October 28, 1949: Marcel Cerdan's Plane Crash

October 28, 1949: A Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores islands off the coast of Portugal, a refueling stop on the regular route from Paris to New York. All 48 people on board are killed, including Marcel Cerdan, former Middleweight Champion of the World. The man known as the Moroccan Bomber and the Casablanca Clouter was only 33 years old.

He was born on July 22, 1916 in Sidi Bel Abbès, in Algeria, then a colony of France, giving him French citizenship. Both of his parents had gone there from Spain. He grew up in Casablanca, Morocco, and won the French welterweight title in 1938. With World War II on, he won the Inter-Allied Championship in 1944, making him, effectively, the welterweight champion of Europe.

He moved up in weight class, and won the Middleweight Championship of the World by knocking out Tony Zale at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on September 21, 1948. He lost the title in his 1st defense, against Jake LaMotta at Briggs Stadium (later renamed Tiger Stadium) in Detroit on June 16, 1949, as he had to drop out of the fight due to a dislocated shoulder.

It was only fair that he get a rematch, and the contract was signed. He was flying from Paris to New York to prepare for his rematch with "the Raging Bull" when his plane crashed. His career record was an amazing 113-4, although it should be noted that nearly all his fights were against Europeans, not exactly the best of competition.

Louis Raftis played him in Martin Scorcese's 1980 film about LaMotta, Raging Bull. In 1983, Marcel Cerdan Jr. played his father in the French film Edith et Marcel, which told of the affair Cerdan Sr. had with the legendary French singer Edith Piaf, played by Evelyn Bouix. In 2007, Jean-Pierre Martins played him opposite Marion Cotillard in her Oscar-winning role as Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

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October 28, 1949 was a Friday. Also on this day, William Bruce Jenner was born in Tarrytown, Westchester County, New York. Bruce won the decathlon at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, becoming an international hero and the best-remembered man on the Wheaties cereal box.

But he became better-known as the weird, desperately trying to hang onto his youth husband of Kris Jenner; the stepfather of Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian; and the father of Burton and Cassandra Jenner with 1st wife Chrystie Crownover; Brandon and Brody Jenner with 2nd wife Linda Thompson; and Kendall and Kylie Jenner with Kris.

In 2014, he and Kris split up. In 2015, he decided to accept the reality of his identity, and made the transition to a woman. She now calls herself Caitlyn Marie Jenner, or "Cait," and has faced both praise for her courage and anger from people who are too bigoted to understand.

Unfortunately, she has also supported Donald Trump, who probably loved Bruce, but hates people like Cait. In 2018, she finally admitted that it was wrong for gay people, or transgender people like herself, to have supported Trump, since he has taken official actions against them.

Also on this day, John Prescott McGovern was born in Montrose, Scotland. A midfielder, he played for manager Brian Clough at Hartlepool United, Derby County, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest. Buying him from Derby was Clough's last-ditch attempt to hang onto the Leeds job, which he lost after only 44 days.

Otherwise, McGovern was one of Clough's golden boys, helping him get the other 3 clubs promoted to the Football League Division One. Together, they won the League at both Derby in 1972 and their East Midlands arch-rivals Forest in 1978. Forest also won the Anglo-Scottish Cup in 1977, the League Cup in 1978 and 1979, and, with McGovern as Captain, the European Cup in 1979 and 1980. They are the only English team to win the European Cup, now called the UEFA Champions League, more than they've won the English top flight.

Despite his success as a Captain, he was unsuccessful as a manager, starting in the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons as a player-manager with Lancashire club Bolton Wanderers. His most recent job was with Ilkeston Town in Derbyshire in 2001. He now works as a club ambassador for Forest, and a pundit on Radio Nottingham. He is a member of the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.

Baseball season had ended 19 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the World Series. The NBA season started the next day. The NHL season was underway, but no games were scheduled. There were 3 college football games played:

* Villanova beat Boston College, 28-14 at Alumni Field outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

* George Washington University beat Lafayette, 14-7 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* And the University of Detroit beat Oklahoma State, 13-7 at Titan Stadium in Detroit.

October 10, 1963: Édith Piaf Dies

October 10, 1963: Édith Piaf dies in Paris at age 47, after years of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse stemming from a car accident years earlier.

She was born as Édith Giovanna Gassion in Paris, on December 19, 1915, a week after Frank Sinatra. She began touring with her father at age 14. She had an affair, and at age 17, gave birth to a daughter, Marcelle, who died from meningitis 2 years later. Marcelle would be her only child.

In 1935, she was hired by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, who gave her her stage name, La Môme Piaf. There is a dispute as to the translation: Either "The Bonnet Kid" or "The Sparrow Kid." He also gave Édith her signature look, a black dress. He was murdered by gangsters in 1936, and since she knew them, she was questioned as an accomplice by the police, but cleared.

Her image was in tatters, but her next boyfriend, songwriter Raymond Asso, built her back up. He changed her name to Édith Piaf, kept the undesirables away, and, in addition to the songs he wrote for her, brought Marguerite Monnot in to write songs for her, many of them reflecting her life as a poor kid in Paris.

In 1940, she starred in Le Bel Indifférent, a play by Jean Cocteau, then one of France's greatest living writers, and a lifelong friend thereafter. Despite the Nazi occupation, her fame grew, and she became a symbol of French Resistance. She performed at Paris' legendary Moulin Rouge nightclub, and began an affair with actor Yves Montand.

By 1947, 2 songs that she wrote had become famous all over the world: Her own recording of "La Vie en Rose" (The Life In Pink), and "What Can I Do?" recorded by Montand, Montand became as popular as she was, and she couldn't take it, and she broke up with him. She soon began an affair with Marcel Cerdan, who had been Middleweight Champion of the World. That affair ended when Cerdan died in a plane crash in 1949.

"France's national chanteuse" became popular in America. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 8 times, including live in 1950 and 1956 during her tours, the other times with clips filmed in Paris.

In 1952, Piaf married her 1st husband, singer Jacques Pills. They divorced 5 years later. In 1960, in a successful effort to save the Paris Olympia music hall from bankruptcy, she recorded Charles Dumont's song "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("No, I do not regret anything"), and performed several concerts at the Olympia. In 1962, she married Théo Sarapo, a Parisian-born singer of Greek descent who was 20 years younger. 

But she was in a bad car crash in 1951, and, on top of her alcoholism, she became addicted to the painkiller morphine. She was in 2 more car crashes, and her drug dependency deepened. Her liver was hopelessly damaged, she developed cancer in it, and died on October 10, 1963, at her country home in Plascassier. Sarapo drove her body back to Paris, so her fans would believe she died there.

Her death was announced the next day. Cocteau gave a tearful public statement about it, and died later that day. But he already, literally, had a broken heart: He had suffered a heart attack the previous April. And he was not young, 74.

Sarapo also died young, in 1970, at 34, in a car crash, in Limoges, France.

In the film Bull Durham, Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) played a record of her singing "Non, je ne regrette rien" as a prelude to romance.

Marion Cotillard played Piaf in the 2007 film La Vie en Rose, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, the 1st time an Oscar had ever been given for a French-language role. Although the facial resemblance was undeniable, Piaf was 5 feet even and Cotillard is 5-foot-10, and so some special effects were necessary.

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October 10, 1963 was a Thursday. The baseball season ended 4 days earlier, when the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a 4-game sweep of the New York Yankees. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 6 days later.

There was 1 score on this historic day, and it was in the NHL: The Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Gordie Howe scored 2 goals for the Wings. The Hawks got a goal from Bobby Hull and another from Stan Mikita, but it wasn't enough.