characterized the issue not as the right to privacy in one’s own bedroom, but rather as the right to commit sodomy. Viewed in this narrow manner, it was no surprise that he was unable to find such a clause in the Constitution. Justice Lewis Powell, who also voted to uphold the law, later called his vote a mistake.
In June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law under which two men had been arrested for having consensual sex at home. The 6-3 Lawrence v. Texas decision reversed the infamous 1986 Bowers decision and finally dealt a death blow to sodomy laws throughout the country.
On August 3, 1983, Carolyn Jones, the actress who played Morticia on the very popular television comedy The Addams Family, died at 54 of cancer.
August 3, 1988 –Skip Storch swam 153 miles of the Hudson River from Albany, New York to New York City. But don’t gasp yet: On August 29, 2007, 50-year-old Skip Storch swam a record breaking 85.5 miles, an unassisted continuous triple lap swim around Manhattan island. It was completed in 32 hours and 52 minutes, breaking two recognized records and qualifying him for an ESPN ESPY Award.
And on that same day – August 3, 1988, Soviet authorities freed Mathias Rust, the daring young West German pilot who landed a rented Cessna on Moscow’s Red Square in 1987. Rust was serving a four-year sentence at a labor camp when the Soviets approved his extradition as a goodwill gesture to the West.
On May 28, 1987, Rust, a 19-year-old with less than 40 hours of flying time, flew the light plane from Helsinki, Finland, to Red Square, the site of the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, and frequent Soviet patriotic demonstrations. He had not been detected once during the 500-mile flight. Rust said his flight was in the interest of world peace, and he signed autographs in Red Square until he was arrested. His seemingly effortless penetration of Soviet air space raised serious questions about the USSR’s ability to defend itself from air attack.
On August 3, 1989 the Cincinnati Reds sent a record 20 men to bat with a record 16 hits in the 1st inning
And on this same date in 1990 NY Yankee Kevin Mass set a record with his 10th home run in his 1st 72 at bats as a major leaguer.
In 1991 on August 3 the Pan-American games opened in Havana, Cuba.
If pop songs, like hurricanes, were rated on an objective scale according to their ability to devastate the pop-cultural landscape, then the song that reached the top of the American pop charts on this day in 1996 was a Category 5 monster. It first made landfall in Florida as a seemingly harmless Spanish-language rumba, but in the hands of a pair of Miami record producers, it soon morphed and strengthened into something called “Macarena,” a song that laid waste to all competition during a record-setting run at #1 that began on August 3, 1996.
The group that gets credit for the song that spent more time on the Billboard Hot 100 (60 weeks) than any other in history was Los Del Rio, but their smash-hit record received some critical assistance on its way to the top of the charts. Los Del Rio was the name under which two middle-aged Spaniards named Antonia Romero and Rafael Ruiz had been performing together since 1962. In 1992, while attending a private party of political and cultural heavyweights in Caracas, Venezuela, Romero was inspired to ad lib a spoken verse in honor of a flamenco dancer named Diana Patricia following a spectacular live performance. Addressing her by the name “Magdalena”—a reference to Mary Magdalene that connotes sultriness—Romero said “”Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Ma’dalena, que tu cuerpo e’ pa’ darle alegría y cosa’ buena.” When they later recorded a song based on this line, Los Del Rio changed the name Magdalena to “Macarena,” the name of a neighborhood in their native Seville, but the chorus otherwise remained unchanged: “Give joy to your body, Macarena, for your body is for giving joy and good things.”
The original Los Del Rio recording of “Macarena” was a hit in Latin America and gained some measure of popularity in pockets of North America, but when a DJ named Jammin’ John Caride at Miami’s Power 96-FM asked to add the song to his rotation, station managers told him that their policy was not to play songs sung exclusively in Spanish. Enter producers Carols De Yarza and Mike Triay, who wrote and recorded English-language verses for the female voice of Macarena and remixed the tune to make it more dance club-friendly. Within days, their version of the single, now called “Macarena” was a local smash.
Thirty-three weeks later, helped along by New York radio station WKTU as well as by a popular music video and a dance so easy that anyone could do it, “Macarena” reached the #1 spot on the Billboard pop chart on August 3, 1996, and stayed there for an unprecedented 60 weeks.
On August 3, 2004, The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopened after being closed since the September 11 attacks.
- On this day in 2005 – the President of Mauritania was overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.
- Also on the same date – Jew hater Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, became the President of Iran.
- 2007 – Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga was captured after hiding out following a conviction for kidnapping.
The Black Sox
And on August 3, 2010 – widespread rioting erupted in Karachi Pakistan, after the assassination of a local politician, leaving at least 85 dead and at least 17 billion Pakistani rupees which in American money is $200 million worth of damage.
And now today – August 3, 2015 –
At least 23 wildfires raged in forests and woodlands across California Sunday, taking the life of one firefighter and forcing hundreds to flee their homes.
The biggest California wildfire — raging in the Lower Lake area north of San Francisco — spread overnight to cover even more drought-stricken ground, expanding more than 30 square miles in four or five hours, said California’s Forestry and Fire Protection Director Ken Pimlott.
The fast-moving blaze had charred 84 square miles by Sunday, an area much bigger than San Francisco’s 49 square miles. It is only 5 percent contained.
The fire has destroyed 24 homes and 26 outbuildings and was threatening 6,300 homes. Cal Fire says an evacuation advisory has been issued affecting 12,000 people in a sweeping region of ranches and small rural communities. Several roads have been closed.
At least 650 residents have been evacuated from their homes as the blaze raged in hills covered in dense brush and oak trees and dotted with ranch homes.
“We saw it behind our house. We saw the smoke pouring over. So we just started collecting stuff and we left, to find out later that everyone was evacuated out here,” said resident Julie Flannery. When her family returned Friday, they found their two horses and one mule were gone. They hoped firefighters turned them loose so they could make their way to safety.
“The rest of this is just material stuff,” she said. “The animals and the family is the most important.”
Approximately 9,000 firefighters were working across northern California to subdue the blazes, a task made, something made incredibly difficult by several years of drought that have dried out the state.
“The conditions and fire behavior we’re seeing at 10 in the morning is typically what we’d see in late afternoon in late August and September,” said Nick Schuler, a division chief with Cal Fire. “But because of the dry conditions, because of the drought-stricken vegetation accompanied by the steep terrain and winds, we’re seeing fire activity that’s abnormal for this time of year.”
Many of the blazes were sparked by lightning and exacerbated by tinder-dry trees and grass, as well as erratic winds, Pimlott said.
“The biggest challenge is the extreme and explosive rates of spread of these fires,” he said.
The fires forced Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for California and activate the California National Guard to help with disaster recovery.
California on Sunday secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to help ensure the availability of vital resources to suppress the blaze burning in Lake County, said California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci.
The federal grant will assist local, state and tribal agencies responding to the fire to apply for 75 percent reimbursement of their eligible fire suppression costs, Ghilarducci said.
Earlier this week, Engine Capt. David Ruhl, from South Dakota, was killed battling a fast-moving blaze that broke out on Thursday in the Modoc National Forest, located about 100 miles south of Oregon.
Ruhl was in a vehicle Thursday, looking for ways to fight the blaze, when officials lost contact with him, fire information officer Ken Sandusky said. His body was recovered on Friday. An autopsy to determine the cause of death will be conducted this week, the U.S. Forest Service said.
Ruhl had been helping California firefighters since June. He was originally part of a Black Hills National Forest firefighting team. The Modoc fire had grown to about 6 acres by Sunday, and it was 20 percent contained.
In Humboldt County, 600 firefighters were battling 18 small blazes Sunday that were sparked by lightning. At least 70 fires have been reported in the area since Thursday. Of those, 52 have been contained, Cal Fire said.
The blazes have charred 1,200 acres and destroyed two structures in steep, difficult to access terrain.
Meanwhile, A woman was arrested in connection with a small fire near Goveland, a stop-off point headed to Yosemite National Park.
The 200-acre fire, about 20 miles from the park’s entrance, was 80 percent contained Sunday. All evacuations were lifted Saturday and residents were allowed to return to their homes.
Lisa Ann Vilmur was arrested Thursday night on allegations of recklessly causing a fire. She was jailed on $100,000 bail, and it was not known if she has an attorney who could comment.
Three firefighters who were burned on a fire northeast of Sacramento on Saturday have been released from the hospital. One has returned to duty and all are expected to make a full recovery, fire officials said.
A fourth firefighter remains hospitalized with serious burns.
The fire that began on July 25 destroyed two buildings and 54 homes and other buildings are still considered at risk in Placer and Nevada Counties. The 3 1/2-square-mile blaze is 85 percent contained.
At least 200 homes were evacuated in a community of Cascadel Woods in central California. Authorities say a boy acknowledged starting the fire near Bass Lake by plying with a lighter to burn pine needles. The fire has grown to more than 6 square miles and is partially contained.
Crews battling a fire east of Napa Valley held their ground Saturday, more than a week after the blaze started about 45 miles east of Napa’s wine county.
More than 12 square miles in Solano County have been charred, but the fire was 92 percent contained, and crews expected to have it fully corralled by Monday.
This is Ray Mossholder and that’s it for August 2. And unless the Lord comes within the next 24 hours, I’ll be back with August fourth tomorrow.
Ray’s Today in History – August 3
Ray"s Today in History – August 3
