This Day in History Thread.........

[King Shizzo]

Sep 29, 1758

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lord-nelson-born


Lord Nelson born


Horatio Nelson, Britain’s most celebrated naval hero, is born in Burnham Thorpe, England. In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, he won a series of crucial victories and saved England from possible invasion by France.

The son of the village rector, he entered the British navy as a midshipman at the age of 12. He traveled the world’s oceans and at age 20 was made a captain. After Spain joined France in its alliance with the rebellious American colonies, he raided Spanish holdings in Central America and the West Indies. In the years after the American Revolution, his zealous enforcement of the Navigation Acts, which restricted England’s carrying trade to English ships, made him unpopular. Between 1787 and 1792, he received no new naval commission. In 1793, however, war broke out with Revolutionary France, and he was immediately given command of the 64-gun Agamemnon.

He served in the Mediterranean, fighting at the port of Toulon and helping to capture Corsica. While ashore on Corsica assisting in the siege of Calvi, he lost the sight in his right eye after being injured by debris from a French shot. Four years later, on February 14, 1797, he acted boldly and without orders and single-handedly took on an entire squadron of Spanish ships that were about to surprise a British fleet off Portugal’s Cape St. Vincent. For his heroic contribution to British victory at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, Nelson was knighted and made a rear admiral. Later that year, he led the unsuccessful British assault on Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands and was shot in the right arm, forcing its amputation.

After his recovery, he pursued a French expeditionary force to Egypt and succeeded in destroying the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, thereby stranding French General Napoleon Bonaparte and his army in Egypt. Nelson was hailed as a great hero and went with his squadron to Naples, where he began an affair with the wife of a British minister. Nelson had a wife in England. He aided Ferdinand, king of Naples, in his struggles against republican revolutionaries but later was recalled to England after he refused an order to take his ships to Minorca. Due to his overwhelming public popularity, however, Nelson was made a vice admiral instead of being punished when he returned to England.

In April 1801, Nelson engaged Danish naval forces at the Battle of Copenhagen. Ordered to withdraw by his superior officer during the fiercely contested battle, Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said, “I really do not see the signal.” An hour later, victory was his. He was made an admiral and viscount and instructed to return to England to protect the Channel against an expected French invasion. In 1802, a brief interlude of peace with the French began, and Nelson lived with the minister’s wife in the countryside.

Upon the renewal of war in 1803, he was given command of the Mediterranean fleet, and he blockaded the French port of Toulon, trapping a French fleet for nearly two years. Meanwhile, French Emperor Napoleon planned an invasion of Britain. He induced Spain to declare war against England and in 1805 ordered the French and Spanish fleets to break out of the British blockades and then converge as a single enormous fleet in the West Indies. The Franco-Spanish fleet, Napoleon hoped, would then win control of the English Channel, and an invasion force of 350,000 could cross to the British isle.

In March 1805, French Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve’s fleet broke through Nelson’s blockade at Toulon under cover of bad weather. Nelson set off in pursuit, chasing the French to the West Indies, where Villeneuve found himself alone at the appointed meeting place in the Antilles. Not daring to attack Nelson, he recrossed the Atlantic and retreated to the Spanish port of Cadiz, where a Spanish fleet lay. Napoleon called off his English invasion for the time being, and the British blockaded Cadiz.

In October, Napoleon ordered Villeneuve to run the blockade and sail to Italy to assist a French campaign. On October 19, Villeneuve slipped out of Cadiz with a Franco-Spanish force of 33 ships, but Nelson caught him off Cape Trafalgar on October 21. Nelson divided his 27 ships into two divisions and signaled a famous message from the flagship Victory: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” In five hours of fighting, the British devastated the enemy fleet, destroying 19 enemy ships and capturing Villeneuve. No British ships were lost, but 1,500 British seamen were killed or wounded in the heavy fighting. The battle raged at its fiercest around the Victory, and a French sniper shot Nelson in the shoulder and chest. The admiral was taken below and died about 30 minutes before the end of the battle. Nelson’s last words, after being informed that victory was imminent, were “Now I am satisfied. Thank God I have done my duty.”

Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar ensured that Napoleon would never invade Britain. Nelson, hailed as the savior of his nation, was given a magnificent funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. A column was erected to his memory in the newly named Trafalgar Square, and numerous streets were renamed in his honor. The HMS Victory, where Nelson won his most spectacular victory and drew his last breath, sits preserved in dry-dock at Portsmouth.

[King Shizzo]

Sept 30, 1889

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wyoming-legislators-write-the-first-state-constitution-to-grant-women-the-vote


Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote


On this day in 1889, the Wyoming state convention approves a constitution that includes a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the nation to allow its female citizens to vote.

That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women’s suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more progressive home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women’s suffrage. Yet the people and politicians of the growing number of new Western states proved far more supportive than those in the East.

In 1848, the legislature in Washington Territory became the first to introduce a women’s suffrage bill. Though the Washington bill was narrowly defeated, similar legislation succeeded elsewhere, and Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the vote in 1869, quickly followed by Utah Territory (1870) and Washington Territory (1883). As with Wyoming, when these territories became states they preserved women’s suffrage.

By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women’s suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas. Why the regional distinction? Some historians suggest western men may have been rewarding pioneer women for their critical role in settling the West. Others argue the West had a more egalitarian spirit, or that the scarcity of women in some western regions made men more appreciative of the women who were there while hoping the vote might attract more.

Whatever the reasons, while the Old West is usually thought of as a man’s world, a wild land that was “no place for a woman,” Westerners proved far more willing than other Americans to create states where women were welcomed as full and equal citizens.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 1, 1961

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roger-maris-breaks-home-run-record


Roger Maris breaks home-run record


On October 1, 1961, New York Yankee Roger Maris becomes the first-ever major-league baseball player to hit more than 60 home runs in a single season. The great Babe Ruth set the record in 1927; Maris and his teammate Mickey Mantle spent 1961 trying to break it. After hitting 54 homers, Mantle injured his hip in September, leaving Maris to chase the record by himself. Finally, in the last game of the regular season, Maris hit his 61st home run against the Boston Red Sox. (The league-champion Yanks won the game 1-0.)

Maris hit his famous homer on his second at-bat of the day. On his first, he popped out to left field. When he came to the plate again in the fourth, his team had one out and the bases were empty. Maris let two pitches from Boston rookie Tracy Stallard go–one high and outside, one low and inside–before swinging hard at a waist-high fastball.

“An ear-splitting roar went up,” the New York Times reported, as “the crowd sensed that this was it.” The ball was gone, all right–Sal Durante, a 19-year-old Brooklyn truck driver, caught it about 10 rows back in the right-field stands. Maris trotted around the bases, stopping to shake hands with a young boy who’d managed to wriggle past security and onto the field and stepped on home plate. Then he tipped his cap to the crowd, took four bows and returned to his seat on the bench.

He’d hit 61 homers, but his new record wasn’t official. In July, baseball commissioner Ford Frick had announced that he wouldn’t consider Ruth’s record broken unless the player who broke it had hit more than 60 home runs in fewer than 154 games–the number of games Ruth’s Yankees had played in the 1927 season. (By 1961, teams played 162 regular-season games.) Frick had more than a passing interest in the issue: He’d been a good friend of the Babe’s and thought it was his responsibility to guard his legacy as closely as possible. Moreover, he resented the changes he saw in baseball–bulky sluggers, shorter fences, longer seasons, livelier balls. And Frick, like many fans, didn’t quite know what to make of Maris, a Midwesterner of few words who once told a reporter “I was born surly, and I’m going to stay that way.” The ever-disdainful Rogers Hornsby summed up the feelings of many Ruth partisans and Mantle fans when he told anyone who would listen that the young Yankee “has no right to break Ruth’s record.”

And so, as far as Major League Baseball was concerned, he didn’t. While there was never an official asterisk next to any record of Maris’–in fact, the league didn’t even have its own record book until 1995, and of course Frick had no real say over what anybody else put in their record books–the league simply considered Ruth’s and Maris’ to be two separate accomplishments. In 1991, an MLB committee on historical accuracy voted to remove the distinction and award the record fully to Maris, who had died of cancer six years earlier.

In 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs both broke Maris’ home-run record. Sosa finished the season with 66 and McGwire finished with 70. Barry Bonds now holds the record with 73.

[King Shizzo]

Oct 2, 1780

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/benedict-accomplice-hanged


Benedict accomplice hanged


Thirty-one-year-old British Major John Andre is hanged as a spy by U.S. military forces in Tappan, New York, on this day in 1780.

Andre, an accomplice of Benedict Arnold, had been captured by Patriots John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart on September 23 after they found incriminating papers in his boot. The papers revealed that Andre was returning from a secret meeting with U.S. General Benedict Arnold, commander of West Point, who had offered to surrender the strategic Hudson River fort to the British for a bribe of £20,000. Upon hearing of Andre’s capture, Arnold fled to the British warship Vulture and subsequently joined the British in their fight against the Patriots.

After being sentenced to death by U.S. authorities on September 29, Andre was allowed to write a letter to his commander, General Henry Clinton. Andre also wrote a letter to General George Washington in which he asked, not that his life be spared, but that he be executed by firing squad. Death by firing squad was considered a more “gentlemanly” death than hanging.

Members of the Continental Army respected Andre’s bravery, including Washington, who wanted to find a way to spare Andre’s life. Believing that Andre had committed a lesser crime than Benedict Arnold, Washington wrote a letter to Clinton, stating that he would exchange Andre for Arnold, so that Arnold could be hanged instead.

When he did not receive a reply to his offer by October 2, Washington wrote in his “general order” of the day, “That Major Andre General to the British Army ought to be considered as a spy from the Enemy and that agreeable to the law and usage of nations it is their opinion he ought to suffer death…The Commander in Chief directs the execution of the above sentence in the usual way this afternoon at five o’clock precisely.”

[King Shizzo]

Oct 3, 1995

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/o-j-simpson-acquitted


O.J. Simpson acquitted


At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. In the epic 252-day trial, Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers employed creative and controversial methods to convince jurors that Simpson’s guilt had not been proved “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus surmounting what the prosecution called a “mountain of evidence” implicating him as the murderer.

Orenthal James Simpson–a Heisman Trophy winner, star running back with the Buffalo Bills, and popular television personality–married Nicole Brown in 1985. He reportedly regularly abused his wife and in 1989 pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal battery. In 1992, she left him and filed for divorce. On the night of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed and slashed to death in the front yard of Mrs. Simpson’s condominium in Brentwood, Los Angeles. By June 17, police had gathered enough evidence to charge O.J. Simpson with the murders.

Simpson had no alibi for the time frame of the murders. Some 40 minutes after the murders were committed, a limousine driver sent to take Simpson to the airport saw a man in dark clothing hurrying up the drive of his Rockingham estate. A few minutes later, Simpson spoke to the driver though the gate phone and let him in. During the previous 25 minutes, the driver had repeatedly called the house and received no answer.

A single leather glove found outside Simpson’s home matched a glove found at the crime scene. In preliminary DNA tests, blood found on the glove was shown to have come from Simpson and the two victims. After his arrest, further DNA tests would confirm this finding. Simpson had a wound on his hand, and his blood was a DNA match to drops found at the Brentwood crime scene. Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood was discovered on a pair of socks found at the Rockingham estate. Simpson had recently purchased a “Stiletto” knife of the type the coroner believed was used by the killer. Shoe prints in the blood at Brentwood matched Simpson’s shoe size and later were shown to match a type of shoe he had owned. Neither the knife nor shoes were found by police.

On June 17, a warrant was put out for Simpson’s arrest, but he refused to surrender. Just before 7 p.m., police located him in a white Ford Bronco being driven by his friend, former teammate Al Cowlings. Cowlings refused to pull over and told police over his cellular phone that Simpson was suicidal and had a gun to his head. Police agreed not to stop the vehicle by force, and a low-speed chase ensued. Los Angeles news helicopters learned of the event unfolding on their freeways, and live television coverage began. As millions watched, the Bronco was escorted across Los Angeles by a phalanx of police cars. Just before 8 p.m., the dramatic journey ended when Cowlings pulled into the Rockingham estate. After an hour of tense negotiation, Simpson emerged from the vehicle and surrendered. In the vehicle was found a travel bag containing, among other things, Simpson’s passport, a disguise kit consisting of a fake moustache and beard, and a revolver. Three days later, Simpson appeared before a judge and pleaded not guilty.

Simpson’s subsequent criminal trial was a sensational media event of unprecedented proportions. It was the longest trial ever held in California, and courtroom television cameras captured the carnival-like atmosphere of the proceedings. The prosecution’s mountain of evidence was systemically called into doubt by Simpson’s team of expensive attorneys, who made the dramatic case that their client was framed by unscrupulous and racist police officers. Citing the questionable character of detective Mark Fuhrman and alleged blunders in the police investigation, defense lawyers painted Simpson as yet another African American victim of the white judicial system. The jurors’ reasonable doubt grew when the defense spent weeks attacking the damning DNA evidence, arguing in overly technical terms that delays and other anomalies in the gathering of evidence called the findings into question. Critics of the trial accused Judge Lance Ito of losing control of his courtroom.

In polls, a majority of African Americans believed Simpson to be innocent of the crime, while white America was confident of his guilt. However, the jury–made up of nine African Americans, two whites, and one Hispanic–was not so divided; they took just four hours of deliberation to reach the verdict of not guilty on both murder charges. On October 3, 1995, an estimated 140 million Americans listened in on radio or watched on television as the verdict was delivered.

In February 1997, Simpson was found liable for several charges related to the murders in a civil trial and was forced to award $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the victims’ families. However, with few assets remaining after his long and costly legal battle, he has avoided paying the damages.

In 2007, Simpson ran into legal problems once again when he was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room and taking sports memorabilia, which he claimed had been stolen from him, at gunpoint. On October 3, 2008, he was found guilty of 12 charges related to the incident, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33 years in prison.

[King Shizzo]

October 4, 1970

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/janis-joplin-dies-of-a-heroin-overdose


Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose


In the summer of 1966, Janis Joplin was a drifter; four years later, she was a rock-and-roll legend. She’d gone from complete unknown to generational icon on the strength of a single, blistering performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in the summer of 1967, and she’d followed that up with three years of touring and recording that cemented her status as, in the words of one critic, “second only to Bob Dylan in importance as a creator/recorder/embodiment of her generation’s history and mythology.”

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1943, Janis Joplin made her way to San Francisco in 1966, where she fell in with a local group called Big Brother and the Holding Company. It was with this group that she would become famous, first through her legendary performance of “Ball And Chain” at Monterey and then with the 1968 album Cheap Thrills. She soon split off to launch a solo career, however, her personality and her voice being far too big to be contained within a group.

”I’d rather not sing than sing quiet,” she once said in comparing herself to one of her musical idols. “Billie Holliday was subtle and refined. I’m going to shove that power right into you, right through you and you can’t refuse it.” But if sheer abandon was Janis Joplin’s vocal trademark, she nevertheless always combined it with a musicality and authenticity that lent her music a great deal more soul than much of what the psychedelic era produced.

But it was never just music, or the passion she displayed in performing it, that made Janis Joplin an icon. It was the no-holds-barred gusto with which she lived every other aspect of her life as well. Far from being an empty cliché, “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” was a revolutionary philosophy to many in the late 1960s, and Janis Joplin was its leading female exponent. Her string of romantic conquests ranged from Kris Kristofferson to Dick Cavett. Her drug and alcohol consumption was prolific. And the rock and roll she produced was timeless, from “Piece Of My Heart,” “Get It While You Can” and “Mercedes Benz” to her biggest pop hit, “Me And My Bobby McGee.”

In the autumn of 1970, Janis Joplin was in Los Angeles putting the finishing touches on the album that would prove to be the biggest hit of her career, Pearl. She did not live to see the album’s release, however. On this day in 1970, she died of an accidental heroin overdose and was discovered in her Los Angeles hotel room after failing to show for a scheduled recording session. She was 27 years old.

[King Shizzo]

October 5th, 1813

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tecumseh-defeated


Tecumseh defeated


During the War of 1812, a combined British and Indian force is defeated by General William Harrison’s American army at the Battle of the Thames near Ontario, Canada. The leader of the Indian forces was Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief who organized intertribal resistance to the encroachment of white settlers on Indian lands. He was killed in the fighting.

Tecumseh was born in an Indian village in present-day Ohio and early on witnessed the devastation wrought on tribal lands by white settlers. He fought against U.S. forces in the American Revolution and later raided white settlements, often in conjunction with other tribes. He became a great orator and a leader of intertribal councils. He traveled widely, attempting to organize a united Indian front against the United States. When the War of 1812 erupted, he joined the British, and with a large Indian force he marched on U.S.-held Fort Detroit with British General Isaac Brock. In August 1812, the fort surrendered without a fight when it saw the British and Indian show of force.

Tecumseh then traveled south to rally other tribes to his cause and in 1813 joined British General Henry Procter in his invasion of Ohio. The British-Indian force besieged Fort Meigs, and Tecumseh intercepted and destroyed a Kentucky brigade sent to relieve the fort. After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813, Procter and Tecumseh were forced to retreat to Canada. Pursued by an American force led by the future president William Harrison, the British-Indian force was defeated at the Battle of the Thames River on October 5.

The battle gave control of the western theater to the United States in the War of 1812. Tecumseh’s death marked the end of Indian resistance east of the Mississippi River, and soon after most of the depleted tribes were forced west.

[King Shizzo]

October 6, 1866

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-u-s-train-robbery


First U.S. train robbery


On this day in 1866, the Reno gang carries out the first robbery of a moving train in the U.S., making off with over $10,000 from an Ohio & Mississippi train in Jackson County, Indiana. Prior to this innovation in crime, holdups had taken place only on trains sitting at stations or freight yards.

This new method of sticking up moving trains in remote locations low on law enforcement soon became popular in the American West, where the recently constructed transcontinental and regional railroads made attractive targets. With the western economy booming, trains often carried large stashes of cash and precious minerals. The sparsely populated landscape provided bandits with numerous isolated areas perfect for stopping trains, as well as plenty of places to hide from the law. Some gangs, like Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, found robbing trains so easy and lucrative that, for a time, they made it their criminal specialty. Railroad owners eventually got wise and fought back, protecting their trains’ valuables with large safes, armed guards and even specially fortified boxcars. Consequently, by the late 1800s, robbing trains had turned into an increasingly tough and dangerous job.

As for the Reno gang, which consisted of the four Reno brothers and their associates, their reign came to an end in 1868 when they all were finally captured after committing a series of train robberies and other criminal offenses. In December of that year, a mob stormed the Indiana jail where the bandits were being held and meted out vigilante justice, hanging brothers Frank, Simeon and William Reno (their brother John had been caught earlier and was already serving time in a different prison) and fellow gang member Charlie Anderson.

[King Shizzo]

October 7, 1975

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-new-york-judge-reverses-john-lennons-deportation-order


A New York judge reverses John Lennon’s deportation order


On this day in 1975, a New York State Supreme Court judge reverses a deportation order for John Lennon, allowing him to remain legally in his adoptive home of New York City.

Protests against the Vietnam War had escalated significantly following the announcement of the Cambodia invasion on April 30, 1970, and the shooting deaths of four student protestors at Kent State just four days later. Many such gatherings would feature peaceful demonstrators singing Lennon’s 1969 anthem “Give Peace A Chance,” but others were more threatening. Newly relocated to New York City, John Lennon began to associate publicly with such radical figures as Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale, and the White House reportedly grew concerned, according to the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, over his potentially powerful influence with a generation of 18-to-20-year-olds who would be allowed, for the very first time, to vote in the 1972 presidential election. “I suppose if you were going to list your enemies and decide who is most dangerous,” Walter Cronkite would later say, “if I were Nixon, I would put Lennon up near the top.”

South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond was of the same opinion, and it was a letter he wrote to the White House in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Internal Security Committee that prompted the White House to action. An FBI investigation of Lennon turned up no evidence of involvement in illegal activities, but the matter was referred nonetheless to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which began deportation proceedings against Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, on the basis of a 1968 marijuana conviction in England.

Leon Wildes, the immigration attorney who would handle Lennon’s case over the next four-plus years, would say of his client’s reaction to the case, “He understood that what was being done to him was wrong. It was an abuse of the law, and he was willing to stand up and try to show it—to shine the big light on it.” Lennon’s persistence in fighting the case finally paid off on October 7, 1975, with a court decision that left no question as to the real motives behind the deportation: “The courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds,” wrote Judge Irving Kaufman, who also went on to say, “Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in this American dream.”

Less than one year later, in June 1976, John Lennon got his green card.

[King Shizzo]

October 8, 1956

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/don-larsen-is-perfect-in-world-series


Don Larsen is perfect in World Series


On October 8, 1956, New York Yankees right-hander Don Larsen pitches the first no-hitter in the history of the World Series. Even better, it was a perfect game–that is, there were no runs, no hits and no errors, and no batter reached first base. Larsen’s performance anchored his team’s third-straight win against their cross-town rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Yanks ended up winning the championship, the last all-New York World Series until 2000, in seven games.

Larsen was an uneven pitcher, and before the 1956 championship he was mostly known for being a hard drinker and an enthusiastic carouser. Because of a bad start in the second game of the World Series, he wasn’t even sure he’d pitch another game. In fact, he found out he’d be heading to the mound in Game 5 when he got to the clubhouse on the morning of October 8 and found that manager Casey Stengel had left a ball in his locker, wedged inside his cleat.

But that night, in front of a crowd of 61,519 people at Yankee Stadium, Don Larsen found his muse. He retired 27 batters–among them future Hall of Famers Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider, along with the always-dangerous Gil Hodges–in 97 pitches. There were a few defensive close calls, though. In the second inning, Robinson socked a grounder right toward the third baseman; the ball bounced off his glove but, fortuitously, headed right for shortstop Gil McDougald, who managed to toss it to first just in time. In the fifth, minutes after Mickey Mantle homered to right field and put the Bombers up 1-0, Hodges sent a ball deep into left center–a sure homer in today’s Yankee Stadium–but Mantle bolted across the outfield for an impossible backhanded catch. In the very next play, Sandy Amoros hit a line drive that would have tied the game if it hadn’t swerved foul. And in the eighth, Hodges cracked another one–this one a low line drive that third baseman Andy Carey managed to snag just inches from the ground.

The last batter of the game was Dale Mitchell, the Dodgers’ pinch hitter. He fouled off the 1-2 pitch and then watched the third strike, a fastball, hurtle over the center of the plate. Ump Babe Pinelli called it. The game was over; the Yanks had won.

Larsen stayed in New York for three more years, until, in the deal that brought the Yankees Roger Maris, the team traded him to the Kansas City A’s. He pitched for eight teams in all and finished with a career 81-91 record (4-2 in the World Series) and a 3.78 ERA. After he retired, he worked for 24 years as a salesman for a San Jose paper company. His perfect game is still the only one in World Series history.

[King Shizzo]

October 9, 1974

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oskar-schindler-dies


Oskar Schindler dies


German businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, dies at the age of 66.

A member of the Nazi Party, he ran an enamel-works factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland, employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labor camp, thus saving them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workers and set up a factory in a safer location in occupied Czechoslovakia. By the war’s end, he was penniless, but he had saved 1,200 Jews.

In 1962, he was declared a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official agency for remembering the Holocaust. According to his wishes, he was buried in Israel at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion.

[King Shizzo]

October 10, 1985

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/achille-lauro-hijacking-ends


Achille Lauro hijacking ends


The hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro reaches a dramatic climax when U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept an Egyptian airliner attempting to fly the Palestinian hijackers to freedom and force the jet to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily. American and Italian troops surrounded the plane, and the terrorists were taken into Italian custody.

On October 7, four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Some 320 crewmembers and 80 passengers,were taken hostage. Hundreds of other passengers had disembarked the cruise ship earlier that day to visit Cairo and tour the Egyptian pyramids. Identifying themselves as members of the Palestine Liberation Front–a Palestinian splinter group–the gunmen demanded the release of 50 Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israel. If their demands were not met, they threatened to blow up the ship and kill the 11 Americans on board. The next morning, they also threatened to kill the British passengers.

The Achille Lauro traveled to the Syrian port of Tartus, where the terrorists demanded negotiations on October 8. Syria refused to permit the ship to anchor in its waters, which prompted more threats from the hijackers. That afternoon, they shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish-American who was confined to a wheelchair as the result of a stroke. His body was then pushed overboard in the wheelchair.

Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) condemned the hijacking, and PLO officials joined with Egyptian authorities in attempting to resolve the crisis. On the recommendation of the negotiators, the cruise ship traveled to Port Said. On October 9, the hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities and freed the hostages in exchange for a pledge of safe passage to an undisclosed destination.

The next day–October 10–the four hijackers boarded an EgyptAir Boeing 737 airliner, along with Mohammed Abbas, a member of the Palestine Liberation Front who had participated in the negotiations; a PLO official; and several Egyptians. The 737 took off from Cairo at 4:15 p.m. EST and headed for Tunisia. President Ronald Reagan gave his final order approving the plan to intercept the aircraft, and at 5:30 p.m. EST, F-14 Tomcat fighters located the airliner 80 miles south of Crete. Without announcing themselves, the F-14s trailed the airliner as it sought and was denied permission to land at Tunis. After a request to land at the Athens airport was likewise refused, the F-14s turned on their lights and flew wing-to-wing with the airliner. The aircraft was ordered to land at a NATO air base in Sicily, and the pilot complied, touching down at 6:45 p.m. The hijackers were arrested soon after. Abbas and the other Palestinian were released, prompting criticism from the United States, which wanted to investigate their possible involvement in the hijacking.

On July 10, 1986, an Italian court later convicted three of the terrorists and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 15 to 30 years. Three others, including Mohammed Abbas, were convicted in absentia for masterminding the hijacking and sentenced to life in prison. They received harsher penalties because, unlike the hijackers, who the court found were acting for “patriotic motives,” Abbas and the others conceived the hijacking as a “selfish political act” designed “to weaken the leadership of Yasir Arafat.” The fourth hijacker was a minor who was tried and convicted separately.

[Gregzs]

[King Shizzo]

October 11, 1975

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bill-clinton-marries-hillary-rodham


Bill Clinton marries Hillary Rodham


On this day in 1975, William Jefferson Clinton marries Hillary Rodham in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Bill and Hillary met in 1972 while both were studying law at Yale University; both also worked on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign. After marrying, they settled in Arkansas, where Clinton immersed himself in politics and practiced law until he decided to run for governor of the state in 1978. He won and became the youngest man ever to hold the position of governor in any state. In 1992, he ran for the presidency against Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush. He won, becoming, at age 46, the youngest president since John F. Kennedy, who took office at age 43.

Clinton’s two terms (1991 to 2000) were marred by one political scandal after another and in 1998 he became the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The impeachment trial was the culmination of a slew of scandals involving the president and first lady, which included investigations into allegedly improper Arkansas real-estate deals, suspected fundraising violations, claims of sexual harassment and accusations of cronyism. All this was capped off by Clinton’s affair with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. The president’s attempt to cover up the affair, to which he later admitted, enabled House Republican leaders to begin the impeachment process for perjury and obstruction of justice. A divided House of Representatives impeached Clinton on December 19, 1998; the issue then passed to the Senate. After a five-week trial, Clinton was acquitted.

Hillary, both during Clinton’s first presidential campaign and during her time in the White House, earned the ire of conservatives for her outspokenness and her involvement in public policy. Refusing to, in her words, “stay home and bake cookies,” Hillary devoted much of her time to lobbying for universal healthcare. When Clinton’s affair surfaced, many expected Hillary to leave him; she did not and instead spoke out against what she called a “right wing conspiracy” to unseat her husband. As Clinton’s tenure in the White House came to an end, Hillary set her sights on her own political career.

In 2001, the couple moved to Chappaqua, New York, a suburb of New York City. While Bill Clinton embarked on a new career of consulting for humanitarian and public policy groups, Hillary ran for and won a seat in the United States Senate. In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election she made a bid for the Democratic nomination but was defeated by Barack Obama. In 2009, President Obama appointed her secretary of state.

[King Shizzo]

October 12, 1492

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/columbus-reaches-the-new-world


Columbus reaches the New World


After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sights a Bahamian island, believing he has reached East Asia. His expedition went ashore the same day and claimed the land for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, who sponsored his attempt to find a western ocean route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.

Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a maritime entrepreneur. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the gold and spice islands of Asia. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. Contrary to popular legend, educated Europeans of Columbus’ day did believe that the world was round, as argued by St. Isidore in the seventh century. However, Columbus, and most others, underestimated the world’s size, calculating that East Asia must lie approximately where North America sits on the globe (they did not yet know that the Pacific Ocean existed).

With only the Atlantic Ocean, he thought, lying between Europe and the riches of the East Indies, Columbus met with King John II of Portugal and tried to persuade him to back his “Enterprise of the Indies,” as he called his plan. He was rebuffed and went to Spain, where he was also rejected at least twice by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. However, after the Spanish conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada in January 1492, the Spanish monarchs, flush with victory, agreed to support his voyage.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. On October 12, the expedition reached land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas. 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 mainlands, but he 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.

[King Shizzo]

October 13, 1792

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/white-house-cornerstone-laid


White House cornerstone laid


The cornerstone is laid for a presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of Washington. In 1800, President John Adams became the first president to reside in the executive mansion, which soon became known as the “White House” because its white-gray Virginia freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings.

The city of Washington was created to replace Philadelphia as the nation’s capital because of its geographical position in the center of the existing new republic. The states of Maryland and Virginia ceded land around the Potomac River to form the District of Columbia, and work began on Washington in 1791. French architect Charles L’Enfant designed the area’s radical layout, full of dozens of circles, crisscross avenues, and plentiful parks. In 1792, work began on the neoclassical White House building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue under the guidance of Irish American architect James Hoban, whose design was influenced by Leinster House in Dublin and by a building sketch in James Gibbs’ Book of Architecture. President George Washington chose the site.

On November 1, President John Adams was welcomed into the executive mansion. His wife, Abigail, wrote about their new home: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but wise men ever rule under this roof!”

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the White House was set on fire along with the U.S. Capitol by British soldiers in retaliation for the burning of government buildings in Canada by U.S. troops. The burned-out building was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged under the direction of James Hoban, who added east and west terraces to the main building, along with a semicircular south portico and a colonnaded north portico. The smoke-stained stone walls were painted white. Work was completed on the White House in the 1820s.

Major restoration occurred during the administration of President Harry Truman, and Truman lived across the street for several years in Blair House. Since 1995, Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Lafayette Square has been closed to vehicular traffic for security reasons. Today, more than a million tourists visit the White House annually. It is the oldest federal building in the nation’s capital.

[King Shizzo]

October 14, 2003

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/steve-bartman-catches-ball


Steve Bartman catches ball


On October 14, 2003, a Chicago Cubs fan named Steve Bartman plucks a fly ball out of the air before outfielder Moises Alou can catch it—a catch that would have been a crucial out—in the sixth game of the league championship series against the Florida Marlins. As a result of Bartman’s interference, the Cubs lost their momentum and the game. Bartman was escorted from Wrigley Field by security guards as bloodthirsty fans hurled beer cans and other debris at his head. The next day, he went into hiding—but not before he told the press that “I’ve been a Cub fan all my life and fully understand the relationship between my actions and the outcome of the gam—I am so truly sorry from the bottom of this Cubs fan’s broken heart.”

It was the eighth inning of the sixth game of the NLCS, and the Cubs were just five outs away from their first World Series since 1945–five outs away from proving once and for all that the famous Curse of the Billy Goat was dead. (Legend has it that a local bar owner and Cubs fan brought his pet goat to the fourth game of the 1945 World Series against the Tigers, but got thrown out in the middle of the game because, his seatmates said, the pair smelled like a barnyard. The goat’s insulted owner then declared that the team would never win another pennant. When Chicago lost to the Tigers a few days later, he sent a telegram to Wrigley that said simply: “Who stinks now?”)

Pitcher Mark Prior had a 3-0 lead, and he was on a roll. Cubs fans were sure their team was finally going all the way. Even when Florida’s Juan Pierre hit a double, things still looked good for the Cubs. Then, all of a sudden, they didn’t: Switch-hitter Luis Castillo stepped to the plate, worked a full count and cranked the ball hard toward the left-field fence. Moises Alou raced backward, jumped up and reached for the ball. He would have had it, too, but just then Bartman reached out and grabbed it just before it landed in Alou’s glove. The ump called the ball foul; Castillo went back to the plate; and an agitated Prior walked him in nine pitches. In the meantime, Pierre had moved to third on a wild pitch. Florida had men on the corners, the tying run at the plate and just one out.

All hell broke loose. A single to left scored Pierre. Then Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez missed a routine grounder and the bases were loaded. After that, team manager Dusty Baker said, “we couldn’t stop the bleeding. They just started hitting the ball all over everywhere.” By the end of the inning, the Marlins had scored eight runs and forced a seventh game.

Making matters worse for Bartman, Florida won the next game—and the NLCS—9-6. The Sun-Times printed his name and his picture under the headline “Cursed.” A Chicago alderman pointedly suggested that Bartman might consider moving to Alaska; Florida governor Jeb Bush gleefully recommended that he consider moving south instead. It seemed clear, as one Marlins fan noted dryly, that “this guy is their new goat.” Chicago has begun to forgive him, but it’s unlikely to ever forget. Meanwhile, the Cubs still haven’t won a pennant.

[King Shizzo]

October 15, 1989

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wayne-gretzky-breaks-nhl-points-record


Wayne Gretzky breaks NHL points record


On October 15, 1989, 28-year-old Los Angeles King Wayne Gretzky breaks Gordie Howe’s points record (1,850) in the final period of a game against the Edmonton Oilers. Gretzky’s record-setting goal tied the game; in overtime he scored another, and the Kings won 5-4.

Gretzky had entered the game with 1,849 points. About five minutes into the first period, he tied Howe’s record by earning an assist on the game’s first goal. After that, he didn’t do much, and “almost didn’t play the third period,” Gretzky told reporters after the game, because “I got my bell rung a few times.” But when he came off the bench with three minutes to go in the game, his team down 3-4, he meant business. With 61 seconds left on the clock, defender Steve Duchesne shot the puck toward the corner of the goal. It bounced off winger Dave Taylor’s knee and slid across the front of the goal. Gretzky, who had set up behind the net (a part of the ice that many fans called “Gretzky’s office”), skated around and backhanded the puck past Oilers goaltender Bill Ranford and under the crossbar. The game was tied; the record was broken.

Gretzky had played in Edmonton for nine seasons and helped the team win four Stanley Cups, so the city’s Northland Coliseum was packed with fans. When he scored his goal, the sellout crowd erupted into a thunderous ovation that lasted for more than two minutes. The league stopped the game for a ceremony at center ice. Gordie Howe made a speech, and there were gifts: a 1.851-carat diamond bracelet (with diamonds spelling out “1,851” across its face) from his old teammates, a crystal hologram engraved with his picture from the Kings and a carved silver tea tray from the league. Then Gretzky himself took the microphone. He thanked the Edmonton fans, his parents and his wife, and he added: “Gordie is still the greatest, in my mind, and the greatest in everyone’s mind.”

Howe, who was 61, returned the younger player’s affection. “If it was, pardon the expression, some clown” who’d broken his record, he said, “it would have bothered me. But not Wayne.” By the time Gretzky retired at the end of the 1998-99 season, he held or shared 61 NHL records. In all, he scored 894 goals and tallied 1,963 assists for 2,857 points in 1,487 games. He’d broken Howe’s record for goals scored (801) in March 1994, in his 1,117th game. “You’ve always been the Great One,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told him that night, “but tonight you’ve become the greatest.”

[King Shizzo]

October 16, 1851

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/psychopathic-gunfighter-wild-bill-longley-is-born-in-texas


Psychopathic gunfighter “Wild Bill” Longley is born in Texas


The sadistic and murderous western gunman William Preston Longley is born on this day in 1815 in Austin County, Texas.

Little is reliably known of the youth of William Longley, or “Wild Bill” as he was later aptly called. But it is certain that before he was even 20 years old, Longley had already killed several men, and the evidence suggests he was probably what modern-day psychologists would term a psychopath. Notoriously short-tempered, Longley frequently killed for the most trivial of reasons. More than a few men died simply because he believed they had somehow slighted or insulted him, like an unarmed man named Thomas, who Longley murdered in cold blood for daring to argue with him over a card game. He had a particularly strong dislike of blacks, and African-Americans in Texas avoided him whenever possible.

Wherever Longley traveled he left behind a trail of pointless murders, but most of the details of his life are shrouded in myth and supposition. Legend has it that Longley was once hanged along with a horse thief; but shots fired back by the departing posse cut his rope, and he was saved. Reports that he was imprisoned for at least a time and once lived with the Ute Indians are more believable, though not confirmed.

After fleeing to Louisiana to escape punishment for killing a minister named Roland Lay, Longley was captured and returned to Lee County, Texas, where he was tried and found guilty of murder. Sentenced to hang, during his final days Longley became a Catholic, wrote long letters about his life, and claimed that he had actually only killed eight men. On the day of his execution, October 28, 1878, he climbed the steps to the gallows with a cigar in his mouth and told the gathered crowd that his punishment was just and God had forgiven him. After kissing the sheriff and priest and bidding farewell to the crowd, the noose was fitted around his neck, and he was hanged. Unfortunately, the rope slipped so that Longley’s knees hit the ground, denying him a quick and painless death. After the hangman pulled the rope taut once more, the famous killer slowly choked to death. It took 11 minutes before he was finally pronounced dead.

[King Shizzo]

October 17, 1835

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-resolution-formally-creating-the-texas-rangers-is-approved


The first resolution formally creating the Texas Rangers is approved


On this day in 1835, Texans approve a resolution to create the Texas Rangers, a corps of armed and mounted lawmen designed to “range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and Trinity Rivers.”

In the midst of their revolt against Mexico, Texan leaders felt they needed a semi-official force of armed men who would defend the isolated frontier settlers of the Lone Star Republic against both Santa Ana’s soldiers and hostile Indians; the Texas Rangers filled this role. But after winning their revolutionary war with Mexico the following year, Texans decided to keep the Rangers, both to defend against Indian and Mexican raiders and to serve as the principal law enforcement authority along the sparsely populated Texan frontier.

Although created and sanctioned by the Texas government, the Rangers was an irregular body made up of civilians who furnished their own horses and weapons. Given the vast expanse of territory they patrolled and the difficulty of communicating with the central government, the government gave the men of the Rangers considerable independence to act as they saw fit. Sometimes the Rangers served as a military force, taking on the role of fighting the Indians that in the U.S. was largely the responsibility of the Army. At other times the Rangers mainly served as the principal law enforcement power in many frontier regions of Texas, earning lasting fame for their ability to track down and eliminate outlaws, cattle thieves, train robbers, and murderers, including such notorious bandits as John Wesley Hardin and King Fisher.

Even as late as the first two decades of the 20th century, the state of Texas continued to rely on the Rangers to enforce order in the wilder regions of the state, like the oil boomtowns along the Rio Grande. Increasingly, though, some Texans began to criticize the Rangers, arguing that they used excessive violence and often failed to observe the finer points of the law when apprehending suspects. As a result, in the 1930s, the state won control over the Rangers, transforming it into a modern and professional law enforcement organization.

[King Shizzo]

October 18, 1767

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mason-and-dixon-draw-a-line


Mason and Dixon draw a line


On this day in 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as areas that would eventually become the states of Delaware and West Virginia. The Penn and Calvert families had hired Mason and Dixon, English surveyors, to settle their dispute over the boundary between their two proprietary colonies, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

In 1760, tired of border violence between the colonies’ settlers, the British crown demanded that the parties involved hold to an agreement reached in 1732. As part of Maryland and Pennsylvania’s adherence to this royal command, Mason and Dixon were asked to determine the exact whereabouts of the boundary between the two colonies. Though both colonies claimed the area between the 39th and 40th parallel, what is now referred to as the Mason-Dixon line finally settled the boundary at a northern latitude of 39 degrees and 43 minutes. The line was marked using stones, with Pennsylvania’s crest on one side and Maryland’s on the other.

When Mason and Dixon began their endeavor in 1763, colonists were protesting the Proclamation of 1763, which was intended to prevent colonists from settling beyond the Appalachians and angering Native Americans. As the Britons concluded their survey in 1767, the colonies were engaged in a dispute with the Parliament over the Townshend Acts, which were designed to raise revenue for the empire by taxing common imports including tea.

Twenty years later, in late 1700s, the states south of the Mason-Dixon line would begin arguing for the perpetuation of slavery in the new United States while those north of line hoped to phase out the ownership of human chattel. This period, which historians consider the era of “The New Republic,” drew to a close with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which accepted the states south of the line as slave-holding and those north of the line as free. The compromise, along with those that followed it, eventually failed.

One hundred years after Mason and Dixon began their effort to chart the boundary, soldiers from opposite sides of the line let their blood stain the fields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the Southern states’ final and fatal attempt to breach the Mason-Dixon line during the Civil War. One hundred and one years after the Britons completed their line, the United States finally admitted men of any complexion born within the nation to the rights of citizenship with the ratification of the 14th Amendment.

[King Shizzo]

October 19, 1985

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-blockbuster-store-opens


First Blockbuster store opens


On this day in 1985, the first Blockbuster video-rental store opens, in Dallas, Texas. At a time when most video stores were small-scale operations featuring a limited selection of titles, Blockbuster opened with some 8,000 tapes displayed on shelves around the store and a computerized check-out process. The first store was a success and Blockbuster expanded rapidly, eventually becoming one of the world’s largest providers of in-home movies and game entertainment.

Blockbuster was founded by David Cook, who had previously owned a business that provided computer software services to the oil and gas industry in Texas. Cook saw the potential in the video-rental business and after opening the first Blockbuster in 1985, he added three more stores the following year. In 1987, he sold part of the business to a group of investors that included Wayne Huizenga, founder of Waste Management, Inc., the world’s biggest garbage disposal company. Later that year, Cook left Blockbuster and Huizenga assumed control of the company and moved its headquarters to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Under Huizenga’s leadership, Blockbuster embarked on an aggressive expansion plan, snapping up existing video store chains and opening scores of new stores. By 1988, Blockbuster was America’s leading video chain, with some 400 stores. By the early 1990s, Blockbuster had launched its 1,000th store and expanded into the overseas market.

In 1994, Blockbuster was acquired by the media giant Viacom Inc., whose brands include MTV and Nickelodeon. In the mid-1990s, the digital video disc (DVD) made its debut and in 1997, Netflix, an online DVD rental service, was founded. Around that same time, the e-commerce giant Amazon.com launched a video and DVD store. Blockbuster faced additional competition from the rise of pay-per-view and on-demand movie services, through which viewers could pay for and watch movies instantly in their own homes. In 2004, Blockbuster split off from Viacom. That same year, Blockbuster launched an online DVD rental service to compete with Netflix. As of 2008, Blockbuster had some 8,000 stores around the world and was well known for its advertising campaigns, which included the long-running slogan “Make it a Blockbuster Night.” In 2006, the company, headquartered once again in Dallas, had global revenues of more than $5.5 billion.

[King Shizzo]

October 20, 1990

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/2-live-crew-members-are-acquitted-of-obscenity-charges


2 Live Crew members are acquitted of obscenity charges


Three members of the rap group 2 Live Crew are acquitted of obscenity charges in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Luther Campbell, Chris “Fresh Kid Ice” Wong Won, and Mark “Brother Marquis” Ross had faced a year in prison for performing their songs, which were considered to be sexually prurient and obscene, at a club in Hollywood, Florida. Their June 10 concert appearance and subsequent arrest capped a remarkable week in which a federal judge ruled that their latest album was obscene, and a local record store owner was arrested for selling it to an undercover police officer.

Police officers who were in the audience when 2 Live Crew performed at Club Futura on June 10 had brought along a recorder, but they did a poor job of preparing the case for prosecutors. During the two-week trial in October, the tape recording was found to be practically inaudible, and the lyrics were indecipherable. When a deputy futilely tried to interpret the tape, the jurors only laughed and shook their heads.

Attacking the assumption that their songs were obscene, 2 Live Crew’s attorneys introduced testimony from a noted music expert and an English professor to claim that the sexually charged songs were actually parodies of black stereotypes and were intended to make people laugh. “Of all the things in this world, sex is the one that all of us do,” said defense attorney Bruce Rogow during closing arguments. “But if you don’t say it quite the right way, you can get in big trouble with the state.”

The jury’s decision to acquit came as a slight surprise since record store owner Charles Freeman had been convicted earlier in the month for selling copies of 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty as They Wanna Be. It wasn’t until May 1992 that an appellate court overruled the original finding that the album was obscene. Luther Campbell claimed that he had spent more than $1 million in legal fees fighting the First Amendment battle.

The publicity from the trial prompted a national debate on what type of music was appropriate for children, and the U.S. Senate even held a hearing on music lyrics. Major record companies responded by voluntarily agreeing to place stickers on albums containing explicit lyrics.

[King Shizzo]

October 21, 2014

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/olympian-oscar-pistorius-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-girlfriendaes-death


Olympian Oscar Pistorius gets 5 years in prison for girlfriend’s death


On this day in 2014, South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius, the first double amputee runner to compete at the Olympics, is sentenced to five years behind bars after being found guilty of culpable homicide, the equivalent of manslaughter, in the February 2013 death of his girlfriend, 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp. The world-famous track star admitted to fatally shooting Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, but claimed he mistook her for an intruder.

Born in 1986 without fibulas, Pistorius had his legs amputated below the knees before his first birthday. Growing up, he used prostheses and started running track as a teen. A sprinter, he won gold and silver medals at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Greece then began competing in meets against able-bodied athletes. In 2008, track and field’s governing organization banned him from able-bodied competitions because it believed the J-shaped carbon fiber blades he wore to race—and which earned him the nickname Blade Runner—provided an unfair advantage. However, Pistorius appealed the ruling and it was struck down later that year. He went on to compete for his homeland at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and, though he failed to collect any medals, his history-making appearance inspired people around the globe and he racked up lucrative endorsement deals.

In a stunning turn of events less than a year later, Pistorius was arrested on February 14, 2013, for killing Steenkamp, his girlfriend of about three months. The athlete said that in the early hours of Valentine’s Day he’d accidentally shot Steenkamp after mistaking her for an intruder; he claimed he thought she still was in bed when he got a gun and fired four shots through a bathroom door, only to discover that Steenkamp, not an intruder, was inside. Pistorius subsequently was charged with premeditated murder, to which he pleaded not guilty.

During his trial, which began in March 2014 and generated international media coverage, prosecutors portrayed the track star as jealous and hotheaded and contended he’d fought with Steenkamp, a fellow South African, before shooting and killing her. Some neighbors in Pistorius’ gated community testified they’d heard a woman screaming around the same time they heard gunfire coming from his home, and text messages between Steen¬kamp and Pistorius were read in court in which she expressed unhappiness with his behavior and said she was sometimes scared of him. The defense later demonstrated these messages represented only a tiny fraction of the total number of texts exchanged by the couple. Additionally, attorneys for Pistorius, who wept and vomited throughout portions of his trial, argued the former Olympian felt highly anxious and vulnerable at the time of the shooting because he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic legs and wouldn’t be able to run from an intruder. The defense also held that the screams heard by neighbors on the night of the shooting came from Pistorius, rather than Steenkamp, after realizing he’d accidentally shot her and was calling for help in a distraught, high-pitched voice.

On September 12, 2014, Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa found the 27-year-old Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide, after acquitting him the previous day of the more serious charge of murder. The following month, on October 21, the former Olympian received a five-year prison sentence, which he began serving immediately. He also was given a suspended three-year sentence for a separate firearms charge.

[King Shizzo]

October 22, 1934

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pretty-boy-floyd-is-killed-by-the-fbi


Pretty Boy Floyd is killed by the FBI


Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is shot by FBI agents in a cornfield in East Liverpool, Ohio. Floyd, who had been a hotly pursued fugitive for four years, used his last breath to deny his involvement in the infamous Kansas City Massacre, in which four officers were shot to death at a train station. He died shortly thereafter.

Charles Floyd grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. When it became impossible to operate a small farm in the drought conditions of the late 1920s, Floyd tried his hand at bank robbery. He soon found himself in a Missouri prison for robbing a St. Louis payroll delivery. After being paroled in 1929, he learned that Jim Mills had shot his father to death. Since Mills, who had been acquitted of the charges, was never heard from or seen again, Floyd was believed to have killed him.

Moving on to Kansas City, Floyd got mixed up with the city’s burgeoning criminal community. A local prostitute gave Floyd the nickname “Pretty Boy,” which he hated. Along with a couple of friends he had met in prison, he robbed several banks in Missouri and Ohio, but was eventually caught in Ohio and sentenced to 12-15 years. On the way to prison, Floyd kicked out a window and jumped from the speeding train. He made it to Toledo, where he hooked up with Bill “The Killer” Miller.

The two went on a crime spree across several states until Miller was killed in a spectacular firefight in Bowling Green, Ohio, in 1931. Once he was back in Kansas City, Floyd killed a federal agent during a raid and became a nationally known criminal figure. This time he escaped to the backwoods of Oklahoma. The locals there, reeling from the Depression, were not about to turn in an Oklahoma native for robbing banks. Floyd became a Robin Hood-type figure, staying one step ahead of the law. Even the Joads, characters in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, spoke well of Floyd.

However, not everyone was so enamored with “Pretty Boy.” Oklahoma’s governor put out a $6,000 bounty on his head. On June 17, 1933, when law enforcement officials were ambushed by a machine-gun attack in a Kansas City train station while transporting criminal Frank Nash to prison, Floyd’s notoriety grew even more. Although it was not clear whether or not Floyd was responsible, both the FBI and the nation’s press pegged the crime on him nevertheless. Subsequently, pressure was stepped up to capture the illustrious fugitive, and the FBI finally got their man in October 1934.