December 2, 1964: Mario Savio's "Bodies Upon the Gears" Speech

Mario Savio, arrested shortly after his speech

December 2, 1964: The "Free Speech Movement" at the main campus of the University of California, in Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, is galvanized by a speech by graduate student Mario Savio.

This Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the opposition to the Vietnam War.

Savio, from Queens in New York City, was approaching his 22nd birthday, and had already graduated from Queens College, and worked in the Civil Rights Movement in California and in the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and for anti-poverty program in Mexico.

When he returned to Berkeley after his time in Mississippi, he intended to raise money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), but found that the university had banned all political activity and fundraising. He told an interviewer that it was a question as to whose side one was on: "Are we on the side of the civil rights movement? Or have we gotten back to the comfort and security of Berkeley, California, and can we forget the sharecroppers whom we worked with just a few weeks back? Well, we couldn't forget."

Savio sounded pretty radical. Even today, he sounds radical. But he sure didn't look radical: Like most of the activist students of the time, his hair wasn't especially long, and tended to wear a jacket, a dress shirt and a tie. He was an activist, but he was no hippie.

Until 1966 or so, when people heard the word "hippie," they thought it meant "jazz musician," like in the 1963 hit by the Philadelphia girl group The Orlons: "Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street." South Street, then as now, was Philly's "Greenwich Village."

The rhetoric between the students and University President Clark Kerr went back and forth. On December 2, Savio took to the steps of Sproul Hall, a new student activity center, where folksinger Joan Baez had recently sung, and, in front of 4,000 people, delivered what became known as the "Operation of the Machine" speech or the "Bodies Upon the Gears" speech:

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears, and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Savio and 800 others were arrested that day. It took until 1967 for the case to be concluded, and he was sentenced to 120 days in jail. At the time, he told reporters that he "would do it again."

But just a few months after his speech, he quit the FSM because "he was disappointed with the growing gap between the leadership of the FSM and the students themselves." As has so often been the case, a revolution was divided even before achieving its goals, and it fell apart.

But Berkeley became not just a center for political activity among leftward (if not necessarily "leftist") college students, but a byword for it. Ronald Reagan won the Governorship of California in 1966 in large part by campaigning against it, promising to reform the University of California System so that the students had less influence. (Some "reform." Unfortunately, he kept his word.) There would be a riot at the student-setup People's Park in Berkeley in 1969.

Appearing on a 1968 episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, actor Peter Lawford said, "I hear the Governor Reagan is increasingly concerned about earthquakes in California. He's afraid that Berkeley may shift even further to the left."

And in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Enterprise crew members had to travel back in time to the present day, and Admiral James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner) had to explain why Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy, wearing a headband so Spock's pointed ears would be hidden and so he wouldn't have to wear the often painful prosthetics) was so weird. His history almost as good as it should have been, Kirk said, "Back in the Sixties, he was a part of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS." (He meant the drug LSD, not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons.)

The University's flagship campus is usually called "Cal" for sports purposes, and "Berkeley" for everything else.  Their arch-rivals are Stanford University, across the Bay in Palo Alto, and Stanford has the opposite political reputation, very conservative, in part due to the Hoover Institution, an economic "think tank" named after one of the school's first graduates, the eventual President Herbert Hoover. Naming an economic organization after him was not a good idea.

Savio later became a professor (though not at the college where he protested, unlike a few of the Columbia University protestors later in the decade), married twice, had a son with each wife, and developed heart trouble, which killed him in 1996, only 53 years old. 

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December 2, 1964 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 116-91 at the Boston Garden.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 120-114 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). In defeat, Wilt Chamberlain scored 33 points and grabbed 28 rebounds.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Cincinnati Royals, 125-115 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Ray Scott led all scorers on the night with 39 points for the Pistons.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 105-102 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Elgin Baylor scored 35 points in defeat for the Lakers,

And there was 1 game played in the NHL: The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 3-3 tie at the old Madison Square Garden.

June 28, 1947: The 1st College World Series

The 1947 Cal Golden Bears, National Champions

June 28, 1947: The 1st NCAA Baseball Tournament Final, the 1st College World Series, is played at Hyames Field, on the campus of Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is an East vs. West matchup, as the University of California, having already won the day before, 17-4, defeat Yale University again, 8-7.

The Cal team featured Jackie Jensen, who would also play for them in the 1949 Rose Bowl. He went on to win the World Series with the New York Yankees in 1952, 1953 and 1956; win the American League Most Valuable Player award with the Boston Red Sox in 1958; make 3 All-Star Games; appear on the TV series Home Run Derby at the start of the 1960 season; and retire due to a fear of flying, after just 199 career home runs.

He remains the only player ever to play in the World Series, the College World Series, and the Rose Bowl. Chuck Essegian is the only other player to play in both the major-league World Series (in his case, with the 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers) and the Rose Bowl (1952, with Stanford).

Yale returned to the CWS in 1948, losing to another West Coast team, the University of Southern California (USC). Both times, Yale's 1st baseman was George H.W. Bush, who didn't play in Major League Baseball, but went into politics, eventually being elected the 41st President of the United States in 1988.

After its 1st 2 seasons, in Kalamazoo, the tournament was moved to Lawrence Stadium in Wichita, Kansas for 1949. Since 1950, it has been held in Omaha, Nebraska, first at what became known as Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, and then, from 2011 onward, at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.

In 2008, with the rise of women's college softball, the names of the tournaments have been the Men's College World Series and the Women's College World Series. Both tournaments start with 64 teams, in 8 regions, and the 8 regional winners play in the CWS, in 2 4-team double-elimination tournaments, with the winners of each bracket playing a best-2-out-of-3 championship series.

Given the regional ability to play more games in better weather, it is not surprising that the most successful teams have been in the Sun Belt. USC have won 12 National Championships, Louisiana State University (LSU) 6, the University of Texas 6, Arizona State 5; and 4 each have been won by Arizona, the University of Miami, and California State University at Fullerton. Among Winter States, the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University have done the best, winning 3 each.

The Women's College World Series, though not yet under that name, was 1st played in 1969. As with the men, the Sun Belt dominates: The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have won 12 titles, while Arizona have won 8, Oklahoma 6, and no other school has won more than 2.

(UPDATE: In 2023, the LSU men and the Oklahoma women each won a 7th title. The Oklahoma women won an 8th in 2024.)

*

June 28, 1947 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Randy Gumpert went the distance for the win. George McQuinn and Tommy Henrich hit home runs. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-2 with 2 walks. Rookie Yogi Berra went 2-for-4.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-6 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Braves Field in Boston. Earl Torgeson doubled Tommy Holmes home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning. For the Dodgers, Johnny "Spider" Jorgenson and Fred "Dixie" Walker hit home runs. They were among the players phased out after this Pennant-winning season, because they couldn't get along with Jackie Robinson, who went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 8-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Denny Galehouse pitched a 4-hit shutout. Ted Williams went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Chicago Cubs swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2 and 6-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-7 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Stan Musial went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

May 23, 2014: Elliot Rodger, the Patron "Saint" of "Incels"

May 23, 2014: Elliot Rodger becomes a mass murderer. He also becomes the patron "saint" of "incels."

Note: Much of this article was originally written as a Facebook post by history professor James Fell, author of the book On This Day in History Shit Went Down. If you haven't bought it, do both him and yourself a favor and buy it. You'll thank both him and me later.

"Incel" is a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate." The term was actually coined in the 1990s, by a woman -- a Canadian university student who did not use her real name on the paper she wrote -- as a way to help people. But, like many things, it was co-opted and warped by rotten men. In this case, by a group comprised almost exclusively of young men, usually white, who lament their inability to convince women to have sex with them.

It’s a toxic online subculture that despises women, while also wanting to use them for sex. But, just as Sigmund Freud used sex as a metaphor for everything else -- or was it vice versa? -- it’s not really about the sexual activity, or the lack thereof. Rather, incels are a hate group that cannot abide having their sense of entitlement thwarted. They want to conquer the bodies of beautiful women to gain status in the male hierarchy. And the Isla Vista Massacre brought the word "incel" into the common vernacular.

On May 23, 2014, Rodger, then 22, wrote a 107,000-word hate-filled manifesto about how much he despised women for “starving him of sex." He then uploaded a video titled "Elliot Rodger's Retribution" to YouTube. In it, he outlined his planned attack and his motives. He blamed both women for rejecting him and sexually active men for being more successful than he was.

In his apartment, he ambushed and stabbed to death his 2 roommates and their friend, killing them separately as they arrived. About 2 hours later, he drove to a sorority house for the University of California at Santa Barbara, and, after failing to gain entry, he shot 3 women walking near the house, 2 of whom died. This showed that he was not targeted particular women for rejecting him, but women in general.

He then drove past a nearby delicatessen, and shot and killed a man who was inside. Following this, he drove around Isla Vista, shooting and wounding several pedestrians from his car, and striking others with his car. He twice exchanged gunfire with police, and was injured in the hip. After Rodger's car crashed into a parked vehicle, he was found dead inside, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Total wounded, not counting himself 20. Total killed, not counting himself: 6.

The incel community, being warped and entitled, labeled Rodger "Saint Elliot," because he "martyred" himself to the cause. Incels number in the tens of thousands online, and several mass murders have been committed by them in North America, resulting in dozens of deaths. A shift in how these killings are treated came as a result of a February 24, 2020, stabbing attack in Toronto that killed one woman and injured another. A minor-aged male incel was charged. Police later labeled it an act of terrorism.

Which it was. Incels are nihilists: They believe that if they can't be sexually satisfied and happy, nobody should be. They want to punish the world, burn it down, and watch the fire.

However, like any hate group, members are not beyond hope. Just as there are former murderers, former Klansmen and former neo-Nazis, there are former incels -- not necessarily in happy, sexually satisfying relationships, but no longer acting like the world owes them pleasure.

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May 23, 2014 was a Friday. Football was out of season. The NBA and Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were played on this day. These Major League Baseball games were:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 6-5 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago. The Yankees led 5-4 going to the bottom of the 9th, but David Robertson gave up a single to Dayán Viciedo and a home run to Adam Dunn. Brian McCann hit a home run for the Yankees. Derek Jeter, in his final season, when 2-for-4 with a walk.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-0 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Clayton Kershaw pitched 6 innings of 2-hit shutout ball, and 4 relievers completed the 3-hit shutout.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Colorado Rockies, 3-2 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the 9th, when Cole Figueroa doubled Desmond Jennings home. Four Rays pitchers combined on a 5-hit shutout: Chris Archer (4 hits over 6 innings), Jake McGee (none in the 7th), Joel Peralta (none in the 8th) and Juan Carlos Oviedo (1 in the 9th).

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Miami Marlins, 9-5 at Marlins Park (now LoanDepot Park) in Miami.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics,3-2 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Washington Nationals, 4-3 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-4 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Texas Rangers, 7-2 at Comerica Park (now Fifth Third Park) in Detroit.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs, 11-1 at Petco Park in San Diego.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-4 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-2 at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Houston Astros, 6-1 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle.

* And the New York Mets and the Arizona Diamondbacks were rained out at Citi Field. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader 2 days later. The Diamondbacks won the opener, 2-1. Daniel Murphy went 2-for-5, but his error in the top of the 9th inning, with Chris Owings at bat, allowed AJ Pollock to score the winning run. The Mets won the nightcap, 4-2. Murphy went 3-for-4 with an RBI, aiding Daisuke Matsuzaka.

January 16, 1886: The 1st College Football Game On the West Coast

The Cal football team, 1886

January 16, 1886: For the 1st time, a college football game is played on America's West Coast. The game is played at West Field, on the campus of the University of California's main campus in Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay region. The University -- usually known as "Cal" for sports purposes, and as "Berkeley" for everything else -- beat a club team named the Wasps, 20-2.

In 1891, Stanford University opened in Palo Alto, across the Bay, on the Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. The following year, March 19, 1892, Cal and Stanford played each other in football for the 1st time. Stanford won, 14-10. The game was played in San Francisco, at Recreation Park, every year until 1903. Thereafter, "The Big Game" has been held in Berkeley in even-numbered years, and Palo Alto in odd-numbered years.

In 1915, Cal became a founding member of the Pacific Coast Conference, along with the Universities of Oregon and Washington, and Oregon State College (renamed Oregon State University in 1961). Washington State College joined in 1917 (and was renamed Washington State University in 1959). Stanford joined in 1918. The University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Idaho joined in 1922, the University of Montana in 1924, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1928.

In 1959, the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) was founded, with Cal, UCLA, USC and Washington as charter members. Stanford joined shortly thereafter, and the league was informally named the Big Five. Washington State joined in 1962, making it (still unofficially) the Big Six.

In 1964, Oregon and Oregon State joined, and the name was officially changed to the Pacific 8, or Pac-8. (Unlike the Big Eight, the Big Ten and the Big Twelve, the name has always officially had the numeral, not the word for the number.) In 1978, Arizona and Arizona State joined from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), and the league became the Pacific-10 or Pac-10. In 2011, the Universities of Colorado (from the Big 12) and Utah (from the Mountain West) joined, making it the Pacific-12 or Pac-12.

In terms of National Championships, across all sports, the Pac-12 was the most successful college sports league. Emblematic of this was USC in football, UCLA in basketball, and Oregon in track & field. And it had some of the best rivalries, especially in football: The aforementioned Big Game between Cal and Stanford, the USC-UCLA rivalry, the Duel in the Desert between the Arizona schools, the Civil War between the Oregon schools, and the Apple Cup between the Washington schools.

UPDATE: Money talks, and it pronounced a death sentence on the Pac-12. In 2022, UCLA and USC, long the leaders of Pac-10 and -12 football in the Rose Bowl against the Big 10 Champions, announced they would leave the Pac-12 for the Big 10, starting in 2024. In 2023, all also for 2024: Oregon and Washington announced they would also bolt for the Big 10; while Arizona, Arizona State and Utah announced they were going to the Big 12; and, perhaps most ridiculous of all, given the geography and the nomenclature, Cal and Stanford announced they were joining the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This leaves Oregon State and Washington State as the only teams left in the league still officially known as the Pac-12. As of December 1, 2023, it was not yet known whether the former "Power Five conference" would be able to take in schools from what college basketball fans would call "mid-major" leagues.

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January 16, 1886 was a Saturday. Baseball and football were out of season. Basketball did not yet exist, and hockey barely did. Even England's Football League hadn't been formed yet. There were, however, FA Cup games, in the 5th round. Small Heath Alliance, the team that would become Birmingham City, bean Davenham, 2-1 in Davenham, Cheshire. Swifts, of Slough, Berkshire beat Church, 6-2 in the town of Church, Lancashire.

And Burslem Port Vale, the Stoke-on-Trent team now known as simply Port Vale, beat Brentwood, of Brentwood, Essex, 2-1. However, that match was declared void. Two weeks later, the replay ended 4-4. Port Vale chose not to play a 2nd replay, and Brentwood advanced to the Quarterfinals.

Blackburn Rovers, of Lancashire, won the tournament.