November 1, 1922: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Kemal Atatürk

November 1, 1922: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey votes to declare that the monarchy of the Ottoman Empire is abolished, and moves the national capital from Constantinople to Ankara.

The monarch, Sultan Mehmed VI, left the country on November 17, living in exile in Malta, and then in Sanremo on the Italian Riviera. He died in 1926, and was buried in Damascus, Syria.

The government changed the name of Constantinople -- which the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had given to the city of Byzantium in AD 330 -- to Istanbul, meaning "to the city," in 1930.

The Empire had been founded in 1299, by Osman I, its name an anglicization of his. The term "Turk" was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, and was seen as disparaging when applied to urban, educated individuals. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations.

Mustafa Kemal, the Ottomans' hero of the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915, and leader of the Turkish National Movement, was elected President of Turkey in 1923. He initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a modern, progressive and secular nation-state.

He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He gave women the right to vote in 1934. That same year, the Parliament gave him the honorific name Atatürk, meaning "Father of the Turks." He died in office in 1938, having turned a nation that straddled the divide between Europe and Asia, but was so backward it was known as "the Sick Man of Europe," into a modern state that could stand on its own.

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November 1, 1922 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start until December 16.

But there was a notable sporting event that day: Edward "Mickey" Walker, a boxer from Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, known as "the Toy Bulldog," defeated Jack Britton in a unanimous decision at the 2nd Madison Square Garden, to win the Welterweight Championship of the World.

October 30, 1973: The Bosphorus Bridge Opens

October 30, 1973: The Bosphorus Bridge opens in Istanbul, Turkey, connecting the city's European and Asian sections by road, where, previously, the connections had only been by ferry.

It was the 1st bridge to ever connect one continent with another. It is now 1 of 3 bridges over the Bosphorus Strait, followed by the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in 1988 (named for Sultan Mehmed II, a.k.a. Mehmed the Conqueror, who conquered the city, then named Constantinople, in 1453) and the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge in 2016.

Every year, on its anniversary, its operating authority hosts a "fun run." It also happens to have opened on the anniversary of Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (Sport Klub), founded on October 30, 1905. 

Part of the nasty rivalry between Turkey's 2 biggest sports clubs, especially its soccer teams, comes from the fact that they are on opposite sides of these 3 bridges: Fenerbahçe (FEN-er-BAH-chah, or "Fener") is in the Kadıköy district on the Asian side, while Galatasaray is in the Galata Palace area on the European side.

In the 2022-23 season, there are 6 Istanbul clubs in the Turkish Süper Lig, but Fener is the only one on the Asian side. Joining Gala on the European side are Beşiktaş, İstanbul Başakşehir, Kasımpaşa and Fatih Karagümrük.

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October 30, 1973 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Phoenix Suns, 122-101 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 105-103 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 112-78 at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-112 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets lost to the San Antonio Spurs, 104-92 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio. And the Memphis Tams beat the Carolina Cougars, 110-99 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 3-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 7-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The Chicago Cougars beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-1 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago.

* The Houston Aeros beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 6-1 at the Sam Houston Coliseum.

* And the Quebec Nordiques beat the Los Angeles Sharks, 6-4 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

October 2, 2018: The Saudi Hit On Jamal Khashoggi

October 2, 2018: There are certain things that the President of the United States has to avoid, first if he wants to be re-elected; then, if successful in that, if he wants to be remembered well by history.

As Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and both George Bushes found out, you can't have a major economic downturn on your watch.

As Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush found out, you can't have a war go badly on your watch -- or, as Carter also found out, you can't have a hostage crisis that drags out until it feels like a war.

As Grant, Warren Harding, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush found out, you can't have a major scandal. (The one that the Republican Party tried to put on Bill Clinton didn't work: Having avoided the other things, he was more popular after a full 8 years than any President.)

And, as George W. Bush also found out, you can't be seen as screwing up the response to a devastating hurricane.

Except for a war, all of those things happened during the Presidency of Donald Trump. But what no one foresaw until Trump got into the White House was the possibility of a President being compromised by a foreign power. 

Trump is compromised by, among other nations, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Without the backing of both of these nations, his financial empire wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on. (It still might not be.) And without their campaign contributions -- and hacking from at least the Russians and possibly also the Saudis -- he could not have become President.

On June 3, 2009, President Barack Obama met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and appeared to bow before him. Trump had a public fit over this. But on January 23, 2015, Abdullah died, succeeded by his half-brother, King Salman; and on May 2017, Trump met with Salman in the Saudi national capital of Riyadh, received a gaudy medal from him, and appeared to curtsy right afterward.

Salman's health was already beginning to fail. On June 21, 2017, he appointed his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to run the country on his behalf. On that day, Trump called him to "congratulate him on his recent elevation." Trump and "MBS" pledged "close cooperation" on security and economic issues.

The month before, MBS publicly warned: "I confirm to you, no one will survive in a corruption case—whoever he is, even if he's a prince or a minister." He wasn't kidding: On November 4, the Saudi media announced the house arrest of some 200 wealthy businessmen and princes at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh, on various "corruption" charges. They became the subject of "The Night of Beating," with Saudi agents torturing them.

He became his country's absolute ruler at age 32.

This is why "foreign policy by obituary," waiting for

a tyrant to die so policy can change, usually doesn't work.

This included Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, an English-language news commentator and a major shareholder in Citigroup, Twitter, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp; Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard; Adel Fakeih, Minister of Economy and Planning; and Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan, commander of the Royal Saudi Navy. As of October 2, 2022, Fakeih was still in custody; the others were quickly released, but have not been returned to any role in the Saudi government. 

Jamal Khashoggi was born on October 13, 1958 in Medina, Saudi Arabia. He was an exiled journalist who had written damning exposes of his homeland's government. This was complicated by the fact that his grandfather, Mohammed Khashoggi, was the personal physician of King Ibn Saud, the founder of the Saudi state. His uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, was a billionaire arms dealer. He was also a first cousin of Dodi Fayed, the Egyptian film producer who was Princess Diana's boyfriend and was killed with her in the 1997 Paris car crash.

In a column printed in the April 3, 2018 edition of The Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi wrote that Saudi Arabia "should return to its pre-1979 climate, when the government restricted hard-line Wahhabi traditions. Women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment." In that same column, he said that Saudis "must find a way where we can accommodate secularism and Islam, something like what they have in Turkey," the country where he was then living. He also opposed the Saudi's intervention in neighboring Yemen.

He was no angel: He had just gotten married for the 3rd time, but was already planning to divorce his new wife and marry another woman. He was critical of Israel. He had even been friends with Osama bin Laden during the latter's opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but renounced bin Laden when he turned to violence against America. When bin Laden was killed in 2011, Khashoggi wrote, "You were beautiful and brave in those beautiful days in Afghanistan, before you surrendered to hatred and passion."

On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was living, to obtain documents needed for his planned marriage. (He was already married, but planning to divorce his wife so he could marry someone else.) He never left alive, and word reached the outside world that he was murdered and dismembered inside the consulate. He was just short of turning 60, and left behind his wife, 2 sons and 2 daughters (with all 4 children from his 2nd marriage).

On November 16, the CIA determined that MBS has personally ordered the murder. This was not just an assassination: This was more like a Mob hit.

On December 11, 2018, Time magazine collectively named journalists they called "Guardians of the Truth" as their "Persons of the Year." They put Khashoggi on the cover as their stand-in. This made him, technically, the 1st person already dead to receive their Man/Person of the Year designation since the distinction was established in 1927. Time also cited journalists in the U.S., Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Turkey, Sudan, Bangladesh, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Vietnam and the Philippines.

(No, John F. Kennedy didn't receive it in 1963, although he got it while alive in 1961. The 1963 recipient was Martin Luther King Jr.)

In 2021, the former Saudi intelligence official Saad al-Jabri said in an interview with CBS that bin Salman is "a psychopath, killer... with infinite resources, who poses threat to his people, to the Americans and to the planet."

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October 2, 2018 was a Tuesday. Football was in midweek. The NHL season started 2 days later; the NBA season, 15 days later. And only 1 baseball game was played. It was the National League Wild Card Game, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and the Colorado Rockies beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1. With 2 outs in the top of the 13th inning, the Rockies got consecutive singled from Trevor Story, Gerardo Parra and Tony Wolters to take the lead. The Rockies were subsequently swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Division Series.

June 1, 1889: The Orient Express

June 1, 1889: The most famous train route in human history, the Orient Express, begins full operations.

Well, not quite full. It opened on June 4, 1883, going from Paris, France to Vienna, Austria. Nobody would confuse Vienna with the Orient, not even if Mozart had written The Mikado 100 years before Gilbert & Sullivan had.

Gare de l'Est, Paris, opened in 1849

On October 3, 1883, the route was extended to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In 1923, the Ottoman Empire became the Turkish Republic, "Türkiye" in their native language, "Turkey" in English; and the capital was moved to Ankara. In 1929, the national government told the world to start calling Constantinople "Istanbul."

Still, it wasn't a single train. The original trip required passengers to disembark in Romania, to be ferried across the Danube to Bulgaria, where they would catch another train to the Bulgarian city of Varna, followed by a 150-mile ferry ride to Constantinople. The final leg of the train ride to Constantinople wasn't finished until 1885. Finally, on June 1, 1889, a single train left Gare de l'Est (Station of the East) in Paris for Sirkeci Railway Station in what became Istanbul.

Sirkeci Station, Istanbul, opened in 1872

Connections were made from Paris to London via Calais and a ferry across the English Channel to Dover. The main route went from Paris to Lausanne, Switzerland; to Milan and Venice, Italy; to Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now in Serbia); to Sofia, Bulgaria; to Istanbul -- and, on the way back, in reverse. An average Paris-to-Istanbul, or Istanbul-to-Paris, ride took nearly 3 days: 2 days, 20 hours of what the standards of the time considered exceptional luxury.

There were alternate routes, from Paris through Strasbourg (France), Munich, Vienna, Budapest (Hungary) and Bucharest (Romania) to Istanbul; and from Paris through Zurich (Switzerland), Innsbruck (Austria) to Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and Istanbul. All routes were shut down during the World Wars.

The ride became popular among writers. Agatha Christie's most famous story remains the 1934 Murder On the Orient Express, in which the train, heading for Paris, gets stuck in the snow in Yugoslavia, and Hercule Poirot must solve a murder. Other fictional characters known to have ridden the famed luxury train include Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and James Bond in the 1963 film From Russia with Love.

But, as in America, rail travel in Europe became superseded by air travel. The route stopped serving Istanbul in 1977, cut back to a through overnight service from Paris to Bucharest, which was cut back further in 1991 to Budapest, then in 2001 to Vienna, before departing for the last time from Paris on June 8, 2007. After this, the route, still called the Orient Express, was shortened to start from Strasbourg, leaving daily after the arrival of a TGV from Paris. On December 14, 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate entirely, and the route disappeared from European railway timetables.

UPDATE: In late 2022, the hospitality company Accor announced plans to launch its own Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul, to start in mid-2026.

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June 1, 1889 was a Saturday. There were 6 games that day in what would eventually be called Major League Baseball:

* In the National League, the New York Giants lost to the Washington Nationals, 9-5 at the Swampoodle Grounds in Washington. This version of the Nationals were dropped from the NL after the 1899 season, and the current team with the name has no connection to it.

* Also in the NL, the Boston Beaneaters beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston.

* In the American Association, the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-4 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. These Athletics went out of business after the "Players' League War" of 1890. The Reds were admitted to the NL in 1892.

* Also in the AA, there was a doubleheader at Oriole Park in Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles won the opener, 5-4. The Kansas City Cowboys won the nightcap, 10-8. The Orioles were admitted to the NL in 1892, but dropped after 1899, and the current team with the name has no connection to it.

* And, also in the AA, the Columbus Solons beat the Louisville Colonels, 8-3 at Recreation Park in Columbus, Ohio. The Colonels were admitted to the NL in 1890, but were dropped after the 1899 season. The Solons folded with the AA after the 1891 season.