September 18, 1903: Bertrand Russell Publishes "The Principles of Mathematics"

September 18, 1903: Bertrand Russell publishes The Principles of Mathematics. It presents a view of the foundations of mathematics, and has become a classic reference book.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born on May 18, 1872 in Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales. He was the son of John Russell, Viscount Amberley; the grandson of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1846 to 1852, and again from 1865 to 1866; and the great-grandson of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. The 1st Duke of Bedford, William Russell, was an aide to King William III, and had been the 5th Earl of Bedford. The 1st Earl of Bedford was an advisor of King Henry VIII. Suffice it to say, Bertrand Russell's family was worth a few quid.

With his family's money and connections, it was easy to get him into Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1893. At first, he dedicated himself to mathematics, and published his magnum opus when he was just 31 years old.

In 1937, Russell prepared a new introduction saying, "Such interest as the book now possesses is historical, and consists in the fact that it represents a certain stage in the development of its subject." Further editions were published in 1938, 1951, 1996, and 2009.

The book consists of 59 chapters, divided into 7 parts: Indefinables in mathematics, number, quantity, order, infinity and continuity, space, matter and motion. In chapter one, "Definition of Pure Mathematics," Russell asserts that:

The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists in the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

But he was more than a mathematician. And the things he became in his life came to trouble his country. He became an atheist at age 18. In 1902, he joined the socialist Fabian Society. In 1916, during World War I, he joined the No-Conscription Fellowship, as a pacifist and an anti-imperialist, and not only lost his Cambridge teaching post, but was imprisoned for 6 months:

I found prison in many ways quite agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make, no fear of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy"... and began the work for "The Analysis of the Mind." I was rather interested in my fellow-prisoners, who seemed to me in no way morally inferior to the rest of the population, though they were on the whole slightly below the usual level of intelligence as was shown by their having been caught.

Although he was rich, he sympathized with the poor. In 1935, he wrote In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays, including this passage:

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief.

When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: "What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work." People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.

In 1894, he married Alyssa "Alys" Smith, an American Quaker and a feminist. They separated in 1911, and had no children. In 1919, he began a relationship with Dora Black, a women's rights and birth control activist. They were married right after his divorce from Alys became final in 1921, but had an open marriage. They divorced in 1935, but not before Dora had 2 children with another man.

In 1936, Bertrand married his children's former governess, Patricia Spence. She contributed to his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy. They had a son, Conrad. They divorced in 1952, so Bertrand could marry American writer Edith Finch. Already 51 at the time of their marriage, they had no children.

In 1931, Bertrand's elder brother Frank died without an heir, and he became the 3rd Earl Russell. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

In 1943, during World War II, he changed his mind about pacifism, describing war as a necessary "lesser of two evils." (That expression was coined in 4th Century BC Greece by Aristotle, and Geoffrey Chaucer introduced it to the English language in the late 14th Century.) He came to prefer American world leadership over the postwar weakness of Britain and strength of the Soviet Union, but opposed the Vietnam War, and spoke out for nuclear disarmament. Just before his death, he denounced Israeli aggression against their Arab neighbors, ignoring, as so many do, the fact that the Arab neighbors are nearly always the actual aggressors.

He died on February 2, 1970, at the age of 97. He had remarked that he had been raised by his grandfather, who had met Napoleon Bonaparte. And yet, Russell lived long enough to have been on the Earth at the same time as me, as I was born 46 days earlier.

Dora Russell lived until 1986, at 92. Patricia Russell lived until 2004, age 94. Edith Russell lived until 1978, age 77.

John Russell became the 4th Earl Russell, and served in the House of Lords from his father's death in 1970 until his own in 1987, only 63, defying the family's legacy of hardiness. But he, his wife, Susan Lindsay (daughter of American poet Vachel Lindsay) and all 3 of their children, all daughters and ineligible to inherit the earldom, were diagnosed as mentally ill.

His daughter, Lady Katharine Jane Tait, founded the Bertrand Russell Society in 1974, to preserve and understand his work. She also authored several essays about her father, and a biography, My Father, Bertrand Russell, which was published in 1975. She lived until 2021, age 98.

Conrad Russell became the 5th Earl Russell upon the death of his half-brother, and served in the House of Lords from 1987 until his death in 2004, at 67. His son, Nicholas, became the 6th Earl Russell, and was an activist for disability rights. He died of a blood clot in 2014, only 45 years old. His brother, John Russell, a photographer, became the 7th Earl Russell. The 5th and 6th Earls were both grandsons of Bertrand Russell.

*

September 18, 1903 was a Friday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Highlanders swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 7-1 and 6-3 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Over the 2 games, Willie Keeler went 6-for-7 with a stolen base and 3 RBIs. The Highlanders officially became the New York Yankees in 1913.

* A doubleheader was played at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Athletics won the opener, 7-5. Charles "Chief" Bender couldn't get out of the 1st inning, but Eddie Plank pitched the rest of the way for the win. The St. Louis Browns won the nightcap, 9-2.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-5 at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Charlie Babb and Jack Warner each got 3 hits for the Giants. Deaf pitcher Luther "Dummy" Taylor pitched the 1st 7 innings, and was relieved by Christy Mathewson. The Giants scored a run in the 8th and a run in the 9th to win it, and Mathewson was credited with his 29th win of the season. He would finish 30-13.

* The Boston Americans beat the Cleveland Naps, 7-6 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Bill Dineen won his 20th game of the year for Boston. Chick Stahl went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Freddy Parent went 2-for-5 with a home run and 2 RBIs. The Americans went on to win the 1st World Series, and Parent went on to become the last surviving member of the team, living until 1972. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908.

The Cleveland team was named for its manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 0-for-4 on this day, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. They became the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

* The Washington Senators swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers, 4-0 and 6-5 at National Park in Washington. Harold Wilson lasted only 1 inning in the 1st game, apparently leaving due to an injury. Davy Dunkle pitched the rest of the way, completing a 7-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Boston Beaneaters, 7-6 and 6-5 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Over the 2 games, Honus Wagner went 3-for-6 with 3 walks. (RBIs were not always recorded at this time.)

* A doubleheader was split at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 6-5. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 2nd game, 10-0. Charles "Chick" Fraser pitched a no-hitter. It wasn't close to a perfect game: He walked 5 batters, and his fielders made 3 errors.

* And the Brooklyn Superbas and the St. Louis Cardinals were simply not scheduled to play that day.

September 17, 2011: Occupy Wall Street

September 17, 2011: The "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration began.

On February 2, Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, called for "A Million Man March on Wall Street," intending it as a peaceful occupation of Wall Street, the street in Lower Manhattan that is home to the New York Stock Exchange, making the Street itself a metaphor for American capitalism. The idea was to protest corporate influence on democracy, an increasing disparity in wealth, and a lack of legal consequences for the perpetrators of corporate malfeasance.

The original location planned was One Chase Manhattan Plaza, home of the world's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, formed by the 2000 merger of J.P. Morgan & Co. and Chase Manhattan. That's at 28 Liberty Street, across the street from the New York branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, and 2 blocks north of Wall Street. The backup location was the "Charging Bull" statue in Bowling Green, about a 5-minute walk from the Stock Exchange. The police found out about this, and fenced both off. So they went with Plan C: Zuccotti Park, in front of One Liberty Plaza, at Broadway and Liberty Street, 3 blocks north of Wall Street.

In response to the charge that the Republican Party's tax cuts were designed for the top 1 percent of richest Americans, the demonstrators came up with the slogan, "We are the 99 percent." The conservative response to the protests was to use some of the lines they used on the 1960s' Hippies. They were Communists, or Socialists. They were dirty. They should get a haircut, take a shower, and get a job. The liberal response was practically nonexistent.

That seemed to fit with what the Occupy movement thought about the liberals. The "populist left" in America seems to hate the Democratic Party as much as the "populist right" does. It's because they view the Democrats as their oppressors.

They view them this way because the evidence shows it to them. Think of the defining moments in America's populist left:

* The populist left identified with the Civil Rights Movement, even though their contributions to it, and especially those of a then-young Bernie Sanders, have been seriously overblown, and even lied about. In 1963, the civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama had police dogs and firehoses trained on them. At the time, the President was John F. Kennedy, a Democrat. And the Police Commissioner in Birmingham was Eugene "Bull" Connor, a Democrat.

* In 1968, the populist left protested at the Democratic National Convention, over the Vietnam War, and the Chicago Police beat them. At the time, the President was Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat. And the Mayor of Chicago was Richard J. Daley, a Democrat.

* It took a long time for there to be another defining moment for the populist left in America, but it came in 1999, in the protest of the World Trade Organization conference at Seattle. At the time, the President was a Democrat, Bill Clinton. 

* And the most recent major formative event for them, in 2011, was the Occupy Wall Street movement, where the police moved in and beat them. At the time, the President was a Democrat, Barack Obama.

It doesn't seem to have occurred the populist left that, in some of these cases, in some of these cases, it was a Republican Mayor or a Republican Governor sending the big boys in to beat them.

Nor does it seem to have occurred to them that, when it was a Democratic Mayor or Governor, it was a more conservative one than the liberal Democrat who was President at the time period.

Another thing that does not seem to have occurred to them is that, in each of these cases, the President of the United States didn't have a damn thing to do with the harm that was caused to them and their movement. 

But these people are so thick, all they saw was the top of the org chart: President, Democrat, liberal, not progressive, not one of us.

They either saw the President as ordering this (which he didn't), or approving of it, or standing by and letting it happen to them and doing nothing about it. 

That's why they see the Democrats as the greater enemy than the Republicans, even though it's not even close to being true. These people are just that thick.

The editors of Time magazine had named "The Protestor," as a generic representative of various causes, as their Person of the Year for 2011. Occupy Wall Street was a part of that. By the end of 2016, with Donald Trump in the White House, in large part because of many Occupiers helping Bernie Sanders undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign, a self-inflicted wound, the hope was over.

*

Over the next few days, shouting matches between demonstrators and uniformed police officers led to several arrests. On September 30, over 1,000 demonstrators marched on NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza, half a mile away. The next day, they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, and over 700 people were arrested.

Eventually, they were met with counter-protestors, sort of. One guy in a suit held up a sign that said "GET A JOB." That was the whole point: Those people destroyed their jobs. Maybe the Occupy people were doing their cause more harm than good with the way they were demonstrating, but one thing nobody could seriously call them was "lazy."

On October 10, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that as long as the protesters operated under the law, they would not be arrested. Three days later, he contradicted this, saying that Zuccotti Park had to be cleared so it could be cleaned. The protestors refused to leave.

The park cleaning was continually delayed, until November 14. At 1:00 AM on November 15, the police cleared the park. On that occasion, they would return, but the momentum was lost.

Result? Within a year, President Barack Obama won an overwhelming victory against his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, a former Governor of Massachusetts, a predatory businessman who called himself "severely conservative." Four years after that, an even more corrupt businessman, Donald Trump, took the Presidency, in part due to the resentment of rich people against the demonstrators, and of "Heartland" America against "coastal elites." Four years after that, Trump got his ass kicked by Joe Biden, who won in large part because, like the Occupy movement, he made a big deal of showing empathy.

And on the 10th Anniversary of the initial demonstration, income inequality has gotten worse. Obama wasn't able to do much about it. Trump refused to. Biden? We shall see.

*

September 17, 2011 was a Saturday. College football? Number 1 Oklahoma beat Number 5 Florida State, at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, no less, 23-13. Alabama, then Number 2 but ending up as the National Champions, beat North Texas, 41-0 at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.

Notre Dame, unranked, beat Number 15 Michigan State, 31-13 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Here in New Jersey, Rutgers had the week off.

And a full slate of Major League Baseball games was played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Bluey Jays, 7-6 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson hit home runs. Bartolo Colon allowed 6 runs in the 1st 4 innings, but the bullpen allowed just 1 baserunner thereafter, and reliever Aaron Laffey got the win.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 1-0 at Turner Field in Atlanta. Tim Hudson allowed 4 hits over 8 innings, with Craig Kimbrel completing the shutout.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-2 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Los Angeles Angels, 6-2 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Washington Nationals, 4-1 at Nationals Park in Washington. Donnie Murphy hit a home run in the top of the 13th inning.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. This was in the middle of a massive collapse that saw the Sox go from 1st place on Labor day to out of the Playoffs completed, with the Yankees winning the Division and the Rays the AL Wild Card.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 10-1 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 2-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 10-4 at Target Field in Minneapolis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 10-3 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-5 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-1 at Petco Park in San Diego.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-3 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the O.co Coliseum).

* And the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-6 in 10 innings at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle.

Also, Arsenal lost to Blackburn Rovers, 4-3 at Ewood Park in Blackburn, Lancashire.

August 19, 1936: The Assassination of Federico García Lorca

August 19, 1936: Federico García Lorca, the Spanish poet, playwright and theater director, is assassinated near Alfacar, Granada, in the southern region of Spain, known as Andalusia. He was 38 years old.

Born on on June 5, 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros, outside Granada, García Lorca gained fame as a member of "The Generation of '27," a group of Spanish poets that tapped into the European literary movements of symbolism, futurism and surrealism. In 1928, he published Romancero Gitano (which was translated into English with what would now be considered a slur, Gypsy Ballads). He published the plays Blood Wedding in 1932, Yerma in 1934, and The House of Bernarda Alba in 1936.

But success did not fulfill him. He was gay, and suffered from depression after the end of a relationship with a sculptor. The coming of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 weighed heavily on him. He was a Socialist, like the prevailing government, the Second Republic that first won election in 1931. But the Nationalists, fascists, led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, were unfavorable to socialism due to its criticism of religion, and, with its strong Catholic base, unfavorable to homosexuals.

His hometown of Granada had gone without a Mayor for several months, because all possible candidates feared for their lives. García Lorca's brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, agreed to accept the position, but he was assassinated within a week. On the same day he was shot, August 18, García Lorca was arrested.

The circumstances of his death are in dispute, partly because his remains have never been found. In his book The Assassination of García Lorca, author Ian Gibson wrote that he was shot -- with 3 others: Joaquín Arcollas Cabezas, Francisco Galadí Melgar and Dióscoro Galindo González -- by Nationalist militia at the Fuente Grande (the Great Spring), on the road between Viznar and Alfacar.

Police reports released by radio station Cadena SER in April 2015, concluded that he was executed by fascist forces. A Franco-era report, dated July 9, 1965, describes the writer as a "socialist" and "freemason belonging to the Alhambra lodge," who engaged in "homosexual and abnormal practices."

Most biographers seem to agree that his death had political overtones. But Leslie Stainton, who wrote the 1999 biography Lorca: A Dream of Life, suggested that he was killed specifically because he was gay -- a murder, and a hate crime, but not an assassination.

He has been honored with statues in his hometown of Granada, and the national capital of Madrid; with a garden on the River Seine in Paris; in a hotel room where he once stayed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kept as a museum; and on the Rainbow Honor Walk, in the gay-friendly Castro District of San Francisco.

He once said, "I will always be on the side of those who have nothing, and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace." Sounds like my kind of guy.

*

August 19, 1936 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 7-4 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Red Ruffing went the distance for the win. Lou Gehrig went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs, and rookie Joe DiMaggio went 3-for-5 with a solo home run.

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-2 at the Polo Grounds. Carl Hubbell went the distance for the win. Mel Ott hit a home run.

* The Boston Bees beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-1 at National League Park in Boston. This was the 1st of 5 seasons under the Bees name for the former Boston Braves, who had previously called their ballpark Braves Field. The name never caught on, and in 1941, the team and the ballpark reverted to their previous names.

* The Philadelphia Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, 5-4 and 7-2. Frankie Hayes hit a home run to win the opener in the bottom of the 13th inning. Jimmie Foxx went 2-for-9 over the 2 games.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 13-8 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Tiger slugger Hank Greenberg got hurt on April 29, and missed the rest of the season.

* And the Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians were rained out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 6. The White Sox swept, 15-1 and 6-3.

July 5, 1945: The Order of the Boot

Winston Churchill (left) and Clement Attlee

July 5, 1945: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland holds its 1st general election since the start of World War II. And their message to the incumbent head of government was, "Thank you for saving our arses, now, cheerio."

The war wasn't over yet -- V-J Day was still 40 days away -- but the Nazis had been defeated, and Britain's part in that, as Prime Minister Winston Churchill predicted it would be, was "their finest hour." In spite of his policy that had led to the deaths of 3 million people in British India, Churchill was arguably the most popular person on Earth. After all, the other contenders for that title were Franklin Roosevelt, who was already dead; and Joseph Stalin, who was probably the most hated living person, following the death of Adolf Hitler.

But the people of Britain had long memories. They knew that Churchill, while a great war leader, hadn't previously been good for them in peacetime. And so, they handed his Conservative Party a tremendous defeat, and elected to the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee. Before the election, the Conservatives, or "Tories," had 386 seats in the House of Commons, while Labour had 154. Afterward, Labour had 393, the Tories 197.

Not that it mattered, any more than it matters over the Electoral College in elections for President of the United States, but, in this election, Labour won 47.7 percent of the popular vote, the Tories 36.2, the Liberal Party 9.0 (12 seats), the National Liberal Party 2.9 (11 seats), and all other parties 4.0 (29 seats).

Attlee thus became only the 2nd Prime Minister from the Labour Party, after James Ramsay MacDonald, who had last held the office 10 years earlier. His postwar program for rebuilding Britain included the National Health Service and educational reforms, which made Britain a less class-stratified country. The Conservatives called it "socialism." The British people decided they liked it.

Despite having been "booted from office," Churchill remained personally popular. After King George VI offered him the Order of the Garter, he accepted, saying, "I had just gotten the Order of the Boot." When his wife, Clementine, told him the defeat was "a blessing in disguise," he told her, "It was very well disguised."

Turnabout is fair play: By the early 1950s, the people of Britain decided that Labour wasn't doing enough, and in the 1950 election, the Tories gained a lot of seats, although not enough to take control. Attlee hung on for another year and a half, but miscalculated, calling for a snap election for October 25, 1951. The Tories won, 321-295, and Churchill served 3 more years as Prime Minister. Attlee never regained the job. Both men resigned as their parties' respective leaders in 1955, Churchill after 15 years, Attlee after 20.

*

July 5, 1945 was a Thursday. Michael Blake, author of Dances With Wolves, was born. This was also the day that Prime Minister John Curtin of Australia died in office. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 3-2 at League Park in Cleveland. Jeff Heath hit a home run leading off the bottom of the 11th inning to win it. Ed Klieman went the distance for the Indians, Ernie "Tiny" Bonham for the Yankees.

* The New York Giants lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-5 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-4 at Ebbets Field.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-8 at Briggs Stadium (later renamed Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The A's tied the game in the top of the 9th inning, but the Browns won it in the bottom of the 11th, on a bases-loaded walk drawn by Frank Mancuso.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. It was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 8. The Pirates won the opener, 4-0. Elwin "Preacher" Roe, later to star with the Brooklyn Dodgers, allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout. The Phillies won the nightcap, 5-0. Dick Mauney also pitched an 8-hit shutout.

June 9, 1983: "The Longest Suicide Note In History"

June 9, 1983: Britain's Conservative Party wins a 2nd consecutive term, gaining 58 seats in the House of Commons, and increasing the majority of its Leader, the country's 1st female, and most conservative, Prime Minister ever, Margaret Thatcher.

The Labour Party, led by Michael Foot, lost 60 seats. The defeat, the largest for a left-of-center party in Britain since 1924, is attributed to their warmup publication: The New Hope for Britain: Labour's Manifesto 1983. One of their own Members of Parliament -- Gerald Kaufman, once Prime Minister Harold Wilson's press officer -- called the manifesto "the longest suicide note in history."

Born in 1913 in Plymouth, Devon, Foot was first elected to Britain's House of Commons in the postwar election of 1945. In 1980, he was elected Leader of the Labour Party, and thus Leader of the Opposition. He maintained Labour's status as a party further left than America's Democrats and Canada's Liberals, and was beloved by the trade unions. He became the face of socialism for the Western world.

But when he went into the election of 1983, he approved the party's manifesto, which advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation, a return to a more interventionist industrial policy, the abolition of the House of Lords, the nationalization of the banks, and – oddly, given Labour's more recent stance – immediate withdrawal from what was then called the European Economic Community.

The Conservatives gained a net 59 seats, and Foot had to resign as Leader. He was a principled leader, but a poor campaigner. In American terms, he was a George McGovern, rather than a Bernie Sanders.

When he died in 2010, at the age of 96, he was admired (if not liked) by pretty much everyone. When Thatcher died, 3 years later, half the country deeply mourned, and the other half said, "Good riddance!"

Contrary to legend, The Times of London never actually ran a headline about his leadership of a nuclear disarmament committee reading "Foot Heads Arms Body." Someone came forward to admit that he had written the headline, but it was not approved for the paper.

*

June 9, 1983 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Mets beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Bob Bailor doubled 2 runs home in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski, in his final season as a player, went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Bob Dernier singled Pete Rose home in the bottom of the 11th inning to win it. Rose had entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 2-for-3. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4 with a walk. Joe Morgan hit 2 home runs.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 10-7 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Cal Ripken went 2-for-4 with a walk. Robin Yount went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Paul Molitor went 0-for-5.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 8-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Each team had the greatest player in their history available for this game, but neither entered: 35-year-old Johnny Bench for the Reds, in his final season as a player, and 23-year-old Tony Gwynn for the Padres, in his 2nd full season.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-5 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett did not play.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Tommy John went the distance for the win. Neither Reggie Jackson nor Rod Carew entered the game for the Angels.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Bob Knepper pitched a 2-hit shutout, and got 2 hits himself, including an RBI triple.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rickey Henderson went 0-for-2 before leaving the game due to an injury.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 3-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Todd Cruz singled Dave Henderson home in the bottom of the 11th to win it.

* And the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians were not scheduled.

June 8, 1949: George Orwell Publishes "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

June 8, 1949: Nineteen Eighty-Four is published by Secker & Warburg in London. It is the last novel written by Eric Arthur Blair to be published in his lifetime. It has become synonymous with his pen name: George Orwell.

The year was not chosen at random: It was simply the year in which the book was written, 1948, with the last 2 digits reversed, suggesting a "near future" to which the reader might be able to relate, even if Orwell himself might not live to see it.

He was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari in British-occupied India, where his father was a civil servant for the British government. The following year, the family moved back to the home island, and Eric Blair grew up in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, outside Reading, about 40 miles west of London. But by the time his earlier well-remembered novel, Animal Farm, was published in 1945, his death was a foregone conclusion: He had been suffering from tuberculosis as early as 1938, when he was a journalist covering the Spanish Civil War. He died on January 21, 1950.

Within the world of the novel -- which begins with the words, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen," and the date turns out to be April 4, 1984 -- Britain, now known as Airstrip One, as well as America and the entire Western Hemisphere, and also the original Oceania, meaning Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, are part of a totalitarian superstate, named Oceania.

This superstate is apparently led by Big Brother, who is pushed by the Party, the political organization that actually runs Oceania. Orwell leaves it vague as to whether Big Brother is a man who actually exists, or ever did, or is merely a convenient symbol for the Party to use.

The government tells the people, "Big Brother is watching you." As a result, they don't want to disappoint him by doing anything against the Party, and therefore against the nation. "Who controls the present controls the past" is a Party plank, and so there is a Ministry of Truth, which rewrites history to suit the Party's needs.

The reader learns that "Oceania had always been at war with with Eastasia," which includes Japan, China, and the Himalayas. The reader also learns that "Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia," which includes what had been the Soviet Union and the rest of continental Europe. Both statements of perpetual war had been true, and neither had been true, and could flip, depending on what the Party thought it needed at the time: "Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called England, or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London."

"He" is the novel's protagonist, a Ministry of Truth worker named Winston Smith. Through his work of changing the truth, he has seen the truth, and begins to rebel. One thing leads to another, and his contact in a resistance group turns out to be a mole placed by the Party, and Winston is captured and tortured, and his loyalty is restored. The last line of the novel is, "He loved Big Brother."

In real life, the year 1984 turned out to be very little like the world of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, although a movie based on the book, starring William Hurt as Winston, was released that year. And yet, in the years to come, Britain, and, to a lesser extent, America, would become loaded with closed-circuit TV cameras used by law-enforcement agencies. This growth of government watching led to a British TV "reality show," exported to America, titled Big Brother.

In short, just as "Machiavellian" has come to represent the kind of tactics that Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was mocking in his book The Prince, "Orwellian" has come to mean the kind of governmental approach -- in total, or even in part, as with CCTV cameras -- that Orwell himself, a democratic socialist -- opposed.

In 1982, Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta premiered, showing a fascist, surveillance-obsessed Britain of 1997, led by a Big Brother-type figure, who was basically insecure and needed the love of the people. A film version was released in 2006, set in 2038, and it took a lot of liberties with the original story, including making the Chancellor a much meaner figure, valuing fear more than love. He was played by William Hurt, who had come full circle from playing Winston Smith 22 years earlier.

*

June 8, 1949 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at Briggs Stadium (now Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Virgil Trucks and Tommy Byrne both went the distance, before Vic Wertz singled home the winning run off Byrne in the bottom of the 11th inning. Joe DiMaggio did not play, as he was recovering from a heel injury.

* The New York Giants lost the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0 at the Polo Grounds. Stan Musial went 1-for-4, and Gerry Staley pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Ebbets Field. It was said of Rex Barney that he would be the greatest pitcher in the world if home plate were high and outside. In this game, he went the distance, allowing just 1 run on 2 hits, but also walked 4 batters. Jackie Robinson went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs.

* The Boston Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-7 at Braves Field in Boston. Jim Russell won the game with an RBI single in the bottom of the 15th inning.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Robin Roberts pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 8-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Bob Lemon not only went the distance for the win, but hit a home run.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ted Williams went 2-for-3 with a walk.

May 30, 1968: Charles de Gaulle Prevents the Next French Revolution

May 30, 1968: The inevitable fall of the government of France has come. But not in the way that was expected: Through an election, not a revolution.

In February, the French Communist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International formed an electoral alliance. Communists had long supported Socialist candidates in elections, but in the "February Declaration," the 2 parties agreed to attempt to form a joint government to replace President Charles de Gaulle and his Gaullist Party.

This was a bold move. de Gaulle had already been seen by the French public as having saved the country twice: Helping to liberate it from the Nazis in 1944, and settling the unrest that brought the Fourth Republic down in 1958, founding the Fifth Republic. The 6-foot-5 de Gaulle was, figuratively, the biggest man in the country.

But now, he was 77 years old, and increasingly conservative. A lot of people thought it was time for a change, and he didn't seem ready to hand the Presidency over to his Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, also a member of de Gaulle's party, the Union of Democrats for the Republic (L'Union des démocrates pour la République, or UDR), but 20 years younger, and seen as more reasonable.

The French left followed the example of America's left, and engaged university students, who were newly adult and had the most future ahead of them, and thus had the most to lose by keeping the status quo of their country and the world.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 23, was seen as their leader. His parents were German Jews, who had escaped from the Nazis. The family moved back to Germany when he was 13. He accepted German citizenship so he wouldn’t have to serve in the French Army. Known as Danny the Red, for both his hair color and his politics, he returned to France after the Algerian War of Independence ended.

On March 22, far-left groups, a small number of prominent poets and musicians, and 150 students occupied an administration building at the University of Paris West (now named Paris Nanterre University), and held a meeting in the university council room, about class discrimination in French society and the political bureaucracy that controlled the university's funding.

The university's administration called the police, who surrounded the campus. After the publication of their wishes, the students left the building without any trouble. The authorities hoped that that would be the end of it.

But conflicts between students and authorities at the Nanterre campus kept going, and the administration shut the university down on May 2. On May 6, the National Student Union of France (in French, UNEF), and the union of university teachers called a march to protest the police invasion of the main campus of the University of Paris, the world-famous Sorbonne. More than 20,000 students, teachers and supporters marched toward the Sorbonne, still sealed off by the police, who charged, wielding their batons, as soon as the marchers approached. Hundreds of students were arrested.

The government's heavy-handed reaction brought on a wave of sympathy for the strikers. Many of the nation's more mainstream singers and poets joined the strikers after the police brutality came to light. American artists also began voicing support of the strikers.

The major leftist unions' federations called a one-day general strike and demonstration for May 13. Well over a million people marched through Paris that day, and the police stayed largely out of sight. Pompidou personally announced the release of the prisoners and the reopening of the Sorbonne. However, the surge of strikes did not recede. Instead, the protesters became even more active.

By the middle of May, demonstrations extended to factories, though workers' demands significantly varied from students'. Up to 1/3rd of the country's workforce was on strike. On May 24, 2 people died at the hands of out-of-control rioters. In Lyon, Police Inspector Rene Lacroix died when he was crushed by a driverless truck that rioters sent careening into police lines. In Paris, Phillipe Metherion, 26, was stabbed to death during an argument with another demonstrator.

The Socialists saw an opportunity to act as a compromise between de Gaulle and the Communists. On May 28, Socialist Party Leader François Mitterand, who had been a Resistance fighter and a prisoner of war during World War II, and had won 45 percent of the vote in the last Presidential election, narrowly losing to de Gaulle, declared that "there is no more state," and said he was ready to form a new government.

On the morning of May 29, de Gaulle postponed the meeting of the Council of Ministers (equivalent to a U.S. President's Cabinet) scheduled for that day, and secretly removed his personal papers from the Élysée Palace, the official Presidential residence.

He told his son-in-law, retired General Alain de Boissieu, "I do not want to give them a chance to attack the Élysée. It would be regrettable if blood were shed in my personal defense. I have decided to leave. Nobody attacks an empty palace." (Perhaps he had forgotten that modern France traces its history to July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille, which had only 6 prisoners at the time.)

de Gaulle refused Pompidou's request that he dissolve the National Assembly, as he believed that the UDR would lose the resulting election. At 11:00 AM, he told Pompidou, "I am the past. You are the future. I embrace you."

Georges Pompidou

The government announced that de Gaulle was going to his country home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises before returning the next day, and rumors spread that he would prepare his resignation speech there. However, the presidential helicopter did not arrive in Colombey, and de Gaulle had told no one in the government where he was going. For more than 6 hours, the world did not know where he was. Pompidou was heard to shout, "He has fled the country!"

That was a very un-de Gaulle-like thing to do, unless he had a plan. He did: He went to the headquarters of the French Forces in West Germany, in Baden-Baden, to meet their commander, General Jacques Massu, whom had been a brutal commander during the Algerian War. Massu told de Gaulle exactly what he wanted to hear: The French military, as conservative as ever, would support him against the demonstrators if he wished to remain in power. Massu kept this meeting a secret until 1982.

Jacques Massu

de Gaulle announced that the Council meeting had been rescheduled for the next day, and was back in Colombey by 6:00 PM. The people of France began to realize what they had in de Gaulle, once they realized that he had been missing, but had come back to them one more time. A survey conducted immediately after the crisis found that 20 percent of Frenchmen would have supported a revolution, but a majority of the country would have avoided any action.

On May 30, 500,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Paris, chanting, "Adieu, de Gaulle!" Based on the events of the previous day, they thought they were about to win. But the police and the Army were out, protecting public buildings. There was a lot of noise, but no takeovers.

At 2:30 PM, de Gaulle met with Pompidou and the Council. At 4:30, he broadcast his refusal to resign. He announced an election, scheduled for June 23, and ordered workers to return to work, threatening to institute a state of emergency if they did not.

The leftist demonstration broke up. Immediately after the speech, an even larger crowd, about 800,000, marched through the Champs-Élysées waving the French Tricolor flag. Mitterand talked the leftist parties into accepting the election, and the threat of revolution was over.

People gradually returned to work. The national student union called off street demonstrations. The UDR won the greatest victory in French parliamentary history, taking 353 of 486 seats, to the Socialists' 57 and the Communists' 34.

de Gaulle could have named his new government the Sixth Republic, but chose to keep the Fifth Republic name, to make it sound like a calm continuation -- which, in the end, it was. The Fifth Republic name holds to this day.

But it was not a personal triumph. A post-crisis survey conducted by Mattei Dogan showed that 70 percent of the country saw de Gaulle as "too sure of himself," 69 percent saw him as "too concerned with his personal prestige," 64 percent saw him as "too authoritarian," 63 percent saw him as "too conservative," and 59 percent saw him as "too old to govern." Essentially, the country was ready for "Gaullism without de Gaulle."

de Gaulle finally retired on June 20, 1969, handing the Presidency over to Pompidou, and died on November 9, 1970. That day, Pompidou said, "France is a widow." Pompidou had a relatively peaceful tenure, but died in office on April 2, 1974. Some "future" he turned out to be, although he did last more than twice as long in office as Winston Churchill's right-hand man, Anthony Eden, lasted as Prime Minister of Britain. He remains the only French head of state to die in office since 1932.

He was replaced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In the subsequent election, Giscard defeated Mitterand. In 1981, Mitterand reversed that result, and became the 1st left-of-center President under the Fifth Republic. He served 2 terms, until 1995. Like de Gaulle, he died a year after leaving office.

The UDR dissolved in 1976, replaced by as the country's main right-of-center party by The Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République, RPR), founded by Jacques Chirac, who was President from 1995 to 2007. In 2002, the RPR was merged with smaller conservative parties into The Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire, UMP). That party dissolved in 2015, replaced by simply "The Republicans" (Les Républicains), currently the nation's main conservative party.

A nation of many revolutions over the last 250 years, most notably the one of 1789 to 1794, France has had political unrest since 1968, but has never again come as close to revolution as that one, which failed.

Massu, the man who really saved France the 3rd time de Gaulle saved it, died in 2002. Shortly after "Le Mai 68," Cohn-Bendit was deported back to Germany. He became a kindergarten teacher, joined the German Green Party, was elected to the European Parliament in 1994, and moved back to France in 1999. He served until 2014. As of May 30, 2022, he is still alive, and still a figure of controversy.

UPDATE: Philippe de Gaulle, Charles' son, an Admiral and a Senator for Paris from 1986 to 2004, died in 2024, at the age of 102. At no time did Charles attempt to set Philippe up as his successor. That would have been seen as the kind of move a king would make, and, in France, acting like a king is still a very unpopular idea.

*

May 30, 1968 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won the opener, 13-4. Stan Bahnsen was the winning pitcher. Mickey Mantle had perhaps his last big day at the plate, going 5-for-5 with 2 home runs (the 523rd and 524th of his career) and 5 RBIs.

The Senators won the nightcap, 6-2. Camilo Pascual, who pitched for the "old" Senators and, after their move, the Minnesota Twins, won this game for the "new" Senators, outpitching Fred Talbot, Jim Bouton, Fritz Peterson and, as Bouton called him, the Dooley Womack. Roy White hit a home run for the Yankees.

* The New York Mets swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 and 5-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In the 1st game, Jerry Koosman outpitched Jim Bunning. In the 2nd game, Dick Selma outpitched Bob Veale. Over the 2 games, Roberto Clemente went 2-for-8 with an RBI.

* The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 11-0 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Mike Cuellar pitched a 7-hit shutout. Hank Aaron got 1 of those hits, but it was a single, not a home run.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-5. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Dave Leonhard pitched a 2-hit shutout. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a bases-loaded walk. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, while Rod Carew went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Steve Carlton allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout. Willie Mays got 1 of those hits. Willie McCovey did not, as he did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the California Angels, 7-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Al Kaline was injured, and did not play.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. Sal Bando hit a home run. Rookie Reggie Jackson did not play. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 13. The Phillies won the 1st game, 3-1. The Cubs won the 2nd game, 9-1. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 3-for-7 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs.

May 1, 1997: Tony Blair's New Labour

May 1, 1997: The Labour Party wins a solid majority in Britain's national election. It is their 1st election win in 23 years, and leads to their 1st time in power in 18 years. The new Prime Minister will be their Leader, Tony Blair.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born on May 6, 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland -- on the same day as another polarizing figure from Scotland, soccer star and manager Graeme Souness. With the Labour Party having been tainted by accusations of Socialism, and ridiculed through 18 years of Conservative Party government -- 11 1/2 under Margaret Thatcher, and 6 1/2 under John Major -- Blair looked at the success of America's President, Bill Clinton, a member of the Democratic Party, but a master of "Third Way" or "triangulation" politics.

So Blair, succeeding as Leader of Labour, changed its direction. "New Labour" would embrace free-market reforms, as the Conservatives, or "Tories," did under Thatcher, while maintaining Labour's previous standards of fighting for working people and the National Health Service. He even titled his campaign pamphlet New Britain. (The citizens of New Britain, Connecticut were not contacted for comment, by the media of either country.)

He was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1997 to 2007, winning a slightly reduced majority in the 2001 election, and taking a hit but maintaining his majority in 2005. He was an icon for the Labour Party, although the Tories called him "Tony Blur," because his New Labour had blurred the lines between Labour's traditional socialism and Thatcher's sadistic Tory economics, which the Tories actually liked about him.

But the entire country turned on him when he supported the Iraq War in 2003. Now, both major parties hate him. His actions since, including cozying up to American corporations, have further smeared his image. He could have been a great man. Instead, he let his friendship with George W. Bush take him down a terrible path.

UPDATE: In 1997, Tony Blair looked like the Scottish Bill Clinton: A political wizard who would fix everything right-wingers broke. In 2003, he looked like a "9/11 Democrat": Too scared of terrorism to oppose Bush and Dick Cheney. In 2026, with his demands that Labour move right and align with Donald Trump, he looks like a posh Zell Miller: A turncoat asshole.

*

May 1, 1997 was a Thursday. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, but no games were scheduled. There were 2 games in the NBA Playoffs. The Orlando Magic beat their arch-rivals, the Miami Heat, 99-91 at the Orlando Arena. Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway scored 41 points. And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Phoenix Suns, 122-115 in overtime at the America West Arena in Phoenix.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Mets lost to the San Diego Padres, 7-3 at Shea Stadium. Andy Ashby outpitch Dave Mlicki. John Flaherty, later a catcher and broadcaster for the Yankees, went 3-for-4 with 2 home runs. Tony Gwynn went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Rickey Henderson was with the Padres at the time, but did not get into this game.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Houston Astros, 4-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Pedro Martínez pitched a 3-hit shutout. Darrin Fletcher hit a home run.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Pedro Astacio allowed 9 hits, but kept a shutout. Derrick May got 4 of them. Todd Zeile hit a home run for the Dodgers.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds went 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts against his former team.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-1 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland. David Justice went 3-for-4 with 2 home runs and 3 RBIs. Manny Ramirez and Omar Vizquel also homered for the Tribe. 

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati. John Smoltz outpitched Dave Burba.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Scott Erickson outpitched Scott Aldred. Cal Ripken went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Florida Marlins, 3-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-0 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. José Rosado had a 3-hit shutout going after 7 2/3rds innings, Mitch Williams finished the 8th, and Jim Converse finished the 4-hit shutout. Chili Davis hit a home run, and Jay Bell went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Boston Red Sox and the Anaheim Angels were rained out at Edison International Field of Anaheim (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 25. The Angels swept, 5-4 and 8-5.

* And the New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers were not scheduled.