The History of the Depot Restaurant in Cold Spring, NY

George Washington drank from the village's namesake spring.


Cornelius Vanderbilt's Railroad

Born to poor parents in Long Island, New York, in 1794, Cornelius Vanderbilt built a transportation empire that made him one of America's railroad barons and left him the country's wealthiest man at the time of his death. It is estimated that he died with a fortune that would equate to $26 billion dollars today. Vanderbilt began with a small ferry service, which he turned into a successful steamship business by the mid 1800s. In 1860, he turned his attention to railroad travel and purchased the Long Island, New York, Harlem and Hudson River Railroads in quick succession. The Hudson River line added the Cold Spring depot in 1893, serving both passengers and freight companies, and remained a train depot until 1954.
The Restaurant

After spending 18 years as a car dealership, the Cold Spring Depot Restaurant opened in 1972 and has been a restaurant ever since. The interior features a cozy setting with a roaring fireplace and bookcases lining the walls. The menu offers standard American fare with an emphasis on steaks and burgers. The restaurant also serves a wine list that offers domestic and imported wines, and serves a selection of frozen drinks and beers on tap. The restaurant contains a plaque commemorating George Washington's trip to the cold spring.
The Ghost

According to legend, on Wednesday nights, the main dining room has one extra guest, who did not make a reservation. In 1898, a local woman learned that her husband planned to kill her. The unfortunate lady rushed to the train depot to catch the 10:15 train to Poughkeepsie, but was apprehended by her husband, who stabbed her on a bench in the waiting room two minutes before the train's arrival. Today, the former waiting room serves as the restaurant's main dining room and locals claim that at 10:13 on Wednesday nights, a cold draft wafts through the section of the room where she was killed.
History of Cold Spring

Founded in 1730 by Thomas Davenport, Cold Spring originally served as a trading post on the Hudson River. In 1818, the West Point Foundry opened and began producing weaponry for the United States Army. In 1846, the village was officially incorporated and the Civil War years brought great growth to the area as the West Point Foundry produced munitions for the Union Army. After the war, the area became a favorite retreat of some of America's wealthiest families, who built elaborate mansions in the region, including the estates of the Butterfield and Morris families on Morris Avenue. The foundry closed in 1911, but by 1973, the village was declared a Federal Historic District and tourism has been the main industry ever since.
 

This Day in History

 Nov 28, 1994:
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered in prison



Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of 15 men, is beaten to death by a fellow inmate while performing cleaning duty in a bathroom at the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin.

During a 13-year period, Dahmer, who lived primarily in the Midwest, murdered at least 17 men. Most of these men were young, gay African Americans who Dahmer lured back to his home, promising to pay them money to pose nude for photographs. Dahmer would then drug and strangle them to death, generally mutilating, and occasionally cannibalizing, their bodies. Dahmer was finally arrested on July 22, 1991, and entered a plea of guilty but insane in 15 of the 17 murders he confessed to committing. In February 1992, the jury found him sane in each murder, and he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences.

Two years later, Dahmer was killed at the age of 34 by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who also fatally beat the third man on their work detail, inmate Jesse Anderson. Scarver's motive in killing the two men is not entirely clear; however, in his subsequent criminal trial he maintained that God told him to kill Dahmer and the other inmate. Scarver, already serving a life term for murder, was sentenced to additional life terms and transferred to a federal prison.

This Day in History

 Nov 27, 1965:
Gordie Howe scores his 600th goal

On November 27, 1965, Detroit Red Wing Gordie Howe scores his 600th goal in a game against the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first (and the last, until Wayne Gretzky) NHL player to score 600 times in his career. He’d broken the previous record--544 goals, set by the legendary Canadien Maurice "Rocket" Richard--in November 1963. That game’s referee told reporters that "Gordie Howe can do more things better than anyone else. That’s just all there is to it."

November 27 was a lucky day for Howe: On that day in 1960, in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, he’d become the first NHL player to earn 1,000 points. (He’d broken Richard’s 946-point record earlier that year.) Exactly five years later, he scored his 600th goal: a gentle flip shot past Canadiens keeper Gump Worsley at the Montreal Forum. Even with Howe’s goal, the home team had the game well in hand--they eventually won 3-2--so the fans could afford to be generous about Howe’s accomplishment. They cheered politely and sent newspapers, programs and other scraps of paper fluttering into the air and onto the ice.

In Howe’s 32-year career, he played 2,421 games, scored 1,071 goals (including goals he scored in the post-season and with teams that belonged to the World Hockey Association instead of the NHL) and racked up 2,589 points. (He also earned 2,418 penalty minutes in his career, a tribute to his legendary aggression. His teammates called him "Mr. Elbows"; Sports Illustrated said he was "calculatingly and primitively savage…a punishing artist with a hockey stick, slashing, spearing, tripping and high-sticking his way to a comparative degree of solitude on the ice.") Until Gretzky came along, Howe held the NHL records for goals--810 in the regular season--and points--1,850. He was the league MVP six times.

Gordie Howe retired in 1971, after his 25th season with the Red Wings, but he couldn’t stay off the ice for long: He soon joined the WHA team in Houston, where he played alongside his sons Mark and Marty. In 1977 all three Howes moved to Hartford to play for the Whalers. That team joined the NHL two years later, so Howe was able to add a few goals, points and penalty minutes to his official records before he retired for good at age 52.

This Day in History

 Nov 26, 1933:
Vigilantes in California lynch two suspected murderers



Thousands of peoples in San Jose, California, storm the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for pictures.

On November 9, Brooke Hart was abducted by men in his own Studebaker. His family received a $40,000 ransom demand and, soon after, Hart's wallet was found on a tanker ship in a nearby bay. The investigative trail led to Holmes and Thurmond, who implicated each other in separate confessions. Both acknowledged, though, that Hart had been pistol-whipped and then thrown off the San Mateo Bridge.

After Hart's body washed ashore on November 25, a vigilante mob began to form. Newspapers reported the possibility of a lynching and local radio stations broadcast the plan. Not only did Governor James Rolph reject the National Guard's offer to send assistance, he reportedly said he would pardon those involved in the lynching.

On November 26, the angry mob converged at the jail and beat the guards, using a battering ram to break into the cells. Thurmond and Holmes were dragged out and hanged from large trees in a nearby park.

The public seemed to welcome the gruesome act of vigilante violence. After the incident, pieces of the lynching ropes were sold to the public. Though the San Jose News declined to publish pictures of the lynching, it condoned the act in an editorial. Seventeen-year-old Anthony Cataldi bragged that he had been the leader of the mob but he was not held accountable for his participation. At Stanford University, a professor asked his students to stand and applaud the lynching. Perhaps most disturbing, Governor Rolph publicly praised the mob. "The best lesson ever given the country," said Governor Rolph. "I would like to parole all kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose."

This Day in History

 Nov 25, 1980:
Sugar Ray takes his title back



On November 25, 1980, Sugar Ray Leonard regains boxing's welterweight title when his opponent, reigning champ Roberto Duran, waves his arms and walks away from the fight in the eighth round. "No más, no más," Duran told the referee. "No more box." He'd had cramps in his stomach since the fifth, he said, and they'd gotten so bad he could barely stand up.



It was the first time a champion had given up his title voluntarily since Sonny Liston's shoulder injury forced him to quit a fight with Muhammed Ali, then Cassius Clay, in 1964. And it didn't seem like something Duran would do: He was a notoriously fierce, brutal fighter, celebrated in his native Panama for his unwillingness to show his opponents any mercy. Before the fight with Leonard, Duran had only lost one of his 73 professional bouts, to Esteban DeJesus eight years before, and he'd taken the welterweight title from Leonard in June in the fairly one-sided "Brawl in Montreal." In that match, Duran had kept a bewildered Leonard pinned against the ropes for almost the entire fight, punching him relentlessly. But Sugar Ray had been training ever since, and he was favored to win the rematch.



His training paid off: Leonard stayed on his toes and away from the edges of the ring, and by the eighth round Duran was flagging and Leonard was winning on each judge's scorecard. Two minutes and forty-four seconds into that round, after a particularly punishing series of blows, Duran had had enough. He walked away, signaled the ref and sat down in this corner. Many people though that he quit because he was tired of putting up with Leonard's clowning and taunting; some thought he'd taken a dive; and some said he simply wanted to collect his purse and go home. But Duran maintained that he was sick. After the match, his doctor reported that the fighter had eaten too much too quickly after the weigh-in, and all the food had given him a stomachache. This news didn't do much to help his image, as Leonard pointed out. "He didn't take the easy way out," Duran's adversary said. "He took the worst way out."



Right after the bout ended, the 29-year-old Duran announced that he was retiring from boxing. "I've gotten tired of the sport," he said. But in December 1989, he came back for a rematch—"Uno Más," promoters called it. Leonard won that fight, a lethargic bout all around, in 12 rounds.

This Day in History

 Nov 24, 1963:
Jack Ruby kills Lee Harvey Oswald



At 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy's murder had caused him to suffer "psychomotor epilepsy" and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the "murder with malice" of Oswald and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee's findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

This Day in History

Nov 23, 1984:

BC wins on Hail Mary


On November 23, 1984, Boston College’s diminutive quarterback Doug Flutie throws a last-second 64-yard pass to beat the University of Miami 47-45. The 30,235 fans in the Orange Bowl had already begun to celebrate the victory they were sure their Hurricanes had won, and they were stunned when Flutie’s pass found his teammate (and roommate) Gerard Phelan in the end zone. The receiver, for his part, was just as stunned: "He threw it a long, long way," Phelan said after the game. "I didn’t think he could throw the ball that far."

It was a spectacular ending to a spectacular game. In all, Miami moved the ball 655 yards and had 32 first downs.; BC countered with 627 yards and 30 first downs. Together, the Hurricanes and the Eagles ran 150 plays; on average, each play gained almost nine yards. And in the last 20 minutes of the game, the teams traded the lead back and forth six times.

With 28 seconds to go in the game, Miami’s Melvin Bratton plowed one yard through BC’s defensive line to score a crucial touchdown that gave the Hurricanes a four-point lead. The Eagles set up on their own 20-yard line and made it to the Miami 48 in 22 seconds. There was time for one more play. In the huddle, Flutie called for the "55 Flood Tip"--a play the Eagles practiced every Thursday but had rarely used. It went like this: Phelan would head for the end zone, flanked by two wide receivers; Flutie would hurl the ball in their direction; and Phelan, having drawn all the defense away from his teammates, would jump up and tip the ball to one receiver or the other.

Of course, that’s not quite how it went. Phelan bolted down the field, while Flutie drew back to the 37. The clock ran out. Flutie threw the ball as hard as he could. After the game, he said: "I just let it fly toward the pile--not necessarily toward Gerard Phelan, but where I thought everybody was going to be. I saw the ball go down over two defenders’ heads and I thought it fell incomplete into the end zone." Phelan, meanwhile, was alone in the end zone. Miami’s defensive backs were so sure that Flutie couldn’t throw the ball all the way down the field that they didn’t pay any attention to the receiver behind them. They should have: Flutie’s pass sailed over their heads and hit Phelan squarely in the chest. His feet didn’t even leave the ground.

The pass won the game for the Eagles, who went on to finish 10-2 and be ranked fourth in the country. It also made Flutie the first player in college football history to pass for more than 10,000 yards in his career. He won the Heisman Trophy eight days after his so-called "Miracle in Miami." Since NFL scouts thought he was too short (he was 5’9") to play in their league, Flutie headed north and became one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the Canadian Football League. Eventually he came back to the NFL, playing for the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers before he returned to Boston to finish his career with the Patriots. He retired in 2005.

5 Things You May Not Know About the Pilgrims

1. Not all of the Mayflower’s passengers were motivated by religion.
The Mayflower actually carried three distinct groups of passengers within the walls of its curving hull. About half were in fact Separatists, the people we now know as the Pilgrims. Another handful of those on board were sympathetic to the Separatist cause but weren’t actually part of that core group of dissidents. The remaining passengers were really just hired hands—laborers, soldiers and craftsmen of various stripes whose skills were required for both the transatlantic crossing and those vital first few months ashore. Community leader John Alden, for instance, was originally a cooper, brought along to make and repair barrels on board the ship. Myles Standish, who would eventually become the military leader of Plymouth Colony, was a soldier hired for protection against whatever natives the settlers might encounter.
2. The Mayflower didn’t land in Plymouth first.
The Mayflower first landed at the tip of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown. The settlers had originally hoped to make for the mouth of the Hudson River and find fertile farmland somewhere north of present-day New York City, but bad weather forced them to retreat. They intended to try again for the Hudson, but the approaching winter and dwindling supplies eventually convinced them to continue on across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth.
3. The Pilgrims didn’t name Plymouth, Massachusetts, for Plymouth, England.
In fact, the Pilgrims didn’t name Plymouth, Massachusetts, at all. It had been dubbed that years earlier by previous explorers to the region, and was clearly marked as Plymouth (or Plimoth—spellings varied somewhat) on maps that the Mayflower’s captain surely had on hand. It’s sheer coincidence that the Mayflower ended up sailing from a town called Plymouth in England and then landing in a town called Plymouth in America. And it’s unlikely that the Mayflower’s passengers felt any emotional connection to Plymouth, England, at all. Most of the Separatists had been living in exile in Holland for 10 years before sailing for America, and the rest of the passengers were drawn from the greater London area. The Mayflower only ended up departing from Plymouth because bad weather and misfortune had prevented the settlers from making the crossing on two earlier attempts—first from Southampton and then from Dartmouth—before they finally succeeded in sailing from the port of Plymouth.
4. Some of the Mayflower’s passengers had been to America before.
Several of the Mayflower’s crew had made the journey at least once before, on either fishing or exploration trips. One notable figure, Stephen Hopkins, had even tried to settle in the New World 10 years earlier, in the Jamestown colony of Virginia. On his way to join the settlement, his ship was wrecked off the coast of Bermuda, stranding him and his fellow passengers for several months. The story of the Virginia settlers’ shipwreck and rescue made waves back home in England, and William Shakespeare freely admitted that he based his play “The Tempest” on the tale. He even may have named one of the characters, Stephano, after Stephen Hopkins, who was once one of Shakespeare’s neighbors. Hopkins eventually returned to England and later joined the Mayflower as a member of the sympathetic group of supporters from London.
5. The Pilgrims were relatively tolerant of other religious beliefs.
The Puritans, who settled the region north of Plymouth, were known for their strict approach to how religion was practiced within their borders. The Pilgrims, on the other hand, never made any attempts to convert outsiders to their faith, including the Native Americans they encountered in America and the nonbelievers who’d joined them as laborers in England. Generally speaking, they didn’t even try to impose their unique observances on their friends and neighbors. For instance, while the Pilgrims themselves didn’t themselves Christmas, they didn’t stop others from taking the day off and celebrating it as they wished. They also allowed men who were not part of their faith to hold public office, and they apparently had no problem with the intermarriage of believers and nonbelievers. As a matter of fact, they didn’t consider marriage to be a religious matter at all, preferring instead to view it as a civil contract outside the church’s jurisdiction.

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.

This Day in History

 Nov 20, 1945:
Nuremberg trials begin



Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II.

The Nuremberg Trials were conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions.

On October 1, 1946, 12 architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life, and three were acquitted. Of the original 24 defendants, one, Robert Ley, committed suicide while in prison, and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, leader of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe; Alfred Jodl, head of the German armed forces staff; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior.

On October 16, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged. Goering, who at sentencing was called the "leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews," committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia (but is now believed to have died in May 1945). Trials of lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany into the 1950s and resulted in the conviction of 5,025 other defendants and the execution of 806.

This Day in History

 Nov 19, 1975:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest debuts



On this day in 1975, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a film about a group of patients at a mental institution, opens in theaters. Directed by Milos Forman and based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson and was co-produced by the actor Michael Douglas. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest went on to become the first film in four decades to win in all five of the major Academy Award categories: Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched), Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Picture.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest marked Jack Nicholson’s first Oscar win, although the actor, who was born April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey, had already received four other Academy Award nominations by that time. Nicholson’s first nomination, in the Best Supporting Actor category, came for his performance as an alcoholic lawyer in 1969’s Easy Rider, co-starring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. He earned his next Oscar nomination, for Best Actor, for 1970’s Five Easy Pieces, in which he played a drifter. For 1973’s The Last Detail, Nicholson earned another Best Actor Oscar nomination. His fourth Best Actor Oscar nomination came for his performance as Detective Jake Gittes in director Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson played Randle McMurphy, a convict who pretends to be crazy so he can be sent to a mental institution and avoid prison work detail. Once at the asylum, McMurphy encounters a varied cast of inmates and clashes memorably with the authoritative Nurse Ratched.

During the 1980s, Nicholson, known for his charisma and devilish grin, appeared in such films as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), which was based on a Stephen King horror novel; The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), with Jessica Lange; Reds (1981), which was directed by Warren Beatty and earned Nicholson another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination; Terms of Endearment (1983), for which he collected a second Best Actor Oscar; Prizzi’s Honor (1985), for which he received another Best Actor Oscar nomination; The Witches of Eastwick (1987), with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer; Ironweed (1987), for which he took home yet another Best Actor Academy Award nomination; and Batman (1989), in which he portrayed the villainous Joker.

Nicholson’s prolific film work in the 1990s included The Two Jakes (1990), a sequel to Chinatown directed by Nicholson himself, the biopic Hoffa (1992) and A Few Good Men (1992), for which he earned another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. A Few Good Men features Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and includes the now-famous Nicholson line “You can’t handle the truth.” Nicholson won his third Best Actor Oscar for 1997’s As Good as it Gets, which co-stars Helen Hunt, and earned his 12th Academy Award nomination for his performance in 2002’s About Schmidt. The iconic actor’s more recent film credits include Something’s Gotta Give (2003), with Diane Keaton, and The Departed (2006), directed by Martin Scorsese.

This Day in History

  Nov 18, 1978:
Mass suicide at Jonestown

On this day in 1978, Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones leads hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American nation of Guyana. Many of Jones’ followers willingly ingested a poison-laced punch while others were forced to do so at gunpoint. The final death toll at Jonestown that day was 909; a third of those who perished were children.

Jim Jones was a charismatic churchman who established the Peoples Temple, a Christian sect, in Indianapolis in the 1950s. He preached against racism, and his integrated congregation attracted many African Americans. In 1965, he moved the group to Northern California, settling in Ukiah and after 1971 in San Francisco. In the 1970s, his church was accused by the media of financial fraud, physical abuse of its members and mistreatment of children. In response to the mounting criticism, the increasingly paranoid Jones invited his congregation to move with him to Guyana, where he promised they would build a socialist utopia. Three years earlier, a small group of his followers had traveled to the tiny nation to set up what would become Jonestown on a tract of jungle.

Jonestown did not turn out to be the paradise their leader had promised. Temple members worked long days in the fields and were subjected to harsh punishments if they questioned Jones' authority. Their passports were confiscated, their letters home censored and members were encouraged to inform on one another and forced to attend lengthy, late-night meetings. Jones, by then in declining mental health and addicted to drugs, was convinced the U.S. government and others were out to destroy him. He required Temple members to participate in mock suicide drills in the middle of the night.

In 1978, a group of former Temple members and concerned relatives of current members convinced U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat of California, to travel to Jonestown and investigate the settlement. On November 17, 1978, Ryan arrived in Jonestown with a group of journalists and other observers. At first the visit went well, but the next day, as Ryan's delegation was about to leave, several Jonestown residents approached the group and asked them for passage out of Guyana. Jones became distressed at the defection of his followers, and one of Jones' lieutenants attacked Ryan with a knife. The congressman escaped from the incident unharmed, but Jones then ordered Ryan and his companions ambushed and killed at the airstrip as they attempted to leave. The congressman and four others were murdered as they boarded their charter planes.

Back in Jonestown, Jones commanded everyone to gather in the main pavilion and commit what he termed a "revolutionary act." The youngest members of the Peoples Temple were the first to die, as parents and nurses used syringes to drop a potent mix of cyanide, sedatives and powdered fruit juice into children's throats. Adults then lined up to drink the poison-laced concoction while armed guards surrounded the pavilion.

When Guyanese officials arrived at the Jonestown compound the next day, they found it carpeted with hundreds of bodies. Many people had perished with their arms around each other. A few residents managed to escape into the jungle as the suicides took place, while at least several dozen more Peoples Temple members, including several of Jones' sons, survived because they were in another part of Guyana at the time.

 

This Day in History

 Nov 17, 1968:
The Heidi Bowl
   
       

On November 17, 1968, the Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets--and no one sees it, because they’re watching the movie Heidi instead. With just 65 seconds left to play, NBC switched off the game in favor of its previously scheduled programming, a made-for-TV version of the children’s story about a young girl and her grandfather in the Alps. Viewers were outraged, and they complained so vociferously that network execs learned a lesson they’ll never forget: "Whatever you do," one said, "you better not leave an NFL football game."

The game between the Jets and the Raiders was already shaping up to be a classic: It featured two of the league’s best teams and 10 future Hall of Fame players. By the game’s last minute the two teams had traded the lead eight times. The game’s intensity translated into an unusual number of penalties and timeouts, which meant that it was running a bit long.

With a little more than a minute left to play, the Jets kicked a 26-yard field goal that gave them a 32-29 lead. After the New York kickoff, the Raiders returned the ball to their own 23-yard line. What happened after that will go down in football history: Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw a 20-yard pass to halfback Charlie Smith; a facemask penalty moved the ball to the Jets’ 43; and on the next play, Lamonica passed again to Smith, who ran it all the way for a touchdown. The Raiders took the lead, 32-36. Then the Jets fumbled the kickoff, and Oakland’s Preston Ridlehuber managed to grab the ball and run it two yards for another touchdown. Oakland had scored twice in nine seconds, and the game was over: They’d won 43-32.

But nobody outside the Oakland Coliseum actually saw any of this, because NBC went to commercial right after the Jets’ kickoff and never came back. Instead, they did what they’d been planning to do for weeks: At 7 PM, they began to broadcast a brand-new version of Heidi, a film they were sure would win them high ratings during November sweeps. Before the game began, network execs had talked about what they’d do if the game ran over its scheduled time, and they decided to go ahead with the movie no matter what. So, that’s what NBC programmer Dick Cline did. "I waited and waited," he said later, "and I heard nothing. We came up to that magic hour and I thought, ‘Well, I haven’t been given any counter-order so I’ve got to do what we agreed to do.’"

NBC execs had actually changed their minds, and were trying to get in touch with Cline to tell him to leave the game on until it was over. But all the telephone lines were busy: Thousands of people were calling the network to urge programmers to air Heidi as scheduled, and thousands more were calling to demand that the football game stay on the air. Football fans grew even more livid when NBC printed the results of the game at the bottom of the screen 20 minutes after the game ended. So many irate fans called NBC that the network’s switchboard blew. Undeterred, people started calling the telephone company, the New York Times and the NYPD, whose emergency lines they clogged for hours.

Shortly after the Heidi debacle, the NFL inserted a clause into its TV contracts that guaranteed that all games would be broadcast completely in their home markets. For its part, NBC installed a new phone--the "Heidi Phone"--in the control room that had its own exchange and switchboard. Such a disaster, the network assured its viewers, would never be allowed to happen again.

This Day in History

 Nov 16, 1957:
Notre Dame ends Oklahoma record winning streak



On November 16, 1957, Notre Dame beats Oklahoma 7-0, ending the Sooners’ 47-game, 1,512-day college football winning streak. The game also marked the first time in more than 120 games that Oklahoma didn’t score a single point. Sooners fans were stunned. Some cried; some sat in the stadium for more than an hour after the game was over. But, as Sooners coach Bud Wilkinson said in the locker room after the game, "There wasn’t anything mysterious about it. We just got beat."

At the beginning of the 1953 season, the Fighting Irish had beaten Oklahoma 28-21. The next week, the Sooners had tied Pitt 7-7. The week after that, they’d beaten Texas 19-14, and they hadn’t lost since. For their part, the Irish were coming off of a humiliating 1956 season--their worst ever--in which they’d lost to the Sooners 40-0. That smarted, and the Notre Dame team was out for revenge. Even though they were playing better in 1957 (they arrived in Norman with a 4-2 record), no one really expected them to win. Oklahoma was the 18-point favorite, and momentum was certainly in the Sooners’ favor--but, as their halfback pointed out years later, "you go against a team as an 18-point favorite, it’s pretty hard to get excited--even if it’s Notre Dame. Now, was Notre Dame excited? Hell yeah. They’re playing the No. 1 team that had a 47-game winning streak. They played a little better against us than I think they did most people. They were pretty damn tough."

At the beginning of the game, it looked like it was going to be another Oklahoma rout: Wilkinson’s team had possession three times near the end zone but couldn’t manage to score. Then, early in the next quarter, Notre Dame fullback Nick Pietrosante sacked the Sooners’ quarterback, grabbed the fumble and ran the ball 19 yards. After that, Wilkinson’s team just seemed to fold.

The Irish won the game on their first possession of the fourth quarter: They chugged forward steadily, covering 80 yards in 20 plays, until Dick Lynch caught a toss and ran the touchdown in standing up. Monty Stickes scored the extra point. "Even the nuns were astounded," the newspaper wrote.

Oklahoma still holds the NCAA record for the most consecutive wins by a major college football team. (Division III Mt. Union in Pennsylvania has broken the Sooners’ record twice.) In fact, since World War I only four Division I teams have won more than 30 games in a row: Toledo won 35 from 1969-1971, the University of Miami won 34 from 2000-2002, and Wilkinson’s Sooners won 31 from 1948-50.

This Day in History

 Nov 15, 1806:
Zebulon Pike spots an imposing mountain

Approaching the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains during his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a distant mountain peak that looks "like a small blue cloud." The mountain was later named Pike's Peak in his honor.

Pike's explorations of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory of the United States began before the nation's first western explorers, Lewis and Clark, had returned from their own expedition up the Missouri River. Pike was more of a professional military man than either Lewis or Clark, and he was a smart man who had taught himself Spanish, French, mathematics, and elementary science. When the governor of Louisiana Territory requested a military expedition to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi, General James Wilkinson picked Pike to lead it.

Although Pike's first western expedition was only moderately successful, Wilkinson picked him to lead a second mission in July 1806 to explore the headwaters of the Red and Arkansas Rivers. This route took Pike across present-day Kansas and into the high plains region that would later become the state of Colorado. When Pike first saw the peak that would later bear his name, he grossly underestimated its height and its distance, never having seen mountains the size of the Rockies. He told his men they should be able to walk to the peak, climb it, and return before dinner. Pike and his men struggled through snow and sub-zero temperatures before finally taking shelter in a cave for the night, without even having reached the base of the towering mountain. Pike later pronounced the peak impossible to scale.

The remainder of Pike's expedition was equally trying. After attempting for several months to locate the Red River, Pike and his men became hopelessly lost. A troop of Spanish soldiers saved the mission when they arrested Pike and his men. The soldiers escorted them to Santa Fe, thus providing Pike with an invaluable tour of that strategically important region, courtesy of the Spanish military.

After returning to the United States, Pike wrote a poorly organized account of his expedition that won him some fame, but little money. Still, in recognition of his bravery and leadership during the western expeditions, the army appointed him a brigadier general during the War of 1812. He was killed in an explosion during the April 1813 assault on Toronto.

This Day in History

 Nov 14, 1882:
Franklin Leslie kills Billy "The Kid" Claiborne



On this day, the gunslinger Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie shoots the Billy "The Kid" Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona.

The town of Tombstone is best known today as the site of the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral. In the 1880s, however, Tombstone was home to many gunmen who never achieved the enduring fame of Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday. Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie was one of the most notorious of these largely forgotten outlaws.

There are few surviving details about Leslie's early life. At different times, he claimed to have been born in both Texas and Kentucky, to have studied medicine in Europe, and to have been an army scout in the war against the Apache Indians. No evidence has ever emerged to support or conclusively deny these claims. The first historical evidence of Leslie's life emerges in 1877, when he became a scout in Arizona. A few years later, Leslie was attracted to the moneymaking opportunities of the booming mining town of Tombstone, where he opened the Cosmopolitan Hotel in 1880. That same year he killed a man named Mike Killeen during a quarrel over Killeen's wife, and he married the woman shortly thereafter.

Leslie's reputation as a cold-blooded killer brought him trouble after his drinking companion and fellow gunman John Ringo was found dead in July 1882. Some Tombstone citizens, including a young friend of Ringo's named Billy "The Kid" Claiborne, were convinced that Leslie had murdered Ringo, though they could not prove it. Probably seeking vengeance and the notoriety that would come from shooting a famous gunslinger, Claiborne unwisely decided to publicly challenge Leslie, who shot him dead.

The remainder of Leslie's life was equally violent and senseless. After divorcing Killeen in 1887, he took up with a Tombstone prostitute, whom he murdered several years later during a drunken rage. Even by the loose standards of frontier law in Tombstone, the murder of an unarmed woman was unacceptable, and Leslie served nearly 10 years in prison before he was paroled in 1896. After his release, he married again and worked a variety of odd jobs around the West. He reportedly made a small fortune in the gold fields of the Klondike region before he disappeared forever from the historical record.

History and Production of Cuckoo clocks

The first noted Black Forest cuckoo clock was designed and created by Franz Anton Ketterer in a small village named Schonwald, Germany. This signaled what the world now recognizes as an industry filled with quality cuckoo clocks that are hand carved with the most beautiful detailing in the world. Since the early 18th century, the German Black Forest has been famed for the creation of the world's most beautiful and unique cuckoo clocks. Although there are several producers of cuckoo clocks in the world, none quite compare to the quality and beautiful designs of those which are made in the Black Forest.

The cuckoo clock industry began its climb into popularity during the 18th century. The earlier versions of the clocks had only 12 hour movements and the movements were made primarily from wood. Even the moving parts were made of wood. When the cuckoo clock popularity from the Black Forest increased, clockmakers began replacing several of the wooden movement pieces with metal and brass. This act greatly increased their durability and ensured that they would last longer, which ultimately led to their increase in popularity throughout the world.   During the end of the 18th century and the 19th century, there were new tools and crafts discovered that helped the clockmakers to significantly increase their production times. Although new and more effective methods were implemented, the art of handcrafting remained the same, as it does today. The number of clocks that one woodcarver could create was increased by more than six times over the next 100 years or so. By this time, German Black Forest clocks had grown significantly in popularity. The most popular of this time was the Shield clock. The cuckoo clock's popularity was still yet to come. About fifty percent of all Black Forest clock creation during the 18th and 19th centuries was the shield clocks. These beautiful and elegant clocks are still very popular today. There were more than 600000 clocks per year coming out of the Black Forest during this time. The clockmakers in this region had earned themselves quite a reputation for creating beautiful and high quality clocks. The customer base for Black Forest clocks had now become worldwide. However, logistical problems soon caused a slow down in the production of the clocks. Clockmakers during that time were being forced to work very long hours just to ensure that all their customers were receiving their orders on time. There were simply not enough hours in the day to ensure that all orders could be filled. These challenges eventually proved too difficult for single clockmakers to overcome. Clockmakers soon began working with wholesale companies in order to fulfill their orders. They could create their clocks and the wholesale companies helped them with the shipping and distribution. This led to all customers receiving their Black Forest creations in timely manner, which only proved to make the German Black Forest cuckoo clocks even more popular throughout the next few years. In 1870, the production and distribution of German Black forest cuckoo clocks reached the highest numbers yet. There were more than one millions clocks produced in the Black Forest region during that time. In 1905 that number hit nearly six million. Half of all clocks produced in the world came from the Black Forest area. Since then the Black Forest has produced a record number of clocks and distributed them to customers worldwide every year. Today the production and distribution of German Black Forest clocks lives on. Each year millions of clocks are made and millions of worldwide customers collect them. Although there are several clock styles that come from the Black Forest region, the cuckoo clock is still the most popular with collectors. These beautiful and whimsical clocks are one of the most popularly exported products in Germany. The Railway House Clock is a very popular version of the Black Forest cuckoo clock. The beautiful and elegant house design represents the cuckoo clock styles that are most seen today. The house shaped form incorporates decorative elements that are synonymous with scenes from every day life. The earlier versions of this design implemented a wooden clock face with hands and numbers that were white. It also featured a fir cone shaped weight. Today's version features vine leaves and beautifully handcrafted wooden figurines in the shapes of animals and plants, as well as hunters, dancing couples in traditional German attire who dance to the music, a mill wheel that turns on every hour and a farmer who chops wood. The cuckoo is still very much a part of the cuckoo clocks today. He moves his wings and beak and rocks in a back and forth motion when delivering his famed call.  Although the Black Forest cuckoo clock creators have seen their fair share of troubles and tribulations, they have emerged as some of the most talented artists in the world today. The beautiful and unique German cuckoo clocks that hail from the Black Forest region are among the most highly appreciated and popular pieces throughout the world. Whether it is the cuckoo clock or any other beautiful Black Forest creation, customers and collectors from all points of the world can appreciate the fine quality and beautiful, unique pieces that come from this scenic region in Germany. One has to only step foot on the German Clock Trail or visit one of the many museums that are dedicated to the historical methods of clock making to see that the culture and tradition of those earlier years are still alive in the German Black Forest.

By the way: There are quite a few different spellings for cuckoo clocks. Relatively often one finds the spellings cookoo clocks, coocoo clocks or even coo coo clocks (or singular cookoo clock, coocoo clock, coo coo clock.

This Day in History

Nov 11, 1918:

World War I Ends

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.
On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle's imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.
On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia's ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the German army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium's ally, to declare war against Germany.
For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the "Schlieffen Plan," which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France.
The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris. By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front—the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium—the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.
In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies' favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.
World War I was known as the "war to end all wars" because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict—the Treaty of Versailles of 1919—forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

 

 

Madcow Movie Review -SKYFALL

After the pathetic Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall is the worthy follow-up that Casino Royale (2006) deserved. While the previous film was saddled with what appeared to be an unfinished screenplay and a less-than-qualified director, the new one has stepped up its game with a solid script, first-class director (Oscar-winner Sam Mendes) an all-time great cinematographer, Roger Deakins, and some set design and art direction that would make all of this year's literary adaptations dry up and blow away.

As with some of the more recent Bond films, the opening teaser -- co-starring Naomie Harris -- actually ties into the story, and it ends with a shock, before going into Adele's much-celebrated title song. From there, the plot has to do with a stolen hard drive containing the names of all the undercover MI6 agents implanted in terrorist cells around the world. James Bond (Daniel Craig) finds a suspect, and collects a gambling chip that leads him to a fancy casino (of course!). There he drinks his requisite martini (and not the Heinekin an early report led us to believe), and chats with a beautiful girl (Bérénice Marlohe). She has ties to the bad guy, Silva (Javier Bardem). After a brawl with some bodyguards, Bond is off to save the day. Unfortunately, Silva is one of his most challenging foes.

In addition, Ralph Fiennes joins the cast as a new bureaucrat in the MI6 office, and Ben Whishaw is the new "Q," complete with a series of "young vs. old" jokes. Albert Finney also stars, though his role comes in later in the story and is best left undisclosed.

For this entry, director Mendes tends to slow things down, allows the mix to thicken. Rather than faster and louder chase/fight scenes, he now allows them to be snappy and clever. One fight scene takes place in an astonishing setting: an upper floor of a Shanghai high-rise, with glass walls everywhere, multi-colored city lights reflected in every one of them. Mendes shoots a quick brawl in one shot, with the players in silhouette, culminating in a breaking window.

Another fight takes place in a casino/nightclub; Bond and his assailant fall into a decorative pit filled with giant Gila Monsters. The fight is over rather shortly.

Even the Bond girls in this one don't hang around for long. They serve their purpose, which is sometimes rather dark, and then they move on. This Bond is too brooding and self-centered to get too cuddly with any one woman. Indeed, a couple of well-placed lines of dialogue reveal more about Bond's character than in any other previous movie. He now seems sadder than ever before, trapped and damaged, rather than just cool and aloof.

To be sure, the movie gets a bit ridiculous during its final showdown, but that's to be expected. Mendes doesn't mess too much with the formula, overall, and it goes to show that he's probably better with unpretentious material than he is trying to get important on us (see Revolutionary Road). Skyfall happens to arrive very near the 50th anniversary of Dr. No (1962), the very first James Bond movie, and it suggests an exciting, mature new direction for the series. These movies don't have to be trashy and cheap. They can be exciting and exotic, to be sure. But now they're also relevant.

On This Day in History

 Nov 9, 1938:
Nazis launch Kristallnacht



On this day in 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and was later dubbed "Kristallnacht," or "Night of Broken Glass," after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards vandalized. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of whom were then sent to concentration camps for several months; they were released when they promised to leave Germany. Kristallnacht represented a dramatic escalation of the campaign started by Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he became chancellor to purge Germany of its Jewish population.

The Nazis used the murder of a low-level German diplomat in Paris by a 17-year-old Polish Jew as an excuse to carry out the Kristallnacht attacks. On November 7, 1938, Ernst vom Rath was shot outside the German embassy by Herschel Grynszpan, who wanted revenge for his parents' sudden deportation from Germany to Poland, along with tens of thousands of other Polish Jews. Following vom Rath's death, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ordered German storm troopers to carry out violent riots disguised as "spontaneous demonstrations" against Jewish citizens. Local police and fire departments were told not to interfere. In the face of all the devastation, some Jews, including entire families, committed suicide.

In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, the Nazis blamed the Jews and fined them 1 billion marks (or $400 million in 1938 dollars) for vom Rath's death. As repayment, the government seized Jewish property and kept insurance money owed to Jewish people. In its quest to create a master Aryan race, the Nazi government enacted further discriminatory policies that essentially excluded Jews from all aspects of public life.

Over 100,000 Jews fled Germany for other countries after Kristallnacht. The international community was outraged by the violent events of November 9 and 10. Some countries broke off diplomatic relations in protest, but the Nazis suffered no serious consequences, leading them to believe they could get away with the mass murder that was the Holocaust, in which an estimated 6 million European Jews died.

Madcow Book Review

One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season
Tony La Russa with Rick Hummel

Tony La Russa is a baseball lifer. He began his career in the minors; had an unproductive stint as a major leaguer, batting .199 over six seasons as a utility infielder; and made a name for himself as one of the best managers in the game. He won six pennants and three World Series over a 33-year span for the Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox and, most recently, St. Louis Cardinals. He ranks third in wins behind Hall of Fame managers Connie Mack and John McGraw, and trails only Mack in games at the helm with 5,097. There is no doubt that La Russa will earn his own plaque in Cooperstown when he becomes eligible.

La Russa decided during the 2011 campaign that it would be his last as a field leader. As with many of his generation, the demands of the game, both in terms of production and handling the younger and more expensive players, started to take their toll on the enjoyment of the profession for the 67-year-old. And even though he couldn’t have predicted it at the time, what better way to go out than on top? La Russa directed the Cardinals to a thrilling pennant race, as the subtitle indicates, and defeated the Texas Rangers for the World Championship.

Aided by Rick Hummel, an award-winning journalist who spent four decades with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, La Russa lets fans into the secret world of managing, with its acid-churning decisions, thought processes, and personnel (and personal) issues. They guide readers over the last few months of the season --- with mere passing references to La Russa’s years as a player and manager of the A’s and White Sox --- as the Cardinals clawed their way back from a deep deficit and unexpectedly beat what was considered a superior team in the Series.

Cards fans who have an intimate knowledge of the players will no doubt consider ONE LAST STRIKE an essential part of their baseball library, as will those who are interested in a manager’s mental manipulations, which have to take into consideration who’s hot and who’s not, both on your team and your opponent’s. Then there are the work-arounds when it comes to who’s injured physically or who’s having a tough time mentally (La Russa’s long-time coach and friend Dave Duncan was going through family health issues), which the authors use to show that these are human beings and not athletic robots.

La Russa is all business. You won’t find any locker room gossip or even derogatory remarks about his charges, although you know there has to have been some disagreements along the way. Just about everyone in his eyes deserves the benefit of the doubt, leading to ho-hum descriptions that Player A really knows how to play the game of baseball or Player B is a true major leaguer. That might be a disappointment to those who really want the dirt (La Russa even glosses over the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs).

Another potential problem is that La Russa is a craftsperson, and as such loves to talk about his work as if he was in the presence of other craftspeople. A long-used “baseballism” is that the worst players make the best managers because they spend so much time on the bench that they can become adept students of the game. Some of the narrative borders on jargon (an appendix includes photos of various paperwork that would give the code-breakers of World War II fits). Of course, this is completely comprehensible to La Russa’s peers and uber-fans, but a mystery and perhaps a bit off-putting to the casual reader.

On This Day in History

 Nov 7, 1940:
Tacoma Bridge collapses



Only four months after its completion, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State suffers a spectacular collapse.

When it opened in 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world. Built to replace the ferry system that took commuters from Tacoma across the Tacoma Narrows to the Gig Harbor Peninsula, the bridge spanned 2,800 feet and took three years to build. To save cost, the principle engineer, Leon Moisseiff, designed the bridge with an unusually slender frame that measured 39 feet and accommodated just two vehicular lanes.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened with great fanfare on July 1, 1940. Human traffic across the waters of the Tacoma Narrows increased dramatically, but many drivers were drawn to the toll bridge not by convenience but by an unusual characteristic of the structure. When moderate to high winds blew, as they invariably do in the Tacoma Narrows, the bridge roadway would sway from side to side and sometimes suffer excessive vertical undulations. Some drivers reported that vehicles ahead of them would disappear and reappear several times as they crossed the bridge. On a windy day, tourists treated the bridge toll as the fee paid to ride a roller-coaster ride, and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie."

Attempts were made to stabilize the structure, but they were in vain. On November 7, with a steady wind blowing at 42 mph, the roadway began to twist back and forth in an increasingly violent fashion. Before closing the span, the toll keeper on the bridge's west side let one last motorist pass, Tacoma News Tribune copy editor Leonard Coatsworth. Halfway across the bridge, Coatsworth lost control of his car. When the roadway tipped so sharply that it seemed his car would topple off, he decided to flee on foot. He tried to retrieve his daughter's black cocker spaniel from the back seat of the car, but the dog snapped at him and refused to budge. Coatsworth ran to safety and called the Tribune, who dispatched a reporter and photographer to the scene.

Tribune photographer Howard Clifford was the last man on the bridge before the center span broke off at 11 a.m. and plunged 190 feet into the turbulent Tacoma Narrows. Trapped on the suddenly destabilized side spans, he narrowly avoided being thrown off and ran to safety. The sole casualty of the disaster was the cocker spaniel in Coatsworth's car, which fell into the Narrows and disappeared beneath the foam.

At the time, the engineering community was perplexed about how a bridge designed to withstand winds of up to 120 mph could collapse in a wind of 42 mph. Experts still disagree on the exact cause of the bridge's destruction, but most agree the collapse was related to resonance, a phenomenon that also comes into play when a soprano shatters a glass with her voice. In the case of the Tacoma Narrows, the wind resonated with the natural frequency of the structure, causing a steady increase in amplitude until the bridge was destroyed.

After the Tacoma Narrows disaster, bridge builders took care to incorporate aerodynamics into their designs and build structures with complex frequencies. Wind-tunnel testing of bridge designs eventually became mandatory. A new Tacoma Narrows Bridge was finally erected in 1950, complete with a wider roadway, deep stiffening trusses under the roadway, and other features designed to dampen the effect of wind. In 1992, the remains of Galloping Gertie in the Tacoma Narrows were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On This Day in History

Nov 6, 1860:

Abraham Lincoln elected president

 

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, first gained national stature during his campaign against Stephen Douglas of Illinois for a U.S. Senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party. In 1860, Lincoln won the party's presidential nomination.
In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell. The announcement of Lincoln's victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of the year had been publicly threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House.
By the time of Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In 1863, as the tide turned against the Confederacy, Lincoln emancipated the slaves and in 1864 won reelection. In April 1865, he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after the American Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
For preserving the Union and bringing an end to slavery, and for his unique character and powerful oratory, Lincoln is hailed as one of the greatest American presidents.

 

 

Has Sandy saved President Obama?

This US Air Force photo shows an aerial view of the rollercoaster from the Seaside Heights amusement park on the New Jersey shore submerged in surf

Has Sandy saved President Obama? Comforter-in-chief takes center stage in Atlantic City (while Romney is left on sidelines)

• President takes one-hour helicopter tour over Atlantic Coast, viewing flooded homes and wrecked buildings
• Superstorm Sandy has claimed lives of at least 76 people on East Coast with New Jersey and NYC badly affected
• Obama skipped campaigning in battleground states in favour of visit to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's state
• Gov Christie: 'We've got a big task ahead of us that we have to do together. This is what New Jerseyans are built for'
• Obama will return to campaign trail today with trips to Green Bay, Wisconsin; Boulder, Colorado;and Las Vegas

President Obama took time out from the campaign trail yesterday to visit a stretch of the devastated New Jersey coast and take on a role of comforter-in-chief that could be a major boost to his hopes of re-election next week.
The President was accompanied by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican bruiser and Mitt Romney backer who showered him with effusive praise for his handling of Superstorm Sandy, giving President Obama a bipartisan sheen that aides believe could help him secure victory on Tuesday. 
Leaving Republican presidential candidate Mr Romney on the sidelines holding campaign events in Florida in which he had to pull his punches and barely featured on TV, President Obama travelled to Atlantic City in New Jersey to get an aerial view of the widespread damage caused by the storm.

On This Day in History

 Nov 4, 1928:
One of New York's most notorious gamblers is shot to death



Arnold Rothstein, New York's most notorious gambler, is shot and killed during a poker game at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan. After finding Rothstein bleeding profusely at the service entrance of the hotel, police followed his trail of blood back to a suite where a group of men were playing cards. Reportedly, Rothstein had nothing good in his final hand.

From an early age, Rothstein had a talent for playing numbers. As a teenager, he built a small fortune gambling in craps and poker games, and by age 20 he owned and operated his own casino. Rothstein became a legendary figure in New York because of his unparalleled winning streak in bets and card games. However, it is believed that he usually won by fixing the events. The most famous instance of this was in 1919 when the World Series was fixed. Abe Attell, a friend and employee of Rothstein, paid some of the key players on the Chicago White Sox to throw the games. When the scandal was uncovered, Rothstein fiercely denied any involvement to a grand jury and escaped indictment. In private, however, Rothstein never denied his role, preferring to enjoy the outlaw image.

In the 1920's, Rothstein began purchasing nightclubs, racehorses, and brothels. He had such a formidable presence in the criminal underworld that he was reportedly once paid half a million dollars to mediate a gang war. As Rothstein's fortune grew to an estimated $50 million, he became a high-level loan shark, liberally padding the pockets of police and judges to evade the law. He is fabled to have carried around $200,000 in pocket money at all times.

Rothstein's luck finally ran out in 1928 when he encountered an unprecedented losing streak. At a poker game in September with "Hump" McManus, "Nigger Nate" Raymond, and "Titanic" Thompson, Rothstein lost a cool $320,000 and then refused to pay on the grounds that the game had been rigged. Two months later, McManus invited Rothstein to play what would be his final poker game.

Asked who had shot him before dying, Rothstein reportedly put his finger to his lips, keeping the gangsters' code of silence. McManus was later tried and acquitted of the crime.

New Jersey Gas Lines Stretch for Miles and Miles

More than 1,000 New Jersey gas stations are unable to sell fuel due to power outages and delivery problems, according to the head of one of the state's gas station associations.

Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline-Convenience-Automotive Association, which represents 1,500 stations, told us by phone that 75 percent of his members have shut down fueling.

"There's difficulty getting supply from the pipeline, to distribution centers, to the trucks, to the gas stations, and then the final hurdle, getting it into car. So there [are] difficulties along every point."

Many stations don't have power to pump gas. Those with power are pumping fuel until they run out.

Although some refineries remain shut down, they still have fuel in storage. But trucks are having trouble making it to the stations because roads remain blocked by trees and flooding.

Additionally, there are more cars on the road since many bus and train lines remain suspended.

Risalvato said none of his clients are gouging.

"There's nobody rationing. When a retailer has gas, he's pumping until he has no more."

Two separate people we talked to today, who otherwise have power, said that gasoline was their main concern, in part because it's fueling generators.

Facebook is filling up with questions about where gas can be found. On Twitter, resourceful NJ residents are using the #njgas tag to find out what gas stations are open and how long the lines are.

Gas lines over a mile long, with more than 150 cars, are now a common sight across the state. Waits are up to three hours.

Josh Brown at the Reformed Broker perfectly captures the mood:

And this morning at 6 am I got on one, sat for an hour and then saw all the cars ahead of me start to pull away. I thought I was in luck! Turns out the guy ran out of gas and was closing the station. Hilarious!

I'm not sure how much longer this can go on for...the novelty is wearing off.

On This Day in History

 Nov 2, 1947:
Spruce Goose flies



The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.

Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.

Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.

Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.

Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.