April 30, 1900: The Legend of Casey Jones

April 30, 1900, 125 years ago: Casey Jones saves the people on his train, at the cost of his own life, and becomes an American legend. That's the legend, and that's also the truth. There is more to the truth, however. He was... complicated.

John Luther Jones was born on March 14, 1863 in Cayce, Kentucky. The town's pronunciation, KAY-see, led to his nickname, "Casey." (Just as Charles Dillon Stengel was from Kansas City, and that got shortened to "K.C.," ultimately becoming "Casey.") He had a wife and 3 children, and was believed to have never touched a drop of alcohol.

He worked for the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, and became a brakeman on their route from Columbus, Kentucky to Jackson, Tennessee, outside Memphis. Jackson became his home for the rest of his life. He was promoted to fireman (shoveling coal to put in the fire to power the locomotive) on their route from Jackson to Mobile, Alabama. In 1887, a yellow fever epidemic hit the Illinois Central Railroad hard, opening opportunities, and in 1888, Casey was hired as a fireman on their freight line from Jackson to Water Valley, Mississippi, finally being promoted to engineer in 1891. He was 28, and becoming an engineer so young was unusual.

He was noted for his exceptionally punctual schedules, often saying he would "get here there on the advertised," meaning on schedule. People were known to set their watches by his arrival. But this sometimes had a degree of risk, including those of derailing, crashing into another train, or hitting a person on the track before they could get out of the way of the oncoming train. But from 1891 to 1899, there were no incidents.

Well, one, a heroic incident. In 1895, he was approaching Michigan City, Mississippi. He had left the cab in charge of fellow engineer Bob Stevenson, who had reduced speed sufficiently for Casey to walk safely out on the running board to oil the relief valves. He advanced from the running board to the steam chest and then to the pilot beam to adjust the spark screen.

He had finished well before they arrived at the station, as planned, and was returning to the cab when he noticed a group of small children dart in front of the train some 60 yards ahead. All cleared the rails easily except for a little girl who suddenly froze in fear at the sight of the oncoming locomotive. Jones shouted to Stevenson to reverse the train and yelled to the girl to get off the tracks in almost the same breath. Realizing that she was still immobile, he raced to the tip of the pilot or cowcatcher and braced himself on it, reaching out as far as he could to pull the frightened but unharmed girl from the rails.

In February 1900, Casey was transferred from Jackson to Memphis, for the passenger run between there and Canton, Mississippi, the 3rd link in the 4-train Illinois Central run from Chicago to New Orleans, in the days before the City of New Orleans (leaving Chicago by morning and arriving in New Orleans at morning, and vice versa, running from 1947 to 1971) and the Panama Limited (a night train at each end, 1911 to 1971) could run the whole way (and before each could be celebrated in song: "The City of New Orleans" in 1971 and "Night Train" in 1951).

On April 29, 1900, already scheduled to make the Memphis to Canton run, he was asked to take over another service through the day, which may have deprived him of sleep. He left Memphis aboard Engine No. 382, known (like many other fast trains of the era) as "The Cannonball," at 12:50 AM on April 30, an hour and 15 minutes late.

But he drove that train hard. By the time he got to Durant, Mississippi, he was only 5 minutes behind, telling his fireman, a black man named Simeon Webb, "Sim, the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight!" He thought he could get to Canton "on the advertised" at 4:05 AM.

But at Vaughan -- 172 miles south of Memphis, 225 miles north of New Orleans, and just 16 miles north of his destination of Canton -- there were 3 trains in the station, and 2 were, due to their length, crossing between the passing track and the main line. An air hose broke on one, leaving 4 cars of 1 of the trains on the main line. And Jones and Webb were coming in, only 2 minutes behind schedule, on a left-hand curve that blocked Jones' view from the right side.

Webb saw the red lights ahead, meaning "Stop." He told Casey. Casey told him to jump off, which was pretty dangerous, but better than staying on. He jumped, and was knocked unconscious, but not before he heard Jones blow a long, piercing train whistle to warn anyone still on the freight train ahead.

Casey reversed the throttle and slammed the airbrakes. This could only cut his speed from 70 to 40 miles per hour, before he crashed into the freight cars ahead of him, wrecking some. There were 6 people injured, including Webb. But, between his train, the others, and the people in the station, only 1 person died, and that was Casey Jones. The impact stopped his watch at 3:52 AM -- 13 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive in Canton. Had the tracks been clear, he would have made it. He was 37 years old.

Adam Hauser, a passenger on Casey's train, told The Times-Democrat, a New Orleans newspaper, "The passengers did not suffer, and there was no panic. I was jarred a little in my bunk, but when fairly aware the train was stopped and everything was still. Engineer Jones did a wonderful as well as a heroic piece of work, at the cost of his life."

Sim Webb -- who, probably due to his race, never got the credit he deserved for seeing the stuck train and giving Casey the chance to save everyone's lives -- lived on until 1957, age 83. Casey's widow, Janie Brady Jones, died the next year, at 92, having never remarried, and having worn black nearly every day since Casey's death. She was buried next to him in Jackson (the one in Tennessee, not the State capital of Mississippi).

By 1909, there was already a song titled "The Ballad of Casey Jones." It made its way up the Illinois Central to Chicago, where it became popular in vaudeville. Poet Carl Sandburg, based in Chicago, called it "the greatest ballad ever written." Labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill challenged the traditional version and, without evidence of Casey actually having been one, wrote "Casey Jones, Union Scab." (In fact, Casey belonged to 2 unions, 1 for locomotive firemen and 1 for engineers.)

In 1969, The Grateful Dead began performing a song titled "Casey Jones," recording it for their 1970 album Workingman's Dead. It bears little resemblance to the true story, with lyricist Robert Hunter writing:

Driving that train

high on cocaine.

Casey Jones you'd better

watch your speed.

Trouble ahead

trouble behind

and you know that notion

just crossed my mind.

Hunter later said he tried rhyming "Driving that train" with something else: "I write, 'Driving that train, whipping that chain.' No. 'Lugging propane.' No. I tried any way to get away from it, and there just wasn't one. It had to go. There was no other line for that song." 

Yankees in 1st Place After 1st Month

The Yankees faced the team now known as the Cleveland Guardians in the Playoffs last season, and have faced them in 4 of the last 8 postseasons -- winning all of them. But they knew that beating them in the regular season wouldn't be easy.

Last Monday night, Clarke Schmidt allowed 4 runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning, and that was basically it. The Yankees lost, 6-4, despite getting home runs from Jasson Domínguez and Jazz Chisholm Jr.

But getting a good start doesn't guarantee a win. On Tuesday night, Will Warren allowed 2 runs in 5 innings, and was backed by a Ben Rice home run in the 1st inning and a Chisholm sacrifice fly in the 6th. But Aaron Boone left Warren in for the 6th, and he allowed 2 singles before Boone replaced him with Mark Leiter Jr. A wild pitch, a walk, 2 singles and a double later, and it was 3-2 Cleveland. That was the final score.

Carlos Rodón started on Wednesday night, and after allowing an unearned run in the 1st inning, he was fine, allowing no more runs until the 7th. Paul Goldschmidt got 3 hits, Domínguez and Aaron Judge each got 2, and the Yankees won, 5-1, to salvage the series finale.

*

The Yankees came home to play those pesky Toronto Blue Jays. Carlos Carrasco started with 5 shutout innings, throwing 67 pitches. Boone should have left him in for the 6th. He didn't, burning Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton and Fernando Cruz over the 6th, the 7th and the 8th. Hill allowed a home run by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to start the top of the 6th.

In the bottom of the 7th, Anthony Volpe led off with a double, and Oswaldo Cabrera singled him home. In the bottom of the 8th, Cody Bellinger doubled, Chisholm drew a walk, Volpe was hit with a pitch, and Austin Wells brought Bellinger home with a sacrifice fly. The Yankees led, 2-1, going into the top of the 9th inning.

Boone brought Devin Williams in to close. I realize that all Yankee relievers after Mariano Rivera will fall short of him, but do they have to fall this far short? He pitched to the now-mandated minimum of 3 batters: He gave up a single to George Springer, he hit Andrés Giménez with a pitch, and he gave up a double to Alejandro Kirk. Boone brought Leiter in, and he gave up a double to Addison Barger.

Rice doubled with 2 out, but that was all the Yankees would get in the bottom of the 9th. Jays 4, Yanks 2. Boone announced that the much-hyped Williams, with 36 saves in 2023, and a 1.83 ERA and a 1.023WHIP in what amounted to 4 full seasons as a Milwaukee Brewer, but an 11.25 ERA and a 2.375 WHIP as a Yankee, would no longer be the closer.

After that horrible Friday night meltdown, Saturday's game was rained out, setting up an old-fashioned single-admission doubleheader for yesterday. And when Max Fried allowed a run in the 1st inning of the 1st game, it looked bleak for the Pinstripes.

Fried was fantastic the rest of the way, getting through the 6th inning with no further runs. The Yankees exploded for 6 runs in the bottom of the 3rd. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. With 1 out, Cabrera and Rice drew walks, Judge singled, Bellinger hit a sacrifice fly; then 3 straight walks by Goldschmidt, Chisholm and Volpe; the Wells doubled.

The Yankees got 3 more runs in the 7th, including a homer by Volpe, and another in the 8th, to win, 11-2. Fried is now 5-0.

Schmidt bounced back with a good start in the 2nd game, allowing 1 run over 5 innings. The Yankees got home runs from Trent Grisham in the 1st, Judge in the 6th, and J.C. Escarra in the 8th, and the Yankees won, 5-1. Tim Hill was the winning pitcher.

*

So, after a full month of play, the Yankees lead the American League Eastern Division by 2 games over the Boston Red Sox, 3 over the Tampa Bay Rays, 4 over the Toronto Blue Jays, and 6 1/2 over the Baltimore Orioles. Cliché Alert: In the all-important loss column, they lead the Sox and Rays by 3 each, the Jays by 4, and the O's by 6.

Tonight, they start a new series in Baltimore. Since Gleyber Torres is no longer a Yankee, where the Orioles put the left-field fence will no longer be an issue.

Dick Barnett, 1936-2025

The New York Knicks are in what looks like a serious Playoff run. They've had a few. But only 2 have resulted in an NBA Championship: 1970 and 1973.

There is now one fewer surviving member of those teams.

Richard Barnett (no middle name) was born on October 2, 1936 in Gary, Indiana, outside Chicago. A guard on the Tennessee State University basketball team at the same time that Wilma Rudolph was leading their "Tigerbelles" women's track team, he was then known as "Dick the Skull." He won a championship with the Cleveland Pipers in the short-lived American Basketball League in 1962. They were the 1st sports team owned by George Steinbrenner, then just 31 years old.

When the ABL folded a few months later, he joined the Los Angeles Lakers, and helped them reach the NBA Finals in 1963 and 1965. His fallaway jump shot led Laker announcer Chick Hearn to nickname him "Fall Back Baby Barnett." The nickname followed him to the Knicks, where he became an All-Star in 1968, and an NBA Champion in 1970 and 1973.

He retired after the 1973 title, got a Ph.D. in education from Fordham University in The Bronx, and taught sports management at St. John's University in Queens until retiring in 2007. Due to his doctorate, he was nearly always referred to as "Dr. Dick."

The Knicks retired his Number 12 on March 12, 1990. He is a member of the College Basketball and Tennessee Sports Halls of Fame, along with his Tennessee State coach, John McLendon. He was finally elected to the main Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts last year.

He still attended Knicks home games until age caught up with him, and he was moved to a senior assisted-living facility in Largo, Florida, on the St. Petersburg side of Tampa Bay. He died yesterday, April 27, 2025, at the age of 88.

 

April 28-30, 1945: The Ends of the Dictators

April 28, 1945, 80 years ago: Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, is captured by Communist partisans and executed. He was 61 years old, and few wept for him.

Mussolini was originally a journalist who entered politics as a Socialist. He served in the Italian Army in World War I, and was wounded in 1917. His experience shifted him from left to right. On October 28, 1922, thinking the postwar Italian national government weak, he led the Fascists in a March On Rome. The government fell rather than oppose him with the Army, and King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini to be the country's youngest Prime Minister ever to that point. He became known as Il Duce (The Leader).

After removing all political opposition through his secret police, and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. In 1924, he ordered the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, the Leader of the country's Socialist Party. In 1929, he signed the Lateran Treaty with the Holy See, to establish Vatican City.

His supporters, including in America, liked to say, "He made the trains run on time." In fact, they ran no better under him than under the previous government. They also liked to say he put an end to the Mafia. This also wasn't true. It would be more accurate to say that he made a deal with the Mafia, a non-aggression pact: Leave my officials -- including policemen, prosecutors and judges -- alone, let them do as they please, or, rather, as I please; and I'll do the same for you.

He also wanted to build a new Roman Empire. He established a protectorate over nearby Albania, and in 1935 invaded Ethiopia, annexing it into Italian East Africa (comprised of the current nations of Somalia and Eritrea). From 1936 to 1939, he and Adolf Hitler, the dictatorial Chancellor of Nazi Germany, aided fellow fascist Francisco Franco in his takeover of Spain.

(This included Hitler sending his air force, the Luftwaffe, to bomb opposing cities; and Mussolini sending troops, which became known as Franco's Italian Army. In the 1970s, this name would be adapted by Italian-American fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who formed a fan club for the half-Italian, half-black running back Franco Harris. Not to be outdone, a group of black fans honored defensive tackle Joe Greene with "Mean Joe Greene's Ethiopian Brigade." Given what Mussolini's men did in Spain and Ethiopia, both names should already have been considered cringeworthy.)

With the onset of World War II, Mussolini brought Italy into the Axis with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. But the reputation of Italy having a weak army -- which both Mussolini and Giuseppe Garibaldi had taken advantage of in the preceding 80 years -- still held, as British and American troops kicked them out of North Africa, and then invaded Sicily, and finally the Italian mainland.

On July 25, 1943, his own Grand Council of Fascism passed a vote of no confidence in him, and the King who had appointed him dismissed him as Prime Minister after 21 years, and ordered his arrest. The King then agreed to an armistice with the Allies.

German paratroopers broke Mussolini out of prison, resulting in a civil war. The Allies did not intervene, since their focus had moved to Western Europe. This time, Mussolini did not have enough troops to even oppose the regular Italian Army.

On April 25, 1945, Mussolini took his mistress, Clara Petacci -- leaving his wife and 6 children behind -- along with 13 others, including Clara's brother, who was posing as a Spanish consul, and fled. They set out for adjoining and neutral Switzerland, intending to board a plane and escape to also-neutral Spain, under Franco's protection.

But on April 27, they were stopped by Communist partisans near Lake Como, just 20 miles from the Swiss border. On April 28, instead of being turned over to the United Nations, as per Allied agreement in the event that he should be captured, they were executed in a village named Giulini de Mezzegra, on the orders of a partisan named Walter Audisio.

The witnesses' accounts of his last words differed. One said that he was defiant to the end, telling them, "Aim at my heart!" One said that he was a coward, yelling, "No! No!" The other said that Mussolini said nothing at all as the rifles were raised.

On April 29, the bodies of the executed were loaded in a van and moved to Milan, the largest city in northern Italy. They were dumped on the ground in the Piazzale Loreto, where people kicked them and spat on them. Finally, the bodies of Mussolini and the Petaccis were hung, upside-down, from the roof of an Esso gas station, and people threw stones at them.

Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by Fascist supporters. Four months later, it was recovered by the authorities, who then kept it hidden. In 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his hometown of Predappio. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for neo-fascists, and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies.

His granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, is a member of the European Parliament, and has been one of the leaders of far-right politics in Italy since the early 21st Century. Her son, Romano Mussolini, plays for SS Lazio, the Rome-based team known for a Fascist fan base. He says he has no interest in politics.

*

On April 30, upon hearing a report of what happened to Mussolini, and knowing that the Soviet Union's Red Army had Berlin surrounded, and that his own escape was unlikely, Hitler decided that he was not going to face the same fate. The Nazi dictator killed himself.

The famous, occasionally-imitated, Time cover

His wife, Eva Braun, had also committed suicide, with a cyanide pill. She was 33. The Nazi regime came to an end with the rump government's surrender 8 days later.

He knew the Red Army was closing in from the east. He knew the other Allies, America and Britain, were closing in from the west.

On April 22, he ordered General Felix Steiner to attack the Soviet troops attempting to encircle Berlin. Steiner could not raise enough troops to do so. Pretty much the only available fighters in Germany who weren't already in the Army were old men and children.

Steiner was no hero. He was arrested for war crimes, but after 3 years, he was released due to an inability to get enough evidence against him. He lived until 1966, still trying to rehabilitate the image of the German army, and in particular the SS.

In his Bunker, Hitler was told of Steiner's inability to raise troops, and he lost his composure. He now knew that defeat in World War II is inevitable. This event was dramatized in the 2004 German film Der Untergang, known as Downfall in the English-speaking world. Hitler was played by Austrian actor Bruno Ganz, and, since the scene was filmed in German, a language most non-Germans don’t understand, it became the basis for the "Hitler Rants Parodies" video series, with fake subtitles put on to match whatever joke the author wants to tell.

Hitler knew Berlin was surrounded. He had hoped to hold out until May 5, the anniversary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, his role model, who had come closer to conquering Russia than he had, actually reaching Moscow, but finding it burned and useless to him before returning.

But the reports that Hitler was getting suggested that the Soviets would get there sooner. And when he found out how his former Axis partner, Mussolini, had been treated after his capture, and especially after his execution, by Communists in his country, Hitler was determined to not fall into the hands of any of the Allied nations, especially the Soviets.

As the saying goes, the one service Hitler ever performed for humanity was to kill Hitler. But the regime he began on January 30, 1933, 12 years earlier -- including the war he started on September 3, 1939 -- had led to the deaths of 75 million people, military and civilian combined, including over 400,000 Americans.

The true depths of his depravity had already begun to reach the civilized world before word of his death had, as American, British and Soviet troops found the concentration camps where the Holocaust was carried out. In these camps, 11 million people died, some from murder, some from disease. And 6 million of those people who died, and many others who survived, were put there for no crime other than being Jewish.

So the death of Hitler could not be a wholly joyous occasion, because it was a reminder of all that he did, and all that he could have done had he won.

If you ever wonder which is worse, Fascism or Communism, consider this: The Soviets had the atomic bomb for 40 years, and never used it; the Chinese have had it for nearly 60 years, and have never used it; but if the Nazis had ever gotten it, there is no doubt that Hitler would have ordered its use.

His propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and his wife, Magda, remained in the Bunker. On May 1, they fed their children poison, and then took their own lives. On May 2, Generals Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf, both among those that Hitler asked to remain in the Bunker in the Downfall scene, committed suicide. The same day, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann, who had fled the Bunker, realized capture by the Soviets was inevitable, and committed suicide. SS leader Heinrich Himmler escaped until he was captured by British troops, and committed suicide in their custody on May 23.

Most of the remaining Nazi high command was captured alive. They were tried in Nuremburg, site of some of the Party's infamous rallies, and convicted. These included Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister; Julius Streicher, the Nazis' top propaganda publisher; Hans Frank, Governor-General of occupied Poland; and the other 2 military leaders that Hitler had asked to stay in the Downfall scene, General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Armed Forces, who had signed the surrender papers on V-E Day, and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

Not among the condemned, but scheduled to be so, was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the highest-ranking Nazi official to have survived V-E Day. He had made an appeal, asking to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court refused. So he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was to be hanged.

Two more Fascist dictators, because they were neutral in The War, hung on: António Salazar had a stroke, and was removed from power in Portugal in 1968, dying in 1970, and democracy was restored in 1974; and Francisco Franco died in 1975, and, with the support of King Juan Carlos I, Spain went back to democracy.

April 25, 1995: Baseball Resumes After Its Longest Strike

April 25, 1995, 30 years ago: For the 1st time since August 11, 1994 -- 247 days -- a regular-season Major League Baseball game is played.

In the interim, football player-turned actor Woody Strode; former Heavyweight Champion Jack Sharkey and former Middleweight Champion Carlos Monzón; soccer legend Billy Wright; runner Wilma Rudolph; tennis legend Fred Perry; sportscaster Howard Cosell; scientist Linus Pauling; authors James Clavell, Robert Bloch, James Herriot; directors Terence Young and George Abbott; actors Patrick O'Neil, Jessica Tandy, Harriet Nelson, Martha Raye, Burt Lancaster, Raúl Juliá, Noah Beery Jr., Sebastian Shaw, Peter Cook, Donald Pleasence, David Wayne, Ed Flanders, Priscilla Lane, Burl Ives and Ginger Rogers; songwriters Jule Styne, Antônio Carlos Jobim; singers Carmen McRae, Cab Calloway, Melvin Franklin of The Temptations, Selena, and rapper Eazy-E; fashion magnate Maurizio Gucci, astronaut Stuart Roosa; former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former Senator J. William Fulbright, and Kennedy family matriarch Rose Kennedy died.

Basketball player Jabari Parker, soccer players Bruno Fernandes, Takuma Asano, Raheem Sterling, Joshua Kimmich, Naby Keïta, Héctor Bellerín, Divock Origi and Adrien Rabiot; skier Mikaela Shiffrin; actors Zooey Deutch and Jake T. Austin; singer Halsey, rapper Megan Thee Stallion; and model Gigi Hadid were born.

The Strike of '94 began the preceding August 12. When the MLB team owners threatened to use "replacement players" -- essentially, strikebreakers, or "scabs" -- a federal Judge ruled that this was in violation of their contract. With nothing else they can do, the owners settled, and the players "won" the strike. The judge was Sonia Sotomayor, a Yankee Fan from The Bronx. In 2009, she was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama.

This was each MLB team's 1st game back:

* April 25: The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Florida Marlins, 8-7 at Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida. Marlin pitcher John Burkett restarted the proceedings by getting Delino DeShields to fly out to center fielder Chuck Carr. Raúl Mondesi hit 2 home runs, including the 1st one in restarted baseball, while Terry Pendleton and Jeff Conine homered for the Marlins. The Marlins trailed 8-2 going into the bottom of the 8th inning, and a comeback fell just short.

On April 26:

* The New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers, 8-6 at Yankee Stadium. I was there, setting near the back of the Main Level, behind home plate. Joe DiMaggio threw out a ceremonial first ball. Danny Tartabull and Bernie Williams hit home runs in support of Jimmy Key.

* The New York Mets lost to the Colorado Rockies, 11-9 in the 1st-ever game at Coors Field in Denver. The Mets got home runs from Rico Brogna and Todd Hundley. They trailed 5-1 going into the top of the 6th, then took leads of 7-6 into the top of the 9th, 8-7 in the top of the 13th, and 9-8 into the top of the 14th. But the Rockies just kept on coming, until Dante Bichette hit a 3-run homer off Mike Remlinger to win it for the Rockies in the bottom of the 14th.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 9-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Aaron Sele allowed just 1 hit over 5 innings, and 4 relievers helped complete a 2-hit shutout.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 12-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The Braves went on to win the National League Pennant.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics, 13-1 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. Officially, since there was no World Series the year before, the Jays were now beginning their 3rd straight season as defending World Champions.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago White Sox, 12-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-6 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. In spite of the strike, the consecutive games played streak of Cal Ripken Jr. was officially still going. He would break Lou Gehrig's record of 2,130 straight games on September 6.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 10-2 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the California Angels, 5-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

On April 27:

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Rangers, 11-6 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. The Indians went on to win the American League Pennant, but the Braves beat them in the World Series.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Tigers, 3-0 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Randy Johnson allowed 3 hits over 6 innings, and 2 relievers completed the 3-hit shutout.

April 23, 2005: The 1st YouTube Video

April 23, 2005: At 8:31 PM Pacific Time, 11:31 Eastern Time, "Me at the zoo" becomes the 1st video uploaded to YouTube.

It is uploaded by Jawed Karim, a co-founder of YouTube. Karim, then 25 years old, described the elephants in the San Diego Zoo, in front of a video camera operated by a friend from high school, Yakov Lapitsky.

The video is 18 seconds long, with Karim saying, "All right, so here we are in front of the, uh, elephants. And the cool thing about these guys is that, is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks. And that's, that's cool. And that's pretty much all there is to say."

Karim turned out to be a much better businessman than commentator. With Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, whom he met while working at PayPal, he founded YouTube. By October 2006, it had already become so successful that Google bought it from them for $1.65 billion.

Born in Germany to a German mother and a Bangladeshi father, Karim went to high school in St. Paul, Minnesota, and got degrees from the University of Illinois and Stanford. After selling YouTube, he got in on the ground floors of Airbnb and Reddit.

As of April 23, 2025, the original video has over 354 million views. 

April 23, 1985: The New Coke Fiasco

April 23, 1985, 40 years ago: Coca-Cola throws the people a curveball. It turns out to be a wild pitch.

In the 1950s, Coca-Cola, or "Coke" for short, outsold Pepsi-Cola by a 5-1 ratio. Pepsi decided to embrace the rising post-World War II youth culture. In the late 1950s, Pepsi was "for those who think young." In the early 1960s, they advertised "the Pepsi Generation." The message was: "You like Coke? You're old, you're out of it. Get with it, be young, drink Pepsi." It worked, to a degree: Pepsi was still 2nd among colas behind Coke, but it was a considerably closer 2nd.

In the early 1980s, Pepsi began "The Pepsi Challenge," giving people blind taste tests, showing that they preferred Pepsi, and then showing these wins in their commercials. Many, many commercials. You couldn't get through a night of prime-time TV without seeing a Pepsi Challenge commercial.

"A Coke and a smile" wasn't cutting it anymore. Nor was the reworked slogan "Coke is it!" The famously top secret "formula" for Coca-Cola was still working, still Number 1, but Pepsi was getting closer and closer.

So Coke executives decided to get aggressive. They came up with a new formula that they thought people would like better than Coke or Pepsi. They put this new formula into 200,000 taste tests, and, sure enough, it beat Coke and Pepsi more often than not.

So, on April 23, 1985, "New Coke" was introduced. Except... Coca-Cola took the old Coke off the market completely. One of the most famous food brands on the planet, and they dropped it completely. You could no longer get Coke anywhere, only New Coke.

And it was a disaster. The reason old Coke was still Number 1 in the first place is that, for all the people switching to Pepsi in taste tests, people tend to be loyal to their old brands. It's why, while Coke's lemon-lime brand Sprite has remained popular, Pepsi's version has never really caught on, whether rebranded as Teem (introduced in 1959), Slice (1984) or Sierra Mist (1999). And 7-Up also remained a popular lemon-lime drink -- more popular than its "parent" drink, Dr. Pepper.

(UPDATE: In 2023, Pepsi updated its lemon-lime drink again, as Starry.)

In contrast, the main reason Coke was able to replace its diet drink Tab (introduced in 1963) with Diet Coke (1982) with great success is that Tab was never all that popular, anyway.

So the people who wanted to stick with old Coke felt like they were being slapped in the face. To them, it didn't matter how good New Coke was: They wanted their Coke.

And how good was New Coke? As it turned out, not that good. I was 15 years old, and I already preferred Pepsi, and I didn't think New Coke was even as good as the old one. Apparently, most people agreed with me -- on New Coke vs. old Coke, if not on either coke vs. Pepsi.

The scientists at Coca-Cola didn't realize that what works in a taste test might not work for an entire bottle or can of the stuff. They thought that Pepsi was "winning" because it was sweeter than Coke. So New Coke was made to be sweeter than either old Coke or Pepsi. And, for a sip or two, it worked. But for an entire drink, it was too sweet. Too much. Canada Dry had spent years advertising its ginger ale with the slogan, "It's not too sweet." New Coke was way too sweet. (Canada Dry is also now owned by the company that owns Dr. Pepper and 7 Up -- and also Snapple, and Keurig.)

And the funny thing is, the fiasco didn't help Pepsi all that much. People loyal to old Coke still weren't switching to Pepsi. Or to RC Cola (Royal Crown), or to C&C Cola (produced in Ireland, and named for its founders, Thomas Cantrell and Henry Cochrane), or to any other cola. Any gains that Pepsi made were attributed to the marketing campaign it was already doing.

And when Summer arrived, and sales of New Coke didn't go up with the temperatures, the writing was on the wall. And it was profane. On July 11, 1985, Coca-Cola brought the original back, under the name "Coca-Cola Classic" -- or "Classic Coke."

It has been alleged that the whole thing was a conspiracy to get people to miss the old Coke, so that, when it was brought back, people would buy more of it than ever before. If so, it didn't work: It sold only about as well as it had before the whole thing started.

Essentially, Coca-Cola was a victim of its own success: It had hit a ceiling. Anybody who wasn't already drinking it wasn't going to start. And Pepsi was never going to catch them. They, too, had hit a ceiling. The market had spoken, and had solidified.

After Classic Coke was brought back, New Coke hardly sold at all. It was rebranded as Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in 2002, having been bought by few, missed by fewer, and mourned by nearly no one. 

April 23, 1950: The Pete Babando Goal

April 23, 1950, 75 years ago: Only twice in the history of the Stanley Cup Finals has a Game 7 gone to overtime. They happened within 4 years of each other, and both were won by the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wings had won the Cup in 1936, 1937 and 1943. In 1946, a rookie named Gordie Howe arrived. The Wings reached the Finals again in 1948 and 1949, but lost both to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1950, they got back, and faced the New York Rangers.

There were 3 holdovers from 1943: Center and Captain Sid Abel, defenseman Jack Stewart, and right wing Joe Carveth. Abel centered a line with Howe on right wing and Ted Lindsay on left wing, which became known as "The Production Line," in honor of Detroit's automotive industry. Leonard "Red" Kelly and Marcel Pronovost were young defensemen. And in goal was Harry Lumley. All of these, except for Carveth, would make the Hockey Hall of Fame.

However, the Wings would have to go through the Finals without Howe: During the Semifinals against the Leafs, he attempted to check Ted "Teeder" Kennedy, but missed, and crashed into the boards, breaking bones in his face and putting his life in danger. He recovered, and became perhaps the greatest player the game had ever known, but would not be available for the Finals.

The Rangers had last made the Finals in 1940, which was also their most recent Cup win. They had no holdovers, but they had future Hall-of-Famers in centers Edgar Laprade and Buddy O'Connor, defenseman Allan Stanley, and goaltender Chuck Rayner.

(Two other Ranger players would be elected to the Hall, but in the "Builders" category: Bud Poile, for a long career as an NHL executive, including as the 1st general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers; and Fred Shero, who coached many of the players Poile acquired to the 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cups, and then coached the Rangers to the Finals in 1979.)

But the Rangers had a problem: No home-ice advantage. The biggest annual moneymaker for the Madison Square Garden corporation wasn't the Rangers, or the NBA's New York Knicks. It was the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, which, in those days, came in April -- when the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals were both held.

At the time, arenas could not be configured to host a circus and a hockey game on the same day. And since the Circus made more money for The Garden than Playoff hockey (which is no longer the case), the Rangers were forced to play their "home games" elsewhere. They ended up playing Games 2 and 3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, while all the other games of the Finals were played at the Wings' Olympia Stadium.

The Wings won Game 1, 4-1. The Rangers won Game 2, 3-1. The Wings won Game 3, 4-0. The Finals nearly became the Don Raleigh Show: Raleigh scored 8:34 into overtime, to win Game 4 for the Rangers, 4-3; and 1:38 into overtime, to win Game 5, 2-1.

Don Raleigh 

But it was not to be. The Wings won Game 6, 5-4. The next night, April 23, the Rangers took a 2-0 lead midway through Game 7, the 2nd goal being scored by Tony Leswick. But Pete Babando got the Wings on the board, and Abel tied the game just 21 seconds later. The teams exchanged goals later in the period, and there were no goals in the 3rd period. So, for the 1st time since the Stanley Cup Finals went to a best-4-out-of-7 format in 1939, its Game 7 went to overtime, 3-3.

The 1st overtime also saw no goals, making this the 1st Stanley Cup Final Game 7 to go to a 2nd overtime. Through the 2021 season, it remains the only one. At the 8:30 mark of the 2nd overtime, Babando backhanded a shot past Rayner, and it was over: Red Wings 4, Rangers 3. Detroit had won the Stanley Cup, and Babando had become the 1st player to win the Cup on a Game 7 goal in overtime.

Babando, approaching his 25th birthday, was born in Braeburn, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, making him one of the few American-born players in the NHL at the time. But, like the vast majority of the players, he was trained to play in Canada, as he grew up in Timmins, Ontario.

And how did the Wings' organization thank him for his 2 Game 7 goals, including the clincher? They traded him to the Chicago Black Hawks before the next season. (Since James E. Norris owned the Wings and the Chicago Stadium, and his son, James D. Norris, owned the Hawks, they made a lot of deals, especially to get a player one or the other didn't like away from him. And the NHL allowed this arrangement at the time.) After 3 seasons with the Hawks, he was traded to, of all teams, the Rangers. He continued to play professional hockey until 1967, and lived until 2020.

The Wings began a sort-of-dynasty in which they won 4 Cups in 6 seasons. But the Rangers didn't reach the Finals again until 1972. Blowing a 2-goal lead in 1950's Game 7 was the 1st of a long series of Ranger chokes from 1940 onward, until they finally won the Cup again in 1994. Which turned out to be not an ending but an interruption, as they have choked many times since.

Don Raleigh was born in Kenora, Ontario, famous for being the home of the 1907 Stanley Cup Champions, the Kenora Thistles; but lived most of his life in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He played for the Rangers from 1944 to 1956, made 2 All-Star Games, and was named to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. He lived until 2012.

The next 3 years, the Knicks would also be hurt by The Garden's circus priority. They had to play Games 3, 4 and 6 of the 1951 NBA Finals at the 69th Regiment Armory, instead of the Garden. They lost Game 7 on the road, losing in overtime to the Rochester Royals. The same thing happened in 1952, when they lost Game 7 to the Minneapolis Lakers. It didn't get that far in 1953: They lost Games 3, 4 and 5 at the Armory, with the Lakers clinching in Game 5.

In 1954, Game 7 scorer Tony Leswick would be with the Wings, and become the 2nd, and so far last, man to score an overtime goal in the Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Finals. Others to score an overtime Cup-clincher:

* In Game 6: Bryan Hextall, 1940 Rangers; Henri Richard, 1966 Montreal Canadiens; Bobby Nystrom, 1980 New York Islanders; Brett Hull, 1999 Dallas Stars; Jason Arnott, 2000 New Jersey Devils; Patrick Kane, 2010 Blackhawks.

* In Game 5: Bill Barilko, 1951 Maple Leafs; Elmer Lach, 1953 Canadiens; Alec Martinez, 2014 Los Angeles Kings.

* In Game 4: Bill Cook, 1933 Rangers (before it was a best-of-7); Harold "Mush" March, 1934 Black Hawks (ditto); Hector "Toe" Blake, 1944 Canadiens; Bobby Orr, 1970 Bruins; Jacques Lemaire, 1977 Canadiens; Uwe Krupp, 1996 Colorado Avalanche.

April 22, 1945: The Triumph of Frank "Ulcers" McCool

April 22, 1945, 80 years ago: Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals is played at the Olympia Stadium arena in Detroit. It is set up as a reverse of the 1942 Finals.

That time, the Detroit Red Wings had won the 1st 3 games, but the Toronto Maple Leafs came back to win the next 4, the 1st time any team, in any sport, had done that. The Wings did rebound to win the Cup in 1943. The Montreal Canadiens won it in 1944. This time, with both the Wings and the Leafs having lost a lot of players to the manpower drain of World War II, they still returned to the Finals.

The Leafs won Game 1 in Detroit, 1-0; Game 2 in Detroit, 2-0; and Game 3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, 1-0. They only needed 4 goals, scored by 4 separate players, because they had a goaltender putting on a show like no one had ever seen.

With regular goalie Walter "Turk" Broda serving in the Canadian Army, the job was given to Frank McCool, a 26-year-old native of Calgary who had never played in the NHL before the 1944-45 season, and had been discharged from the Army as medically unfit to serve, due to the condition that gave him his nickname: "Ulcers."

He won the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year, and then shut the Wings out in each of the 1st 3 games. Three shutouts in a single Stanley Cup Finals had never been done before, and has been done only once since, by Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils against the Anaheim Ducks in 2003.

With Game 4 also in Toronto, it looked like a sure thing for the Leafs. But the Wings won, 5-3, scoring more goals than the had in the previous 3 games. That may have rattled McCool, who was noted for being nervous, in spite of his name -- hence, his famed ulcers. He was better in Game 5 in Detroit, but the Wings still won, 2-0.

He was better than that in Game 6, in front of a Toronto crowd expecting to win the Cup. Regulation ended scoreless, with Wings goalie Harry Lumley proving McCool's equal. Ed Bruneteau scored 14:16 into the 1st overtime, and there would be a Game 7, in Detroit. All signs pointed to the Wings reversing the 1942 result, and redeeming themselves for it.

Mel Hill, nicknamed "Sudden Death" for his overtime goals for the Boston Bruins in the 1939 Playoffs, scored 5:38 into the game. The Leafs led, 1-0. There was no scoring in the 2nd period. It looked like the Leafs had it, but Murray Armstrong scored for the Wings at 8:16 of the 3rd period. The Leafs now looked like they just might blow it.

But defenseman Walter "Babe" Pratt, a hero of the New York Rangers' 1940 Stanley Cup win, put the puck past "Apple Cheeks" Lumley with 7:46 left in regulation. McCool and the Leafs hung on for dear life, and were 2-1 winners.

There would be no 3-0 to 4-3 reversal for the Wings. They would also lose in the Finals in 1948 and 1949, also to the Leafs, before winning the Cup in 1950, and starting a quasi-dynasty of 4 Cups in 6 seasons.

With their best players coming back from the War, the Leafs won the Cup again in 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951. Broda's return meant that McCool only played 22 games in the 1945-46 season, after playing all 50 the season before. He really did have ulcers, and they forced him into retirement. He went back to Calgary and became the publisher of a newspaper. But this was not a good job for a man with ulcers, and he died in 1973, only 54 years old.

The Wings rebuilt, and reached the Stanley Cup Finals every year from 1948 to 1956, winning in 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955.

Schrödinger's No-Hitter and the Pope

Date unknown, but it appears to be at the Vatican.

He's smiling as if he knew he had the perfect picture for his job.

On August 6, 1978, the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. Jim "Catfish" Hunter pitched a 5-hit shutout. While WPIX-Channel 11 was broadcasting the postgame show, the news arrived that Pope Paul VI had just died. And Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, Italian and very much Catholic, said, "Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankee win."

On August 26, a new Pope was elected. He took the name John Paul I, after the last 2 Popes: John XXIII and Paul VI. But on September 28, on just his 33rd day on the Papal throne, he had a heart attack, and died.

The American League Eastern Division race between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox was coming down to the wire. The Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-1 at Yankee Stadium, while the Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 1-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. The teams were separated by only 1 game and the conclusion of the games.

That night, on radio station WBCN, 98.5 FM (now WWBX, 104.1), in Boston, perhaps the most Catholic city in America, disc jockey Charles Laquidara earned himself a lot of hate mail by beginning his broadcast with this teaser: "Pope dies, Sox still alive."

Four days later, the Yankees beat the Red Sox in a 1-game Playoff for the Division title, known as the Bucky Dent Game or the Boston Tie Party. Two weeks later, on October 16, a new Pope was elected, who honored his 3 predecessors by taking the name John Paul II. The following night, the Yankees won the World Series.

*

Over this past weekend, the Yankees took 3 out of 4 against the Tampa Rays, for the 1st time playing them at their own Spring Training home, George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, due to the hurricane-caused damage to the Rays' usual home, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. It should have been a 4-game sweep, but, unlike the way the Pope is said to be in matters of faith, the Yankees proved they were fallible.

Will Warren started on Thursday night, because 3 of the Yankees' starting pitchers -- Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil and Marcus Stroman -- were all injured, and somebody had to be the 5th starter. In the bottom of the 2nd inning, with him having gotten 5 outs, but allowed a run on 4 hits and 2 walks, manager Aaron Boone decided not to take any chances, and took him out. Ryan Yarbrough got out of the inning, then allowed a 2-run homer in the next inning.

After that, though, the Yankee bullpen -- Yarbrough, Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton and Devin Williams -- allowed 6 hits and a walk, but no runs. Ben Rice went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs, Oswaldo Cabrera hit a home run, and the Yankees won, 6-3. Hill was named the winning pitcher.

*

Carlos Rodón started on Friday night. He needed a good one, after 3 straight bad, losing starts. He came up with one, going 6 innings, allowing 2 hits and 4 walks, striking out 9. Mark Leiter Jr., Fernando Cruz and Luke Weaver were nearly perfect the rest  of the way, allowing just 1 hit and no walks between them, completing a 3-hit shutout.

The Yankees themselves only got 5 hits, but Paul Goldschmidt got 3 of them. He led off the top of the 2nd with a single. J.C. Escarra drew a walk, and Trent Grisham singled Goldschmidt home. A 1-0 lead is nerve-wracking enough in soccer, but in baseball? At least it wasn't at Fenway Park. The Yankees hung on to win.

*

The Saturday game was good in the middle. Not at the beginning, and not at the end. Carlos Carrasco, also starting to fill a hole in the rotation, allowed 4 run in 4 innings. But the bullpen did well: Hamilton pitched a scoreless 5th and 6th, Leiter a perfect 7, and Weaver a perfect 8th. Grisham hit a home run, and it was 8-4 Yankees going to the bottom of the 9th.

Based on his statistics through last season, Devin Williams looked like a great pickup for the Yankees. But he went into Aroldis Chapman mode on Saturday afternoon, and not for the 1st time. In the bottom of the 9th, he started with a groundout, then allowed single, walk, ground-rule double, single stolen base and single, for 4 runs and a tie ballgame, 8-8.

Come extra innings, and the "ghost runner" reared its head. But the Yankees could only get theirs, Anthony Volpe, to 3rd base. In the bottom of the 10th, with Christopher Morel on 2nd base, Jonathan Aranda hit one out to win the game for the Rays, 10-8.

Don't blame the pitcher, Yoendrys Gómez. It was Williams that the game didn't end after 9 innings.

*

The Sunday game was weird. How weird was it? It was Schrödinger's no-hitter: Max Fried was pitching a no-hitter, and yet, at the same time, he wasn't. Huh?

In the bottom of the 1st inning, Fried got Yandy Díaz to fly out. Then Junior Caminero grounded to 3rd base, and Oswaldo Cabrera made a bad throw. At first, he was ruled out at 1st base. Rays manager Kevin Cash appealed for instant replay, and the call was overturned: Caminero was safe. At the time, the play was ruled an error. Then, Fried walked Aranda, before getting Morel to ground into a double play to get out of the jam.

Fried then cruised. In the 4th, Cabrera made another error, allowing Morel to reach 1st, but Fried stranded him. In the 5th, he walked Danny Jansen, but got a double play. In the 7th, he hit Danny Jansen with a pitch. The no-hitter was on, with 6 outs to go.

And then, in the middle of the game, the official scorer, Bill Mathews, changed the 1st-inning error to a hit. He said he'd looked at the replay a few times, and decided that Caminero would have made it to 1st base even if Cabrera had made a good throw. In hindsight, he was probably right.

If he had ruled the play a hit immediately, no one would have cared. If he had waiting until Fried actually allowed a hit -- if he had -- and turned a one-hitter into a two-hitter, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. But he changed a game from a no-hitter to a one-hitter, without the pitcher having thrown a pitch. That's wrong, and he should be ashamed of himself.

And then, to begin the top of the 8th, Aaron Judge hit a long drive down the left-field line. It was ruled a foul ball. Boone appealed for instant replay. The replay clearly showed that the ball was fair, and it should have been ruled a home run. The umpires flat-out lied, and said it was foul. And Judge went on to strike out. They robbed him of a home run. 

And it was only 3-0: The Yankees had gotten solo home runs from Grisham, Cody Bellinger, and an RBI groundout by Bellinger. The game was still very much in doubt. And the umpires blatantly robbed the Yankees of a run.

To start the bottom of the 8th, Fried allowed a single to Jake Mangum. Then he got 2 outs. And then, Boone took him out. That made no sense, especially since reliever Fernando Cruz walked the next batter. But he got the last out. He walked the 1st 2 batters in the 9th, but got out of it. Austin Wells added a solo homer, and the Yankees won the game, 4-0.

*

So the Yankees had won on Easter Sunday, to complete a 3-out-of-4 series, and have now won 6 of their last 7. They are 14-8, and lead the Toronto Blue Jays and the Red Sox by 2 games each in the American League Eastern Division. They lead the Orioles by 4 1/2, and the Rays by 5. In the loss column, the Yanks lead the Jays by 2, the BoSox by 3, the O's but 4, and the Rays by 5. They move on to Cleveland to face the Guardians.

And Pope Francis, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, died this morning, at the age of 88. He had been Pope since 2013. A son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, he grew up as a fan of San Lorenzo, a soccer team in his hometown, the capital of Bueno Aires.

He is also the 1st Pope in 60 years -- aside from the brief, tragic John Paul I -- who did not deliver a Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium. Paul VI did so in 1965, John Paul II in 1979, and Benedict XVI in 2008. Each time, the New York branch of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization in America, donated a plaque commemorating the event, to hang in Monument Park. Each of these plaques was moved from the old Stadium to the new one in 2009. While Francis did visit America, he did not deliver a Mass at the new Yankee Stadium.

He acted as if a Pope wasn't just supposed to speak about Christian ideals, he was supposed to carry them out, as best he can. He had been ill lately, hospitalized with bronchitis and pneumonia. He was released in time for Easter, the holiest day on the Christian calendar. I love the way he went out: Spending one last Easter with his people, and, through the surrogate JD Vance, telling Donald Trump off.

April 19, 1995: The Oklahoma City Bombing

April 19, 1995, 30 years ago: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is destroyed by a car bomb, resulting in the deaths of 168 people. (The building was named for a federal judge from Oklahoma.)

The bombing was carried out at 9:02 AM, by Timothy McVeigh, a 27-year-old native of the Buffalo area, who had fallen in with right-wing extremist groups like the Michigan Militia.

He chose the date because it was the anniversary of the start of the American Revolution (by some people's reckoning), the Battle of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. But he had a 2nd reason: April 19 was also the anniversary of the end of the Waco Siege 2 years earlier, when the federal government moved in to arrest David Koresh for his crimes at Waco, Texas. He chose the location because he believed the order had come from the Murrah Federal Building.

The building before, from 1977 to 1995

McVeigh was captured 2 days later. He was convicted in 1997. On June 11, 2001, he became the 1st prisoner executed by the federal government since 1963.

He was assisted in the bombing by Terry Nichols, a 40-year-old Michigan native that he had met while in the U.S. Army. Nicholas was sentenced to life imprisonment at ADX Florence, the "supermax" federal prison in Colorado.

Three months after that, their act was no longer the greatest act of terrorism, or of mass murder, perpetrated in America. But it remains the greatest act of domestic terrorism.

And the perpetrators weren't black, or Hispanic, or Asian, or Arab: They were white. They weren't immigrants: They were native-born. They weren't Muslim: They identified as Christian. And they weren't Spanish speakers, or Arabic speakers: They spoke only English.

April 19, 1945: "Carousel" Premieres On Broadway

April 19, 1945, 80 years ago: The musical Carousel premieres at the Majestic Theatre, 245 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, just off Broadway. It was based on Liliom, a play by Hungarian author Ferenc Molnár.

The music was written by Richard Rodgers, who later called it his favorite among all his musicals. Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book and the lyrics.

The story begins in 1873, in a seaside community in Maine. Billy Bigelow is a carnival barker, and Julie Jordan is a millworker. Billy romances Julie while he's on the clock. Julie appreciates this, but his boss doesn't, and Billy is fired. Julie stays out late with Billy. Billy appreciates this, but her boss, who sees them, and presumes this means she won't be on time to work tomorrow morning, doesn't, and she's fired.

Billy and Julie get married. A month goes by, and Billy is offered a chance to make a lot of money -- in a robbery. He's not sure he should do it. Julie tells him she's pregnant. Now, he knows he needs the money, and goes in on the robbery. It goes sideways, and Billy dies. Julie is comforted by her cousin and best friend Nettie Fowler, leading to the musical's most familiar song, "You'll Never Walk Alone."

Billy arrives in Heaven, and is told that the good he's done in life is outweighed by the bad. He's told that as long as there's a person alive who remembers him with fondness, he can get into Heaven.

He's taken to the future, to see his now-grown daughter Louise. He makes himself visible to her, telling her not that he's her father, but that he was her father's friend. He offers her a gift: A star that he took from Heaven. She refuses it. He slaps her hand, seemingly ruining his chance at getting back to Heaven. Julie notices the star on the ground, picks it up, and seems to feel Billy's presence.

Invisible, Billy attends Louise's graduation. Dr. Seldon, the town doctor, who resembles the Starkeeper who has been advising Billy "Up There," tells the graduating class that they shouldn't rely on their parents' successes, but also shouldn't be held back by their failures. Still invisible, Billy whispers in Louise's ear, telling her to believe the doctor. Then he whispers to Julie, telling her that he loves her. Both his widow and his daughter join in singing "You'll Never Walk Alone," and Billy is taken to Heaven.

In the original Broadway production, Billy was played by John Raitt, father of rock legend Bonnie Raitt; Julie by Jan Clayton; Louise by Bambi Linn; Nettie by Christine Johnson; and the dual role of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon by Russell Collins.

It was made into a film in 1956. Gordon MacRae played Billy, Shirley Jones played Julie, Susan Luckey played Louise, Claramae Turner played Nettie, and Gene Lockhart played the Starkeeper and the doctor.

"You'll Never Walk Alone" became a standard. Jerry Lewis would use it to close his annual Labor Day telethon for research into muscular dystrophy and related conditions. Elvis Presley made it a mainstay of his live performances from his Las Vegas debut in 1969 until his death in 1977.

In 1963, Liverpool rock band Gerry & The Pacemakers recorded a version that hit Number 1 on the British charts. (It was not released as a single in the U.S.) In the 1960s, at Anfield, the home stadium of Liverpool F.C., games would be preceded by the public address system playing the Top 10 songs in the country. "You'll Never Walk Alone" seemed to stick with the fans, as they began to ask to have it played last every week, even after it began to drop from the charts, just before the team walked onto the pitch. This was done, and Liverpool, managed by Bill Shankly, won the Football League in 1964.

After that, in England, the song was irrevocably tied to the Mersey Reds. After the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989, the words of the song gave hope to a grieving city. The words "YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE" are now cast in iron atop the Shankly Gates leading into Anfield.

Most Liverpool fans don't even realize that the song debuted on Broadway, in New York, in America, during the waning days of World War II.

The Majestic Theatre would later premiere Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific in 1949, and also The Music Man in 1957, Camelot in 1960, A Little Night Music in 1973, and The Wiz in 1975. From 1988 to 2023, it hosted The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway's longest-running musical. Currently, it is hosting a revival of Gypsy.