Today marks 80 years since Al Capone was found guilty of tax evasion.
Alphonse Capone, born in 1899, rose from petty crime on the streets of Brooklyn to become a multimillionaire, undisputed boss of large swathes of Prohibition Chicago, and arguably the most infamous criminal kingpin of all time. Even now, in the post-gangster-rap era, the word “gangster” immediately brings to mind the smirking, fedora-clad Capone.
Distress of the maillot jaune
Victor Fontan wore the yellow jersey at the beginning for a stage of 323 km that started before sunrise. He rode seven kilometres and then disaster befell him. Some accounts say he rode into a gutter, others that he was knocked off by a dog. The fall broke his front forks and the rest of the race rode by. Fontan was entitled to ride a replacement bike but only if he could show the irreparable damage to judges.
The judges had passed and Fontan had no second bike. He reached a village and walked from house to house, knocking on doors before dawn to ask for one. When a villager obliged, Fontan set off through the Pyrenees with his broken bicycle on his back. Eventually it became too much and he gave up at 6am. He sat by a village fountain at Saint-Gaudens and sobbed. It was the first Tour to be covered by radio and he was found there by Jean Antoine and Alex Virot of L'Intransigeant, who were broadcasting for Radio Cité. The recording of Fontan's sobbing was broadcast a little less than two hours after it had happened and led Louis Delblat of Les Echos des Sports to write:
How can a man lose the Tour de France because of an accident to his bike? I can't understand it. The rule should be changed so that a rider with no chance of winning can give his bike to his leader, or there should be a a car with several spare bicycles. You lose the Tour de France when you find someone better than you are. You don't lose it through a stupid accident to your machine. Next year Desgrange modified the rules.
Fifty years ago, on July 2, 1961, the writer who seemed to personify courage and strength put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Ernest Hemingway was 61 years old. He was a boxer, a boozer, a philanderer and big-game hunter who wrote some of the most sublime prose of the English language: short, sharp, piercing sentences that told stories about soldiers, lovers, hunters, bravery, fear and death.
Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. In a few moments this slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River.
The avalanche rapidly released pressurized gases within the volcano. A tremendous lateral explosion ripped through the avalanche and developed into a turbulent, stone-filled wind that swept over ridges and toppled trees. Nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing.
At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. Wet, cement-like slurries of rock and mud scoured all sides of the volcano. Searing flows of pumice poured from the crater. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
A vast, gray landscape lay where once the forested slopes of Mount St. Helens grew. In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.
From Black Star. Blacks seated in back of bus under Mississippi segregation law. 1954.
WHY MARCH 25th? The date of March 25th was chosen to highlight this special day because it was on March 25 (1863) that the first Medals of Honor were presented...to six members of Andrews' Raiders.
Harry Houdini was born as Erik Weisz (he later spelled his birth name as Ehrich Weiss) in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24, 1874. From 1907 on, however, Houdini would claim in interviews to have been born in Appleton, Wisconsin, on April 6, 1874.
His parents were Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weiss (1829–1892) and his wife, Cecelia (née Steiner; 1841–1913). Houdini was one of seven children: Herman M. (1863–1885); Nathan J. (1870–1927); Gottfried William (1872–1925); Theodore "Theo" (1876–1945); Leopold D. (1879–1962); and Gladys Carrie (born 1882–unknown year of death).
Weiss came to the United States on July 3, 1878, sailing on the SS Fresia with his mother (who was pregnant) and his four brothers. The family changed the Hungarian spelling of their German surname into Weiss (the German spelling) and the spelling of their son's name into Ehrich. Friends called him "Ehrie" or "Harry".
They first lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father served as Rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. According to the 1880 census, the family lived on Appleton Street.[4] On June 6, 1882, Rabbi Weiss became an American citizen. Losing his tenure at Zion in 1887, Rabbi Weiss moved with Ehrich to New York City. They lived in a boarding house on East 79th Street. They were joined by the rest of the family once Rabbi Weiss found permanent housing. As a child, Ehrich Weiss took several jobs, making his public début as a 9-year-old trapeze artist, calling himself "Ehrich, the Prince of the Air". He was also a champion cross country runner in his youth. Weiss became a professional magician and began calling himself "Harry Houdini" because he was heavily influenced by the French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, and his friend Jack Hayman told him, erroneously, that in French, adding an "i" to Houdin would mean "like Houdin" the great magician. In later life, Houdini would claim that the first part of his new name, Harry, was a homage to Harry Kellar, whom Houdini admired.
In 1918, he registered for selective service as Harry Handcuff Houdini. (via: Wikipedia)
FAMOUS LANDMARK IN SAN FRANCISCO BURNED DOWN.
WAS A FAVORITE SHRINE OF PILGRIMAGE TO THE GOLDEN GATE CITY -- LOSS IS $50,000.
San Francisco, Cal., Sept. 9. -- The Cliff house, San Francisco's first attraction for tourists, was burned to the ground. The fire started about 5 o'clock and an hour later a blackened heap of ruins was all that remained of the famous structure.
The house was built of wood, and, fanned by a lively ocean breeze, the flames made such headway before the nearest fire company arrived that it was realized that the place was doomed, and more attention was paid to saving adjoining property than to the burning building. The Cliff house had been closed for some time, as the new lessee, JOHN TAIT, was remodeling the interior. Workmen were about the place until noon and then departed for the day. How the fire started is a mystery.
This was the second Cliff House to be destroyed by fire. The building which was destroyed by fire was built about 20 years ago by ADOLPH SUTRO of Sutro tunnel fame. It was owned by the SURRO estate and was valued at $50,000.
The Cliff House was ranked as one of the best known resorts of America. Located on a rocky promontory outside the city, directly above the surf of the Pacific and overlooking the famous Seal rocks, it was a strong attraction for visitors, and from its broad porches hundreds of thousands of people obtained their first view of the Pacific.Stevens Point Daily Journal Wisconsin 1907-09-09
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Several planes from the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which was approaching Hawaii after a mission to Wake Island, arrived in the midst of the attack. A few were shot down by the Japanese and more by understandably jittery American anti-aircraft gunners. However, several of these planes, and others from Ford Island's own complement, were airborne again within a few hours, sent out to search for the enemy. Some, at the end of a very long day, were shot down by their fellow-countrymen as they returned from these unfruitful searches.
In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.
Perhaps the oldest continuing Flag Day parade is at Fairfield WA. Beginning in 1909 or 1910, Fairfield has held a parade every year since, with the possible exception of 1918, and will celebrate the "Centennial" parade in 2010, along with some other commemorative events.
The sheer enormity of the circuit took many by surprise. "Bare figures convey no sense of its stupendous size, and words must fail to describe the impression that the finished track creates at first view in its nakedness, one finds no measure of its size", wrote a journalist for "The Motor".
And so it was that motorsport was born in Britain. For 32 glorious years (give or take a stoppage for World War I) Brooklands existed as Britain's finest motor racing circuit and testing venue. As an oval track, the enormous straights and long, high banked corners enabled cars to run flat out, something that was unachievable anywhere else in Europe at the time. Brooklands became the home of Sir Malcolm Campbell's workshops and it was there that he tested his Bluebird Land Speed Record cars (via grandprix.com)
