Norm Van Brocklin hands off to Billy Ray Barnes,
1960 NFL Championship Game, Franklin Field, Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Eagles are the reigning Champions of the National Football League.
Until late last night, that statement could never have been made in a blog, or on any platform on the Internet, or on ESPN, or even on color television.
Their victory in Super Bowl LII not only made the New England Patriots lose (always a good thing), but it made one of the most hapless franchises in North American sports World Champions.
Well, sort of. Zach Ertz, an Eagles tight end, is married to Julie Ertz, who, as Julie Johnston, played for the U.S. team that won the Women's World Cup in 2015. That's a real "world championship." But I digress.
From Scranton in the north to Rehoboth Beach in the south, from Atlantic City in the east to Harrisburg in the west, people in the Philadelphia metropolitan area have waited a long time for this.
The last time the Eagles won an NFL Championship -- Super Bowl -VI, if you prefer -- it was against the Green Bay Packers, at the start of their run of glory under head coach and general manager Vince Lombardi. It was December 26, 1960, at the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field, a 17-13 win.
Taylor, as the clock runs out: "Get off me, you son of a bitch!"
Bednarik, seeing that the clock now has run out: "You can get up now, you son of a bitch, this fucking game is over!"
When you're Concrete Charley, you can smoke
a cigarette and a victory cigar at the same time,
and nobody will say a word about it.
After that, the Eagles had one misfortune after another. A 2nd-place finish in 1966, right before the expansion of the NFL Playoffs. The team's collapse right after that. A decade of mediocrity until coach Dick Vermeil rebuilt them. The loss in Super Bowl XV in 1981. Vermeil's "burnout."
Buddy Ryan having the greatest offensive weapon in football in Randall Cunningham, and not knowing what to do with him. Rich Kotite having the best defense in the NFL in 1991, and Cunningham gets lost for the season in the 1st game. The death of Jerome Brown. Losing 3 straight NFC Championship Games, including 2 at home. The loss in Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. The Terrell Owens saga. Losing the 2008 NFC Championship Game.
And that doesn't even include the perception of Eagles fans: Booers of Santa Claus, people who hate the Dallas Cowboys more than they love their own team, people who will accept a loss if it means their boys knocked an opposing star out of the game, being so delinquent that a police precinct, complete with a jail cell and a courtroom with a working judge, had to be set up in the basement of Veterans Stadium.
Finally, just when it looked like they might actually do it this season, they lost starting quarterback Carson Wentz to a season-ending injury, forcing them to turn to Nick Foles -- who only turned out to be the MVP of the championship game, something no Eagle had ever been. (No one had thought to establish a corresponding award by 1960.)
This time, 57 years of bad luck evened out in 1 season. The Eagles even blew a 12-point lead in the Super Bowl, something that had happened only once before (and that, just the year before, by the Atlanta Falcons, also against the Patriots), and Tom Brady passed for more yards than any quarterback in the history of NFL Championship Games under any name, and they didn't force the Patriots to punt once in 60 minutes. More total yards, both teams combined, than in any game in the NFL's 98-season history. All in full contradiction of a team that's historically been known far more for its defense than for its offense.
And they won the game anyway. With an offense that showed a Philadelphian character, with Ben Franklin inventiveness and Rocky Balboa toughness. Julius Erving flair and Moses Malone grit. Ryan Howard strength and Tug McGraw courage. Penn Quakers intelligence and Temple Owls tenacity. They allowed more points than any winning team had ever allowed in a Super Bowl, and still won the game.
Eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Northern Delaware, the whole Delaware Valley, they had waited so long for this.
Fifty-seven years, one month and 9 days. December 26, 1960 to February 4, 2018. Almost five-eighths of a century. How long has that been?
*
The Eagles were playing at Franklin Field. Veterans Stadium has since been built, and demolished. So has the Spectrum. The Phillies were still playing at Connie Mack Stadium, formerly known as Shibe Park, at 21st & Lehigh. That stadium has also been demolished, as have the Philadelphia Arena (at 46th & Market, across from the Channel 6 studios), the Philadelphia Civic Center (a couple of blocks from Franklin Field), Temple Stadium and the Cherry Hill Arena.
Yet Franklin Field, built in 1922, still stands, still used by the University of Pennsylvania as their football stadium and the site of the Penn Relays, America's greatest track meet. The Palestra, built next door in 1927, still hosts games as "The Cathedral of College Basketball."
Franklin Field, with the Philly skyline in the background
There was no NHL team in Philadelphia, and their NBA team was the Warriors, who moved to San Francisco a year and a half later (and then moved across the Bay in 1971, to Oakland, to play as the Golden State Warriors). The Syracuse Nationals moved to Philadelphia in 1963 to become the 76ers, and split their home games between the Civic Center's Convention Hall and the Arena.
A month before the Eagles' title, Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors collected 55 rebounds in a single game, still an NBA record, despite the opposing center being Bill Russell of the defending champion Boston Celtics. The Celtics won the game, and that season's title, anyway. The Chicago Blackhawks were about to end the Montreal Canadiens' run of 5 straight Stanley Cups – and it took them a significant drought of their own, 49 years, to win another.
The Pittsburgh Pirates had won the World Series on the Game 7 walkoff home run by Bill Mazeroski. Real Madrid had recently won their 5th straight European Cup -- and, again, both Real Madrid and the Philadelphia Eagles are champions. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Floyd Patterson. becoming the 1st former heavyweight champion of the world to regain the title, knocking out Ingemar Johansson at the Polo Grounds, as Ingo had gained it a year earlier by knocking Floyd out at Yankee Stadium.
The University of Minnesota was about to win the National Championship of college football, which it had done several times (depending on whose polls you believe), but has never done it again. Ohio State beat the University of California, the defending National Champions, with Darrall Imhoff, to win it in basketball. That Ohio State team had 3 future Basketball Hall-of-Famers. Two would get in as players: Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. The other, never even a starter on the Buckeyes, would make it to the Hall as a coach: Robert Montgomery Knight.
The NFL had just expanded to Dallas, and there was no reason for a fan of any NFL to say "Dallas sucks": They went 0-11-1, so it was obvious. The NFL was also about to expand to Minnesota. The Cardinals had just left the city of Chicago to the Bears, and moved to St. Louis – where, of course, there was already a baseball named the St. Louis Cardinals.
A ticket from the 1960 NFL Championship Game. Price: $8.00.
In today's money, with inflation? $66. Not that bad.
A ticket for Super Bowl LII, 2018? $5,300.
The American Football League was 6 days away from its 1st championship game, between the Houston Oilers and the Los Angeles Chargers. The Oilers, later to become the Tennessee Titans, won the game, and a few months later, the Chargers moved to San Diego. The AFL's other charter teams were the New York Titans (Jets), the Boston Patriots (New England Patriots), Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, and, the team owned by the league's founder, Lamar Hunt, the Dallas Texans (who became the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963).
And you had to win your division to make the NFL Championship Game. There were no Playoffs, unless there was a tie for first in either of the Divisions – as had happened in the East in 1958, and in the West in 1950 and 1957. In 1963, the Packers went 11-2-1, and the Cleveland Browns went 10-4 – but the Chicago Bears went 11-1-2 and the New York Giants went 11-3, and so they were the teams that played for the NFL title. (The Bears won.)
This is what a Philadelphia Eagles championship ring looks like.
At least for another few weeks.
The NFL was only 40 years old. Some of its founding fathers were not only still alive, such as Earl "Curly" Lambeau of the Packers (the new stadium that would bear his name was still called City Stadium), but still involved: George Halas with the Bears, Art Rooney with the Pittsburgh Steelers, George Preston Marshall with the Washington Redskins, and Dan Reeves with the Los Angeles Rams – no relation to the teenage boy of the same name, at this point playing high school football, and later to play for the Cowboys and to be head coach of the Broncos, Giants and Atlanta Falcons.
The aforementioned Lambeau Field and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum are the only 2 stadiums used by NFL or AFL teams today that were being used in the 1960 season. The Bears are playing on the same site that they were then, with the same name (Soldier Field). The Cleveland Browns are also playing on the same site that they were then. The Denver Broncos are playing adjacent to their original Mile High Stadium site. But, in each case, it's not the same stadium
The defining football players of my childhood? Roger Staubach had just arrived at the U.S. Naval Academy. Joe Namath was in high school. O.J. Simpson and Mean Joe Greene were in junior high school. Terry Bradshaw and Walter Payton were in grade school. Joe Montana and Earl Campbell were small children. Lawrence Taylor was a few weeks away from his 2nd birthday.
In baseball, there was an American League team in Washington. There was an American League team in Kansas City, but it was the Athletics, formerly of Philadelphia, not the Royals. There was a National League team in Milwaukee, but it wasn't the Brewers. Baseball had only reached the Pacific Coast 3 years earlier. There were no major league teams south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers.
There was a team called the San Diego Padres, but they weren't in the majors. Those cities, and (for the moment) Minneapolis (and St. Paul), and Dallas (and Fort Worth), and Houston, and Atlanta, and Miami, and Tampa (and St. Petersburg), and Toronto, and Denver, and Phoenix, and Seattle were all then minor-league cities, though most were at least Triple-A. (Oakland had lost its Triple-A team in 1955, before the Dodgers and Giants moved west.) The Yankees were alone in New York, as the Dodgers and Giants had moved out in September 1957, and the Mets wouldn't arrive until April 1962.
All but 1 of the 16 teams then in MLB (the Chicago Cubs) were playing in stadiums with permanent lights, but there were no artificial turf fields, and no domes (retractable or otherwise).
New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Washington and, for the moment, Los Angeles all had their NFL teams groundsharing with baseball teams. If you count the AFL, add their Los Angeles team, Buffalo and Denver -- the latter 2 sharing with minor-league teams.
This was in spite of the fact that, in Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Washington, there were nearby college football stadiums that were larger, something the Eagles took advantage of for the 1958 season. The Titans, who became the Jets in 1963, would end up sharing the Polo Grounds with the Mets in 1962 and '63, before sharing Shea Stadium with them from 1964 to 1983.
Baseball had no designated hitter, and no regular season interleague play. And no divisional play or Playoffs, just the World Series: If you won over 100 games and another team won more, you were out of luck.
There was still 1 pro football team not yet racially integrated: With the name of the team providing some irony, it was the Washington Redskins. Owner Marshall said, "We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites."
It may have been that Marshall wasn't racist (or not just that he was racist), but also concerned about his bottom line: The Redskins had a huge radio network, taking advantage of their status as (until the Cowboys came in) the NFL's Southernmost team, and he was afraid of those stations dropping his broadcasts.
Stewart Udall, soon to be named U.S. Secretary of the Interior, would have jurisdiction over the new stadium being built next to the D.C. Armory. He would tell Marshall to integrate his team, or build your own stadium on your own dime, or be stuck at the 27,410-seat Griffith Stadium.
Marshall caved: He allowed the Redskins to draft the 1st black Heisman Trophy winner, Ernie Davis of Syracuse. But Davis said, "I won't play for that son of a bitch." The 'Skins traded Davis to the Cleveland Browns for Bobby Mitchell. Davis developed leukemia, and died without playing a down; Mitchell, already an All-Pro in Cleveland, became a Hall-of-Famer in Washington.
The new head coach of the Giants, Pat Shurmur, had not yet been born. Nor had Todd Bowles of the Jets, Aaron Boone of the Yankees, Mickey Callaway of the Mets, Jeff Hornacek of the Knicks, Kenny Atkinson of the Nets, Doug Weight of the Islanders or John Hynes of the Devils. The oldest current New York Tri-State Area head coach, Alain Vigneault of the Rangers, wouldn't be born for another 5 months.
The Olympics had recently been held in Rome, its biggest American heroes being decathlete Rafer Johnson, triple Gold Medalist Wilma Rudolph, and boxer Cassius Clay, the future Muhammad Ali. The Olympics have since been held in America 4 times, Canada 3 times, Japan 3 times, France twice, Austria twice, Russia twice, Australia, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Korea, Bosnia, China, Britain and Brazil. Korea has hosted it once, and will do so again starting this weekend. The World Cup has since been held in Germany twice, Mexico twice, America, England, France, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Japan, Korea, South Africa and Brazil.
There were 22 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Voters in the the District of Columbia could not vote in Presidential elections, poll taxes were legal in some States, there was no constitutional means for replacing a Vice President or an incapacitated-but-not-dead President, people between their 18th and 21st birthdays could not vote, and Congresses could raise their salaries effective immediately instead of with the start of the next Congress. Each of these would be changed with a later Amendment.
There had been Civil Rights Acts in 1957 and 1960, but they were mainly toothless. There was no such Act desegregating public accommodations, none doing so for voting, none doing so for housing. There was no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Environmental Protection Agency, no Occupational Safety & Health Administration, no Title IX.
Children in public schools could still be forced to say a Christian, most likely Protestant, prayer. Abortion was illegal in all 50 States except in cases of medical emergency. The idea that 2 people of the same gender could marry each other was ridiculous -- but then, so was the idea that corporations were "people," and entitled to the rights thereof.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his last 3 weeks as President of the United States. That's right: Until last night, the Eagles hadn't been World Champions since the Ike Age. Richard Nixon was his Vice President. Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman, and the widows of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, were still alive. John F. Kennedy had just been elected President, Lyndon Johnson Vice President.
Gerald Ford was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jimmy Carter was farming in Georgia, and thinking about running for the State Senate. Ronald Reagan was still an actor, and still a Democrat, although an increasingly conservative one: He had given speeches denouncing JFK's economic and social plans, saying, falsely and stupidly, "Under the tousled boyish haircut, it is still old Karl Marx."
George Herbert Walker Bush was in the oil business in Texas, and his family included a 14-year-old boy named George, who was a freshman at his father's alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. John McCain was a pilot in the U.S. Navy. Dick Cheney and Joe Biden were in college. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and the aforementioned George W. Bush were in high school. Hillary Rodham, Al Gore and Dan Quayle were in junior high school.
Phil Murphy, newly sworn in as Governor of New Jersey, and Andrew Cuomo, now Governor of New York, were both 3 years old. Mike Pence was 18 months old. Barack Obama, Michelle Robinson (Obama), Melania Knauss (Trump), Sarah Heath (Palin), Paul Ryan and Warren Wilhelm Jr. (Bill de Blasio) had not yet been born.
The Governor of New York was Nelson Rockefeller, having already made his 1st run for President. The Mayor of New York City was Robert Wagner Jr., son of the Senator who wrote the bills that became the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Board -- making him arguably the 2nd-most-important person in FDR's New Deal. The Governor of New Jersey was Robert B. Meyner.
Since I'm talking about the Eagles, I should mention Philadelphia's and Pennsylvania's chief executives. On the day after Christmas, 1960, when the Eagles last won the NFL Championship, Richardson Dilworth was Mayor. James Tate was the President of the City Council, and would succeed Dilworth as Mayor. Frank Rizzo was a police inspector. Bill Green had just moved from St. Joseph's College to Villanova Law School. Wilson Goode was a minor political activist. Ed Rendell was at the University of Pennsylvania, and would himself go on to Villanova Law. John Street was at Conshohocken High School. Michael Nutter was 3. And current Mayor Jim Kenney was 2.
The Governor of Pennsylvania was David Lawrence, a former Mayor of Pittsburgh. Bill Scranton had just been elected to Congress, after serving as an aide to U.S. Secretaries of State John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter. Ray Shafer was in the State Senate. Milton Shapp was in the electronics business, and would soon serve in the Kennedy Administration. Dick Thornburgh and Bob Casey Sr. were practicing law. Tom Ridge was in high school. Mark Schweiker, Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf were in elementary school.
Alaska had recently become the 49th State, and Hawaii the 50th. There had been Civil Rights Acts in 1957 and 1960, but not yet that of 1964, no Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Fair Housing Act, Title IX or legalized abortion.
The Supreme Court of the United States was about as good as it's ever been: The Justices were Earl Warren (Chief), Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, John Harlan, Tom C. Clark, Charles Whittaker, Potter Stewart and William J. Brennan, who was the last remainder of these, serving until 1990. The youngest current Justice, Elena Kagan, was 8 months old. Three weeks before the game in question, the Court had ruled that racial segregation on public transportation anywhere in the country was unconstitutional.
Canada's Prime Minister was Louis St. Laurent. Elizabeth II was Queen of England -- that still hasn't changed -- but she was just 34 years old. The English Football League was won by Burnley – which has barely been in the 1st division (under any name) since. The FA Cup was won by Wolverhampton Wanderers. Tottenham Hotspur, of Middlesex, a suburb of London – not until 1965 would the city's boundaries be redrawn to put "Spurs" actually in London – was in the season that would see them win "The Double": Both the League and the FA Cup. They have not won the League (or its successor, the Premier League) since. That means that, until last night, even Spurs had won a league championship since the Philadelphia Eagles. The Soviet Union won the European Championship.
The Archbishop of Canterbury – not "the wanky Tottenham Hotspur" – went to Rome to see the Pope. The Most Rev. Geoffrey Francis Fisher met with Pope John XXIII in the 1st-ever meeting between a head of the Church of England and a head of the Church of Rome. The current Pope, Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was still at seminary in his native Argentina, and hadn't even been ordained as a priest. There has since been 12 Presidents of the United States, 12 Prime Ministers of Britain and 6 Popes.
Albert Lutuli, then President of the African National Congress and South Africa's foremost current opponent of apartheid, was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the 1st person from outside Europe and the Americas to receive it. (But he wasn't the 1st black person to get it: Ralph Bunche was, 10 years earlier.)
There were still living veterans of America's "Indian Wars," the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and the Mahdist War. There were still living survivors of the sinking of the USS Maine, Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, and the 1903 "Wreck of the Old 97." Raymond P. Kaighn, who played in the 1st basketball game in 1891, was still alive.
Major novels of 1960 included Ian Fleming's James Bond story For Your Eyes Only (there had not yet been any Bond films), Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, John Updike's Rabbit, Run, and Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham.
Michael Crichton was a freshman at Harvard University. Tom Clancy, Stephen King and George R.R. Martin were in junior high school. John Grisham was 5 years old. J.K. Rowling hadn't been born yet. No one had yet heard of Jean Brodie, Alex Portnoy, George Smiley, T.S. Garp, Hannibal Lecter, Celie Harris or Bridget Jones.
New non-fiction included Joy Adamson's Born Free, John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me, William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and, for the first time in English, Elie Wiesel's 1958 Holocaust memoir Night.
(Don't forget: The Texans were invaders and slaveholders. So not only the Mexicans were the good guys there in real life, but the Texans were the things that modern-day Texans say they hate the most: Illegal immigrants and criminals.)
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were in high school. There hadn't been a live-action Batman since Robert Lowery in 1949, and with the previous year's death of George Reeves, Superman was in an interregnum as well. DC Comics was in the process of its "Silver Age" reboot, which included the recent debut of the Justice League of America. But the Marvel Comics revolution hadn't happened yet, so there was no Spider-Man, no Hulk, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Daredevil, no Fantastic Four, no Avengers, no X-Men.
Television shows that debuted in 1960 included Danger Man (a British spy series known as Secret Agent when it later aired in the U.S.), My Three Sons, The Flintstones, The Andy Griffith Show, Route 66, and the British soap opera Coronation Street. Oh yeah, and the 1st Presidential debates. As President Bill Clinton would say many years later, "People who saw the debates on TV said Kennedy won, while people who listened to the debates on radio said, 'When am I gonna get a TV?'" Gene Roddenberry was writing for TV, mostly Westerns including Have Gun - Will Travel, and, based on his experience with the Los Angeles Police Department, crime dramas like Highway Patrol.
Jack Paar, upset at his monologue being edited, walked off the set of The Tonight Show – for a month. When he left, he said, "There's got to be a better way to make a living." When he returned, having gotten an apology from the suits at NBC, he said, "As I was saying, before I was interrupted..." The studio audience's laughter was so hard and long, he never finished the sentence. Two years later, he'd had enough, and Johnny Carson became Tonight Show host.
Sinatra and Presley, once on opposing sides of the popular music divide, had forged a truce, and had appeared together on a TV special. Elvis had the current Number 1 song in America, a cover of a 1926 country song, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Roy Orbison had just tasted his 1st pop success after a few country hits. The country's biggest female vocalists were Brenda Lee and Connie Francis.
Doo-wop was big, with Dion and Ben E. King, having just gone solo and The Drifters having just replaced King as lead singer with Rudy Lewis. Miles Davis was Miles Ahead when it came to ruling the roost in jazz, but John Coltrane had already taken Giant Steps to stake his own claim.
The world had yet to meet Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Art Garfunel, the 4 young men who would make up the Beatles, the 5 young men who would make up the Beach Boys, or the 5 young men who would make up the Rolling Stones. But despite being teenagers, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were already making money as session guitarists.
Berry Gordy had just founded Motown Records, and The Miracles, led by William "Smokey" Robinson, had just given the company its 1st big hit, "Shop Around." But few people outside Detroit had yet heard of Marvin Gaye, or the people who would sing with The Supremes, The Temptations, or The Four Tops.
Jimi Hendrix was a teenage car thief in Seattle. Janis Joplin had just entered college in Beaumont, Texas. Jim Morrison had just entered junior college in Florida. Barry Gibb had just entered high school in Brisbane, Australia. Rod Stewart had just dropped out of high school in North London.
Elton John was 13 years old. Robert Plant was 12. Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were 11. Jeffrey Hyman (Joey Ramone) was 9. John Mellor (Joe Strummer) was 8. John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) was 4. Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince were 2. Michel Stipe was 11 months old, Paul Hewson (Bono) 7 months.
My father had just entered the Newark College of Engineering (NCE), since absorbed into the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and had shaken JFK's hand when he went campaigning up Broad Street in downtown. Right about at that spot, in Newark's Military Park, is a high column with a bust of JFK atop it. My mother had just entered Belleville High School. Neither of them would ever have much use for any of the musical personalities I just mentioned: They both preferred classical music and folk music.
Inflation has been such that what $1.00 would buy then, $8.27 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp was 4 cents. A subway ride in New York was 15 cents, and in Philadelphia 25 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 31 cents, a cup of coffee 10 cents, a McDonald's meal 45 cents (and that's a cheeseburger, fries and a shake, since the Big Mac wasn't introduced until 1968), a movie ticket 75 cents, a new car $2,600, and a new house $16,500. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had closed at 613.23, 2 days before Christmas.
Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."
Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."
The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. The longest suspension bridge was the Golden Gate in San Francisco. There were telephones in some cars, but no "mobile phones" like we now understand that term. Hardly anybody in America had color TV sets. Computers still took up entire walls in office buildings. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee were 5 years old.
In the waning weeks of 1960, the Congo became independent of Belgium, and Mauritania became independent of France. France's President, Charles de Gaulle, visited Algeria, torn apart by its own war of independence from France, and 127 people died in riots. A military coup, trying to take advantage of Emperor Haile Selassie being overseas, was foiled in Ethiopia.
Credit cards were still a relatively new thing, and there were no automatic
teller machines in America. There were artificial kidneys, but no artificial hearts. Transplanting a kidney
was possible, but not a heart, lung or liver. The birth-control pill had just hit the market, and Viagra may not even have been an idea yet. Satellites, including some with live animals, had been put into in orbit; but,
as yet, no people.
In the waning weeks of 1960, the Congo became independent of Belgium, and Mauritania became independent of France. France's President, Charles de Gaulle, visited Algeria, torn apart by its own war of independence from France, and 127 people died in riots. A military coup, trying to take advantage of Emperor Haile Selassie being overseas, was foiled in Ethiopia.
In America, a United Airlines DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Constellation collided in midair over Staten Island, killing all 128 people on the planes and 6 more on the ground. The aircraft carrier USS Constellation, under construction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, caught fire, killing 50 people, and delaying commission of the ship by 7 months. And Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover – finally allowing it to be published in Britain and America, 32 years after it was first published in Italy.
Keystone Kops director Mack Sennett, matinee idol Clark Gable, and Native Son author Richard Wright died. Diego Maradona, Gary Lineker, Maryam d'Abo (herself a pretty good soccer player), Kenneth Branagh, and John F. Kennedy Jr. – and his future, though brief, girlfriend, Daryl Hannah – were born.
December 26, 1960. The Philadelphia Eagles were World Champions. It has finally happened again.
As the late, great Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas would have said, "And let the city celebrate!"
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