Scores On This Historic Day

August 31, 1907: The Anglo-Russian Convention is signed in St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire. This completes a three-way alliance between the Russian Empire, the British Empire, and the French Third Republic. It becomes known as the Triple Entente. An "entente" is defined as a "friendship," an "understanding," or an "agreement."  It was built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance, signed in 1894; and the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France, signed in 1904. It was designed not just to settle previous disputes between Britain and Russia, which had included the Crimean War of 1853-56, but to unify these 3 leading nations against the Triple Alliance. That had been concluded in 1882 between the German Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy. Now, all 6 nations understood: An attack on one nation on one side by a nation on the other side would be considered an attack by all three against all three. Seven years later, the d...

Left to right: Cynthia Cooper, Tina Thompson, Sheryl Swoopes August 30, 1997: The 1st WNBA Championship is awarded. Instead of a series, as it is today, it is a single game, at the Compaq Center -- formerly The Summit -- in Houston, and the Houston Comets beat the New York Liberty, 65-51. Despite having such stars as Rebecca Lobo, Teresa Weatherspoon, Kym Hampton and Rutgers graduate Sue Wicks, the Libs couldn't keep up with Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper -- "Swoopes to the Hoop" and "Coop to the Hoop." Cooper led all scorers with 25 points, and was named the game's Most Valuable Player. Under head coach Van Chancellor, the Rockets won the WNBA's 1st 4 Championships. In comparison, Houston's other teams combined have won 5: The Rockets 2, MLS' Dynamo 2, the Astros 1, the Texans none and the Oilers none. (This does not count the AFL Championships won by the Oilers in 1960 and '61, or the WHA Championships won by the Aeros in 1974 and ...

August 30, 1972: The "One To One Concert" is held at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan. It is a benefit for developmentally disabled children. The headliners are John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The former Beatle was asked to do it by journalist Geraldo Rivera, as a benefit for the children at Willowbrook State School on Staten Island in New York City. Rivera, in his first big scoop as a journalist, had exposed abuses of the children there. Lennon had seen Rivera's report on WABC-Channel 7, and contacted him about the story. Rivera asked him to do a benefit concert, he agreed, and Rivera introduced him. There were actually 2 concerts at The Garden that day, an afternoon show and an evening show. Among the other performers were Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack and the doo-wop tribute group Sha Na Na. The concerts were filmed and recorded, and later served as the basis for the live album Live in New York City , released in 1986. Backed by the band Elephant's Memory, John...

August 30, 1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court of the United States. This made him its 1st black Justice. Most new Justices are not familiar to the general public before their appointments. Marshall was: He was a man whose story would have to be told even if he had never received this appointment. He was born on July 2, 1908 in Baltimore. On my 1st visit to that city, in 1987, my hotel was across the street from the Federal Courthouse. Although it was named for the recently-deceased Congressman Edward Garmatz, there was a statue of Marshall outside. It was the 1st time I had ever seen a statue of someone still living. In his case, he was even still serving on the Supreme Court. (Although a check of the facts shows that Garmatz was also still alive when the Courthouse was named for him.) He attended Lincoln University, the country's oldest school for black students, outside Philadelphia in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was a classmate...

August 30, 1963:  The Moscow-Washington Hot Line goes into operation. It was put in place in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis the previous year, to make for quicker diplomacy. In American popular culture, the Hot Line usually appears as a red telephone on the desk of the President of the United States. It has never been a phone, it has never been in the White House, and it doesn't link the 2 countries' respective heads of state. Rather, it was originally a Teletype machine, became a fax machine in 1986, and a secure computer link in 2008; and its Washington end is actually across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, at the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, while the Russian end is in the General Staff Building, home of the Russian Federation's Ministry of Defense. Of course, the respective Presidents do have secure phone lines that they can use to talk directly to each other, through translators. Through August 30, 2022, it has been used...

August 30, 1963: The modern audio cassette tape, and the tape recorder that used it, were both introduced to the public by the Philips Company. For the next 30 years, the "cassette" would be the standard form of portable recorded music. Tapes of the latest releases. Blank tapes to make your own recordings, tapes made by Philips. Sony. JVC. Maxell. Going to get them at Crazy Eddie, J&R, or Tower Records if you lived in New York. If you lived in New Jersey, Crazy Eddie was still an option. Or Sam Goody. Or any number of other "record store" chains that are now out of business. Or Woolco or McCrory's or any other of the "five-and-dimes" that were the dollar stores of their time. People who grew up with compact discs, mp3s and iPods will never know the struggle. Trying to rewind or fast-forward to a song you like. Tape getting mangled. Turning it back by sticking a pencil in the hole and turning it. Most of all, calling a radio station, to request tha...

Artist's depiction August 30, 1918: An attempt is made to assassinate Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, and dictator of Russia. Although he does not die immediately, the attempt can be said to have succeeded. Born into a Jewish family, Feiga "Fanny" Kaplan served a sentence of hard labor during the Czarist years for her revolutionary activities. She became  a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and originally supported Lenin. But when the Bolsheviks banned all parties but their own, she began to view him  as a "traitor to the revolution." On August 30, 1918, she approached Lenin, who was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired 3 shots. One bullet passed through his coat. One lodged in his left shoulder. One passed through his neck, punctured part of his left lung, and stopped near his right collarbone. Lenin was taken back to his living quarters at the Kremlin. He feared that others might be planning to kill him, and refused to leave the ...