July 1, 1898: The Battle of San Juan Hill

July 1, 1898: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought near Santiago, Cuba, as part of the Spanish-American War.

This battle has become part of the myth of American greatness, military and civilian. The truth is a bit more complicated.

In the 1890s, the people of Cuba rebelled against their colonial overlords from Spain. Many Americans wanted to go to war to free Cuba. Most of those, however, were business lords who wanted to exploit Cuba's natural resources, without Spain keeping them out. They had tried to make deals with Spain, and failed. So they needed to get Spain out of Cuba. All they needed was an excuse.

On February 15, 1898, they got their excuse. The battleship USS Maine was berthed in Havana Harbor, when there was an explosion, killing 261 sailors. An official U.S. Navy investigation ruled that an external mine caused the explosion. Witnesses among the American survivors denied this, and a much more likely cause for the explosion was a coal fire in the boiler.

No matter: Amid cries of "Remember the Maine!", on April 25, America declared war on Spain. President William McKinley had wanted to avoid it, but he no longer could.

This was America's 1st war with a European power since facing Britain in the War of 1812, which ended in 1815, 83 years earlier. Perhaps "power" was too strong a word for Spain, because the war was a mismatch: Spain was a nation of a crumbling bureaucracy, and the war only lasted until August 13, 1898. There were 2 signature battles, 1 on land, 1 on the sea. The naval battle was in Manila Bay, helping America to take the Philippines on May 1. The other was San Juan Hill.

One of the leading advocates for war with Spain was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. He had written books on military power, so he knew his stuff -- at least, from afar. But his father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr., a wealthy New York importer, had bought a substitute for himself in the American Civil War -- which, under the law of the time, was legal, if not moral -- and the son felt that the man he most admired in the world had damaged the family honor.

So when the Spanish-American War came, Theodore Jr. resigned his post, and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel, and after Colonel Leonard Wood (later to be one of the leading American Generals of World War I) was reassigned, TR (he didn't mind the use of his initials, but he hated being called "Teddy") was given command of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. (Hence, the "U.S.V." pin on his collar.) 

The hat became iconic. Even after he became President,

editorial cartoonists drew him wearing it.

They were nicknamed the Rough Riders, after a term used in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Originally a group of men living up to the "rough" part of their name, TR used his contacts to bring in intelligent men of all kinds of expertise: Athletes, lawmen, actual cowboys he had known while running a ranch in South Dakota (men with "horse sense" if not formal education), and so on.

He wasn't the only one: A veteran of Buffalo Bill's show, the trick-shot artist Annie Oakley, wrote to McKinley, saying she could bring 50 female sharpshooters, who would bring their own weapons and ammunition, thus saving the government money on training and supplies. Although women had assumed masculine identities to serve in every American war effort from 1775 onward, this was the 1st time there was an official public effort by women to volunteer as anything other than a nurse, a cook, or, um, a provider of physical comfort. McKinley declined the offer.

When the Battle of San Juan Hill came, Roosevelt's men charged, with Gatling guns behind them, and the Spanish Army, which hadn't fought a major army since the Peninsular Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars 84 years earlier, didn't have a chance. The Americans lost more men -- 144 to 114 -- but they vastly outnumbered the Spanish, so they only lost 8 percent of their force, as opposed to Spain's 22 percent.

Spain surrendered Cuba a few days later. The Treaty of Paris was signed on October 18, 1898, allowing America to officially take possession of Puerto Rico and Cuba from Spain. This was before Britain was able to spread soccer to Spain and its Western Hemisphere possessions. This is why Puerto Rico and Cuba, and also the Dominican Republic, love baseball, when most of the former Spanish colonies in the New World prefer soccer, and the former British colonies in the New World prefer cricket.

The victory made Roosevelt the most famous man in America, ahead of McKinley, ahead of Buffalo Bill, ahead of any actor, ahead of any athlete. That November, he was elected Governor of New York. In 1900, tired of his reform efforts, his own party, the Republican Party of the State of New York, talked the national Party into nominating him for Vice President, getting him out of their hair. The Vice Presidency was vacant due to the death of Garret Hobart the year before.

On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was assassinated. He died 8 days later, and his campaign manager and right-hand man, Ohio Republican boss Mark Hanna, said, "That damned cowboy is in the White House!" Hanna knew TR would be an activist President, and planned to oppose him for the Republican nomination in 1904. But Hanna died early that year, and TR won a term of his own easily -- becoming the 1st "accidental President" to do so.

He was that popular. Even Democrats who opposed him politically liked him personally. To this day, over 100 years after his death, he remains one of the most popular Presidents in American history, and a symbol of America's can-do optimism and toughness. 

*

July 1, 1898 was a Friday. There was a full slate of 6 games in the National League, the only major league at the time:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Orphans, 8-4 at West Side Park in Chicago. Huh? "Orphans"? The year before, Adrian Constantine Anson, their 1st baseman since 1876 and their manager since 1879, retired as a player and left as their manager -- and was now managing the Giants. That only lasted one season. Anyway, he had long been known as "Cap," for "Captain." As he got older, people started calling him "Pop."

The team was founded in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings. In 1890, because they had so many young players, they became the Chicago Colts. But after Anson left, a sportswriter called them the Orphans, because they "missed their Pop." Another youth movement, in 1903, led to them adopting the name everyone knows them by: The Chicago Cubs.

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-7 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. There was an off-season in which 4 players from the team then known as the Brooklyn Grays got married, so, "Bridegrooms." In 1899, Ned Hanlon became their manager, somebody remembered a circus troupe named Hanlon's Superbas, and they became the Brooklyn Superbas. They became the Dodgers, short for Trolly Dodgers, in 1911, were known as the Robins while Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931, and became the Dodgers again.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Boston Beaneaters, 12-6 at League Park in Cleveland. The Spiders lasted just 1 more season. In 1901, the team that would eventually become the Cleveland Indians began play at League Park. A new ballpark with that name was built on the same site in 1910. The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-2 at League Park in Cincinnati. What would eventually be named Crosley Field would be built on the site in 1912.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Louisville Colonels, 2-0 at Eclipse Park in Louisville.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Washington Senators, 4-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. These Browns would become the Cardinals. A new Browns would be started in the American League in 1902, and play at Sportsman's Park. A new ballpark with that name was built on the site in 1909.

The American League was possible because, after the 1899 season, the Spiders, the Orioles, the Colonels and the Senators would be contracted. However, the AL would take up several former NL names: The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, the St. Louis Browns, and the Washington Senators.

July 1, 1893: President Grover Cleveland's Secret Surgery

July 1, 1893: President Grover Cleveland undergoes surgery for oral cancer. It is kept a secret for the rest of his life, but at least he has a "rest of his life."

Cleveland had been elected President in 1884, then lost the Electoral Vote despite winning the popular vote in 1888, and regained the office in 1892. Through the election of 2020, he remains the only former President ever to regain the office. He, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt are the only 3 men to win the popular vote for President at least 3 times. And yet, on none of those 3 occasions did Cleveland win a majority.

Just 2 months into his new term, the Panic of 1893 took place, with the stock market crashing. Cleveland took measures to stop the emergency, but the nation slipped into a depression anyway. And while this was going on, he had soreness on the roof of his mouth. Clinical samples were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum, and the diagnosis was oral cancer.

Like a previous President, Ulysses S. Grant, he loved cigars, and it caught up with him. Unlike Grant, the tumor was in his palette, not his throat, and was operable. But, concerned that publicizing his illness would cause people to lose confidence in their President, and thus lose whatever remaining confidence they had in the economy, he decided that he had to keep his surgery a secret.

On June 30, he took a train to New York, announced as a fishing vacation. On July 1, on a yacht in the East River, away from prying eyes, he was operated on.

The tumor was removed, but when he woke up, he found that he couldn't speak. A 2nd surgery had to be performed, to provide him with a rubber substitute for the upper jaw area that was removed. After that, he was fine. He was able to return to work quickly, but the economy fell further. By 1896, the depression was still ongoing, and he knew that running for another term would mean sure defeat.

He left office on March 4, 1897, and lived in Princeton, New Jersey until dying on June 24, 1908, of a heart attack, 15 years after the surgery. He had lived to be 71 years old, long enough to see his reputation as President recover somewhat. Not until 1917 was the story of his surgery published, in a first-person account by the surgeon.

*

July 1, 1893 was a Saturday. There was only 1 professional sports league in North America at the time, baseball's National League. These games were played:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Colts, 1-0 at West Side Park in Chicago.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, 13-2 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 13-6 at League Park in Cleveland.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators, 5-4 at League Park in Cincinnati.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Louisville Colonels, 7-5 at Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky.

* And the Boston Beaneaters beat the St. Louis Browns, 12-5 at an early version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

The Spiders, the Senators, the Orioles and the Colonels were all contracted out of the NL after the 1899 season. By 1900 the St. Louis team was the Cardinals. By 1903, the Chicago team was the Cubs. By 1911, the Brooklyn team was the Dodgers. By 1912, the Boston team was the Braves.

July 1, 1876: The Dewey Decimal System

July 1, 1876: The publication Library Journal publishes its 1st issue, in Boston. It is founded and largely written by Melvil Dewey, a 25-year-old librarian originally from Adams Center, New York, on Lake Ontario. In this issue, Dewey explained his new cataloguing system for library books, which has come to be known as the Dewey Decimal System.

Dewey was also a believer in the metric system, as it was also a base-ten system. But that's never caught on in America.

Dewey, identifying himself as "the author," explained his system as follows, with my editing:

The plan of the following Classification and Index was developed early in 1873. It was the result of several months' study of library economy as found in some hundreds of books and pamphlets, and in over fifty personal visits to various American libraries.

In this study, the author became convinced that the usefulness of these libraries might be greatly increased without additional expenditure. Three years practical use of the system here explained, leads him to believe that it will accomplish this result; for with its aid, the catalogues, shelf lists, indexes, and cross-references essential to this increased usefulness, can be made more economically than by any other method which he has been able to find. The system was devised for cataloguing and indexing purposes, but it was found on trial to be equally valuable for numbering and arranging books and pamphlets on the shelves.

The library is first divided into nine special libraries which are called Classes. These Classes are Philosophy, Theology, &c., and are numbered with the nine digits. Thus Class 9 is the Library of History; Class 7, the Library of Fine Art; Class 2, the Library of Theology.

These special libraries or Classes are then considered independently, and each one is separated again into nine special Divisions of the main subject. These Divisions are numbered from 1 to 9 as were the Classes. Thus 59 is the 9th Division (Zoology) of the 5th Class (Natural Science). A final division is then made by separating each of these Divisions into nine Sections which are numbered in the same way, with the nine digits. Thus 513 is the 3d Section (Geometry) of the 1st Division (Mathematics) of the 5th Class (Natural Science).

This number, giving Class, Division, and Section, is called the Classification or Class Number, and is applied to every book or pamphlet belonging to the library. All the Geometries are thus numbered 513, all the Mineralogies 549, and so throughout the library, all the books on any given subject bear the number of that subject in the scheme.

Where a 0 occurs in a class number, it has its normal zero power. Thus, a book numbered 510, is Class 5, Division 1, but no Section. This signifies that the book treats of the Division 51 (Mathematics) in general, and is not limited to any one Section, as is the Geometry, marked 513. If marked 500, it would indicate a treatise on Science in general, limited to no Division. A zero occurring in the first place would in the same way show that the book is limited to no Class.

The classification is mainly made by subjects or content regardless of form; but it is found practically useful to make an additional distinction in these general treatises, according to the form of treatment adopted. Thus, in Science we have a large number of books treating of Science in general, and so having a 0 for the Division number.

These books are then divided into Sections, as are those of the other Classes according to the form they have taken on. We have the Philosophy and History of Science, Scientific Compends, Dictionaries, Essays, Periodicals, Societies, Education, and Travels,--all having the common subject, NATURAL SCIENCE, but treating it in these varied forms. These form distinctions are introduced here because the number of general works is large, and the numerals allow of this division, without extra labor for the numbers from 501 to 509 would otherwise be unused. They apply only to the general treatises, which, without them, would have a class number ending with two zeros.

A Dictionary of Mathematics is 510, not 503, for every book is assigned to the most specific head that will contain it, so that 503 is limited to Dictionaries or Cyclopedias of Science in general. In the same way a General Cyclopedia or Periodical treats of no one class, and so is assigned to the Class 0. These books treating of no special class, but general in their character, are divided into Cyclopedias, Periodicals, etc. No difficulty is found in following the arithmetical law and omitting the initial zero, so these numbers are printed 31, 32, etc., instead of 031, 032, etc.

In other words:

* 000: Computer Science, Information and General Works

* 100: Philosophy and Psychology

* 200: Religion

* 300: Social Sciences

* 400: Language

* 500: Pure Science, not covered under any of these other categories

* 600: Technology

* 700: Arts and Recreation

* 800: Literature

* 900: History and Geography

Most entries on this blog would fall under 700, with Music coming in at the 780s, Movies and Television at 792, and Sports at 796; or 900, under History, with 920 being Biography, the 930s for the History of the Ancient World (not coverable here), the 940s for the History of Europe, the 950s for Asia, the 960s for Africa, the 970s for North America, the 980s for South America, and the 990s for "Other Areas," like Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands) or the polar regions.

A book with a Dewey number of 000 would be fore computer science. A book with a Dewey number 999 would be for "extraterrestrial worlds." If the sports entries in this blog were published in book form (unlikely to happen in my lifetime), the sticker on the spine would read 796 PAC, for sports and the 1st 3 letters of my surname. If I included only those entries relating to baseball, it would be 796.357 PAC.

In 1897, when the present Library of Congress building opened, it instituted its own system, the Library of Congress Classification. While some libraries have adopted it, the Dewey Decimal System remains considerably more popular. 

From 1883 to 1888, Melvil Dewey was the chief librarian at the Columbia College Libraries; then, through 1906, the director of the New York State Library. In 1895, at Lake Placid, New York, he and his wife Annie founded the Lake Placid Club, which, by 1924, helped to establish the Winter Olympics, which have been hosted in Lake Placid in 1932 and 1980. In 1926, he moved to Florida, and established a town named Lake Placid there. He died there in 1931.

In the years since his death, unsettling revelations about him reached the public, including racism, anti-Semitism, and sexual harassment of women. His System has been of great help to anyone using a library, either employee or visitor; but he must be forever consigned to the realm of, "Yes, but... "

*

July 1, 1876 was a Saturday. The only professional sports league in North America at the time was baseball's National League, and 2 games were played in it on this day. The Boston Red Stockings beat the Louisville Grays, 10-2 at the Louisville Baseball Park in Kentucky. And the Chicago White Stockings beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 18-10 at the State Street Grounds in Chicago.

This version of the Philadelphia Athletics dropped out of the NL after the season, while the Grays folded after the 1877 season. The Boston team eventually became the Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves; while the Chicago team became the Cubs, and both teams would see their original names adopted by teams that began play in the American League in 1901: The Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox.

June 30, 1970: Riverfront Stadium Opens In Cincinnati

June 30, 1970: Riverfront Stadium opens in downtown Cincinnati. It is the 1st outdoor Major League Baseball stadium with artificial turf. Within days, it will host the All-Star Game. At the end of the season, it will host the 1st World Series game on artificial turf.

It was built on the site of a tenement building, where eventual "Singing Cowboy" Roy Rogers was born. He said, "I was born somewhere between second base and center field."

The Cincinnati Reds move in, after 58 years at Crosley Field, and 86 years at that site. The opener does not go well for the "Big Red Machine," as they lose to the Atlanta Braves, 8-2. Hank Aaron went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs, including the 1st home run in the new stadium, the 567th of his career. Rico Carty goes 2-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Orlando Cepeda has no RBIs, but goes 3-for-5.

For the Reds, Pete Rose goes 3-for-4 with an RBI. Johnny Bench goes 0-for-4. Pat Jarvis is the winning pitcher, while Jim McGlothlin is the losing pitcher.

Pregame ceremony before the 1st game

The defeat is an aberration: The Reds already led the National League Western Division by 9 1/2 games, and went on to win it by 14 1/2. They beat the Pittsburgh Pirates for the Pennant, before losing the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles. This begins a run of 10 season in which they won 6 Division titles, 4 Pennants, and the 1975 and 1976 World Series.

They won another World Series in 1990, giving the stadium 5 World Series. It also hosted the All-Star Game in 1988. The NFL's Cincinnati Bengals played their 1st game there on September 20, beating the Oakland Raiders, 30-21. They hosted 6 Playoff games at Riverfront, including the AFC Championship Games for the 1981 and 1988 seasons.

Three Rivers Stadium opened in Pittsburgh, 16 days later, and 289 miles up the Ohio River. Given the similarities between the 2 -- same basic design, both had artificial turf, the city beyond couldn't be seen from inside -- Bob Wood, in his book Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks, telling of his 1985 trip to all 26 stadiums then in use in MLB, joked that a fan could be put to sleep in Riverfront, driven to Three Rivers, awakened there, and he wouldn't know he was in a different stadium until he got out onto the streets.

That joke wasn't completely true, but they were a lot alike. And, unlike the next MLB stadium to open, the similarly-designed Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, in April 1971, the NFL teams that occupied the stadiums were in the same Division -- although the MLB teams that did so wouldn't be until the 1994 realignment put the Reds (NL West) and the Pirates (NL East) in the same Division (NL Central).

Notable moments included the 1970 All-Star Game, when hometown hero Pete Rose crashed into catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run for the National League, with President Richard Nixon in attendance; 1985, when Rose broke the all-time hits record, before being disgraced in a gambling scandal in 1989; and, tragically, the death on the field of umpire John McSherry on Opening Day 1996.

The University of Cincinnati played 25 games there, for games that were too big for their on-campus Nippert Stadium, which then seated only 28,000, and was home to the Bengals in their 1st 2 seasons, in the AFL, 1968 and 1969.

The 1st concert at Riverfront was by Jethro Tull on August 4, 1976. Among the other acts to play it were The Eagles in 1978, The Rolling Stones in 1989 and 1994, Paul McCartney in 1993, and 'N Sync with Sisqo and Pink as opening acts in 2000. The Kool Jazz Festival was an annual event.

The Reds' biggest crowd was 56,393, on October 16, 1975, for Game 5 of the World Series, a 6-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. The Bengals' biggest crowd was 60,284, on October 17, 1971, a 27-24 loss to their cross-State rivals, the Cleveland Browns. The Bengals' finale there would also be against the Browns, a 44-28 win before 59,972 on December 12, 1999.

In 1996, the stadium's name was changed to Cinergy Field, after the Cincinnati area's main energy company. After the 1999 season, portions of the left and center field seats were demolished, to make room for the Reds' new home, Great American Ball Park. This reduced the stadium's seating capacity to around 40,000, and, along with the replacement of the artificial turf with real grass, made the place look a bit like Shea Stadium in New York.

The last game that counted was played on September 22, 2002. at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The Reds lost, 4-3 to the Philadelphia Phillies. Despite a lineup that included Ken Griffey Jr. (630 career home runs), Adam Dunn (462 homers), José Guillén (214 homers) and Barry Larkin (2,340 hits including 198 homers), the last home run in the 33-year-old stadium was hit by Aaron Boone, now manager of the Yankees (who hit only 126 in his career, not counting the postseason, as Yankee Fans know).

A history museum, The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, was built on the site.

*

June 30, 1970 was a Tuesday. Future baseball star Mark Grudzielanek was born.

These other games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Les Cain outpitched Fritz Peterson, and hit a home run in his own cause. Al Kaline went 1-for-4 with 2 home runs. For the Yankees, Ron Woods went 3-for-4 with a solo home run.

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-6 at Shea Stadium. Jerry Koosman outpitched Bob Veale. Tommie Agee hit a home run for the Mets. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4, but Willie Stargell and Al Oliver hit home runs.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-1 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Dave McNally outpitched Steve Dunning. Boog Powell went 3-for-4 with 2 home runs and 3 RBIs. Frank Robinson went 1-for-4. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-4.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Jim "Catfish" Hunter outpitched Tommy John. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the California Angels, 5-4 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The Minnesota Twins, 8-5 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-4 with a solo home run. Rod Carew did not play.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium. Bob Gibson went the distance for the win, and hit a home run in his own cause. Lou Brock went 1-for-4. Billy Williams hit a home run for the Cubs, but Ernie Banks did not play.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Danny Coombs outpitched Gaylord Perry. Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.

June 30, 1960: The No-Longer Belgian Congo Leads the Year of Africa

President Patrice Lumumba stands at center

June 30, 1960: The Republic of the Congo declares its independence from the Kingdom of Belgium. No longer will it be "The Belgian Congo."

It had to be called that, because France also had a colony it called "Congo." That one gained its independence on August 15. It had been nicknamed, for its capital, "Congo-Brazzaville," as opposed to formerly Belgian "Congo-Kinshasa." The name "Congo" originally referred to the river in both of those nations in West Africa, or to the Basin thereof.

These nations gained their independence from France in 1960, unless otherwise mentioned: Cameroon kicked off "The Year of Africa" by declaring independence on January 1, Togo on April 27, Mali on June 20, Madagascar on June 26, and Somalia from Italy on July 1. In addition, on April 27, Ghana left the British Commonwealth, and became a Republic.

And then, in August, 9 more nations gained their independence from France: Dahomey on the 1st, Niger (not to be confused with Nigeria) on the 3rd, Upper Volta on the 5th, the Ivory Coast (they prefer their French name, Côte d'Ivoire) on the 7th, Chad on the 11th, the Central African Republic on the 13th, France's Congo on the 15th, and Gabon on the 17th. And on the 20th, Senegal separated from the Mali Federation, and became independent. Nigeria gained independence from Britain on October 1, and, closing it out, Mauritania from France on November 28.

Dahomey became Benin in 1975, and Upper Volta became Burkina Faso in 1984. The former Belgian Congo/Congo-Kinshasa became Zaire in 1971, and "The Democratic Republic of the Congo" in 1997.

*

June 30, 1960 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Athletics, 10-3 at Yankee Stadium. Ralph Terry, not yet the Yankee World Series hero of 1962, went the distance for the win; while Don Larsen, the Yankee World Series hero of 1956, didn't get out of the 3rd inning for the A's. Bill "Moose" Skowron hit 2 home runs, and the Yankees also got home runs from Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Tony Kubek. Yogi Berra did not play.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-7 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ted Williams hit his 505th career home run. Al Kaline went 1-for-4. Rocky Colavito went 2-for-4 with 2 home runs and 5 RBIs.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-6 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The Brooklyn "Boys of Summer" were pretty much done: Duke Snider did not play, and Gil Hodges did so only as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 4-2 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Joe Ginsberg doubled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* A doubleheader was split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The San Francisco Giants won the opener, 11-0. Jack Sanford pitched a 3-hit shutout. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the nightcap, 11-6. Dick Stuart, already known as a bad fielder but not yet with the nicknames Dr. Strangeglove or Stonefingers, went 4-for-5 with 3 home runs and 7 RBIs.

Over the 2 games, Willie Mays went 6-for-9 with a home run in each game, a walk, and 5 RBIs; Willie McCovey went 3-for-5 with a walk (only appearing as a pinch-hitter in the nightcap, but getting a hit); and Roberto Clemente went 1-for-6 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Milwaukee Braves, 11-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 3-for-6 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Hank Aaron went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* And the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.

June 30, 1959: Two Balls In Play

Vic Delmore

June 30, 1959: The St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs, arch-rivals, play each other at Wrigley Field in Chicago. A strange thing happens, as they occasionally do when the Cubs are involved.

The Cardinals scored a run in the 1st inning, and another in the 2nd. The Cubs pulled one back in the 3rd, so that it was Cardinals 2, Cubs 1, with 1 out in the top of the 4th, when... this happened:

Stan Musial came to the plate. With a count of 3 balls and 1 strike, Cub pitcher Bob Anderson threw a bad pitch, which got past catcher Sammy Taylor, and rolled to the backstop. Musial had checked his swing. Home plate umpire Vic Delmore called ball 4, and awarded 1st base to Musial. That should have been the end of the play.

Anderson and Taylor argued with Delmore, saying that, in checking his swing, Musial had foul-tipped the ball, meaning it should be strike 2, and the at-bat should continue. Seeing this, and knowing that neither Delmore nor any other umpire had stopped play, Musial -- in his 18th season in the major leagues, so he'd seen it all, or thought he had -- broke for 2nd base, as he was entitled to do, since no umpire had declared a dead ball.

Alvin Dark, former New York Giants shortstop, was the Cubs' 3rd baseman on this day. In his 13th season, he'd seen his share of big situations, and realized that the play was still alive. He ran to the backstop, and got the ball, intending to throw Musial out at 2nd.

Delmore was still dealing with Anderson and Taylor, so he didn't see Dark. As the plate umpire, Delmore had the supply of baseballs, and gave a new one to Taylor -- without calling time out or saying that the previous play was dead.

Only then did Anderson notice Musial trying to reach 2nd base. He threw the ball to 2nd baseman Tony Taylor, and the ball went into the outfield for an error. Musial saw this, and decided to break for 3rd base. At the same time, the original ball was thrown by Dark to shortstop Ernie Banks, who tagged Musial out.

At this point, nobody seemed to know what was going on. After conferring with the other umpires, Delmore realized that he hadn't called play dead, or called time out. Therefore, the ball with which Musial was tagged was live, and Musial was out.

The rest of the game was comparatively uneventful. Hal Smith singled, meaning that if everything had gone like it was supposed to, the Cards would have had Musial on 2nd and Smith on 1st with 1 out. Instead, Smith was on 1st with 2 outs, and Anderson struck Dick Gray out to end the inning.

Both managers, Bob Scheffing of the Cubs and Solly Hemus of the Cards, told Delmore they were playing the game under protest. The Cards went on to win, 4-1, and dropped their protest. Larry Jackson went the distance to be the winning pitcher for the Cardinals. Musial went 1-for-2 with 2 walks, and was later removed for defensive purposes. Banks went 1-for-3 with a walk. The Cubs' protest was not upheld. Both teams finished under .500, and the game had no effect on the Pennant race. It was just one game, with one weird occurrence.

But Delmore became an object of ridicule, even though it was Anderson and Taylor distracting him with a phony argument that caused the confusion. The National League did not renew his contract for the 1960 season. On June 10, 1960, less than a year after the incident, Delmore died, apparently of heart disease, but perhaps depression over the event had a physical effect as well. He was only 44 years old.

In his memoir, Dark said, "It was a mess and I really felt sorry for Vic Delmore... I don't remember everything about it but I do remember everyone laughed at Vic Delmore. That play ruined him, and he was a great fellow and a good umpire."

*

June 30, 1959 was a Tuesday. Actor Vincent D'Onofrio was born. And these other baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Duke Maas started, but didn't get through the 5th inning, not qualifying to be the winning pitcher. Art Ditmar was credited as such. Yogi Berra went 1-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Mickey Mantle and Brooks Robinson did not play.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Roberto Clemente did not play.

* The Washington Senators beat Boston Red Sox, 6-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Pedro Ramos went the distance for the win. Faye Throneberry, brother of "Marvelous Marv," hit a home run. Harmon Killebrew went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Ted Williams went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs beat the Milwaukee Braves, 8-5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI, and the Reds got home runs from Gus Bell, Vada Pinson and Jerry Lynch. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4, while Eddie Mathews and Joe Adcock hit home runs.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Athletics, 4-0 at Briggs Stadium (now Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Al Kaline did not play for the Tigers. Roger Maris went 0-for-4 for the A's.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Sam Jones took a no-hitter into the 8th inning, and gave up a single to Jim Gilliam. He kept the 1-hitter, outpitching Don Drysdale. Willie Mays hit a home run, while Duke Snider went 0-for-4.

June 30, 1936: Emperor Haile Selassie's Plea Falls On Deaf Ears

June 30, 1936: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia speaks before the League of Nations, at the Palais Wilson on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Ethiopia was one of the few independent nations in Africa when Italy invaded on October 2, 1935, in fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's bid to create a new Roman Empire. At the end of the year, for his resistance, Time magazine named Haile Selassie its Man of the Year. On May 7, 1936, Italy completed its annexation of the country. Two days later, Mussolini declared the colony of Italian East Africa, also including Eritrea and Somalia.

Like all who had sat on his throne, Haile Selassie claimed to trace his lineage back to the affair between Solomon, one of the Biblical Kings of Israel, and the Queen of Sheba, known in modern Ethiopia as Makeda. But now, the man known to his people as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God, and Lion of Judah had been overthrown, and had to flee his country.

The League of Nations had been founded after World War I, by President Woodrow Wilson (hence, the name of the its assembly hall), in the hopes of preventing small conflicts, especially to prevent them from becoming bigger conflicts, as the fight between Serbia and the Austrian Empire in July 1914 snowballed into World War I.

But America's U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which had created the League. Thus, America, and the large moral authority it had gained from winning the war, were not in the league. Therefore, the League was considerably weaker than it could have been.

Still, Haile Selassie believed that, if he told the League what the Italians were doing in his country, they would respond, and help. Although fluent in French, the League's working language, the Emperor delivered his speech in his native language, Amharic, translated for the Assembly. He said:

I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.

There is no precedent for a Head of State himself speaking in this assembly. But there is also no precedent for a people being victim of such injustice and being at present threatened by abandonment to its aggressor. Also, there has never before been an example of any Government proceeding to the systematic extermination of a nation by barbarous means, in violation of the most solemn promises made by the nations of the earth that there should not be used against innocent human beings the terrible poison of harmful gases.

It is to defend a people struggling for its age-old independence that the head of the Ethiopian Empire has come to Geneva to fulfil this supreme duty, after having himself fought at the head of his armies...

Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment...

On behalf of the Ethiopian people, a member of the League of Nations, I request the Assembly to take all measures proper to ensure respect for the Covenant. I renew my protest against the violations of treaties of which the Ethiopian people has been the victim. I declare in the face of the whole world that the Emperor, the Government and the people of Ethiopia will not bow before force; that they maintain their claims that they will use all means in their power to ensure the triumph of right and the respect of the Covenant...

It is us today. It will be you tomorrow...

I ask the fifty-two nations, who have given the Ethiopian people a promise to help them in their resistance to the aggressor, what are they willing to do for Ethiopia? And the great Powers who have promised the guarantee of collective security to small States on whom weighs the threat that they may one day suffer the fate of Ethiopia, I ask what measures do you intend to take?

Representatives of the World: I have come to Geneva to discharge in your midst the most painful of the duties of the head of a State. What reply shall I have to take back to my people?

The League's reply was pathetic: Only partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy. It is often said that the League of Nations effectively collapsed due to its failure to condemn Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. 

He spent his exile in Bath, England. Back in Ethiopia, one of his daughters died in captivity, and his sons-in-law were executed. Another daughter died in childbirth shortly after the restoration.

But the restoration did come. When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, it also declared war on Italy, as part of the same Axis. On January 18, 1941, a combined force of Ethiopian, British Empire, Free France and Free Belgium troops invaded. On May 5, the Italians surrendered, and Haile Selassie entered the capital of Addis Ababa, and addressed his people again.

By that point, the League of Nations had only a skeleton staff. For all intents and purposes, it existed only on paper. In 1946, with the United Nations already operating, the League Assembly voted to dissolve the League.

*

June 30, 1936:  was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, 10-5 and 6-3 at Yankee Stadium. Lou Gehrig went 3-for-6 with a home run in each game, 3 walks and 4 RBIs. Rookie Joe DiMaggio went 3-for-9 with an RBI. For the Sox, Jimmie Foxx 3-for-7 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Bees, 7-6 at National League Park in Boston. This was the 1st season for which the Boston Braves tried to abandon their losing tradition by changing the name of their team and their ballpark, Braves Field. After 5 years, they realized it wasn't working.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 and 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

June 30, 1934: The Night of the Long Knives

Left to right: Adolf Hitler, Gregor Strasser,

Ernst Röhm and Hermann Göring, 1932.

June 30, 1934: Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and Führer (Leader) of the Nazi Party, as paranoid as ever, consolidates his power with a "purge" that becomes known as "The Night of the Long Knives."

Ernst Röhm was the co-founder and leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA, meaning "Storm Division," or "Storm Troopers," also known as the "Brownshirts"), the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing, which played a significant role in Hitler's rise to power. He and Hitler were close friends.

But Hitler began to see the independence of the SA, and the penchant of its members for street violence ,as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. He also wanted to appease leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who feared and despised the SA as a potential rival, in particular because of Röhm's ambition to merge the army and the SA under his own leadership.

Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth. In Röhm's view, President Paul von Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933 had brought the Nazi Party to power, but had left unfulfilled the party's larger goals.

So, urged on by Hermann Göring, the President of the Reichstag (the national legislature), and Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS, "Protection Squadron"), Hitler ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions.

The primary instruments of Hitler's action, which carried out most of the killings, were the  SS and its Sicherheitsdienst (SD, "Security Service"); and the Geheime Staatspolizei (shortened to "Gestapo," meaning "Secret State Police"), under the command of Reinhard Heydrich.

Leading members of the Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, including its leader, Gregor Strasser, were also killed. So were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis, such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had helped suppress Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. In Godfather terms, Hitler was settling all business.

Röhm was arrested in Munich, but not killed right away. On the afternoon of July 1, in his cell, he was approached by SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke and SS-Obersturmbannführer Michael Lippert. They handed him a Browning pistol with one cartridge, and said that he had 10 minutes to use it on himself, or they would do it for him. He refused, saying, "If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself." Eicke and Lippert then carried out their threat. Röhm was 46 years old.

There are 85 documented cases of people killed in the Night of the Long Knives. The actual death toll is usually considered by historians to be over 200, and may be as high as 1,000. But it did what Hitler wanted it to do: It strengthened and consolidated his support within the military, and provided a legal grounding for the Nazis, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extrajudicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime. Now, without question, Hitler was, in the words he used before a July 13 speech to the Reichstag, "the supreme administrator of justice of the German people."

Hitler's sense of justice wasn't the only perverted thing about his government.

*

June 30, 1934 was a Saturday. Magician Harry Blackstone Jr. was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 8-4 at the Polo Grounds. Ray Benge outpitched Carl Hubbell. Jimmy Jordan went 4-for-5 with an RBI. Giants player-manager Bill Terry and Mel Ott each went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-6 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Bob Johnson saved the A's with a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning, and then Frankie Hayes singled Bing Miller home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th. Jimmie Foxx went 0-for-4 with a walk for the A's.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Paul Waner went 1-for-5, and Lloyd Waner went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 11-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds scored 9 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Harlong Clift singled Rollie Hemsley home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Tigers player-manager Mickey Cochrane went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs. Hank Greenberg went 1-for-5.

* And, in what is, as far as I know, a unique example in MLB history, the New York Yankees were supposed to play the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium, but, according to Baseball-Reference.com, the game was postponed -- due to wind. Not rain, not snow, not cold, but wind.

It was postponed until August 7, as part of a doubleheader. The Yankees won the opener, 4-3. The Senators won the nightcap, 6-3. Over the 2 games, Babe Ruth, in his last season as a Yankee, went 0-for-6 (only pinch-hitting in the nightcap); Lou Gehrig went 1-for-9 with a walk and an RBI; and Senators shortstop-manager Joe Cronin went 2-for-8.

June 30, 1921: The Job Taft Really Wanted

June 30, 1921: President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He had wanted the job for as long as he could remember.

A graduate of Yale Law School, the son of former Attorney General Alphonso Taft, and, like his father, the U.S. Secretary of War, Taft wanted to be on the Supreme Court. He had served as U.S. Solicitor General under President Benjamin Harrison. That wouldn't have been an omen at the time, but he did go on to become the 1st holder of that office to be appointed to the Supreme Court. He has been followed as such by Stanley Reed, Robert H. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Elena Kagan. Another, Robert Bork, was appointed to the Court, but rejected by the Senate.

Taft and his wife Helen were invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt early in 1908. TR had already announced he would not run for what would have amounted to a 3rd term, and kiddingly told Taft that he could see the future. He saw a large man taking a great job -- but was it the Presidency, or the Chief Justiceship?

Will Taft said, "Let it be the Chief Justiceship."

Helen Taft, always more ambitious than her husband, said, "Let it be the Presidency."

The Presidency it was, and Will Taft was easily nominated at the 1908 Republican Convention in Chicago, and was elected in a landslide. But he took a more conservative course than TR did, and TR tried to regain the Republican nomination for President in 1912. When he failed, he ran a 3rd-party campaign, and, having said some very nasty things about Taft, finished ahead of him, but was unable to defeat the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson. Taft and TR made up before the latter's death in 1919.

In 1920, Senator Warren G. Harding was elected President. A fellow Republican from Ohio, Harding invited Taft to his home in Marion after the election, and promised him a Supreme Court appointment. Taft knew that Edward D. White, whom he had appointed Chief Justice in 1910, was ill, and told Harding that he didn't want to be an Associate Justice, only the Chief Justice.

White died in office on May 19, 1921. Harding was a weak man, who basically did everything his 1920 campaign manager, Harry Daugherty, told him to do, including to make Daugherty himself the U.S. Attorney General. Taft knew this, and lobbied Daugherty for the post. It worked: On June 30, 1921, Harding appointed Taft to be the new Chief Justice of the United States. Without holding a single hearing, and with a brief debate, the U.S. Senate confirmed him that very same day. The vote was 61-4, the "Nay" votes coming from a Southern Democrat and 3 progressive Republicans who had supported Roosevelt over him in 1912.

He was sworn in on July 11, and, to this day, he remains the only person to serve as both President of the United States and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, let alone the Chief Justice.

Charles Evans Hughes was unsuccessfully nominated by the Republicans in 1916, after he was an associate Justice but before he was Chief Justice. Earl Warren ran for the Republican nomination in 1944 and 1948, and was unsuccessfully nominated for Vice President in 1948, and was later named Chief Justice.

Taft led the Court through the 1920s, a very conservative period that saw very conservative decisions by the Court. He was a great deal happier in his new job, and his weight, once a Presidential record 340 pounds -- possibly broken by Donald Trump, but his Administration wouldn't tell us the truth -- dropped to 244 by 1929.

However, by that point, his heart and liver were failing. He had delivered the Oath of Office correctly to President Calvin Coolidge when he was inaugurated for a full term on March 4, 1925: "...and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." But at President-elect Herbert Hoover's Inauguration on March 4, 1929, Taft, as great a constitutional scholar as was alive at that point, misquoted the Oath as stated in the Constitution: "and will, to the best of your ability, that you will preserve, and maintain, and defend the Constitution of the United States?"

(Hoover, unusually, instead of repeating the Oath entirely, as Franklin D. Roosevelt did the next 4 times, or phrase by phrase as given him by the Chief Justice, as every President since has done, simply said, "I do.") 

Taft realized his mind was no longer sharp. A trip home to Cincinnati for his brother Charles' funeral in January 1930 damaged his physical health further. He asked Hoover to promise him that his replacement as Chief Justice would be Hughes, who had been Secretary of State under Harding and Coolidge, rather than the more liberal Harlan Stone, a Coolidge appointee. Hoover agreed, and Taft resigned on February 3.

He died on March 8, 1930, at the age of 72. Because he was still living in Washington, he became the 1st President -- and also the 1st Supreme Court Justice -- to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (The only President so honored since has been John F. Kennedy. Presidents tend to be buried in their hometowns, or at their Presidential Libraries -- usually, the Library is in their hometown.) His wife Helen lived on until 1943.

Taft is regarded as one of the better Chief Justices, but not as one of the better Presidents. He would have agreed with both assessments.

His son, Robert A. Taft, would serve Ohio in the U.S. Senate, and run for President 3 times, though he never got the Republican nomination. He was so conservative, he would be known as "Mr. Republican." He died in 1953, in office as Senate Majority Leader. His son, Robert Taft Jr., served Ohio in both houses of Congress. And his son, Bob Taft, served 2 terms as Governor of Ohio.

*

June 30, 1921 was a Thursday. There were 4 baseball games played that day:

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Ty Cobb went 3-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Tris Speaker went 1-for-4 with a walk. Each man was now his team's player-manager.

* And the St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 6-1 and 1-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ray Kolp pitched a 4-hit shutout in the nightcap. Eddie Collins made only 1 plate appearance, as an unsuccessful pinch-hitter in the nightcap. Over the 2 games, George Sisler went 4-for-8.

June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Explosion

June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Explosion -- also called the Tunguska Event or the Tunguska Incident -- occurs at 7:17 AM over the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in what is now Kransnoyarsk Krai, central Siberia, in Russia.

The explosion is estimated to have a yield of at least 3 megatons of TNT. To put that in perspective: Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, had a yield of 15 kilotons -- so the Tunguska Explosion was 200 times more powerful.

The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga (snowforest, the Arctic equivalent of a rainforest) flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least 3 people may have died in the event. Had it been over a city, thousands could have been killed.

A 1929 photo, showing the still-flattened, not-yet-removed trees

The explosion is generally attributed to a meteor air burst: The atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid, about 200 feet across. The asteroid approached from the east-south-east, and probably with a relatively high speed of about 60,000 miles per hour. Though it is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles, rather than having hit the Earth’s surface, leaving no impact crater.

The Tunguska Event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts occurred in prehistoric times. One is credited with wiping out the dinosaurs, 65 million or so years ago.

*

June 30, 1908 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees, 8-0 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Cy Young, at 41 belying his age and defying Father Time, pitches his 3rd career no-hitter. He will remain the oldest pitcher to throw one until Warren Spahn surpasses him in 1961. The Highlanders were renamed the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-0 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Luther Taylor pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 3-1 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. 

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at South Side Park in Chicago. Doc White outpitched George Mullin. Ty Cobb went 0-for-3.

* The Cleveland Naps beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the manager and slugging 2nd baseman for whom the Cleveland team was named, went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Boston Doves and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at the South End Grounds in Boston. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Doves swept, 6-1 and 14-5. They were named for their owners, the Dovey brothers. William H. Russell bought them in 1911, and renamed them the Boston Rustlers. He died after his first season, and they were bought by James Gaffney, who was an official, a "Brave," in New York's Tammany Hall political organization. He renamed the team the Boston Braves.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.

June 30, 1906: The Pure Food and Drug Act

June 30, 1906: President Theodore Roosevelt signs the Pure Food and Drug Act into law. This was one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, and it may have saved your life and mine.

It was necessary because, with the growth of American cities in the 19th Century, the time food took to get from farm to table got longer, and food spoiled and became poisonous before many people could get to it. Methods of preventing this including chemicals that were every bit as poisonous as the natural process would have been, including alcohol, opium and cocaine.

(Coca-Cola was invented in 1886, and, yes, it did contain a small amount of cocaine at the time, about 9 milligrams per glass. A typical "line" of cocaine is between 50 and 75 milligrams. In 1903, they dropped the ingredient for something safer -- but hardly completely safe.)

On February 25, 1906, Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle was published. A Socialist, Sinclair had hoped it would lead to workers rising up to object to the poor working conditions in places designed for the production in food, including the place where he did his research, the stockyards and meat-packing plants of Chicago.

But "The Law of Unintended Consequences" reared its head, and the book's readers were horrified not by the working conditions, but the actual preparation of the food products. Six months later, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed by Congress and signed by Roosevelt.

Did Sinclair think, "Oh well, some good came out of my book"? No, he thought it offered protection to the food bosses he was trying to bring down. He was furious.

Anyway, the Pure Food and Drug Act created the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. It banned foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products. It resulted in federal inspection of food, especially meat. It required that active ingredients be placed on the label of the packaging of food and drugs.

It also set definitions for certain foods, and if a food did not meet that definition, the company selling it legally could not call it that.

For example, the Taylor Provisions Company of Trenton, New Jersey had created and sold a product it called "Taylor's Ham." But with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, their product did not meet the new legal definition of "ham": "Pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."

So they changed the name of the product to "pork roll," and they have sold it under that name ever since. Trenton is in Central Jersey, and in Central Jersey and South Jersey, most people call the product what the inventors and largest producers of it call it: "Pork roll." But most people in North Jersey still call it "Taylor ham."

*

June 30, 1906 was a Saturday. The NFL, the NBA and the NHL hadn't been founded yet. In fact, those sports had only barely approached professionalism. But there were games played in what we would now call Major League Baseball:

* The New York Highlanders were supposed to play the Boston Americans at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston, but the game was rained out. It was moved to July 6, as part of a doubleheader. The Highlanders swept it, 4-0 with Jack Chesbro outpitching Bill Dinneen, and 8-0 with Doc Newton outpitching Cy Young. The Americans became the Boston Red Sox in 1908, and the Highlanders became the New York Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Beaneaters, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds. The Boston team of the National League went through several name changes, before settling on "Braves" in 1912 -- and even then, they tried "Bees" from 1936 to 1940, before going back to "Braves," and then moving to Milwaukee in 1953 and Atlanta in 1966. The Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. They became the Dodgers in 1911, then the Robins for manager Wilbert Robinson from 1914 to 1931, and then the Dodgers again. They moved to Los Angeles in 1958.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 6-5 at Boundary Field in Washington. Both Boundary Field at the current version of the Giants' Polo Grounds burned down in 1911, and were replaced that year, by Griffith Stadium and the modern Polo Grounds, respectively.

* The Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the Cleveland Naps at League Park in Cleveland. The Cleveland team was named for their manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. When he left after the 1914 season, they became the Cleveland Indians. The South Siders won the 1st game 6-4 in 12 innings, and the 2nd game 12-11.

* The Detroit Tigers swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns at Bennett Park in Detroit, It was torn down in 1911, and the ballpark that would eventually be named Tiger Stadium was built on the site. They won the opener 2-1, and the nightcap 3-2.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at West Side Park in Chicago.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-3 at Robison Field in St. Louis. That's "Robison," named for the brothers who then owned the Cardinals, not "Robinson."