AUGUST 5 – 1981 Reagan dismantles PATCO; 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay; 16914 1st Traffic light installed; 1969 Patrick Stargill knocks ball out of poark/2011 A-Rod suspended for 211 games; 1956 Happy Birthday Maureen McCormick, Brady Bunch; 19625 Happy Birthday Patrick Ewing, NY Knicks, Olympic winner; 2184 Happy Birthday Christine Chapel, Star Trek
AUGUST 5
1981 – The dismantling of PATCO begins.
The Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization, founded in 1968, was declared a trade union by the US Civil Service Commission. On August 3, 1981, nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike after negotiations with the federal government to raise their pay, even though they were making middle-class level pay without needing to go to college, and shorten their workweek down to 32 hours didn’t work. Surely President Ronald Reagan, whom the union backed during his campaign election, could be bought, right? Not the Gipper. The strike was illegal according to Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. He told them to get back to work. When they didn’t, Reagan fired 11,359 air traffic controllers. Robert Poll, president of PATCO was found in contempt by a federal judge and ordered to pay $1,000 a day in fines. Reagan also put a lifetime ban on the rehiring of the controllers by the FAA. It took about ten y ears to fill all those jobs back again. My fiends, forcefully cutting government fat, standing up to union mobs, and not selling out to campaign contributors, Ronald Reagan. Like a boss!
1864 – Battle of Mobile Bay. You know, when I was 13 years old I bought a record by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers called Damn the Torpedoes. It’s still one of my all time favorites. But getting back to the battle. On the Navy side, RADM David G. Farragut V Confederate ADM Franklin Buchanan. The result was a Union victory. In fact, such a big victory for the North that it probably got Abraham Lincoln reelected for President. I’ll get to that in a minute.
After the fall of New Orleans, Mobil Bay was one of the few Confederate ports available in the Gulf of Mexico, and Union gen. Ulysses Grant wanted it.
David Farragut joined the Union navy when he was 9 years old. I covered this the other day when I discussed David Farragut’s half-brother, David Dixon Porter. Remember that? Now Farragut, with four ironclads, 12 wooden bots and a couple gunboats, faced the Tennessee., mightiest ironclad in the sea, along with a few warships, plus batteries at Fts Morgan and Gaines. The gunfire was brutal, but Farragut’s fleet ran up the ships past Morgan, with the ironclads protecting the wooden gunships.
Then came an entire Confederate minefield of torpedoes. One of the ironclads, the Tecumseh, sank almost immediately. Torpedoes?! Damn the torpedoes, Farragut would say, according to legend. Full speed ahead! Franklin Buchanan, the only admiral in the Confederate Navy, led the hulkster Tennessee to intercept, and though the Confederate navy had lost most of its ships to Farragut, the Tennessee held in there, going up against the entire Yankee fleet. But in the end the Tennessee would succumb to Union gunfire and surrender, along with the forts in the Bay.
And with that, along with the Union victory in Atlanta, helped to get Abraham Lincoln reelected as President.
1914 – First electric traffic signal installed. It was on the corner East 105th St. and Euclid in Cleveland, OH. Incidentally the first gas ran light was in London, England in 1868, however it exploded and killed or injured the policeman controlling it. Lester Wire, an American law enforcement officer, is credited for making the first electric light, went from red to green, and instead of yellow it had an audio buzzer that would warn folks when the light would change colors. More were installed on Broadway in Los Angeles in 1920, and in Salt Lake City the first interconnected signal was installed in 1917. As Christopher Finch writes in his “Highways to Heaven: The AUTO Biography of America” (1992), the first traffic island was put into use in San Francisco, California in 1907; left-hand drive became standard in American cars in 1908; the first center painted dividing line appeared in 1911, in Michigan; and the first “No Left Turn” sign would debut in Buffalo, New York, in 1916.
1969 – Pirate Willie Stargell literally knocks one out of the ballpark out of Dodger Stadium. Literally.
2013 – Yankee A-Rod is banned for 211 games for substance abuse.
1956 – Happy birthday Maureen McCormick. She played Marcia Brady on the Brady Bunch.
1962 – Happy birthday New York Knick and Olympic gold winner Patrick Ewing.
2184 – Christine Lauren Chapel, from Davenport Vermont is born (Star Trek)