July 19, 1976: For the 1st time, a gymnast scores a perfect 10 in Olympic competition. Her name was Nadia Comăneci, she was 14 years old, and she was from Onești, Romania.
For people who only follow gymnastics at Olympic time, this may have been a surprise. For people who follow the sport regularly, it was not. The previous year, at the World Championships in Skien, Norway, she had won 4 Gold Medals: In the All-Around competition, the uneven bars, the balance beam and the vault.
In March 1976, she competed in the American Cup at Madison Square Garden in New York. She achieved the 1st perfect 10s that any gymnast had ever received, in any sanctioned competition, for her vault in the preliminary stage and her floor exercise in the final, leading to her winning the all-around.
So when the Olympics were held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, she was, despite her age, fully ready for the world stage. She scored 7 perfect 10s: 4 on the uneven bars, 3 on the balance beam. She ended up winning 3 Gold Medals: The All-Around, the uneven bars and the balance beam; a Silver Medal, for Romania in the Team competition; and a Bronze Medal, in the Floor Exercise. She had totally stolen the spotlight from the gymnastic heroine of the previous Olympics, Ukrainian star Olga Korbut, who nonetheless helped the Soviet team win the team Gold Medal.
For its Olympic coverage, ABC used an instrumental titled "Cotton's Dream" as background music for highlights of her performances. She never used it as performance music, but it became known as "Nadia's Theme." Ironically, the song was already being used as the theme song for a show on another network, CBS' soap opera The Young and the Restless. The composers, Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin Jr., released it under their own names, under the title of "Nadia's Theme," and it hit Number 8 on the U.S. charts.
Nadia became one of the biggest stars in the world, and a big propaganda tool for her home country and its Communist government. In 1980, she competed in the Olympics again, in Moscow, winning Golds in the balance beam and the floor exercise, and Silvers in the team and the all-around.
On a 1981 tour of the U.S. by Romanian gymnasts, she met American gymnast Bart Conner for the 3rd time -- but, now being 19, this was the 1st time she really noticed him. Her coaches, Béla and Márta Károlyi, defected from the tour. With typical Communist paranoia, the Romanian government kept her under tight control. While they did not join the Warsaw Pact boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, they only let her go as an observer, not a competitor. Conner was part of the U.S. team that won the men's Gold Medal.
On November 27, 1989, about a month before the revolution that finally toppled and executed dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Nadia was part of a group of Romanians that crossed the border at Cenad, into Hungary, made their way to Austria, and got on a plane to America. (Just 1 month later, on Christmas Day, rebels executed Ceaușescu and his wife, and Romania was free. But she has no regrets about her timing.)
She settled in Oklahoma, teaching at Conner's gymnastics school. In 1996, they went to Romania together for their wedding, and she was welcomed back as a national hero. Their son Dylan was born in 2006. As of July 19, 2022, they are still together.
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July 19, 1976 was a Monday. After an achievement like Nadia's, any other sporting event held that day would have been a bit anticlimactic. But these Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Thurman Munson led off the top of the 9th with a double, and when Chris Chambliss tried to bunt him over, 2nd baseman Jack Brohamer threw the ball away, and Munson scored the winning run. Ed Figueroa was the winning pitcher.
* The New York Mets lost to the Atlanta Braves, 4-2 at Shea Stadium.
* The Houston Astros beat the Montreal Expos, 3-1 at Jarry Park in Montreal.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Pete Rose went 3-for-4, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Bill Robinson hit 2 homers, and Willie Stargell went 0-for-4.
* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Indians won the opener, 3-2. The Oakland Athletics won the nightcap, 10-3. Frank Robinson, the Indians' manager and not yet retired as a player, did not put himself in either game.
* The California Angels swept a doubleheader from the Milwaukee Brewers at Milwaukee County Stadium, 4-2 and 6-1. Hank Aaron went 0-for-4 in the 1st game, and did not play in the 2nd game.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-5 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rod Carew went 1-for-3 with a walk.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium). Reggie Jackson hit a home run. Brooks Robinson did not play. George Brett went 4-for-5 with an RBI.
* The Texas Rangers beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4. Toby Harrah singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Also, English actor Benedict Cumberbatch was born. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he played Dr. Strange. Robert Downey Jr. played Iron Man. Each of them had played a version of Sherlock Holmes. I think the Marvel writers missed an opportunity: Neither actor had the chance in any Marvel film to say to the other, "No shit, Sherlock!"
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