November 14, 1916: Lance Sergeant Hector Hugh Munro is shot and killed by a German sniper at Beaumont-Hamel, France. The writer who called himself "Saki" was 45.
He was born on December 18, 1870 in Akyab, Burma, British India -- now Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar. His father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police, his mother the daughter of a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy. His mother died when he was 2 years old, and his father sent the children home, Pilton, Devon, in the West Country of England.
When his father retired, he took the children on a series of European travels. Hector followed his father into the Indian Imperial Police, including in Burma, but frequent illness sent him home. He began a journalism career in 1896, then began writing poetry under the pen name, so as not to risk his journalism career. "Saki" was a reference to the cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a collection of poetry from medieval Persia that regained popularity in Victorian Age Britain. His poetry was much more successful than his journalism.
When World War I broke out, he was 43, but he refused an officer's commission and enlisted as an ordinary trooper. He was sheltering in a shell crater when he was killed by a German sniper. His last words were, "Put that bloody cigarette out!" The light of one cigarette could provide enough light for a sniper to see his target, and one did.
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November 14, 1916 was a Tuesday. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of the TV shows Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, was born.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. And in the early days of professional hockey, the season didn't start until mid-December. So there were no scoers on this historic day.
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