All Things in Moderation

1975 – The Scottish pop band The Bay City Rollers makes their US debut on a short-lived ABC television show called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. The BCR had already become a teen phenomenon in the UK, inspiring scenes reminiscent of the Beatles from a decade earlier with their biggest hit and number one, Saturday Night. As it turns out, however, neither the Rollers nor the Cosell show have the same staying power of the Beatles, as SNL with Howard Cosell is cancelled after only 3 months (opening the way for NBC’s Saturday Night to change its name and go on to make history) and the Bay City Rollers themselves fade soon thereafter. But their biggest hit still makes the occasional pop culture appearance:

1973 – Wimbledon’s two time reigning women’s champion Billie Jean King defeats former Wimbledon men’s champion Bobby Riggs in a much anticipated exhibition tennis match dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes”. The 55-year old Riggs, who had been openly contemptuous of women’s tennis, had challenged the 28-year old King the previous year, a challenge that King had ignored until Riggs trounced the women’s leading money winner Margaret Court 6-1, 6-2 in the first (and long since forgotten) first battle of the sexes. Once King accepts the challenge, the match quickly becomes one of the most hyped sporting events in history, being staged in the Houston Astrodome in front of a record crowd of over 30,000 people, along with an international television audience. King beats Riggs fairly easily in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. The match has long been hailed as an iconic moment in the history of the women’s liberation movement, but ESPN recently raised question about the event, alleging in an Outside The Lines broadcast that Riggs, a notorious gambler and hustler, was involved with the mob and in fact threw the match.

1519 – Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sets out from Spain in an effort to find a western passage through the Atlantic to the Spice Islands in Indonesia. Magellan will eventually find the passage after probing the South American coast, becoming the first European explorer to pass through the Atlantic to the Pacific through what will come to be known as the Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. One of Magellan’s 3 ships to pass through the straits will eventually make it all the way back to Spain, the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, although it will do so sans Magellan himself, who is killed in the Philippines, the victim of a poison arrow strike.

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1988 – On September 19, 1988, just one day after sustaining a head injury in a frightening accident, American diver Greg Louganis wins gold in the springboard competition at the Summer Olympics, in Seoul, South Korea. It was his second consecutive Olympic gold in the event.

Louganis fought through his nerves to nail all 11 of his dives, proving that he was still the best diver in the world. Louganis also won repeat gold in the men’s platform competition, becoming the first man ever to win consecutive golds in both events.

On October 2, Louganis was awarded the United States Olympic Committee Spirit Award and later announced his retirement from competition to pursue an acting career.

In 1995, Louganis confirmed that he was suffering from the AIDS virus.

1957 – The United States detonates a 1.7 kiloton nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), a 1,375 square mile research center located 65 miles north of Las Vegas.  The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained underground detonation and produced no radioactive fallout. A modified W-25 warhead weighing 218 pounds and measuring 25.7 inches in diameter and 17.4 inches in length was used for the test. Rainier was part of a series of 29 nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons safety tests known as Operation Plumbbob that were conducted at the NTS between May 28, 1957, and October 7, 1957.

1957’s Operation Plumbbob took place at a time when the U.S. was engaged in a Cold War and nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. In 1963, the U.S. signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, underwater and outer space. A total of 928 tests took place at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1992, when the U.S. conducted its last underground nuclear test.

1873 – One of the worst financial depressions in American History. On September 19, 1873 (Black Friday), the New York Stock Exchange announced that important investment banking firm of Jay Cooke & Company had collapsed after investing too heavily in railroad securities. The collapse of such an influential company affected the entire stock market, and soon other large firms failed. By 1875, about 500,000 men were unemployed, and wage cuts for other workers precipitated a wave of strikes and labor violence. And not until the end of 1870’s did the U.S economy improve.  The original Black Friday was on Sept. 24, 1869.

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1996 – Boston Red Sox Roger Clemens strikes out 20 batters for the second time in his career. Subsequent allegations of steroid use will place forever make Clemens’ many achievements suspect. I’m ashamed he became a Yankee.

1975 – Patty Hearst, 19-year old daughter and heiress of newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst, is finally captured in a San Francisco apartment after a months long manhunt for her. Over 7 months earlier, Hearst had been kidnapped by a leftist (!) terrorist group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Front (SLF). Initially the SLF had demanded that Randolph Hearst hand out $70 worth of food to every needy person in California in exchange for her return, but after her father had donated more than $6 million worth of food to the Bay area’s poor, an audiotape was released in which Hearst herself announced that she had willingly joined the SLF and had changed her name to Tania. Two weeks after her announcement, Hearst is captured on a surveillance camera wielding an M1 carbine while robbing a San Francisco branch of the Hibernia Bank. A warrant is issued for her arrest, resulting in her capture in September. Despite claiming that she was a victim of brainwashing, Hearst will go on to be convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison, although her sentence will be commuted by President Jimmy Carter and Hearst will join Marc Rich as a beneficiary of President Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon program executed on his last day in office, January 20 2001.

1862 – Following the battle of Antietam, Union General George McCLellan misses a chance to end the Civil War by allowing the retreating Confederate army to escape across the Potomac. Although the Union army had superior numbers and fresh troops following the original inconclusive battle, and might well have been able to destroy General Robert E. Lee’s battered rebels, McClellan allowed Lee’s army to cross the Potomac unmolested and refused to give chase for nearly the next 2 months, despite the urging of both the War Department and President Lincoln himself that he do so. Lincoln eventually dismisses McClellan from his command. The war will carry on for nearly another 3 years.

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