October 31, 1941: Mount Rushmore Is "Finished"

October 31, 1941: Lincoln Borglum admits defeat, and declares that his father Gutzon Borglum's masterwork, Mount Rushmore outside Rapid City, South Dakota, is finished.

Construction had begun in 1927. The faces of Presidents (left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, had been finished (in, respectively, 1939 and 1937), but the rest of it, which was meant to include them down to the waist, was not, except for the lapels on Washington's jacket. Gutzon had died earlier in the year, and there just wasn't enough money to do it all.

Gutzon had chosen his 4 Presidents carefully. Washington was "the Father of Our country." His face was finished in 1934. Jefferson was chosen not because he was the author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but because the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 made him the man who opened the American West, starting the nation's expansion. His face was finished in 1936.

Lincoln, for whom Gutzon named his son, not only saved the Union, but his championing of the Transcontinental Railroad also played a major part in the opening of the American West. Certainly, Gutzon didn't choose Lincoln for ending slavery: Gutzon was a white supremacist, and had no qualms about taking a mountain that Native Americans had considered sacred land. They had named it "Six Grandfathers," although there are now four faces on it. Lincoln's face was finished in 1937.

And Theodore Roosevelt was included because, due to his ownership and operation of a ranch in North Dakota, and his efforts to preserve many Western lands as National Parks and National Monuments, he was the 1st President with any real connection to the American West. Jefferson's home, Monticello, may have been in the Appalachian Mountains outside Charlottesville, Virginia, but it's unlikely that he ever crossed over to the other side of the Appalachians. He had Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their group to it for him, and report back on what the land, the water, the plants, the animals, and the weather were like. At any rate, TR's face was finished in 1939.

Many TV shows and movies set in the future have depicted a 5th face on Mount Rushmore, although it varies, depending on the writer. Usually, it's some unidentified President, in our future but the show's/film's past.

Other Presidents have been suggested for being put on Mount Rushmore, with varying degrees of seriousness: Franklin Roosevelt, for winning World War II; John F. Kennedy, for starting America's space program; Ronald Reagan, for "winning the Cold War" (his supporters have a slogan: "Put Ron on the Rock!"; Barack Obama, for being the nation's 1st black President; and Donald Trump, because putting his face on Mount Rushmore might be the only way to satisfy his massive ego.

There are 2 problems with this, regardless of which Presidential honoree you support. One is that it is widely believed that there is no room for a 5th face on Rushmore. Whether that is fact or a matter of opinion is not clear.

The other problem is Gutzon Borghlum's original meaning of Mount Rushmore: A tribute to America and its westward expansion. None of the suggestions mentioned above fit that description. Indeed, of those 5, only Reagan and Obama ever even lived in a Western State. And, given that we didn't stay on the Moon, the argument that Kennedy stood for American expansionism doesn't go very far (even if the missions he inspired did).

Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle are sometimes called the New York Yankees' "Mount Rushmore." This can also be done for another legendary sports franchise, although not an American one: The Montreal Canadiens, with Howie Morenz, Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau and Guy Lafleur.

The Boston Celtics? If you limit it to players, thus eliminating Red Auerbach, you would have Bill Russell and Larry Bird, but who else? Which two out of Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and Paul Pierce? Somebody's gotta go, and it's not definitive.

The Green Bay Packers? Again, if you take out coaches, so no Vince Lombardi, you can take Don Hutson -- but who are the other three? Out of Clarke Hinkle, Tony Canadeo, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, Ray Nitschke, Brett Favre, Reggie White and Aaron Rodgers, seven gotta go.

The Chicago Bears? You could do four running backs: Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton. Or four linebackers: Bill George, Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher. But can you really do two of each? Then you'd have to leave four guys off, and I'm not going to tell any of those linebackers he's being left off. (George is dead, but the man Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly once called "the meanest Bear ever" might come back and get you if you tell him he's off.)

I suppose it could be done with coaches in Notre Dame football: Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz. Alabama football can have Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, Bear Bryant and Nick Saban.

But the original Mount Rushmore is set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. When the Montreal Expos moved to become the Washington Nationals in 2005, they set up "The Racing Presidents," with runners wearing big foam heads of the Rushmore Presidents, and wearing jerseys over their period costumes, reading GEORGE 1, TOM 3, ABE 16 and TEDDY 26, for their places in the Presidential order. 

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October 31, 1941 was a Friday. It was also Halloween. It was also the day the Nazis sank the destroyer USS Reuben James. I have a separate entry for that event. Actress Sally Kirkland was born on this day.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't begin until the next day. So there were no scores on this historic day.

August 6, 2015: "Hamilton" Premieres On Broadway

August 6, 2015: Hamilton premieres at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, at 226 West 46th Street, half a block west of Broadway. It would be fitting to say that it "revolutionizes" Broadway.

Born on January 11, 1755 on the Caribbean island of Nevis, Alexander Hamilton was taken in by a prosperous merchant, who set him up in New York. He served alongside George Washington throughout the War of the American Revolution, and was in the boat with him as he crossed the Delaware River to win the Battle of Trenton. He rose to the rank of Brigadier General, and became Washington's chief aide.

He founded the Bank of New York and the New York Post, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Along with James Madison (aiming to sway Virginia), he and John Jay (aiming to sway New York) wrote The Federalist Papers, designed to get State legislatures to ratify the Constitution. Ironically, 9 of the necessary 13 States did so before Virginia (which ended up being the 10th) and New York (the 11th) even voted. But those were the 2 biggest States, so they were needed for support.

Hamilton served President George Washington as America's 1st Secretary of the Treasury. He federalized the States' debts, making himself the father of the national debt. He supported cities, internal improvements, and international trade, while the 1st Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, supported farmers and internal trade.

While personally friendly, their political rivalry led to America's 1st political parties. Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party, which evolved into the Democratic Party. Hamilton didn't found a party, but his supporters coalesced into what became the Federalist Party. Supporters of what, at the time, passed for big business made them the forerunners of the Republican Party, even though members of Jefferson's party called themselves "Republicans" first.

Hamilton and Jefferson kept things civil between them. Hamilton and Aaron Burr did not. A grandson of early American theologian Jonathan Edwards, and the son of Aaron Burr Sr., who was President of what became Princeton University, he served in New York's State legislature, as its Attorney General, and as its U.S. Senator. He and Hamilton had already come into conflict prior to 1800.

Hamilton supported John Adams for President in 1796, and he won. He supported Adams for re-election in 1800, and he lost -- but, the way things worked at the time, Jefferson and Burr finished in a tie in Electoral Votes. The U.S. House of Representatives had to decide. Hamilton didn't want Jefferson, but at least he considered Jefferson sane and reliable; he thought Burr was unfit for the office, and used his influence to get Jefferson elected. Burr did not forget.

And yet, the way things worked at the time, by finishing 2nd, Burr became Vice President. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was soon ratified, eliminating the circumstances that the 1800 election caused.

Burr ran for Governor of New York in 1804. Hamilton, still a New Yorker, used his influence, and Morgan Lewis was elected in a landslide. Burr blamed Hamilton, and the accusations flew back and forth. The accusations did not include womanizing on either man's part, even though both were guilty.

Finally, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. This was something in which "gentlemen" sometimes engaged. And, to "maintain his honor," a "gentleman" did not dare refuse. Dueling was already illegal in the State of New York, but not yet in the State of New Jersey. They took ferries across the Hudson River to Weehawken, New Jersey, about a mile from where the New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel would be built.

It was July 11, 1804. Hamilton had no intention of killing Burr, and did not get a shot off. Burr had every intention of killing Hamilton, and aimed right at him, shooting him in the abdomen. Hamilton knew immediately, telling his seconds, "This is a mortal wound. Take care of that pistol. It is undischarged and still cocked. It might go off and do harm. I did not intend to fire at him." Hamilton was ferried back across the River, and it took him a very painful day and a half to die. He was only 49 years old.

Burr was not charged with anything in regard to the duel, served out his term as Vice President, knew he had no chance of ever being elected President, and lived until 1836, at age 80. He is buried in Princeton Cemetery in New Jersey, as is his father. There is a President buried there, but not Burr: It's Grover Cleveland, who lived in Princeton the last few years of his life. Hamilton is buried at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan, his grave adjacent to that of Robert Fulton, the man usually credited with inventing the steamboat.

When the War of 1812 came around, America sure could have used more good public servants. Burr was persona non grata, and rightly so. But Hamilton would have been only 57 years old. He had more to do. He would have been 70 the next time, and thus far the only other time, a Presidential election went into the House, in 1824, with John Quincy Adams triumphing over Andrew Jackson, a result that would likely have pleased Hamilton.

Since 1928, Hamilton has been honored by his portrait appearing on the U.S. $10 bill.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda was born on January 16, 1980 in Manhattan. His father, Luis Miranda Jr., is a Puerto Rican-born New York City political consultant. So his son likely had a good education in New York City politicians, past and present, including Hamilton.

He grew up in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, which led to the title of the 1st musical he wrote, In the Heights. Debuting on Broadway in 2008, it won a Tony Award for Best Musical, and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. It was filmed in 2021.

In 2011, he turned the cheerleader-competition film Bring It On into a musical. In 2014, he wrote the song "Bigger!" for the Tony Awards ceremony, and he won an Emmy Award for it. At 34, he was an Oscar short of an "EGOT." (Fun fact: The Emmy Awards broadcast is the only television program that is ineligible for an  Emmy Award.)

Miranda returned to Broadway in 2015, writing the script, music, and lyrics for, as well as starring in, the musical Hamilton. If Hair was the 1st Broadway musical to truly embrace rock and roll (instead of satirizing it, as Bye Bye Birdie had done), Hamilton was the 1st musical to embrace hip-hop. Miranda called it, "America then, told by America now."

Burr was played by the black established Broadway star Leslie Odom Jr., Eliza Hamilton by Asian-American actress Phillippa Soo, George Washington by black actor Christopher Jackson, both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette by black actor Daveed Diggs (no relation to Broadway star Taye Diggs); and white but gay actor Jonathan Groff played King George III as very effeminate, even though this was one of the few Kings of England to be both straight and completely faithful to his wife. 

The musical won near-universal acclaim from critics and audiences, and became a popular culture phenomenon. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards, winning 11, including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score for Miranda, and Best Actor for Odom (defeating Miranda).

The stage version of the musical was filmed for Disney+ in 2020, but as of 2022, there are no plans to make a feature film out of it. Miranda has said, "I don't love a lot of movie musicals based on shows, because it's hard to stick the landing... I don't know what a cinematic version of Hamilton looks like. If I had, I'd have written it as a movie."

Trying actors in roles not of their own race was not new. Orson Welles had staged an all-black, Caribbean-set "voodoo" version of Macbeth in 1936. Joseph Papp had cast black and Hispanic actors in Shakespeare plays as part of his Public Theater as far back as the 1950s, and had even flipped the original versions of Shakespeare's plays, where teenage boys played the female roles, and cast women as Hamlet.

Hamilton inspired more accurate casting in shows. A subsequent revival of West Side Story had actual Hispanic actors playing the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, and their families and girlfriends. Sometimes, they go the opposite way, and follow Hamilton's lead, and cast minority actors in traditionally white roles. Six, a musical about the wives of England's King Henry VIII, debuted in London in 2019 and on Broadway in 2021, with 3 black actresses, 2 white, and 1 Asian.

& Juliet (pronounced "and Juliet"), an imagining of what Shakespeare's Juliet Capulet might have done if she hadn't killed herself along with Romeo Montague, with some of the hit songs of Swedish songwriter Max Martin, debuted in London in 2019, and will premiere on Broadway on November 17, 2022, starring Lorna Courtney, a black New Yorker.

UPDATE: & Juliet was a smash, and was nominated for 9 Tonys, although it won none. In 2024, a musical version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby premiered, with Eva Maria Noblezada, a Filipina-Mexican actress, playing Daisy Buchanan, alongside white actors playing her husband Tom and her pursuer Jay Gatsby, making both relationships interracial, which would not have happened in 1922 when the story takes place.

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August 6, 2015 was a Tuesday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at Yankee Stadium. CC Sabathia started, and left with a 1-1 tie. Jacoby Ellsbury hit a home run against his former team in the bottom of the 7th, making a winning pitcher out of Justin Wilson. Alex Rodriguez went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-8 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Nationals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 8-3 at Nationals Park in Washington.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Miami Marlins, 9-8 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins, 9-3 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-0 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. Michael Wacha pitched 7 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, and 3 relievers finished the 5-hit shutout.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-6 at Comerica Park in Detroit.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the San Diego Padres, 10-1 at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

* The Houston Astros beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-4 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the O.co Coliseum). Jed Lowrie doubled José Altuve home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* And the New York Mets, the Colorado Rockies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Baltimore Orioles, the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Los Angeles Angels, the Seattle Mariners, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers were not scheduled.

April 13, 1943: The Jefferson Memorial Is Dedicated

April 13, 1943: The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., on the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson.

The native of Shadwell, outside Charlottesville, Virginia, served in the House of Burgesses of Britain's Virginia Colony from 1769 to 1775. That House became the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and is the oldest continuously operating deliberative body in North America. (Like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, Virginia officially calls itself a "Commonwealth," but, like the other 46 States, those "Commonwealths" are recognized by the federal government as "States.")

As a Burgess, Jefferson responded to the "Intolerable Acts" of 1774 by writing A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which made him a natural to be elected to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. While there, he was selected to write the Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4, 1776. He served as Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, including writing the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

He then moved into the diplomatic sphere, serving as Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce. From 1785 to 1789, he served as U.S. Minister to France. (Today, we would say, "Ambassador.") He returned to America to become the 1st U.S. Secretary of State, under the 1st President, George Washington. He finished 2nd to John Adams in the Presidential election of 1796, making him, under the wording of the Constitution of that time (changed in 1804 by the 12th Amendment), the 2nd Vice President. In 1800, he defeated Adams to become the 3rd President.

As President, he presided over a vast expansion of the country with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and an early military victory in the conflict with the Barbary Pirates of North Africa from 1801 to 1805. His 2nd term was beset by economic issues, and his solution, the Embargo Act of 1807, was terribly counterproductive. Someone noticed that "embargo" spelled backwards was "o-grab-me," and that's what it felt like for what passed for big business in America at the time.

At the conclusion of his 2nd term in 1809, he left the Presidency, and founded the University of Virginia, the 1st university in the world not affiliated with any religious establishment.

To put it politely, his record on slavery was mixed. He had slaves, and never freed them, and, after the 1782 death of his wife Martha, with whom he had 6 children, but only 2 daughters survived to adulthood, he is alleged to have fathered up to 6 children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. But he criticized King George III for his role in the slave trade, a passage the Congress removed from the Declaration of Independence, for fear that the Southern colonies would reject it. And he signed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into America starting in 1808.

He died on July 4, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence. He had wanted to live to see it, and, every few hours on July 3, he awoke to ask, "Is this the 4th?" After being told, "No," a few times, the truth finally became, "Yes." He smiled, and went back to sleep, lasting until 12:50 PM on the 4th.

He had reconciled with Adams by mail, though they had never again seen each other in person. That same day, not knowing that Jefferson had already died, Adams passed away at 6:20, saying, "Thomas Jefferson lives. Independence forever."

John Russell Pope designed the Jefferson Memorial, but died in 1937 before construction could begin. Rudulph Evans sculpted the 18-foot statue at the center, which, due to wartime priorities for metal, was not finished until 1947, with a plaster version standing in for it until then.

As with the statue of Abraham Lincoln at his Memorial nearby, panels of Jefferson's memorial are inscribed with words of his. On one panel are selections from the Declaration of Independence, with a slight alteration: While he had written that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," the inscription on the memorial reads, "with certain inalienable rights," which has led to a great deal of confusion.

In a letter to another Signer of the Declaration, Dr. Benjamin Rush, dated September 23, 1800, Jefferson wrote, "For I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Those words are inscribed on his Memorial.

And he hated despots to the end. In a letter to John Langdon, a Signer of the Constitution and 3 times Governor of New Hampshire, on March 5, 1810, he wrote, of, respectively, King Louis XVI of France (1774-1792), King Charles IV of Spain (1788-1808, overthrown by Napoleon), the man who ruled Naples as King Ferdinand IV and Sicily as King Ferdinand III (1759 to 1825), King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia (1773-1796), Queen Maria I of Portugal (known as Maria the Mad, 1777-1816), King Christian VII of Denmark (1766-1806), King Frederick William II of Prussia (1786-1797), King Gustav III of Sweden (1771-1792, assassinated), Emperor Joseph II (reigned over the Holy Roman Empire starting in 1765 and the Austrian Empire starting in 1780, until his death in 1790), King George III of Great Britain (1760-1820, mentally incompetent from 1811 onward with his son, later King George IV, in charge), Empress Catherine II of Russia (a.k.a. Catherine the Great, 1762-1796), and Czar Alexander I of Russia (1801-1825):

While in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the characters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the XVI was a fool, of my own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and despatched two couriers a week, one thousand miles, to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons.

The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederick, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England, you know, was in a strait-waistcoat. There remained, then, none but old Catharine, who had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense.

In this state Bonaparte found Europe; and it was this state of its rulers which lost it with scarce a struggle. These animals had become without mind and powerless; and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations. Alexander, the grandson of Catharine, is as yet an exception. He is able to hold his own. But he is only of the third generation. His race is not yet worn out. And so endeth the book of Kings, from all of whom the Lord deliver us, and have you, my friend, and all such good men and true, in His holy keeping.

And, despite Napoleon Bonaparte, first as dictator of France (1799-1804) and then as Emperor (1804-1814, with a brief return in 1815), selling him the Louisiana Territory, keeping Britain occupied in such a way as to be unable to win the War of 1812, and being one of the greatest military minds of all time, Jefferson hated his guts, too. On his first fall, Jefferson wrote to John Adams on July 5, 1814:

The Attila of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions of the human race, whose thirst for blood appeared unquenchable, the great oppressor of the rights and liberties of the world...

Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life, a cold-blooded, calculating, unprincipled usurper, without a virtue; no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.

And to Count Antonio Dugnani, who had been Pope Pius VI's "papal nuncio" to France while Jefferson was America's Minister there, he wrote on February 14, 1818, on the subject of Napoleon: "Having been, like him, intrusted with the happiness of my country, I feel the blessing of resembling him in no other point."

There are now 5 Presidents who have memorials on the National Mall in Washington. In chronological order of their service, they are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Several other Presidents have official memorials, or at least statues, elsewhere in the District of Columbia.

Jefferson would appreciate institutions of learning being named after him, including Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. On the TV show Happy Days, the fictional Jefferson High was named for him. Also named for him are Thomas Jefferson University, a health-care-themed school, in Philadelphia; Jefferson College of Health Sciences, in Roanoke, Virginia; Washington & Jefferson College, in Washington; Pennsylvania; Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego; Jefferson Colleges in Washington, Mississippi and Hillsboro, Missouri; and community colleges in Watertown, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; and Birmingham, Alabama. And the Library of Congress' main building, which includes some donations from him, is named the Thomas Jefferson Building.

There are 15 States with cities or towns named for him, including Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. The Counties that include Denver and Birmingham, Alabama are Jefferson County. There have been 3 ships named the USS Thomas Jefferson: A brig from 1814 to 1825, an attack transport from 1942 to 1955, and a U.S. Navy submarine in service from 1963 to 1985. 

Since 1938, Jefferson has appeared on the nickel, America's 5-cent coin, replacing the "Buffalo Nickel," the one with the "Indian head" on the front and the buffalo on the back. From 1929 to 1966, he was on the $2 bill, which was phased out, and temporarily brought back in 1976 as part of America's Bicentennial celebration.

The last surviving member of Jefferson's Cabinet was Albert Gallatin, who served as Secretary of the Treasury. He lived until 1849.

Among the actors who have played Jefferson: Charlton Heston in The Patriots in 1963, Hugh O'Brian in Swing Out, Sweet Land in 1970, Ken Howard in 1776 in 1972, Jeffrey Jones in George Washington: The Forging of a Nation in 1986, Scott Wilkinson in A More Perfect Union in 1989, Nick Nolte in Jefferson In Paris in 1995, Sam Neill in Sally Hemings: An American Scandal in 2000, Ronald McAdams in National Treasure in 2004, and Stephen Dillane in John Adams in 2008.

In a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Jefferson, while actor J.B. Smoove played Frederick Douglass, who challenged him on slavery, including perhaps the baddest zinger in the show's history: "You got a self-evident truth of your own: You let freedom ring, but never picked up the phone!"

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April 13, 1943 was a Tuesday. Baseball season started 7 days later. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And hockey season had ended 5 days earlier, when the Detroit Red Wings clinched the Stanley Cup over the Boston Bruins. So there were no scores on this historic day.