On September 24, 1960, the USS Enterprise, the US Navy's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is launched at Newport News, VA. Originally intended as the lead ship in a 6-vessel class, the Enterprise would become a class of one when its proposed sister ships are eliminated by budget cuts. Though the subsequent Nimitz and Gerald Ford classes of aircraft carriers were greater tonnage, the Enterprise remains at 1,123 feet the longest vessel ever built for the Navy. In 1964, she sailed around the world in 2 months, the first ship to circumnavigate the globe without refueling. She served through 25 deployments and sailed an estimated 1 million nautical miles in her lifetime. The Big E would serve for 51 years, being decommissioned in 2017. Only the sailing vessel USS Constitution and the research ship USS Pueblo, which was captured by the North Koreans in the '50s, have been on the Navy's active rolls longer. The carrier was the 8th US Navy vessel named Enterprise; the next Gerald Ford-class carrier, expected to begin construction early next year, will be the 9th.
On September 27, 1777, the city of Lancaster, PA is capitol city of the US. The Continental Congress was forced to evacuate Philadelphia ahead of British troops and convened in the city's courthouse before moving further northwest to York, PA the following day. The courthouse that served as the US Capitol for one day burned down in 1784 and was rebuilt at another site. A Soldiers and Sailors Memorial (below) was erected on the site in 1874. On September 27, 1903, the Fast Mail, the Southern Railway's mail train, careens off a bridge near Danville, VA, killing 11 and injuring 7. Also known as the Old 97 for its locomotive number, the Fast Mail had a reputation for never being late, but was behind schedule on this day. Its estimated that engineer Steve Broady was running better than 50 miles per hour when the train wrecked. The disaster inspired a country folk ballad, "The Wreck of the Old 97", which sparked a copyright dispute over authorship claims, and which - to my knowledge - the Blues Brothers never learned to play. On September 27, 1941, the SS Patrick Henry (below) is launched at Bethlehem Shipbuilding in Baltimore. The Henry is the first Liberty ship, a class of inexpensive cargo ship intended to meet the anticipated high demand for military cargo to be delivered to Europe. It is the most widely-constructed ship design in nautical history. Adapted from a British design, American shipyards built more than 2,700 Liberty ships from 1941-45, an average of one launched every two days. Built in assembly line fashion, a new Liberty ship at the height of the war could be constructed - from laying of the keel to launch - in 42 days. Four Liberty ships remain to this day, preserved as monuments; the Patrick Henry survived the war and was scrapped in 1958.
On September 28, 1965, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro announces he will allow Cuban citizens to leave the island nation. The borders had been closed since Castro's military coup six years earlier. Over the next eight years, ten commercial flights a week depart Havana, bound for Miami. An estimated 300,000 make the one-way trip, some waiting years for a flight. While the move allowed Castro to rid himself of thousands of dissidents still loyal to former President Fulgencio Batista, it also cost the nation some of its best and brightest young minds. On September 28, 1924, a pair of single-engine Douglas World Cruisers, each with a pair of Army Air Service pilots aboard, land in Seattle, WA to complete the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. A four-plane formation had departed nearby Sand Point on April 6, flying west to east. One plane was lost within days, crashing in Alaska. A second made it as far as Iceland before dropping out with mechanical difficulties. In horrible weather, the flight crossed paths with a British team attempting an east-to-west circumnavigation. Visual contact was impossible in the weather, but the British team reported hearing their American counterparts. The American team would end up flying more than 25,000 miles, mostly north of the Tropic of Cancer. The journey took 337 flying hours over 175 days; each aircraft had its engine changed five times and the wings changed once en route. One of the aircraft (below) is now in the Smithsonian, the second is in a flight museum in Santa Monica, CA. Airmen Lowell Smith, Leslie P. Arnold, Erik H. Nelson and John Harding Jr. were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. The British effort ended in early August when they were forced to ditch in the Bering Sea with mechanical problems . On September 28, 1920, eight members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team are indicted by a Chicago grand jury on charges of colluding with gamblers to "fix" the 1919 World Series. The White Sox were heavily favored to win the Series over the Cincinnati Reds, but a syndicate of gamblers led by Arnold Rothstein suspected members of the team, who were vocal in their dislike for team owner Charles Comiskey and his miserly ways, would be open to throwing the series. (Ironically, the White Sox had MLB's highest payroll for the '19 season.) A meeting of players and gamblers took place at a New York hotel on Sept. 21, and over the next three weeks, the Sox lost the Series 5 games to 3. Pitchers Eddie Cicotte and "Lefty" Williams, infielders Fred McMullin, "Swede" Risberg, Arnold "Chick" Gandil and George "Buck" Weaver, and outfielders "Happy" Felsch and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (below), were eventually acquitted, but Commissioner of Baseball Kennesaw Mountain Landis, appointed in response to the scandal, banned the eight "Black Sox" from baseball. It was known during the trial that Weaver never took money from the gamblers, and Jackson's performance in the series (he hit .375 and never committed an error in 30 chances) has always left his role in the conspiracy up for debate, but they were included in the ban by Landis for their knowledge of the scandal. Little known fact: St. Louis Browns infielder Joe Gedeon was also banned along with the Black Sox, after it was revealed he learned of the fix in advance and placed bets on the Reds in response.
You so funny Shane. You accuse me of having TDS but you bring it to every conversation. Do you talk about Trump when you’re having sex?
