December 29, 1940: President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy" Speech

December 29, 1940: The Nazis' Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid on London, starting 1,500 separate fires. Many famous buildings, including the Guildhall and Trinity House, are either damaged or destroyed. It becomes known as the Second Great Fire of London. (The first was in 1666.)

Hours later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks from the White House, and his radio speech is broadcast around the world. He leaves no doubt that the fate of America is tied in with the fate of Britain. He used a phrase which had been hinted at before.

In 1918, Doubleday publishing executive Herbert S. Houston analyzed the soon-to-end World War I with an article titled "Blocking New Wars." He wrote that American business was the "Protector of Democracy," while the American free press was "one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of democracy."

Writing in German, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels useed the expression "arsenal of democracy" on April 30, 1928, in his newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) to refer to using democratic institutions against themselves: "We enter the Reichstag to use the arsenal of democracy in order to assault it with its own weapons."

The concept of America as an actual arsenal came from the American playwright Robert E. Sherwood, who had written speeches for FDR. He who was quoted in the May 12, 1940 edition of The New York Times, as saying, "This country is already, in effect, an arsenal for the democratic Allies." Although the French economist Jean Monnet had used the phrase later in 1940, he was urged by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, another longtime FDR ally, not to use it again, so FDR could make use of it in his speeches.

Which he did:

This is not a "fireside chat" on war. It is a talk on national security; because the nub of the whole purpose of your President is to keep you, now, and your children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a last-ditch war for the preservation of American independence, and all the things that American independence means to you and to me and to ours...

The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.

It was only three weeks ago that their leader stated this: "There are two worlds that stand opposed to each other." And then in defiant reply to his opponents, he said this: "Others are correct when they say: With this world we cannot ever reconcile ourselves... I can beat any other power in the world." So said the leader of the Nazis.

In other words, the Axis not merely admits, but the Axis proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy, their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government...

Some of our people like to believe that wars in Europe and in Asia are of no concern to us. But it is a matter of most vital concern to us that European and Asiatic war-makers should not gain control of the oceans which lead to this hemisphere.

One hundred and seventeen years ago, the Monroe Doctrine was conceived by our Government as a measure of defense in the face of a threat against this hemisphere by an alliance in Continental Europe. Thereafter, we stood guard in the Atlantic, with the British as neighbors. There was no treaty. There was no "unwritten agreement."

And yet, there was the feeling, proven correct by history, that we as neighbors could settle any disputes in peaceful fashion. The fact is that during the whole of this time the Western Hemisphere has remained free from aggression from Europe or from Asia.

Does anyone seriously believe that we need to fear attack anywhere in the Americas while a free Britain remains our most powerful naval neighbor in the Atlantic? Does anyone seriously believe, on the other hand, that we could rest easy if the Axis powers were our neighbors there?

If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the high seas -- and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. It is no exaggeration to say that all of us, in all the Americas, would be living at the point of a gun, a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military...

Some nations of Europe were bound by solemn non-intervention pacts with Germany. Other nations were assured by Germany that they need never fear invasion. Non-intervention pact or not, the fact remains that they were attacked, overrun; thrown into modern slavery at an hour's notice, or even without any notice at all. As an exiled leader of one of these nations said to me the other day, "The notice was a minus quantity. It was given to my Government two hours after German troops had poured into my country in a hundred places."

The fate of these nations tells us what it means to live at the point of a Nazi gun.

The Nazis have justified such actions by various pious frauds. One of these frauds is the claim that they are occupying a nation for the purpose of "restoring order." Another is that they are occupying or controlling a nation on the excuse that they are "protecting it" against the aggression of somebody else.

For example, Germany has said that she was occupying Belgium to save the Belgians from the British. Would she then hesitate to say to any South American country, "We are occupying you to protect you from aggression by the United States"?

Belgium today is being used as an invasion base against Britain, now fighting for its life. And any South American country, in Nazi hands, would always constitute a jumping-off place for German attack on any one of the other Republics of this hemisphere.

In the election that FDR won a few weeks earlier, it was thought -- incorrectly, as it turned out -- that he might lose States in the Northeast where the Irish-American and Portuguese-American votes might turn on him, because the Irish hate the British and Portugal was neutral. So FDR went on to address the status of their ancestral homelands, to win their support:

Analyze for yourselves the future of two other places even nearer to Germany if the Nazis won. Could Ireland hold out? Would Irish freedom be permitted as an amazing pet exception in an unfree world? Or the Islands of the Azores which still fly the flag of Portugal after five centuries? You and I think of Hawaii as an outpost of defense in the Pacific. And yet, the Azores are closer to our shores in the Atlantic than Hawaii is on the other side.

There are those who say that the Axis powers would never have any desire to attack the Western Hemisphere. That is the same dangerous form of wishful thinking which has destroyed the powers of resistance of so many conquered peoples. The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed, time and again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore subject to their orders. And most important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this American Hemisphere constitute the most tempting loot in all the round world.

Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your Government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out.

Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural abhorrence of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people; to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.

There are also American citizens, many of them in high places, who, unwittingly in most cases, are aiding and abetting the work of these agents. I do not charge these American citizens with being foreign agents. But I do charge them with doing exactly the kind of work that the dictators want done in the United States.

These people not only believe that we can save our own skins by shutting our eyes to the fate of other nations. Some of them go much further than that. They say that we can and should become the friends and even the partners of the Axis powers. Some of them even suggest that we should imitate the methods of the dictatorships. But Americans never can and never will do that.

The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender...

In a military sense Great Britain and the British Empire are today the spearhead of resistance to world conquest. And they are putting up a fight which will live forever in the story of human gallantry.
There is no demand for sending an American Expeditionary Force outside our own borders. There is no intention by any member of your Government to send such a force. You can, therefore, nail, nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as deliberate untruth...

He began his closing with the use of the key phrase:

As planes and ships and guns and shells are produced, your Government, with its defense experts, can then determine how best to use them to defend this hemisphere. The decision as to how much shall be sent abroad and how much shall remain at home must be made on the basis of our over-all military necessities.

We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.

We have furnished the British great material support and we will furnish far more in the future.

There will be no "bottlenecks" in our determination to aid Great Britain. No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination by threats of how they will construe that determination.

The British have received invaluable military support from the heroic Greek army, and from the forces of all the governments in exile. Their strength is growing. It is the strength of men and women who value their freedom more highly than they value their lives.

I believe that the Axis powers are not going to win this war. I base that belief on the latest and best of information.

We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future.

I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.

As President of the United States I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.

Given the preceding decade of English "football," FDR's use of the term "Arsenal" had greater resonance for the British than he could have realized.

At one point in this process, FDR called for the building of 50,000 airplanes to aid the Allied cause. In the end, twice as many were built: Over 100,000.

*

December 29, 1940 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. 

December 27, 1904: The Premiere of "Peter Pan"

December 27, 1904: Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premieres at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. The play is written by James M. Barrie, who would later expand it with his 1911 novel Peter and Wendy. A legend is born.

The title role, that of a character who appears to be a teenage boy, is played by Nina Boucicault. This begins a tradition of Peter being played by women: Betty Bronson in the 1st film version in 1924, Mary Martin in the 1954 Broadway musical, Martin again in a famed 1955 TV production of the musical, and Sandy Duncan and former gymnast Cathy Rigby in later revivals of the musical. A notable exception is the 1953 Disney cartoon, where Peter is voiced by Bobby Driscoll.

Barrie was knighted in 1913, and died in 1937. Nina Boucicault died in 1950.

In 1991, Steven Spielberg tried a new take on the story, Hook. Robin Williams played Peter Banning, an adult with a wife and children, who goes to London finds out that his wife's elderly grandmother is the original Wendy Darling, and that he was Peter Pan, who lost his memory of his adventures when he did grow up, and has to fight Captain Hook all over again. Hook is played by Dustin Hoffman, and Tinker Bell by Julia Roberts.

UPDATE: In 2023, Disney released a live-action Peter Pan & Wendy, starring Alexander Molony.

*

December 27, 1904 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. The college football season had ended. Professional basketball did not exist. Professional football and hockey barely did. So there were no scores on this historic day.

December 23, 1978: Arsenal's Lampoon Christmas Vacation

Liam Brady, after scoring that goal

December 23, 1978: A North London Derby is played at White Hart Lane. Tottenham Hotspur Football Club host their arch-rivals, Arsenal FC.

Arsenal were by far the more historically successful team, while Tottenham -- or "Spurs" -- were the team whose fans had a chip on their shoulders. I've often compared the relationship to that between New York's baseball teams, but that's a bit unfair -- to the Mets. The Mets began play in 1962, a year after Spurs won their most recent Football League title. They've won the FA Cup (England's national soccer tournament) 6 times since then, but the last of those was in 1991, and they haven't even reached a Final since.

A foolish backpass by Spurs' John Pratt fell into the path of Alan Sunderland, allowing him to score, just 43 seconds into the game. Spurs never got going, even their much-heralded midfielder Glenn Hoddle making the kind of mistakes that had John Motson, calling the game for Match of the Day on the BBC, saying, "Oh, dear me!" In the 38th minute, Sunderland scored again.

This Arsenal team was known as the Irish Connection.  Midfielder Liam Brady and forward Frank Sfapleton had grown up together in Dublin, the Republic of Ireland. Manager Terry Neill was from Belfast, Northern Ireland, as were right back and team Captain Pat Rice, the last holdover from Arsenal’s team that won "The Double," both the Football League and the FA Cup, in 1971; left back Sammy Nelson, a reserve on that 1971 team; and goalkeeper Pat Jennings, once a star for Spurs, but they let him go, and Arsenal picked him up for free.

Just after the hour, Brady picked up the ball, dribbled down the touch line with the most famous left foot in Arsenal history, got nearly to the corner, and sent a hellacious cross into the box. Stapleton was waiting, threw himself forward, and sent a diving header into the net.

It was 3-0 to The Arsenal. With Christmas just 2 days away, the 5,000 or so Arsenal fans in White Hart Lane began to sing:

Jingle bells, jingle bells

jingle all the way!

Oh, what fun it is to see

The Arsenal win away!

Just 4 minutes later, there was a scramble on front of Spurs' net. Brady began one of the most fondly-remembered sequences in Arsenal history, sliding in to steal the ball cleanly, then dribbling while looking for a shot, finding one, and sending it curling in. 4-0. Motson said, "Look at that! Oh, look at that! What a goal by Brady!" Brady ran over to celebrate in front of a group of Spurs fans, and there was nothing he could do, for it was 4-0 to The Arsenal.

Sunderland really wanted a 3rd goal. He had several attempts that came to nothing. Only 1 Arsenal player had ever scored a "hat trick" against Spurs: Ted Drake, in 1934. (Only 1 Tottenham player has ever done it against Arsenal: Terry Dyson in 1961.) Finally, in the 82nd minute, he got a breakaway, and got his 3rd. In stoppage time, Stapleton got the ball and got loose, and launched a shot that hit the corner of the goal. Motson said, "Well! That could have been six!" Instead, it ended Tottenham 0-5 Arsenal.

The BBC's postgame graphic

(UPDATE: In 2025, Eberechi Eze became the 3rd Arsenal player to score a hat trick against Tottenham.)

Arsenal fans who were there claimed that, on the way out, Spurs hooligans were assaulting anyone they saw wearing red, even if they hadn't been to the game. But Arsenal were on their way to a Merry Christmas (or, as they would say in England, a Happy Christmas) and that season's FA Cup; while Spurs were on their way to another trophyless season.

Soon, Spurs signed 2 superstars from Argentina's recent World Cup win: Osvaldo "Ossie" Ardiles and Ricardo "Ricky" Villa. This later led to a joke among Arsenal fans: Alan Sunderland never played for Sunderland, Ricky Villa never played for Aston Villa, and Danny Shittu never played for Tottenham. (A few years earlier, Tottenham had a player named Mike England, but he was from Wales, and played his international football for Wales. In the 2000s and 2010s, there was a player named Stephen Ireland who played his international football for the Republic of Ireland.)

*

December 23, 1978 was a Saturday. Venezuelan baseball player Víctor Martínez and Canadian actress-model Estella Warren were born.

Baseball was out of season. Although NFL Playoff games are usually played on Saturdays, it didn't happen this time. There were 3 college football bowl games played that day:

* Number 14 Texas beat Number 13 Maryland, 42-0 in the Sun Bowl, at the stadium of the same name in El Paso, Texas.

* Number 16 Pittsburgh lost to North Carolina State, 30-17 in the Tangerine Bowl, at the stadium of the same name in Orlando.

* And Number 18 Missouri beat Louisiana State (LSU), 20-15 in the Liberty Bowl, at the stadium of the same name in Memphis.

There were 6 games played in the NBA that day:

* New York Knicks lost to the Houston Rockets, 129-107 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 109-91 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the New Orleans Saints, 127-103 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-126 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 122-117 in overtime at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Bullets, 114-109 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 7 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers, 9-4 at the Nassau Coliseum. Bryan Trottier scored 5 goals and 3 assists.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Colorado Rockies, 3-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-4 at the Boston Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings and the Washington Capitals played to a tie, 2-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-1 at the Checkerdome, as the St. Louis Arena was then known.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Los Angeles Kings, 2-0 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* And the Atlanta Flames and the Colorado Rockies were not scheduled.

And there were 2 games played in the World Hockey Association. The New England Whalers beat the Birmingham Bulls, 4-3 at the Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) in Springfield, Massachusetts, where they were playing during repairs on the Hartford Civic Center. And the Cincinnati Stingers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 6-2 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center).

December 15, 1944: Glenn Miller Disappears

December 15, 1944: Glenn Miller, the biggest name of the "Big Band" era of music, disappears.

Miller was a trombonist, and led The Glenn Miller Orchestra. In 1939, they had hits with "Moonlight Serenade" and "In the Mood." In 1940, he would record "Tuxedo Junction" and "PEnnsylvania 6-5000." In 1941 came "Chattanooga Choo Choo." In 1 day, May 20, 1942, he recorded "At Last" (now better known for the 1961 version by Etta James) and "(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo."

So in a span of a little over 3 years, he recorded 7 iconic songs, which led to his band being featured in some movies. They became the biggest band of the World War II years (I'm talking about popularity, not just in number of members) -- bigger than Benny Goodman's, bigger than either Tommy Dorsey's or Jimmy Dorsey's, and (no doubt helped by the fact that he and his band were white) bigger than Duke Ellington's and Count Basie's.

Miller's career came to what was expected to be a temporary interruption when he joined the war effort. He was ready to give up a civilian income of $20,000 per week -- about $339,000 in 2022 money, or around $17 million a year, so it was comparable to today's biggest stars -- to put on a uniform and serve his country.

At 38, he was too old to be drafted by the U.S. Army. So he volunteered for the U.S. Navy. They told him they didn't need him. So he wrote to an Army General, suggesting that he "be placed in charge of a modernized Army band."

This was done, as he was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces, the precursor to the U.S. Air Force. This allowed his band members -- not the same ones he had in his Orchestra -- to fly to various U.S. installations and perform for their fellow troops.

On December 15, 1944, Major Glenn Miller boarded a single-engine UC-64 Norseman at Clapham, England, heading for recently-liberated Paris, where he would establish the headquarters his band intended to have for the duration of the War. With him were 2 other officers: Lieutenant Colonel Norman Baessell, who would supervise the construction of the HQ; and the pilot, Flight Officer John Morgan.

Left to right: Morgan, Miller, Baessell

The weather was bad the day before, leading to all planes being grounded. Miller was expected to be in Paris on the 16th, but on the 15th, Baessell made a guess that there would be enough of a break in the weather to fly. So the plane took off at 1:55 PM Greenwich Mean Time (8:55 AM on the U.S. East Coast).

No one was expecting the plane to arrive in Paris that afternoon, and so, when it didn't show up, no one thought to look for it. It was only when the rest of the band arrived at Paris' Orly Airport on December 18, and Miller wasn't there to meet them, that anybody realized that anything was wrong. The intended hotel was called, and Miller hadn't checked in.

It was only on December 24, Christmas Eve, that it was announced by the Army that Miller's plane was missing and presumed lost. No trace of it has ever been found. The band's deputy leader, Technical Sergeant Jerry Gray, led the band in that evening's performance in Miller's place.

Investigations turned up nothing solid, but the most common theory is that, given the weather, the plane's carburetor iced up, causing a crash that would have killed everybody on impact with the water. Suggestions of the Nazis shooting the plane down, or a horrible mistake of "friendly fire," or Miller having made it to Paris, dying in a brothel, and having the Army cover it up were dismissed as impossible.

Miller was 39, and left behind a wife and 2 children. His wife, Helen, was given a Bronze Star awarded to him 3 months later.

Today, as with some of the other bands I mentioned, a "legacy band," authorized by the Miller estate, performs the Miller catalog. Trumpeter Ray Anthony was the last surviving member of the original Glenn Miller Orchestra. On January 20, 2022, he celebrated his 100th birthday.

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December 15, 1944 was also the day the Battle of the Bulge began in the Ardennes Forest of France, Belgium and Luxembourg, Nazi Germany's last stand on the Western Front. On December 22, the Nazis sent an officer to deliver a surrender demand to the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, then stationed in Bastogne, Belgium, and virtually surrounded. General Anthony McAuliffe, in command, sent him away with a one-word reply: "Nuts!"

The Nazis held the upper hand through Christmas, but the day after, the 4th Armored Division arrived with reinforcements, and turned the tide of the battle. Once that happened, the Nazis were doomed, both on the Western Front and overall.

It was also the day the first five-star Generals were promoted. I have a separate entry for that.

And it was the day the film Hollywood Canteen opened. I have a separate entry for that, too.

December 15, 1944 was a Friday. Baseball was in the off-season. The NFL Championship Game was played 2 days later, with the Green Bay Packers beating the New York Giants, 14-7 at the Polo Grounds in New York. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And, while the NHL was in-season, no games were scheduled for that day. So there are no scores on this historic day.

December 11, 1968: England Football's 1st Black Player

December 11, 1968: The England national football team play Bulgaria to a 1-1 draw, at the old Wembley Stadium in London. Georgi Asparuhov of Levski Sofia scored for Bulgaria in the 32nd minute, while Geoff Hurst of West Ham United equalized for England in the 36th. (Asparuhov was killed in a car crash in 1971, while still an active player. Levski's stadium is named for him.)

In the 80th minute, right back Keith Newton of Blackburn Rovers was substituted, substitutions having recently been legalized. His replacement was Paul Reaney of Leeds United. This made Reaney the 1st black player for the England senior team.

Usually, that distinction is credited to Viv Anderson of Nottingham Forest, also a right back, in England's 1-0 win over Czechoslovakia on November 29, 1978. Anderson is, however, the 1st black player to start for England.

Paul Reaney was born on October 22, 1944 in Fulham, West London. He was the right back on the Leeds United teams that won the League in 1969 and 1974, and the FA Cup in 1972. As he was mixed-race, and comparatively light-skinned, he faced little abuse, because most fans thought he was white. Although the Yorkshire club were known as "Dirty Leeds" for their foul play, Reaney was not known as a dirty player.

Leeds had previously made a gesture toward advancement for black players in 1961, by signing Albert Johanneson (1940-1995), from South Africa. The left winger made the senior team in 1963, and in 1965, he became the 1st black player to appear in the FA Cup Final, which Leeds lost to Liverpool. Reaney also played in that game. While black players would become more common in England in the 1970s, it would take until the 1980s before teams would find success with racially integrated lineups.

A broken leg in 1970, and Newton's development into a top player at Everton, meant that in-game England opportunities for Reaney were limited. His injury kept him out of both the FA Cup Final and the World Cup in 1970, and he only made 2 more appearances for England. After retiring in 1981, he became an athletic counselor at a children's camp in Derbyshire.

Frank Soo (1914-1991), an inside left for Stoke City, and a Derbyshire native of Chinese descent, was the first player of an ethnic minority background to represent England, doing so 9 times, though these were all in unofficial matches during World War II.

*

December 11, 1968 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Baltimore Bullets, 118-110 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Phoenix Suns, 143-123 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the San Diego Rockets, 116-110 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Oscar Robertson scored 34 points for the Royals. Elvin Hayes had 35 points and 20 rebounds in defeat for the Rockets.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 108-106 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 106-96 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.)

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Houston Mavericks, 106-99 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Miami Floridians, 117-100 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* And the Los Angeles Stars beat the Minnesota Pipers, 124-116 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Connie Hawkins of the Pipers led all scorers on the night, with 47 points.

And there were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins played to a tie, 2-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 4-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. 

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Oakland Seals were not scheduled.

December 11, 1886: The 1st Arsenal Match

Not quite the 1st Arsenal team, but perhaps the earliest known team photo,

1888, including some of the original players.

December 11, 1886: The Arsenal Football Club played its 1st game. It was on the Isle of Dogs, at a ground recently occupied by Millwall Football Club, against a team named Eastern Wanderers, which went out of business a few years later. The new club won, 6-0.

They were originally a works team -- what we in the U.S. would call a company team, as both the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers began -- at the Royal Arsenal (hence the nickname "The Gunners," which led to their fans later being tagged "The Gooners") in Woolwich (the 2nd W is silent), in what was then the county of Kent, but is now part of Southeast London (SE16).

They called themselves Dial Square Football Club, after the section of the Arsenal where they worked. On Christmas Day, December 25, 1886, they met at the nearby Royal Oak pub, to make things more official, and changed their name to the Royal Arsenal Football Club.

The 1st game under the new name, and the 1st game that could be called a "home game" for them, was on January 8, 1887, at Plumstead Common, 2 miles away, against a nearby club called Erith, and Royal Arsenal won, 6-1.

The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Photo dated 1960.

In 1893, they turned professional, and were admitted to England's Football League, but had to change their name, as Queen Victoria had signed a law that prohibited any professional sports team from having "Royal" in its name. (This is not the case in Spain, where there are professional soccer teams named Real Madrid, Real Mallorca, Real Betis, etc.)

And, of course, being professional, they had ceased to be a "club," even though the word remains part of the organization's name, and the fans continue to call their team "my club."

So they took on the name of their locality, and were Woolwich Arsenal from then until 1913, when they moved to a new stadium at Highbury in North London, "The Arsenal" until 1919 and "Arsenal Football Club" since, although "The Arsenal," Capital T, Capital A, is frequently still used, especially by the club's fans.

They could have changed their name to "Highbury Arsenal," or "Islington Arsenal," even though neither the Borough of Islington nor the Highbury neighborhood had any connection to the Royal Arsenal, aside from the club. As a result, Arsenal are 1 of only 2 professional clubs in England without a locality as part of their official name. The other is Port Vale, located in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

Herbert Chapman was signed to manage Arsenal in 1925. He led them to win the Football Association Cup in 1930, and the Football League Division One in 1931 and 1933, before his death midway through the 1933-34 season. Under Joe Shaw, and then George Allison, the team he built went on to win the League again in 1934, 1935 and 1938, and the FA Cup in 1936. A rebuild after World War II, under manager Tom Whittaker, resulted in League titles in 1948 and 1953, and an FA Cup in 1950.

Like Chapman, Whittaker died in office, in 1956, and a down period resulted. The team's fortunes were turned around under Bertie Mee. In 1970, he guided the team to the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Europa League. In 1971, Arsenal took both the League and the FA Cup, "The Double." A mid-1970s rebuild under Terry Neill led to an FA Cup win in 1979.

In 1986, George Graham, one of the players from the '71 Double was named manager. He led the team to the 1987 League Cup, the 1989 and 1991 League titles, the 1st-ever English domestic "cup double" (the League Cup and the FA Cup) in 1993, and the European Cup Winners' Cup (a tournament that no longer exists) in 1994.

In 1996, Arsène Wenger was named the team's 1st manager not a native of the British Isles, and he revamped everything, from tactics to exercise to diet. In 1998, now in the era of the Premier League, he took Arsenal to another Double. He did it again in 2002. He led them to another FA Cup in 2003. And he led them through the entire 2003-04 Premier League season without losing a game: Played 38, won 26, drawn 2, lost exactly none. It had never been done before, and it hasn't been done since. The unbeaten string eventually reached 49 games.

(The 1st season of the Football League was in 1888-89, and Lancashire team Preston North End went through the 22-game season unbeaten, and also won the FA Cup. But 38 is a lot more games than 22.)

After another FA Cup win in 2005, Arsenal advanced to the Final of the UEFA Champions League in 2006, their last season at Highbury. With the opening of the new 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium, the construction debt had to be paid off, and Wenger had less of a budget than before. Still, he managed to keep the team in the Champions League places.

A small but loud and angry section of the fanbase began to demand that Wenger spend more money on "world-class players," because they believed that winning the League title was all that mattered. When Wenger ended a 9-year trophy drought by winning the 2014 FA Cup, this small but loud and angry section decided that it wasn't enough.

Nor was it enough when he did it again in 2015 and 2017. They demanded that he be fired for not giving them another League title -- as if he hadn't already given them 3, as many as any other Arsenal manager had ever done. (Allison had won 3; Chapman, Whittaker and Graham had each won 2, Shaw 1.)

By 2017, Arsenal had been surpassed by bigger-spending teams run by billionaire owners, and fell out of the Champions League places. Late in the 2018 season, Wenger announced he was leaving. It is still debated whether he was fired, or he quit due to even his great patience finally being worn out by the whiners.

New manager Unai Emery turned out to be a poor replacement, and was fired in favor of Mikel Arteta, the Spanish midfielder who had captained the 2014 and '15 Cup wins. His leadership led to victory in the 2020 FA Cup, and a 2nd-place finish and a return to Champions League qualification in 2022.

The Arsenal have a great past, and a promising future. The hope is that the team can, within a short time, return to its former heights.

Good old Arsenal, we're proud to say your name.

While we sing this song, we'll win the game!

There are no other scores on this historic day. England's Football League wouldn't be founded for another 2 years, and, given the distances involved in the pre-automobile era, scheduling was risky. In America, the baseball season was over, the college football season was also over, basketball hadn't been invented yet, and hockey hardly had been.

December 5, 1952: The Great Smog of London

December 5, 1952: London is hit by the deadliest smog in human history.

London is known for its fog, adding to the atmosphere of books, movies and TV shows set there. There is a brand of clothing named London Fog. Stories involving the fictional Sherlock Holmes and the very real Jack the Ripper tend to be shrouded in fog.

In 1967, when the producers of the Batman TV series wanted to do a 3-episode arc parodying the era's "Swinging London," they renamed the city Londinium (the ancient Roman name for it), and the villains were felonious sibling aristocrats, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg (played by Rudy Vallée with an accent even more ridiculous than Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins) and Lady Penelope Peasoup (played by Glynis Johns, who was also in Mary Poppins, and was, at least, English).

But London was also the world's 1st truly industrial city, which led to it not only becoming the biggest city in the world by the mid-19th Century, but also to the production of pollution on a scale never seen before. "Smog" is a portmanteau of "smoke" and "fog," and the city has long been called "The Smoke" or "The Big Smoke" by people from elsewhere in England.

And the seat of the British Commonwealth, formerly the British Empire, had been hit hard by smog before: 780 dead in 1873; 2,200 in 1880; 779 in 1892; 800 in 1948. (In some cases, exact numbers can't be reached, based on symptoms.) And it didn't smell too good, either: 1858 was called "The Year of the Big Stink."

A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an "anticyclone" and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants, mostly arising from the use of coal, to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday to Tuesday, December 5 to 9, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called "pea-soupers." Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog, and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.

The Great Smog was many times worse than anything the city had ever experienced before: It is thought to be the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom, and the most significant, for its effects on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

But that Act had not yet been implemented in December 1956, when another smog killed 1,000 people. Another 400 died in the long and especially cold Winter that began in December 1962, and another 160 in December 1991.

Certainly, when it came to deadly smog, London was not alone: New York would lose 260 in 1953, 405 in 1963, and 168 in 1966. But the American city best known for smog is Los Angeles. On July 26, 1943, the smog in L.A. was so bad, people began calling the police, thinking that the Japanese were conducting chemical warfare as part of their effort in World War II. The Japanese military never developed anything like that, but America didn't know that at the time. And on October 21, 1954, the smog in L.A. was so bad, the City actually closed its public schools for several days.

Oddly, the American city best known for fog, San Francisco, has never reported a smog causing multiple deaths.

Environmental activism from 1970 onward has gone a long way toward preventing such smog disasters, but not entirely, as pointed out by the 1991 London smog event.

*

December 5, 1952 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There were 2 college football games played that night. The University of Georgia beat the University of Miami, 35-13 at Burdine Stadium in Miami. Burdine Stadium would be renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959. And the University of the Pacific beat the University of Hawaii, 49-13 at Honolulu Stadium.

There were no games scheduled for the NHL. One game was played in the NBA: The Indianapolis Olympians beat their geographical rivals, the Fort Wayne Pistons, 84-74 at the Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

December 4, 1935: Swastikas Over White Hart Lane

The Swastika flag can be made out,

in the upper-right corner of the photo.

December 4, 1935: The national soccer teams of England and Germany play each other at White Hart Lane in Tottenham, Middlesex, a northern suburb of London. The match is surrounded by controversy.

That had not been the case the 1st time the teams played each other. On May 10, 1930, at the Poststadion in Berlin, with Germany governed by the Weimar Republic, there were no incidents, and the game ended in a draw, 3-3.

But in 1933, the Nazi Party took power in Germany. Their oppression of the nation's Jews, for blaming them for Germany's defeat in World War I, caught the attention of the world. And so, when a 2nd football match between the countries was set for England, many people worried about what Germans, traveling to watch their team play, might do to English people they perceived as Jewish.

To make matters worse, the chosen venue for the match was White Hart Lane, in Tottenham. Until a 1963 Act of Parliament redrew the boundaries of England's Counties, Tottenham was part of Middlesex. Effective January 1, 1965, it would be a part of London, as would parts of Kent and Surrey, while Middlesex was eliminated entirely.

Fans of Tottenham Hotspur, or "Spurs," the team playing home games at The Lane, have always claimed that "North London is ours." It's never been true: Arsenal, 4.7 miles away, and officially within London since 1913 (even though White Hart Lane never moved following its opening in 1899), have always been the more successful team.

Why did the choice of venue make things worse? Because Tottenham has long been thought of as a Jewish area of London, and "Spurs" a "Jewish club." It's not true: Their local area does not have a noticeably larger percentage of Jewish residents than most of London.

Nevertheless, their fans have accepted this identity, flying Israeli flags, and even using an anti-Semitic slur (which I won't use here) for the name of their hooligan firm. Fans of other London teams, including (regrettably) Arsenal, East End team West Ham United, and West London team Chelsea have also used slurs and anti-Semitic tropes against them.

It had been rumored that 8,000 Germans were traveling to London for the match, and trouble was feared. In fact, none of the Germans among the crowd of 54,164 is known to have caused any trouble. Still, the photographs showing the Nazi Swastika flag flying over White Hart Lane, as well as the English Cross of St. George and the British Union Jack, was jarring.

Germany wore white shirts. England, wearing blue, fielded this lineup:

* Goalkeeper, Henry Gibbs, of Birmingham City.

* Right back, George Male of Arsenal.

* Left back and team Captain, Eddie Hapgood of Arsenal.

* Right half, Jack Crayston of Arsenal.

* Centre half, Jack Barker of Derby County.

* Left half, John Bray of Manchester City.

* Outside right, Stanley Matthews of Stoke City.

* Inside right, Horatio "Raich" Carter of Sunderland.

* Centre forward, George Camsell of Middlesbrough.

* Inside left, Ray Westwood of Bolton Wanderers. And...

* Outside left, Cliff Bastin of Arsenal.

If 4 Arsenal players in the starting lineup seems excessive, let the record show that Arsenal had won the last 3 Football League titles, and that the 1934 match against Italy known as "The Battle of Highbury," at Arsenal's stadium, had 7 Arsenal players.

As The Times of London reported, the game was not much of a contest. I have left the account as written, with no changes of spelling or grammar:

England beat Germany at White Hart Lane yesterday by three goals to none. The football was naither as interesting to watch nor as perfect in technique as it might have been, but the afternoon was a great success for at least two reasons. First, the game was played throughout in the friendliest of spirit ; and, secondly, after a morning of heavy and persistent rain, the sun came out, and both the players and the spectators had far better conditions than they could have expected three or four hours before the kick-off.

Germany were fortunate in that the margin against them was not bigger, and it would be flattery to pretend otherwise...

England's one goal came when Camsell was given a pass which sent him racing through in the inside-left position, and his shot, taken from an extremely acute angle, could not be stopped...

First a movement down the left wing begun by Hapgood ended with Bastin centreing across for Camsell to head into the net, and then some splendid football by Bastin, who had worked into the centre, led up to Camsell, who had run over to the left, to return the ball to Bastin, who never looked like making a mistake with his shot.

So that was 2 goals for Camsell, and 1 for Bastin, whose 178 goals for Arsenal would be a club record until 1997, and are still 3rd all-time behind the 228 of Thierry Henry and the 185 of Ian Wright.

The Observer, which had warned of German violence, had to admit: "So chivalrous in heart and so fair in tackling were the English and German teams who played at Tottenham in mid-week that even the oldest of veterans failed to recall an international engagement played with such good manners by everybody."

The teams would play just once more before World War II broke out, at the Olympiastadion in Berlin in 1938. The German players saluted the Nazi flag. The English players did as well, in a gesture of solidarity, except for Stan Cullis of Wolverhampton Wanderers, later to manage that team to glory.

*

December 4, 1935 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And while the NHL season was underway, no games were scheduled. So the England-Germany football match produced the only score on this historic day.

November 29, 1975: The Crash of Graham Hill

November 29, 1975: Auto racers Graham Hill and Tony Brise, and 4 others, are killed – not in a racing crash, but in a plane crash, going down in a fog at Arkley golf course in North London.

I had resisted adding auto racing events to this feature, because I don't like the event, and consider to not be a sport. I finally changed my mind, given how many people are interested.

Hill, a Norton London native, was a Royal Navy veteran who won 2 Formula 1 titles and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972. He was 46. Erith, from Southeast London, was a Grand Prix rookie on Hill's team. He was only 23.

Hill remains the only driver to have completed the Triple Crown in both its World Drivers' Championship and Monaco Grand Prix versions. He was F1 World Champion in 1962 and 1968. He won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 1966. And he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972.

Formula 1 (F1) racing is much more popular in Britain and Europe than it is in America -- mainly because, before the rise of cable TV allowed them to watch North American sports, there was room for it, since European sports was basically soccer first and everything else second. As a result, tragedies in auto racing are felt very deeply there, and Hill's death sent the Old World into mourning.

*

November 29, 1975 was a Saturday. It was the conclusion of college football rivalry week. On Thanksgiving, Number 15 Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 42-26 at Grant Field in Atlanta. And Temple beat Villanova, 41-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

On the Friday, Number 2 Texas A&M beat Number 5 Texas, 20-10 at Kyle Field in College Station. And Number 14 UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles beat USC, the University of Southern California, 25-22 at their then common home field, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This earned UCLA the Pacific-Eight Conference title.

Number 1 Ohio State, having beaten Michigan, who fell to Number 9 that week, won the Big Ten Conference title, and the accompanying bid to the Rose Bowl. But UCLA beat them, costing them the National Championship. UCLA were coached by Dick Vermeil, who was subsequently hired by the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles.

This was the 1st year that the Big 10 let a team other than its Champion play in a bowl game, a response to the 10-10 tie between undefeated Michigan and undefeated Ohio State in 1973. Michigan were invited to the Orange Bowl.

These were among the games played on that Saturday:

* Number 4 Alabama beat Auburn, 28-0 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. It clinched the Southeastern Conference title for 'Bama.

* Number 6 Oklahoma and Number 7 Nebraska were idle, having played each other the week before. Oklahoma won, clinching the Big Eight Conference title. Oklahoma went on to beat Michigan in the Orange Bowl, and were awarded the National Championship.

* Number 8 Arizona State beat Number 12 Arizona, 24-21 at Sun Devil Stadium (now Mountain America Stadium) in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona. This clinched the Western Athletic Conference title for Arizona State. Arizona State then went on to beat Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, completing an undefeated season, 12-0. But because they were only a WAC team, they finished Number 2 in the polls. After 2 more seasons in the WAC, they and Arizona joined the Pac-8, making it the Pac-10.

* Number 10 Penn State were idle. They were invited to play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. 'Bama won.

* Number 13 Florida beat the University of Miami, 15-11 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* Number 20 San Jose State were the only Top 20 team to lose on the day, losing to Hawaii, 30-20 at the new Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

* Boston College beat Holy Cross, 24-10 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts.

* Vanderbilt picked up a rare win over arch-rival Tennessee, 17-14 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Notre Dame had finished its schedule the preceding week, in what's become known as The Rudy Ruettiger Game.

* Navy beat Army, 30-6 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The other service academy, Air Force, finished its schedule the previous Saturday.

* Rutgers beat Syracuse, 21-10 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway. The other New Jersey school, Princeton, finished its schedule the previous Saturday.

The next week, Texas A&M lost to Arkansas, costing them the Southwest Conference title, a bid to the Cotton Bowl, and a shot at the National Championship. Georgia were invited to the Cotton Bowl, where they also lost to Arkansas.

Baseball was out of season. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Detroit Pistons, 115-110 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 124-108 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls, 88-85 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.)

* The Houston Rockets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 99-98 at The Summit in Houston. (It became the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Phoenix Suns, 112-100 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Buffalo Braves, 130-115 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Bob McAdoo of the Braves led all scorers on the day with 40 points.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Virginia Squires, 111-106 at The Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 123-112 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. David Thompson scored 37 points.

* The Utah Stars beat the Spirits of St. Louis, 136-100 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

There were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The New York Islanders beat the St. Louis Blues, 8-2 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Vancouver Canucks, 6-4 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Philadelphia Flyers played to a tie, 1-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 4-4 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Washington Capitals, 5-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Kansas City Scouts, 5-3 at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Buffalo Sabres, 8-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the California Golden Seals and the Atlanta Flames were not scheduled.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the New England Whalers, 3-2 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Toronto Toros beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 9-5 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati.

* The Quebec Nordiques and the Phoenix Roadrunners played to a tie, 4-4 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Calgary Cowboys beat the San Diego Mariners, 5-4 in overtime at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

November 27, 1975: The Assassination of Ross McWhirter

The McWhirter Twins, 1974: Norris (left) & Ross

November 27, 1975: Ross McWhirter, with his twin brother Norris a sportswriter, co-founder of The Guinness Book of World Records, and a Conservative Party activist, is assassinated outside his home in Enfield, North London. He was 50 years old.

The twin brothers were born on August 12, 1925 in North London, and both served in the Royal Navy in World War II, on a minesweeper. They became sports journalists. In 1951, they published Get to Your Marks, and earlier that year they had founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, the catch-all name for British newspapers, even if they were no longer based on the London street of that name.

In 1954, Norris served as the public address announcer for the track meet at Oxford University in which Roger Bannister became the 1st man to run a mile race in under 4 minutes. Also competing that day was Christopher Chataway, who worked for the Guinness brewery, and introduced them to his boss, Sir Hugh Beaver.

The following year, the 1st Guinness Book of World Records was published, billed as the ultimate settler of bar bets. It quickly became the biggest-selling book in Britain, setting a world record itself, and eventually became more famous than the stout itself. In 1965, the twins were guests on the American panel game show I've Got a Secret, where they exhibited their memorization of their book.

Both brothers became Conservative Party activists. Both ran for seats in Parliament in the 1964 general election, but were unsuccessful. Norris tried again in 1966, and lost again. In 1972, Prime Minister Edward Heath, Leader of the Conservative Party, brought Britain into the European Common Market. Norris called it "treason." In a 2017 article in The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries called him "the original Brexiter":

Imagine, if you dare, that Katie Hopkins is also the status guru on Test Match Special. Or that Nigel Farage is renowned not just as the beef-faced broker who got us out of the EU but for his astute postgame analysis on Match of the Day.

Neither of these comparisons really does justice to Norris McWhirter. He was something else. He was alt-right before the term was invented. 

(For readers not familiar with British politics: Hopkins is a newspaper columnist, known for her anti-immigrant views; Farage was the longtime leader of the far-right UK Independence Party, and claims to be the person most responsible for Britain finally leaving the European Union, the process known as "Brexit"; Test Match Special is a TV show about cricket; Match of the Day, about soccer. And, yes, there is another show on British TV, called Soccer Saturday, so they don't always call that sport "football.")

Ross advocated and lobbied for various restrictions on the freedom of the Irish community in Britain, such as compulsory registration with the local police, and a requirement for signed photographs when renting flats or booking hotel rooms. If that sounds like something that Donald Trump would like, that's not my fault.

In 1975, Ross McWhirter offered a £50,000 reward -- in 2022 money, about £342,000; with the current exchange rate, about $415,000 -- for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings in England that were publicly claimed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

On November 27, at 6:45 PM, he was shot by 2 members of the Balcombe Street Gang. The killers were Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty. Duggan said later, "McWhirter thought he lived in Texas. He put a bounty on our heads. He asked to be killed."

No, he didn't. Being a right-wing jerk is not an invitation to murder. And killing him didn't accomplish anything.

Duggan and Doherty were captured 9 days later, and charged with his murder and 10 others. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, but freed in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. As of November 27, 2022, both men are still alive.

Norris McWhirter lived on, without his brother, as a union-bashing libertarian. With the election of the Conservatives, and of the twins' longtime friend Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, in 1979, his beliefs became, for the most part, official government policy.

He had medals cast and given to athletes boycotting the Olympics in Moscow in 1980, and publicly defended athletes who dared to resist the ban on playing sporting events in then-apartheid South Africa. Defenders of that state, in both Britain and America, defended by saying they weren't personally racist, themselves, but supported a regime that was openly anti-Communist. Of course, the implication was that the country's black activists were Communists.

Norris sold his interest in the Guinness Book in 1996, and died on April 19, 2004, at the age of 78.

*

November 27, 1975 was a Thursday. In America, it was Thanksgiving Day. Since 1934, that had meant that the Detroit Lions played at home. This would be their 1st T-Day game in the suburbs, and they lost, 20-0 to the Los Angeles Rams, at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.

Since 1966, Thanksgiving had meant that the Dallas Cowboys played at home. But this year, and again in 1977 (but not in 1976), the NFL deviated from Dallas, giving the home game to the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards lost to the Buffalo Bills, 32-14 at Busch Memorial Stadium. The NFL might have been motivated to give St. Louis the game not because of the Cardinals, but because of their opponents: The Bills featured the most popular player in the League, running back O.J. Simpson.

One game was played in college football, the rivalry known as "Clean Old-Fashioned Hate": Georgia, then ranked Number 15, beat Georgia Tech, 42-26 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Washington Bullets, 96-90 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 95-91 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 106-105 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.)

And there was 1 game in the American Basketball Association: The Utah Stars beat the Kentucky Colonels, 128-126 in overtime at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Despite the defeat, William "Bird" Averitt of the Colonels led all scorers on the night with 43 points. Ron Boone led the Stars with 34.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Islanders, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the League's Missouri teams played each other: The Kansas City Scouts beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. This may have been the Scouts' high point: A year later, they moved to Denver, becoming the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, they moved again, becoming the New Jersey Devils.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-1 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 5-3 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Calgary Cowboys beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 5-1 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-1 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).