A couple weeks ago, we celebrated the birth of John Molson, who we agreed founded a company that does what we all know the Molsons of Canada do. Beer. Well, today is the date he died. In 1836. He was quite a guy- he moved from his home in England to Canada, and started brewing beer. Soon, it was the most popular beer in Canada, so he bought a steamship. Then a couple more. Then he sold even more beer. Then he built a very high class hotel. Then he got involved in banking and railroads. Which was a smart move, as Canada didn't have a single railroad. John fixed that problem. And meanwhile, his son took some beer over to England, where it was also a success. So in the end, John was one of the most important industrialists in Canada. Not bad, eh?
1843 lost Francis Scott Key. You know the drill- he was a lawyer, went to the British to negotiate a prisoner exchange, watched the bombs burst in air, the rockets red glare, and all that. His whole family was interesting, sort of. For instance, there's his distant cousin Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, who went by F. Scott. Key's brother in law was Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. Since Taney wrote the Dred Scott Decision, that's not necessarily a great achievement for the family. Nor was the death of his son Philip, who at one point had an affair with the wife of a congressman named Daniel Sickles. Sickles shot Key to death, and then claimed "temporary insanity". It worked! And thus the legal profession gained a new term, since nobody had ever done that before. If you know about Sickles, that won't surprise you, but oh well.
Count Galeazzo Ciano died on this date in 1944. My guess would be that it was due to the firing squad that fired a volley into his chest. He's known mostly because his father in law was Mussolini, who promoted his relative to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Which got him working closely with people like Hitler, and in the end annoyed a lot of Italians. And Germans. And apparently his father in law, since Mussolini was the guy who ordered the shooting. The fact that Ciano had long since been opposed to the War, and had been reassigned as ambassador to the Vatican gives a glimpse into how things were going for him. He voted to remove Mussolini from power, and in the end, Mussolini voted to remove Ciano from the earth. One of those votes turned out to be more effective than the other. In fairness, Ciano had some guts- he and some others were all to be executed at the same time. The orders were to tie them to chairs and shoot them in the back, but Ciano succeeded in getting his chair turned around enough that he died facing his killers. Small victories sometimes matter. By the way, some years later his eldest son wrote a book, with a translated title "When Grandpa had Daddy Shot". I guess we know that his son didn't really forgive Grandpa.
Wally Pipp, baseball player died in 1965. You know him because he was, as the saying goes, "Wally Pipped" by Lou Gehrig. Yes, Pipp was the first baseman for the Yankees, and was benched for a game in June of 1925- either because of a headache, or because he wasn't hitting well. He never played for the Yankees again, as Gehrig of course didn't miss a game for about 15 years. Pipp got clonked in the head in batting practice a few weeks after being benched, and the next year was traded to Cincinnati, where he played about 3-4 years before retiring. What's most interesting is that during his Yankee tenure, he also did some scouting and encouraged the team to sign the young Lou Gehrig. Then Pipp helped teach the lad how to play first base. Apparently he did a good job, since Gehrig is considered to be one of the best first basemen ever. Oh, and Pipp started his career with the Tigers, so he's pretty cool, even though he only played a handful of games with them. But he must have been a Michigander, since he lived in Michigan later in life, and died in Grand Rapids. He also worked after retiring as a writer for a new magazine called Sports Illustrated".
Here's a man that was far more fascinating than I ever knew: RIP Jack Soo, of Barney Miller fame- he was Detective Nick Yemana. He was interred in the camps during WWII, since he was Japanese. He did some singing, and helped entertain his fellow detainees. He was a singer, and in 1965 was signed by a company called Motown, despite not being, shall we say, of their dominant ethnicity. He was the first Motowner to record a song called "For Once In My Life", which he did as a ballad. It was never released, and soon the Label released a different version by some kid called Stevie Wonder. During his entire career, he refused any role that he felt was "demeaning" to Asians. He was cast in Barney Miller, where he was one of the more entertaining cast members. Part of his shtick was to make horrible coffee in the squad room. He died of esophageal cancer in 1979, but not until telling cast mate Hal Linden "It must have been the coffee". Like I said, far more fascinating than I knew.
Speaking of Japanese people in WWII, in 1988 Gregory "Pappy" Boyington died on this date. How does he fit in here? Well, he fought against Japan in the War, and after being captured, he spent the rest of the War in Japan, where he learned to speak the language fluently. Apparently he outsmarted the authorities when he applied for flight training with the military. Married men were not allowed to train, but he discovered while collecting information for the application that his name was not, as he had always thought, Gregory Hallenbeck, but rather Boyington (his mother and birth father had divorced when he was very young, so he had no clue). Since G. Hallenbeck was known to be married, but G. Boyington had no marriage on file... See what I mean? I guess that worked out for all concerned. After becoming a Marine pilot and instructor, he resigned to work for the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company. What did they do? I assure you, they didn't manufacture any aircraft! In fact, it was a front company for what you and I know as The Flying Tigers. So off to China he went. He didn't get along with the commander, Claire Chennault (who was a guy, just to be clear), so he eventually left and returned stateside. Then he managed to get himself back into the Marines as a major. Eventually he got himself command of a fighter squadron, and because he was so incredibly old (31!) he was called "Gramps", which was eventually changed to Pappy. Shortly after getting his 26th victory (for a short time, the highest score for any American pilot ever) he was shot down and captured. His "welcome home" party with men who were former squadron members of the Black Sheep actually was featured in Life Magazine. With people drinking (gasp!) alcohol! After the War, he was involved in pro wrestling at times (he'd wrestled in college). He died, as we saw, in 1988 and was buried in Arlington. The grave next to him (perhaps) is that of Joe Louis, which prompted one of Pappy's friends to say that "Ol' Pappy wouldn't have to go far to find a good fight", which I guess says pretty much everything you really need to know about him. Oh, except that he was Sioux Indian, at least in part.
Remember when we recently noted the death of uber-stud Major Dick Winters? Well today is the anniversary of the death of his friend Lewis Nixon, who died in 1995. His portrayal in Band of Brothers (by Steven Ambrose, whose birthday we celebrated yesterday) was pretty accurate. He liked his alcohol, and it interfered with his job performance. While he did suffer a minor wound, he apparently never once fired a shot in battle- he was a talented intelligence officer, so he served in that job the entire time in Europe. As we know from BoB, he came from wealth, but he was a very talented sailor- not surprising, since the family was in the shipbuilding business. He died of complications from diabetes.
2008 took away Sir Edmund Hillary, who was of course the first man to climb Mount Everest. He was also, according to her account, the inspiration for the naming of Hillary Rodham. Which is odd, since she was born long before he was famous. One could draw a conclusion about Hillary Rodham from that claim, but anyone with a brain could find a lot of other evidence for that conclusion, so you wouldn't need me to point out the obvious. At any rate, Hillary also went to the South Pole (by driving, which is pretty damn cool), and later the North Pole, where he arrived in a small plane piloted by Neil Armstrong. I presume the pair then had a drink with Santa, and then punched out the Abominable Snowman, since Hillary sounds like somebody who could do that, even before Hermie pulled out the monster's teeth. He also seems like a good guy, crediting his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay as having taken the simultaneous first steps on the summit. Norgay later denied that, saying that it was Hillary himself. After they left the summit, they eventually met up with Hillary's old friend George Lowe, who was part of the support team. Hillary greeted him with "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off." Among everything else he did after climbing Everest, he also worked hard to help the Sherpas of Nepal. Quite a character.
And a suitable person to be the last in our daily tribute.
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