Friday, January 21, 2022

Wednesday, January 21, 1942. Banning pinball

On this day in 1942 a court in New York ruled that pinball machines were games of chance, not skill, and therefore banned them.

There had been somewhat of a public campaign against the games in New York for some time. Associated, to a certain degree, with youthful idleness and vice, there was evidence that gaming in New York was controlled by the Mafia, which brought some urgency to the effort by authorities.

I've never really liked pinball machines myself, so its a bit of a mystery to me why they were ever popular, but they were hugely popular at one time, enjoying a big swing of interest in the 1970s, just before video games arrived and basically wiped them out.

Rommel, pushed across North Africa, counterattacks:

Today in World War II History—January 21, 1942

The counterattack, which would reverse much of the gains of Operation Crusader, was a surprise to the British forces and emblematic of the seesaw nature of the fighting in North Africa.

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Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

We hope you'll feel moved to comment as well. While we moderate every comment, so as to weed out Spam, we greatly appreciate the comments where they are offered, and hope to see more.

Thank you for stopping in!