On this date in 1324, we lost perhaps the greatest traveler in the history of the world. RIP Marco Polo. He left Venice at age 17 with his father and uncle, who were wealthy merchants, to return with them to Asia to visit Kublai Khan, who the elder Polos had already met. They came back 24 years later, with a metric crap-ton of wealth. Marco was part of a Venetian fleet fighting the Genoese navy not long afterward, and was captured. While in prison, he dictated to a comrade his story of the long trip he'd taken. The story says that, when on his deathbed, he was urged to recant his fabulous lies, but responded something along the lines of "I have not told but a fraction of what I saw". So I guess that was a no.
Nearly 320 years later (I guess it's actually 318) another famous Italian died. This one was named Galileo Galilei. He was supposed to be a doctor, but switched his major to mathematics. And then went on to discover all sorts of cool things. Like planets, and moons, and how two pendulums of different lengths still keep the exact same time, etc.
Quick, what was the most amazing pitching performance in the history of baseball? I'm talking a single game, and not a season or career. Well, I'd go with the May 26, 1959 performance of Pittsburgh pitcher Harvey Haddix. He had a perfect game for 12 innings. That's not over the course of a couple games, that's a single one. Alas, his team couldn't score either, obviously. The leadoff batter in the 13th got aboard on an error. He then intentionally walked Hank Aaron. Then Joe Adcock hit what seemed to be a home run. Alas, Aaron went out of the baseline, Adcock passed him and the game thus ended with a score of 1-0. (Then the hit was changed to a double. No idea why, but really it doesn't matter). A fraternity in Texas wrote him an- ahem- congratulatory letter which said "Dear Harvey, Tough shit." Haddix said later that he was initially angry, but then realized that was an accurate assessment. At any rate, he still holds the record for most consecutive batters retired in a single game, with 36- a record that I'm fairly confident will never be broken. Oh, and he died on this date in 1994.
And then we have the 2002 death of Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. He named the chain after his daughter, after talking to his other kids, of course. Wendy herself is still kicking around, and owns a bunch of her namesake restaurants. But did you know that Dave Thomas played a crucial role in another fast food chain? He got involved in the mid-1950s with the owner of a chain of chicken restaurants. He then worked quite closely with the CEO of the company, Harland Sanders- aka Colonel Sanders. The chicken bucket? Dave Thomas thought it up. The sign with the revolving striped chicken bucket? Yup. Colonel Sanders appearing in his own commercials? Do I have to say it? In the 1990s, he was in every single Wendy's commercial made. He was recognized by about 90% of all Americans, according to one survey. That's not bad.
And finally, we come to the death in 2007 of the one and only Yvonne De Carlo. She was the wife of Moses in The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, but who really cares? After all, she was also Lily Munster, and that's all that really matters. She was a native of Canada, and was deported a couple times for immigration issues. Guess she should have just sneaked across and had a kid- she'd have been okay then. Alas, she did it the hard way- she had one of her US employers sponsor her and promise to give her a job. There's an odd concept, eh? She got her start as a dancer, and moved up in the world from there. Oh, and she was apparently a terrific singer too, with an opera background. Way cooler than I ever thought.
So that's that.
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