PzLdr History Facts

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.21, Che Guevara thread

[PzLdr]

It's the only one of its kind. It is the basis of one of the most recognized photographs in sport. It was part of the Yankees' revenge on the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1955 World Series loss. It was Don Larsen's perfect game.

Until October 8th, 1956, no pitcher in baseball had thrown a no-hitter in the World Series. and Larsen had no reason he'd believe he would be given the opportunity to do so. He'd pitched Game 2 - badly. So when he found the game ball in his locker, he was as surprised as anyone.

Larsen not only pitched a no-hitter, he pitched a perfect game. 27 up, 27 down, with NO one reaching first base. And that was pitching against a lineup that included Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges.

Larsen didn't do it alone. Mantle made a great running catch in center. Andy Carey picked it at third, and when a ball ricocheted off his glove, it went to shortstop Gil McDougal who completed the play.

And the Yankees went on to win the Series in seven, the last Subway Series until 2000, with the Mets. And the photo? Yogi Berra, his legs around Larsen, being carried by the pitcher near the first base line.

[apples]

Love baseball. Thanks for this one!

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.20

[PzLdr]

1845: The U.S. Naval Academy is founded at Annapolis, Maryland, to train Naval officers.

1877:  LTC George Armstrong Custer is given burial, with full military honors, at the U.S. Academy at West Point, N.Y., having been disinterred from his grave at the Little Big horn battlefield. Custer had always said he wanted to be buried at the Point, because he had been happiest there. After her death, decades later, he will be joined by his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

1957: the underdog Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in seven games to win the world Series. The Series MVP was Braves' pitcher, Lou Burdette, who won game 7 on two days' rest [Warren Spahn had the flu]

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p. 21

[apples]

The movie was "War Drums". It starred Alan Ladd. It was Charles Bronson's first movie.

I have never seen that movie, but now I know the true history will keep a eye out for it.

[apples]

It makes me ill to see how the left adores Che. Obama staning in Cuba in front of his pic.  vomit!

[apples]

Nice! Love BB. Love this time of the year. Division series the best.

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p. 21

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p.21

[PzLdr]

I have never seen that movie, but now I know the true history will keep a eye out for it.

I've seen it [rarely] on STARZ Western Channel. I bought it on Amazon. The history's OK, but not great [Captain Jack's portrayed as a warmongering poppinjay]

[PzLdr]

See "PzLdr History Facts" Archive, p. 21

[PzLdr]

He had been made a priority for conviction by the President of the United States. He had been the reason Eliot Ness got a movie and a TV series. He had been the best 'government' Chicago ever had. His name was Alphonse Capone. And on 17 OCT 1931, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for income tax evasion.

Big Al was not a native of Chicago. He was a Brooklyn boy, born on President Street.And within the criminal mileau he was an up and comer. Capone was a member of the Five Points gang, the Triple A Club for major league Mobdom. And in the Five Pointers, he met, befriended, and worked with Johnnny torrio, Frankie [Uale] Yale, and Charles 'Lucky' Luciano.

Capone's big break came in the early Twenties, when Torrio went west, to Chicago, to work for his uncle "Big" Jim Colisimo.

Colisimo ran a string of whore houses, but not much else. Nevertheless, Torrio brought Capone out soon after his arrival. Capone, scarface and all [Capone had been cut in Brooklyn by a fellow Italian who objected to remarks and/or advances Al made to his sister. Capone later hired him], became 'muscle' and a bouncer in Colisimo's establishments.

With the arrival of prohibition, Torrio begged his uncle to move into bootlegging. Colisimo refused. And shortly after, he was shot to death in the entry to one of his 'clubs' [rumor had it Al was the trigger].

Torrio set up an organization that took over the south side of Chicago and he was soon trying to organize crime, citywide, as Luciano would do nationally a decade later. But the boss of the predominantly Irish Northside mob, Dion "Deanie" O'Bannion would have none of it. He set up Torrio to take a bootlegging fall, and the war was on.

By 1926, O'Bannion was dead, Torrio was back in Brooklyn after a failed assassination attempt, and Al Capone was the boss of the Southside. Within three years, the next two bosses of the Northside Gang, Hymie Weiss and Vincent 'Schemer' Drucci were dead, and George 'Bugs' Moran, who had been a shooter in a failed attempt on Capone, was in charge. And then the straw that broke the camel's back occurred on February 14th, 1929 - the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In one fell swoop, five of Moran's top executives and triggermen were whacked [with two civilians] in the North Clark St. garage in chicago [Moran just missed being part of the body count]. The garage looked like an abbatoir, with dead men, blood and shell casings all over the place. Chicago business leaders reached out to the President. The IRS and what would be today Federal BATF [including Ness] followed.

The BATF made the splashy headlines [Capone considered his losses part of doing business], but the IRS made the case. The literally followed every dollar Capone spent around, and tallied it against his reported income fro "Al Brown's Dry Cleaning".

At first Capone thought a plea deal was in the works. But the Court sentenced him to 11 years. As a Federal Judge , he owed more to the President than Capone. Capone started serving his sentence in Atlanta, but was soon transferred to Alcatraz, where he served the rest of his time.

Capone didn't serve the 11. Reduced to an 8 year old mentally from the tertiary syphyllis that would take his life at the age of 48, Capone was released after 8 years.

Chicago? The Outfit still runs it. But the "founder of the feast" as it were, surrendered his control of the Windy City on October 17, 1931. 

[PzLdr]

The strategic concept was sound, although its political basis, favorable support in the Middle and Southern colonies, if separated from the 'radical' New Englanders was not a given. The plan was for an army of some 8,000 British regulars, Hessians and Indians to march south along the Lake George Line under MG John  "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne, while the overall commander of British troops in America, William Howe, moved north along the Hudson, and a third column of British troops and a large number of Indians under LTC Barry St. Leger moved east along the Mohawk Valley, with all three to rendezvous in the Albany, New York area. While the plan was fine, the execution was not. and there in lies the rub.

Howe did NOT move north. He sailed south, to undertake the campaign that saw the British capture Philadelphia, the then home of the U.S. Congress. and while his subordinate, Henry Clinton, did make a move north to the Hudson Highlands, where he captured two forts, mainly to relieve pressure on Burgoyne, it was not enough, and it came too late.

Barry St. Leger's mixed force of British regulars, Hessians, Loyalists and Indians [mostly Senecas and Mohawks] did well to start. They moved west and beseiged Ft. Stanwix, the only defensive position in the area, and St. Leger's first objective. Tipped off by Molly Brant, Joseph Brant's sister that Patriots were moving to break their siege of Ft. Stanwix, they ambushed the 800 Patriots and 60 Oneida Indians several miles from the Fort. In the first hour, Patriot general Herkimer lost half his men and was mortally wounded. But he hung on, and a one hour thunderstorm imposed a break in the fighting that allowed the patriots to regroup. At the same time, a sortie from Stanwix took both the Indian and Loyalist siege camps. Learning of this, the Indians abandoned the attack on Herkimer, and then left the siege lines at Stanwix. St. Leger then withdrew totally from Oriskany AND Stanwix, returning to Canada. The biggest result of St. Leger's campaign was a civil war among the Iroquois. The Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga and Onondaga sided with the British. The Oneida and Tuscarora fought for the Patriots. Oneida counterattacks on the Mohawk homeland eventually forced the Mohawk to flee to Canada.

So with Howe and St. Leger out of the picture, the British plan was reduced to Burgoyne.

Burgoyne initially also did well. He captured Ticonderoga with almost no trouble at all. But then two things happened that directly, or indirectly destroyed his chances.

For reasons unknown, after taking Ticonderoga, Burgoyne chose to abandon any water route [he would have had to move some forty miles to the next waterway, and struck out overland. Into heavy forest.

The Patriots were able to slow his advance to a crawl, simply by felling trees across the trails and roads ahead of him, requiring Burgoyne to clear them.

Then, Patriot recruiting propaganda got a major boost when a Loyalist woman named Jane McCrea was killed by some of Burgoyne's Indians while traveling to see her fiancee, who was with Burgoyne's army. Inflamed by the propaganda, the ranks of Patriot militia were swelled.

Eventually Burgoyne traversed the forest. the first thing he did was send some of his forces into Vermont on a horse stealing raid. It was a large force. But the Patriot force at Bennigton defeated them with heavy casualties. Plus no horses.

The finale occurred in two separate battles: Freeman's Farm [19 SEP 1777], and Bemis Heights [7 OCT 1777]. In both the commander was Horatio Gates, but the moving force for the victories was MG Benedict Arnold [It was Arnold who supposedly ordered sharpshooter Timothy Murphy to kill British general Simon Fraser]. Arnold placed the troops for the first battle that held Freeman's Farm, and ledd the counterattacks that broke the British at Bemis Heights. For that he was seriously wounded.

By now, Burgoyne had lost almost half his men in the three battles and prior engagements. He was surrounded by a Patriot force four times his size. Most of his Indian allies had drifted away after Bennington. Burgoyne surrendered.