Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts

Monday, January 1, 2024

Saturday, January 1, 1944. Sort of independence.

Syria became independent theoretically, but the French mandate continued.

The RAF bombed Berlin again.

The War Department was pondering its policies regarding African American soldiers.





From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—January 1, 1944: Gen. Alexander Vandegrift replaces Gen. Thomas Holcomb as commandant of the US Marine Corps. US penny production switches from steel to a copper & brass alloy.

USC Trojans beat the Washington Huskies 29-0 in the Rose Bowl, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeated Tulsa Golden Hurricane 20-18 in the Sugar Bowl., the LSU Tigers beat the Texas A&M Aggies 19-14 in the Orange Bow, the Cotton Bowl Classic ended in a 7–7 tie between the Randolph Field Ramblers and the Texas Longhorns.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Sunday, December 26, 1943. Boxing Day. The Battles of Cape Gloucester and North Cape

Marine at Cap Gloucester, December 26, 1943.

Marines landed at Cape Gloucester on New Britain.

Marines wading ashore at Cape Gloucester.

The USS Brownson was attacked by Japanese aircraft during the landings, and sunk.

The Moro River Campaign in Italy ended in a stalemate.  The Germans were holding their own against, in this case the British 8th Army, but also against the U.S. 5th Army, which did take Monte Sammucro on this day.

The German battleship Scharnhorst was torpedoed and sunk by the HMS Duke of York.  All but 36 of her 1,943-man crew perished.  The action was termed the Battle of North Cape.

The NFL Championship Game was played, with this coming after Christmas for the first time in the NFL's history.  The Bears beat the Redskins 41-21.

Monday, November 27, 2023

Saturday, November 27, 1923. Cairo Declaration, Australian advances, Poignant art.

It was a Saturday, and all the Saturday magazines were out. As we're dealing with 1943, they're still protected by copyright.  They all featured Thanksgiving themes, but the most recalled is that of the Saturday Evening Post, which featured a Rockwell with a picture of an Italian girl praying near rubble, wearing the wool mackinaw of an American Army 1st Sergeant.

The US, China, and UK agreed to the release of the Cairo Declaration.  It stated:

The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already rising.

The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.

With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Included in the "rising pressure" that declaration referenced were actions on New Guinea, where on this day the Australians, who didn't get a seat at the table in the Cairo Conference, began an armored supported advance at Wareo.


The Australian Army was using the Matilda tank, which had been a disappointment elsewhere, to great effect in New Guinea.  Its use took the Japanese by surprise.

The campaign in New Guinea, one of the major ones of the war against Japan, which was heavily borne by the Australian Army, went on until the Japanese surrender.  It was like the Marine action at Bougainville, albeit on a much larger scale, that way.

The Army-Navy Game was played at West Point.  Navy beat Army 13 to 0.

Angelo Bertelli was awarded the Heisman Trophy for his performance as Notre Dame's quarterback.  He was in Marine Corps bootcamp at the time.

Photo of eleven collegic football players, including Bertelli, who had joined the Marine Corps.

Badly wounded as a Marine Corps officer on Iwo Jima, his football career in the NFL was short after the war, ending in 1948.  His Marine Corps career lasted longer, as he remained in the reserves until 1957.  He died of brain cancer at age 78 in 1999.

As playing for Notre Dame would indicate at the time, Bertelli was Catholic and the child of Italian immigrants.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Sunday, November 7, 1943 Sgt. Herbert J. Thomas.

 

SERGEANT HERBERT J. THOMAS

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Third Marines, Third Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces during the battle at the Koromokina River, Bougainville Island, Solomon Islands, on November 7, 1943. Although several of his men were struck by enemy bullets as he led his squad through dense jungle undergrowth in the face of severe hostile machine gun fire, Sergeant Thomas and his group fearlessly pressed forward into the center of the Japanese position and destroyed the crews of two machine guns by accurate rifle fire and grenades. Discovering a third gun more difficult to approach, he carefully placed his men closely around him in strategic positions from which they were to charge after he had thrown a grenade into the emplacement. When the grenade struck vines and fell back into the midst of the group, Sergeant Thomas deliberately flung himself upon it to smother the explosion, valiantly sacrificing his life for his comrades. Inspired by his selfless action, his men unhesitatingly charged the enemy machine gun and, with fierce determination, killed the crew and several other nearby defenders. The splendid initiative and extremely heroic conduct of Sergeant Thomas in carrying out his prompt decision with full knowledge of his fate reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Thomas had originally enlisted in the Army Air Corps, but transferred to the Marine Corps as his friends were in the Marines.

Task Force 38 is attacked by Japanese aircraft, but they fail to achieve any signficant result.

The Japanese land a battalion to the north of the Marine beachhead.

The last scoreless NFL game was played between the Detroit Lions and the New York Giants.

Friday, November 3, 2023

Saturday, November 3, 1923. Aviation arrest.

Harold Kullberg, former Royal Air Force captian, arrested aircraft pilot Howard Calvert and passenger Frank O'Neill for performing stunt flying over a city, the same being Akron Ohio.  It was the first arrest for violation of air traffic rules in the United States.  Kullberg had noted the violations while in the air himself.


Kullberg had scored 19 aerial victories in World War One with the Royal Air Force, his efforts to join the U.S. Army as a flyer having been rejected to his being too short.  He died at age 27 in 1924, he died while instructing a student pilot.

Swedish Crown Prince Gustav Adolf married Louise Mountbatten at St. James Palace.

German President Friedrich Ebert refused the request of General Hans von Seeckt for dictatorial powers in law enforcement in Bavaria, which was interesting in the context of the Bavarian government more or less having the same.


Football season was of course on.

The "East v. Central" high school game, somewhere on this day:






Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Sunday, October 31, 1943. Advances.

Brian Piccolo, famous running back born on this day in 1943, and who died in 1967 of testicular cancer.
Today in World War II History—October 31, 1943: Over New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, US Navy F4U Corsair accomplishes first night air radar-guided victory, shooting down a Japanese G4M1 bomber.
Sarah Sundin, whose blog also reports that on this day the US rendered all airfields in southern Bougainville inoperable.

The IS-2 was accepted into Soviet service.  Nearly 4,000 of the Soviet heavy tank were built.

The Red Army severed the German rail link to Crimea.

The U.S. Army took Mondragone in Italy.

The Tuna Canyon Detention Center in California, which had held over 2,000 Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, and Japanese Peruvians was closed as the inmates were transferred to different facilities.

The U-306, U-584 and U-732 were sunk in the Atlantic.

Friday, October 6, 2023

Saturday, October 6, 1923. Unassisted triple play

Marine Mascot, USMC v. Georgetown football game.

Ernie Padgett, playing for the Boston Braves, made an unassisted triple lay in a game against the Phillies.

The Turkish military marched into Istanbul.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Monday, June 21, 1943. Spreading the Holocaust in the Baltic

Douglas SBD "Dauntless" dive bomber balanced on nose after crash landing on carrier flight deck, June 21, 1943.

Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler ordered that all remaining Jews in the Baltic States be transferred to slave labor camps.

Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 21, 1943: US Marines land unopposed at Segi Point, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands. Detroit race riot begins between whites and Blacks.

The NFL approved the temporary Merger of the Eagles and the Steelers, something we reported on the other day.  The declined the proposal to merge the Bears and the Cardinals.

Occupied Greece saw action as the SOE destroyed a railway bridge over the Asopos and the Greek Liberation Army conducted an ambush in the Battle of Sarantaporos.

The US Supreme Court rules in Stack v. Boyle that a foreign born citizen could not have that citizenship revoked for joining the Communist Party.

Harvard rejected a proposal to admit women to its medical school.

Monday, June 19, 2023

Saturday, June 19, 1943. Internees released, Murders planned at Obersalzberg, Eagles and Steelers merge.

Japanese American servicemen of the 442 Regimental Combat Team at a dance, June 1943.

On this day in 1943 a large number of Heart Mountain internees were released for seasonal employment or on indefinite leave.

Hitler summoned Himmler to Obersalzberg to discuss ending all Jewish resistance in Easter Europe over the next four months by mass evacuation, which of course would ultimately entail mass extermination, of the Eastern European Jewish population.  

This implicitly acknowledged, it should be noted, declining German fortunes on the Eastern Front.

The Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers combined into a single wartime team, due to wartime manpower shortages.

Friday, June 2, 2023

Wednesday, June 2, 1943. Lwów Ghetto brougth to an end.

The Germans completed the liquidation of the Lwów Ghetto in Poland.  The city, which once contained a population of 160,000 Jewish Poles, is now in Ukraine and known as Lviv. It had been contested for in the Polish Ukrainian War.  During that battle, the Jewish population of the town had formed its own militia.

Sarah Sundin notes in her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 2, 1943: Combat debut of US 99th Fighter Squadron, the first Black unit in the Army Air Force (“Tuskegee Airmen”), in a Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria.

And, a link from another blog we follow:

June 2, 1943: The Death of Nile Kinnick


Sunday, May 21, 2023

James Brown


There's been a lot of news on the passing of Jim Brown, the legendary running back.

Brown was a fantastic running back, and even in old clips it's impressive to watch him.  A nice retrospective of his life appears here:

Jim Brown, 1936-2023

I'll be frank, the thing that stands out in my mind about Brown were the allegations of assault against him, and then his featuring as one of the people, like Bill Cosby, that frequented the Playboy mansion in the big party days of that depraved institution.  That's hard to get around, and the stories that were related in the Secrets of Playboy are pretty much impossible for me to get around. 

One thing I didn't know about Brown was that he'd been commissioned into the Army Reserve and ultimately made Captain.  He enrolled in ROTC while in university and was inducted into the Army ROTC Hall of Fame (which I didn't know existed) some years ago.  Perhaps that military experience is why he appeared to be a natural in uniform in The Dirty Dozen.

So what to make of Brown and his life?  Well, I don't really have to make anything of it, but perhaps with such notable public figures we should.  His accomplishments were very real and cannot be denied.  He did act as a champion for civil rights, using his fame for that purpose.  He did translate a successful football career into other successful endeavors.  Like Bill Cosby, he's associated with the deprivations of the celebration of sexual exploitation brought about by the Sexual Revolution and advanced by Hugh Hefner.  Perhaps that's proof of just how corrosive the tolerance of that institution and acceptance of its perversion has been.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Saturday, April 10, 1943. Sfax taken.

The Tunisian port of Sfax was captured by the British 8th Army.  It would later be the staging point for the invasion of Sicily.

It was also used as a POW camp, holding German Prisoners of War through the rest of, and after, the war.

Foreshadowing that later event, perhaps, the Italian cruiser Trieste was sunk by B-24s in the port of La Maddealena, Sardinia.

Tom Harmon, well known collegic football star, a halfback, now a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force, disappeared when a bomber he was flying cracked up in a storm over Surinam. The only survivor of the plant, he'd emerge several days later with the assistance of natives, who escorted him out of the jungle.

Harmon as a football player for the University of Michigan.

Harmon had been drafted by the Chicago Bears but had declined to take up professional football, which was not as lucrative or as followed as it now is. Instead, he intended to pursue a career in acting and radio, although he ended up joining the American Football League in 1941 for a $1,500 per game salary, a large sum at the time.  

Harmon had resisted being drafted, something we don't think of as occurring much during World War Two, but which was in fact much more common than might be supposed.  He received a 1-B classification in May 1941 as he was a student and then given a 60-day extension on the basis that he was the sole support for his parents.  He asked for a permanent extension thereafter, but was denied and classified as 1-A, which he appealed.  Losing the appeal, he was ordered to report by November 1941, and he thereafter enlisted as an Air Corps cadet.

Following the bomber disaster, he became a P-38 pilot and flew in combat missions over China, being shot down in 1943.  He was returned to the US following evading the Japanese, having been shot down behind enemy lines, and was released from the service in January 1945.  In 1944, he married actress Elyse Knox.  Actor Mark Harmon was one of their three children.

He played for the Los Angeles Rams for a while after the war, and then returned to sports broadcasting.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 10, 1943: US Department of Agriculture establishes Women’s Land Army: during WWII, 1.5 million women from non-farming backgrounds will serve on farms.

Saturday, April 8, 2023

Thursday, April 8, 1943. Roosevelt freezes wages, prices, and jobs. The law of unintended consequences.

USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) steaming at high speed through heavy seas off Cape Hatteras, April 8, 1943.

Franklin Roosevelt instituted wage and price controls in an effort to combat inflation, and froze employment in place.  The move, of questionable constitutionality, had a permeant, unintended impact on the U.S. economy.

While wages and prices were frozen, benefits, including health insurance, were not. That's because many employers didn't offer it until this time.  Unable to induce workers to switch from one employer to another, they switched to offering benefits, such as health insurance, although Roosevelt's order also precluded workers from switching jobs.  Employees required permission to move employment, and unions lost the ability to bargain for higher wages in an era when wages were rising, but the benefit inducements came in none the less.

We pick that story up here, from a prior thread:













Now, expenses have reached the point where many cannot afford to pay themselves and health insurance has gone from being a workplace benefit to a near necessity for most.  People actually keep jobs just for the insurance.  I've known, for example, of one person who kept a job she wanted to leave to return to school for just that reason.  As a practical matter, the government has become the insurer of last resort for many who have no insurance and who end up using the hospital, in emergencies, as their health care provider.  Increased private medical competition, in the meantime, has become an increasingly common feature of health care as the large dollar amounts that are present in the industry naturally has resulted in private competition.  County and state facilities, therefore, end up in competition with each other, with the practical result of that often being that county and state facilities end up becoming more and more in the nature of public clinics in some ways.

And people have an expectation of health care, which is not abnormal, nor greedy, in a generally affluent society.  That's true of our views on a lot of various things, and its particularly true of health care.  People generally feel that anyone ought to, and even should, seek the health care that they need, when they need it, and there's a feeling of distress when a certain percentage of the population cannot afford it.  Put another way, back in the 1940s if a person was afflicted with a stroke died, it was probably the case that this would have occurred no matter what.  If they were unable to secure health care for some reason for that condition, the result probably would have been the same as if they did.  This would not be true, of course, for every sort of condition, but what that does mean is that there was an overall greater acceptance that if economic conditions prevented treatment, that this was part of the nature of life, rather than being something that would be regarded as deeply unfair. And, for that matter, the medical community made a dedicated effort to include those who could not pay in their practices. They still do, but the nature of that society wide had become different.

Preventing workers from moving from one job to another was frankly a shocking move, in the modern context.  It effectively imposed a type of conscription, or even darned near slavery, upon the civilian population during the war.   Employees could move jobs if they secured permission, but it required that.

The 1943 NFL draft was held.

French actor Harry Baur died shortly after being released by German authorities, having been tortured by the Gestapo after his arrest which stemmed from his efforts to secure the release of his wife, Rika Radifé.  A Turkish actress, she had been arrested on charges of espionage and would survive the war.

I guess on this one, I should ponder what this meant for my family.  My grandfather owned his own business, a meat packing business, so the order wouldn't really apply to him, save for the fact that it did for his employees, which must have been an odd experience.

Monday, February 13, 2023

A comment about Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg. Sunday games, rural activities, and gatherings.

Soccer, Scotland, 1830s.
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg: Nothing says America like shooting guns and watching the Super Bowl. A nice sunny afternoon was the perfect time to try out my newly borrowe...

This is interesting.

The Super Bowl used to be a bigger deal in this house than it now is. Seems like a lot of things once were.

I’m not a football fan at all, and I didn't really start watching the Super Bowl until my wife and I were married.  She is a football fan and will watch the season, and always watches the Super Bowl.  

When we were first married, there were Super Bowl parties.  We didn't have kids at first, and my wife's brothers were young at the time.  Later, however, it carried on until the kids were teens.  Then something changed, including the giving up of the farm (the farm, not the ranch), longer travel distances, and some residential changes at the ranch.  Ultimately, the parties just sort of stopped, although I'm sure my two brothers-in-law, who live in houses at the ranch yard, still observe a party, and my father and mother-in-law, who live a few miles away, likely travel to that.

Much lower key than it used to be.  No big gatherings like there once were.

Back in the day, we had a couple of them at our house.

Basically, the dining fare was always simple. Sandwiches bought at one of the local grocery stores, chips and beer.  Typical football stuff.

At some parties at the farm, there were bowling pin shooting matches. For those not familiar with them, people shot bowling pins from some distance with pistols.  It was fun.  Frankly, I don't think a lot of people are all that interested in the Super Bowl to start with, and at least at the Super Bowl parties with bowling pin matches people went out to the match, and it ran into the game, which says something.

The other day also, I wrote on community.

I note this because, at one time, Schuetzen matches were big deals in German American communities.  And while they involved rifles, and indeed very specialized rifles, they were also big community events.

And such things aren't unique to just those mentioned.  In parts of the country, men participating in "turkey shoots" were pretty common.  

Of course, shooting clubs and matches still exist nearly everywhere, and lots of men, and women, participate in matches.  

Less common, however, are the rural informal matches.

All sorts of rural activities were once associated with holidays, and events.  I guess that the Super Bowl is some sort of large-scale informal civil holiday, even though of course it always occurs on a Sunday.  Indeed, the playing of the game on a Sunday is curious.  I put a little (very little) time looking into that, and found this CBS Sports comment on it, which it must be first noted explained that football really started being popular in the 1920s.

Sunday was a free day during a decade where it was common to work on Saturdays, so the APFA played most of their games on that day. Fast forward 30 years to the advent of television networks, who were desperately looking for programming on Sundays in the 1950s.

That makes some sense to me, as I still work on Saturdays.

I'd note, however, that is this makes sense, it doesn't quite explain why baseball games occur all throughout the week, and I think there are Monday night professional football games as well, albeit televised ones.

I wonder, however, if it has deeper roots than that. American football is the successor to Rugby, and Rugby and Soccer were hugely popular in the United Kingdom.  Prior to major league fun sucker Oliver Cromwell taking over the English government, in the United Kingdom, Sunday had been a day for church and then games.

This went back to Medieval times, before the Reformation.  People worked, and worked hard, six days out of seven, but on the seventh, they rested. And resting meant going to Mass, and then having fun, and fun often meant games and beer, as well as other activities.  In spite of their best efforts, major Protestant reformers weren't really able to make a dent in village observance of tradition until Cromwell came in and really started ruining things.  To Calvinist of the day like Cromwell, Sunday was a day for church and nothing else, although contrary to what some may suspect they were not opposed to alcohol.  Cromwell's Puritan government banned sports.

It's no wonder he was posthumously beheaded.

Cromwell and his ilk did a lot of damage to the Christian religion in the Untied Kingdom, and if you really want to track the decline in religious observance in the UK to something, you can lay it somewhat at the bottom of his severed head.  Indeed, while hardly noted, what we're seeing going on today, in some ways, is the final stages of the Reformation playing out, and playing out badly.

Anyhow, after Cromwell was gone and the Crown restored, games came back, and they came back on Sunday.  Not just proto-football, but all sorts of games.  And games became hugely associated with certain religious holidays in the United Kingdom.  The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is one such example, as is New Years, the latter of which is a religious holiday in and of itself.

I suspect, however, that this had a lasting influence.  I don't know for sure, but I think football is on Sunday as Sunday was the day of rest, and watching the village football game and having a tankard of ale was all part of that, after church.  I also suspect that this is the reason that some American holidays are associated with football, such as Thanksgiving, which had its origin as a religious holiday, and New Years, which as noted also is.

Now, of course, with the corrupting influence of money, it's become nearly a religion to some people in and of itself.  People who dare not miss a single football game never step foot in a church.

Also lost, however, is the remaining communal part of that.  Watching a game played that's actually local, rather than corporate national, to a large extent.  And one free of advertising.  Indeed, the Super Bowl has become the number one premiere venue for innovative advertising, some of which isn't bad.

Anyhow, maybe the Super Bowl Party, in some form if properly done, is a step back in time to when the game was more a vehicle than an end in and of itself, and when it wasn't such a show that a big freakish half-time performance was expected.

We can hope so.

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Sunday, November 7, 1943. The heroism of Sgt. Thomas, Shoes rationed.

Sgt. Herbert J. Thomas.

Marine Corps Sgt Herbert J. Thomas displayed heroism on Bougainville that would lead to him being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

SERGEANT HERBERT J. THOMAS

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Third Marines, Third Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces during the battle at the Koromokina River, Bougainville Island, Solomon Islands, on November 7, 1943. Although several of his men were struck by enemy bullets as he led his squad through dense jungle undergrowth in the face of severe hostile machine gun fire, Sergeant Thomas and his group fearlessly pressed forward into the center of the Japanese position and destroyed the crews of two machine guns by accurate rifle fire and grenades. Discovering a third gun more difficult to approach, he carefully placed his men closely around him in strategic positions from which they were to charge after he had thrown a grenade into the emplacement. When the grenade struck vines and fell back into the midst of the group, Sergeant Thomas deliberately flung himself upon it to smother the explosion, valiantly sacrificing his life for his comrades. Inspired by his selfless action, his men unhesitatingly charged the enemy machine gun and, with fierce determination, killed the crew and several other nearby defenders. The splendid initiative and extremely heroic conduct of Sergeant Thomas in carrying out his prompt decision with full knowledge of his fate reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

The 25-year-old Thomas had first served, in the war, in the United Stated Army Air Corps before transferring to the Marine Corps.

According to Sarah Sundin's blog, on this day in 1943 shoe rationing commenced in the US.  She has an article about it here:

Make It Do – Shoe Rationing in World War II

It's a really interesting article.

The rationing move was announced suddenly, and limited Americans to three pairs of new shoes per year.  I'm sure I don't buy a new pair of shoes most years, which makes this limit interesting in context.

The Red Army captured Fastiv near Kyiv.

The Detroit Lions and the New York Giants played a scoreless tie game, the last such game in NFL history.

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Thursday, January 14, 1973. Elvis in Hawaii.

Uncle Mike's Musings: A Yankees Blog and More January 14, 1973: The Dolphins Finish Undefeated & Elvis Says Aloha - *January 14, 1973, 50 years ago:* Super Bowl VII is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. At stake for both teams was the Championship of the Natio...

Well that's notable.  

What's additionally notable that the football season wrapped up so much earlier then, than now.  Would that this would not have changed.

The Dolphins beat the Redskins 14 to 7 and took the only perfect season with no defeates.

The Elvis Presley television specials were a big deal at the time.  I can recall us watching them on television from our kitchen, where the tv was located.

The Mossad prevented a PLO attempt at shooting down an aircraft transporting Prime Minister Golda Meir to Rome.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Friday, January 1, 1943. New Year's Day

 


Today in World War II History—January 1, 1943: The Rose Bowl returns to Pasadena: Georgia beats UCLA 9-0. Incoming California Gov. Earl Warren serves as Tournament of Roses grand marshal.

So reports Sarah Sundin, who also notes that California Governor Earl Warren served as Grand Marshall, but the parade was cancelled due to the war.

At that game, the George Bulldogs beat the UCLA Bruins 9 to 0.

The Soviets announced that 175,000 Germans had been killed at Stalingrad and 137,650 captured, which lead to headlines on those numbers in the U.S. that very day.

Albanian resistance fighters began a rebellion against the Italians at Gjorm. They'd win, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory, resulting in Italian reprisals.

For Catholics in the U.S., it was a Holy Day of Obligation.  It would normally have been a day off for most people in the Western World, but due to wartime conditions, for many it would not be.

Friday, December 23, 2022

Statement from Bishop David Zubik on the passing of Franco Harris

Statement from Bishop David Zubik on the passing of Franco Harris: Franco Harris brought more than football championships to the Pittsburgh region. While winning games, he brought our city together across all ethnic and racial lines, as people of every heritage waved green, white and red flags for “Franco’s Italian Army.”