Scores On This Historic Day

September 1, 1897:  The Tremont Street Subway opens in Boston. It is the 1st subway system in America. This original line consisted of a main line under Tremont Street that terminated at Park Street in downtown Boston, and two forks to the south. One of these was the Pheasant Street Incline, heading to Pheasant Street in the South End, and remained in operation until 1961. The other remains in operation today, veering westward along Boylston Street, and eventually extended to lines labeled B, C, D and E, serving as the Green Line when the system was rebranded from the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA, made famous in folk song) to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA, or just "T") in 1964. In the opposite direction, the line headed for Scollay Square (now Government Center), North Station, Science Park, and over the Charles River into Cambridge, at Lechmere. This line is currently being extended to Medford and Tufts University, and the MBTA is hoping to open...

September 1, 1894: The Great Hinckley Fire breaks out. Over the next 5 days, it burns over 250,000 acres of forest in eastern Minnesota, around the town of Hinckley. The official death toll was 418, and the actual toll was probably a bit higher. It was the biggest wildfire in America since the one centered on Peshtigo, Wisconsin in 1871, the result of a very dry Summer. The Great Chicago Fire was on the same day as Peshtigo's. The Summer of 1894 was also very dry, and especially hot.  The fires' spread apparently was due to the then-common method of lumber  harvesting, wherein trees were stripped of their branches in place; these branches littered the ground with flammable debris. Also contributing was a temperature inversion  that trapped the gases from the fires. The scattered blazes united into a firestorm.  The temperature rose to at least 2,000 °F. Barrels of nails melted into one mass, and in the yards of the Eastern Minnesota Railroad, the wheels of the ...

September 1, 1872: Al Thake drowns in a fishing accident off Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. The left fielder for the Brooklyn Atlantics was only 22 years old. This was the 1st time that an active professional baseball player had died. Ten years earlier, James Creighton, one of the top amateur players, died as a result of an in-game injury in Brooklyn. Albert Thake was born on September 21, 1849, in Wymondham, Norfolk, England.  His family moved to Cleveland, then to Brooklyn,  during his youth. Like many boys born in England but raised in America, Albert switched from his original country's game of cricket to his new country's game of baseball. He  played for the Star Club of Brooklyn, before moving on to the Atlantics. He made his National Association debut on June 13, 1872, going 1-for-5 in an Atlantic loss to the Baltimore Canaries. He played in 18 games, batting .295 with 15 RBIs, not bad at all for a player approaching his 23rd birthday, in any era. On August 28, in a l...

August 31, 2021: President Joe Biden removes the last American combat troops from Afghanistan, 20 years after they were first sent there. George W. Bush sent the first American troops there in October 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks of the preceding September 11. They managed to corner Osama bin Laden, but Bush never gave the order to finish the job, and bin Laden escaped. And that left Americans with a quagmire, in which staying in Afghanistan began to seem like a worse and worse idea over the years, but getting out seemed like an even worse one: We couldn't abandon those people to the Taliban we had previously kicked out of power. Bush wouldn't take the troops out. Barack Obama wouldn't. Donald Trump decided he didn't want to help brown-skinned Muslims, and put in place a timetable for taking the troops out. Biden decided that following that timetable was the least bad idea. And then the Republicans, in Congress and in the media, ripped Biden for doing wha...

August 31, 2006: On the last day of the Summer transfer window, Arsenal F.C. sell left back Ashley Cole to Chelsea F.C., sending him from North London to West London. They didn't have much choice. Making his Premier League debut in 2000, Cole established himself as the best English left back of his generation. He helped Arsenal reach the FA Cup Final in 2001, win the Premier League and the FA Cup in 2002 (winning both is called "The Double"), win another Cup in 2003, produce the PL's only unbeaten season in 2004, and win another Cup in 2005. At 24, he had already won 2 League titles and 3 FA Cups, and had played for England in the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004. Unfortunately, like so many other great athletes, he began to confuse payment with respect. He wanted  £60,000 a week -- with the exchange rate then in effect, this amounted to an annual salary of $3.2 million. Arsenal offered him £55,000 -- about $2.9 million. For a team as big as Arsenal, an additional £5,000...

August 31, 1997: I woke up in the middle of the night, turned on the TV, and found out that Princess Diana had been in a car crash in Paris. Her post-Prince Charles boyfriend, Dodi al-Fayed, had already been announced as dead. The newscasters didn't reveal her condition, and may not have known it. But I had a feeling she wouldn't make it. And she didn't. She was 36 years old. Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, in Sandringham, Norfolk, England, not far from one of the royal family's retreat homes. The Spencers and the Windsors had known each other for decades, and it wasn't a total surprise to "royal-watchers" when, at 19, Diana, then a teacher, was engaged to Charles, Prince of Wales, then 31. They married on July 29, 1981, in a wedding ceremony televised around the world. Prince William was born the following year; Prince Harry, 2 years after that. But, as she put it, there were 3 people in the marriage. Prince Charles' true love was Lad...

August 31, 1994: The Russian Federation pulls the last of its armed forces out of the "Baltic States": Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. These countries had gained their independence from the Russian Empire after World War I, but it didn't last. On September 28, 1939, under threat of invasion, Estonia signed a treaty of "mutual assistance" with the Soviet Union, which allowed the establishment of Soviet military bases there. Latvia, under similar duress, did so on October 5; Lithuania, on October 10. On June 14, 1940, the day the Nazis marched into Paris, the Soviets issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, demanding t he replacement of the Lithuanian government, and that the Red Army  be allowed into the country. The government decided that, with Soviet bases already in Lithuania, armed resistance was impossible and accepted the ultimatum. The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on August 3, 1940; the Latvia...

August 31, 1980:  The Gdańsk Agreement is reached.  The accord, signed by government representative Mieczys ław Jagielski and strike leader  Lech Wałęsa,  led to the creation of the trade union  Solidarność (meaning "Solidarity),  and was an important milestone in the fall of Communist rule in Poland. That S ummer, faced with a major economic crisis, the Polish government authorized a rise in food prices, which immediately led to a wave of strikes and factory occupations across the country. On August 14, workers at the Lenin Shipyard  in Gdańsk went on strike.  Thanks to popular support within the country, the workers held out until the government gave in to their demands, and an agreement was formalized on August 31. In the aftermath of the strike, Solidarity emerged as an independent trade union and rapidly grew, ultimately claiming over 10 million members nationwide and establishing itself as a major force in Polish politics. If any one man "wo...

August 31, 1969: Rocky Marciano and 2 others are killed when their Cessna 172, flying from Midway Airport in Chicago to Des Moines, crashes near Newton, Iowa, 30 miles from their destination. Marciano was a day short of his 46th birthday. He was born on September 1, 1923, as Rocco Francis Marchegiano, outside Boston in Brockton, Massachusetts. "The Brockton Blockbuster" first fought for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1952, against Jersey Joe Walcott, and got knocked down in the 1st round. He got up, and knocked Walcott out in the 13th round. In the rematch, he knocked Walcott out in the 1st. Like Jack Dempsey, he was a nice guy out of the ring, and hell in it. Like his idol, Joe Louis, he won a lot of fights where he seemed to be losing. His holding of the title made him the 1st Heavyweight Champion to be embraced by television viewers. The fact that he was white and ethnic, not black like Louis or later Champions like Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Muhammad...

August 31, 1955: A rare match race between horse racing champions is held at Washington Park in Chicago. Swaps, a horse known as the California Comet, won the 1955 Kentucky Derby in 2 minutes, 1 and 4/5ths seconds, just 2/5ths shy of the race record, since broken by Secretariat in 1973. He was ridden by Willie Shoemaker, who retired as the jockey with the most races won in a career. But an injured hoof prevented Swaps from running in the last 2 legs of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. Nashua was bred and trained in Maryland, and ridden by the other great jockey of the 1950s, Eddie Arcaro. The leading 2-year-old racer the year before, Nashua was the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby, but finished 2nd to Swaps. Nashua won the Preakness Stakes, by only 1 length, but in a track record, also broken by Secretariat 18 years later. Nashua won the Belmont Stakes by 9 lengths, and certainly looked like the best thoroughbred horse in the country. But some racing ob...

Jack Balmer August 31, 1946: After almost exactly 7 years, England’s Football League resumes play. As it had proven to be in 1919, when it resumed after World War I, the British public's appetite for what we would call soccer was ravenous, and the largest crowd on this day was 61,000 at Stamford Bridge in West London, where host Chelsea beat Lancashire club Bolton Wanderers 4–3. As for the leading club before The War, North London's Arsenal? The Gunners' postwar debut was a disaster, as a visit to Birmingham-area club Wolverhampton Wanderers (a.k.a. Wolves) resulted in a 6-1 defeat in front of 50,845. Clearly, the prewar players were now too old, and new players had to be brought in. Arsenal would finish 13th in the 22-team League. The title race would be very close., as 4 teams would finish within 2 points: Liverpool beat out Manchester United by 1 point, and Wolves and Stoke by 2. Jack Balmer and Albert Stubbins each scored 28 goals for Liverpool -- in each case, 24 in L...

August 31, 1934:  The 1st Chicago Tribune Charities College All-Star Game is played at Soldier Field. Like the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, first played the year before at Chicago's Comiskey Park, it was the idea of Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, in connection with the 1933-34 "Century of Progress" World's Fair. Unlike the All-Star Game, it was set for Chicago every year. In 1943 and 1944, it was held at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field), in nearby Evanston, Illinois, home field of Northwestern University. Other than those 2, it was always played at Soldier Field. The format of "the Chicago College All-Star Game" was always the same: An all-star team of recently graduated college players would play the defending NFL Champions. In this case, the Chicago Bears, featuring Harold "Red" Grange, the template for all speedy halfbacks who followed him; and Bronislau "Bronko" Nagurski, the role model for all big, bruising fullback...

Lotte Lenya (left) and Harald Paulsen August 31, 1928: The Threepenny Opera ( Die Dreigroschenoper ), adapted by Bertolt Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptmann and composer Kurt Weill (with set designer Caspar Neher) from The Beggar's Opera , receives its première in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm with Harald Paulsen and Lotte Lenya (Weill's wife) in the principal rôles. A draft narration by Brecht for a concert performance begins: "You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the   Threepenny Opera ." Brecht was quoted as saying, "Food comes first, then morals." This may have inspired Adlai Stevenson to say, "A hungry man is not a free man"; and John F. Kennedy to say, "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." Set in Victorian  London, the play f...