August 29, 1949: The Red Bomb

August 29, 1949: The Soviet Union successfully test a device they call RDS-1, at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. The United States of American is no longer alone in possessing the atomic bomb. The "Reds" have it now, too.

It was similar to the "Fat Man" bomb that the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki, Japan: A plutonium-based implosion type weapon with an explosive yield equivalent to 22 kilotons of TNT. They had received intelligence on Fat Man thanks to Julius Rosenberg, who had been a U.S. Army engineer. He and his wife Ethel had been couriers for the Communist Party, and would be convicted of treason in 1951 and executed for it in 1953.

The Soviets called it "Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Spetsialnyi," or "Special Jet Engine." "RDS" also worked as "Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Stalina," meaning "Stalin's Jet Engine"; or "Rossiya Delayet Sama," meaning "Russia does it herself." (In contrast with Germany and many other countries calling themselves a "Fatherland," Russia has always been known as a "Motherland," or as "Mother Russia.")

Now, the Soviet Union had not just the world's 2nd-biggest military force, it had the bomb. If the Cold War was not yet well and truly on, it was now.

There are those who say that the Soviet Union was a more evil regime than Nazi Germany. The Soviets had the bomb for 42 years before their regime collapsed, and they never used it. If Hitler had the bomb, would he have hesitated to use it on Moscow? On London? If he could have loaded one onto a plane aboard their only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, and sent a bomb to New York or Washington, would he have ordered it? It was Hitler. Of course he would have.

But he never got close. Partly because the Allies took action, and partly because Hitler chased his own best scientists into the arms of the Allies.

*

August 29, 1949 was a Monday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at the Polo Grounds. Hank Thompson, who, earlier in the season, had become the Giants' 1st black player, went 3-for-4 with a home run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese hit home runs, in support of Jack Banta, who went the distance for the win. Ralph Kiner went 0-for-4.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 8-2 at Braves Field in Boston. Stan Musial went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-5 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 and 5-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Bob Feller went the distance for the win in the opener. Mike Tresh, father of Yankee star Tom Tresh, won the nightcap by singling home shortstop and manager Lou Boudreau in the bottom of the 12th inning. Over the 2 games, Ted Williams went 3-for-9 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Pat Mullin singled Eddie Lake home in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* And the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox were not scheduled.

June 19, 1953: Julius & Ethel Rosenberg Are Executed

June 19, 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, husband and wife, Americans convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, are executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, Westchester County, New York. Julius was 35 years old, Ethel was 37.

They were the 1st American civilians to be executed for treason during peacetime. The Korean War was in its final days, and North Korea was receiving aid from the Soviet Union, as well as from China. But there was not then a declaration of war between America and any nation.

Millions of people around the world wanted to believe that they were innocent. Many others believed that, even if they were guilty, they should not receive the death penalty. But many others believed that spying for the Communists deserved the death penalty. Some people suspected that the desire to believe them guilty, and worthy of execution, was motivated by anti-Semitism.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, declassified documents showed that Julius was a courier for American atomic energy secrets, and Ethel was a recruiter, including of her brother, David Greenglass, who ratted his sister and his brother-in-law out to save himself from "the chair." The real villain of the story, Greenglass served nearly 10 years in prison, and lived until 2014.

The Rosenbergs had 2 sons, left orphans. They were adopted by Abel Meeropol, a songwriter who had written Billie Holiday's anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit" and Frank Sinatra's anti-bigotry song "The House I Live In." Both sons are still alive, and retired from careers as college professors: Michael Meeropol, age 79, economics; Robert Meeropol, 75, anthropology. Each of the brothers has 2 children.

*

June 19, 1953 was a Friday. It was the off-season for the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. There was a full slate of Major League Baseball games, and then some: 

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at the old Yankee Stadium. Gene Woodling hit a home run for the Bronx Bombers, but Bob Kuzava blew a 2-0 lead, including allowing a home run to Jim Delsing, best remembered as the St. Louis Browns player who pinch-ran for Eddie Gaedel 2 years earlier.

* The New York Giants beat the Milwaukee Braves, 15-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Though the Braves, in their 1st season in Milwaukee, were considerably improved over the year before, their last season in Boston, they got shellacked in this one. The Giants scored 6 runs in the 5th inning, including a home run by Don Mueller; and 5 in the 6th.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers split a doubleheader with the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Boston. The Cubbies won the 1st game, 11-8. George "Shotgun" Shuba hit a home run for Dem Bums, but Billy Loes got clobbered. The Brooks won the 2nd game, 7-1. Wayne Belardi homered to back the pitching of Russ Meyer, "the Mad Monk."

* The Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-1 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 4-2 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 10-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The following year, with the "Red Scare" over Communism at its all-time height, the team would change its name to the Cincinnati Redlegs. They would change the name back in 1959, resulting in a 1961 World Series that produced a few laughs over the matchup of Yanks vs. Reds.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. 

April 20, 1939: Billie Holiday Records "Strange Fruit"

April 20, 1939: Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit," written by Abel Meeropol.

Meeropol had been shocked by Lawrence Beitler's 1930 photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith -- not in a Southern State, but in Marion, Indiana. He wrote a poem with the title "Bitter Fruit," and published it in the January 1937 issue of The New York Teacher, a magazine published by the New York City Teacher's Union.

He set the poem to music himself. He and his wife, Anne, first performed it in front of their friends, leading to it gaining some success in and around New York. The Meeropols and black singer Laura Duncan sang it together at a rally at Madison Square Garden.

Barney Josephson, the founder of Café Society, New York's 1st integrated nightclub, heard the song, and introduced it to Billie Holiday. Just 24 years old, and already regarded as the best female vocalist in jazz, she first sang the song at Café Society.

Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness, except for a spotlight on Holiday's face; and there would be no encore. During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

Holiday's label, Columbia Records, feared reaction by record retailers in the South, and a refusal of CBS' Southern radio affiliates to play it. John Hammond, the Columbia producer who had discovered Holiday -- and other performers, ranging from Benny Goodman and Pete Seeger in the 1930s to Bob Dylan in the 1960s and Bruce Springsteen in the 1970s -- refused to produce it. So the producing duty was given to Milt Gabler -- comedian Billy Crystal's uncle, and later the producer of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock."

Gabler worked out a special arrangement with Vocalion Records to record the song, and Columbia gave Holiday a one-day release. Frankie Newton's 8-piece Café Society Band was used for the session. Because Gabler worried the song was too short, he asked pianist Sonny White to improvise an introduction. It lasts 1 minute and 10 seconds, before Holiday begins to sing.

Later in the year, New York Post writer Samuel Grafton wrote, "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its 'Marseillaise.'" In 1999, Time magazine named it as "Best Song of the Century."

In 1945, Abel Meeropol wrote the anti-bigotry song "The House I Live In." It was recorded by Frank Sinatra, as part of what became perhaps the 1st "concept album."

Billie Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. Milt Gabler lived until 2001. Anne Meeropol lived until 1973, Abel Meeropol until 1986. They had adopted the orphan sons of the executed spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Both sons are still alive, and retired from careers as college professors: Michael Meeropol, age 79, economics; Robert Meeropol, 75, anthropology. Each of the brothers has 2 children.

*

April 20, 1939 was a Thursday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season ended 4 days earlier, when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in 5 games.

There were 5 games played in baseball that day, the Opening Day of a new season:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-0 at Yankee Stadium. Red Ruffing outpitched his fellow future Hall-of-Famer, Lefty Grove. It was the major league debut of future Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams, who went 1-for-4 for the Red Sox. I have a separate entry for this event.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 5-3 at Ebbets Field. Mel Ott hit a home run in defeat for the Giants.

* The Boston Bees beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-0 at National League Park in Boston. Lou Fette pitched a 3-hit shutout. This was the 4th of 5 seasons in which the Boston team of the NL used "Bees" instead of "Braves," and had Braves Field renamed. In 1941, they switched back.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 2-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. George Caster pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-7 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Dixie Walker and Hank Greenberg hit home runs for the Tigers, Greenberg's being what would now be called a walkoff in the bottom of the 14th.