Timeline New York State
Return to home
ALH: http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/
Facts & Links: http://www.50states.com/newyork.htm
Lycos: http://infoplease.lycos.com/ipa/A0108252.html
Newspapers: http://ajr.newslink.org/nynews.html
NYC & NY State Links: http://home.eznet.net/~dminor/links.html
NY State History Net: http://www.NYHistory.com/
NY Timelines Index: http://home.eznet.net/~dminor/NYNY.html
New York State is the largest of the three Middle
Atlantic states and
ranks 30th in size among the 50 states. It measures 49,108 sq mi
(127,190 sq km), of which land takes up 47,377 sq mi (122,707 sq km)
and the remaining 1,731 sq mi (4,483 sq km) consist of inland water.
(www.city-data.com/states/New-York-Location-size-and-extent.html)
The tri-state area around NYC was inhabited by the Lenape Indians
prior
to the arrival of Europeans.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.A20)
The bluebird is the official state bird.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)
Lake Champlain was at one time an inland saltwater sea connected to
the
Atlantic by the St. Lawrence Seaway. The fossilized remains of a
whale
found there is on display in Charlotte, Vermont.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1 p.8)
Buffalo started out as Buffalo Creek and came from the French "beau
fleuve" meaning beautiful river.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1609 Sep 3-4,
Henry Hudson discovered the island of Manhattan. The exact date is
not known.
(MC, 9/3/01)(www.hudsonriver.com)
1609 Sep 12, English
explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.
Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India Company in search of the
Northwest Passage, a water route linking the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, when he sailed up the present-day Hudson River.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 7/23/00)
1640 The towns of Southampton
and East Hampton, NY, were founded. (In 2004 Steven Petrow authored
“The Lost Hamptons.”
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.M2)
1642 Feb 25, Dutch settlers
slaughtered lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherland, North
America, who sought refuge from Mohawk attackers.
(HN, 2/25/99)
1645 Aug 30, Dutch &
Indians signed peace treaty in New Amsterdam (NY).
(MC, 8/30/01)
1647 May 11, Peter Stuyvesant
(37) arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor. The one-legged
professional soldier was sent from the Netherlands to head the Dutch
trading colony at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Stuyvesant
lost a leg in a minor skirmish in the Caribbean in 1644.
(AP, 5/11/97)(ON, 4/00, p.1)(AH, 10/04, p.74)
1655 Aug 28, New Amsterdam
& Peter Stuyvesant barred Jews from military service.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1665 Jun 12, England installed
a municipal government in New York, formerly the Dutch settlement of
New Amsterdam.
(AP, 6/12/97)
1665 The 1st horse racing track
in America was laid out on Long Island.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, Z1 p.3)
1672 Dec 10, Gov. Lovelace
announced monthly mail service between NY and Boston.
(MC, 12/10/01)
1676 Feb, Mohawk Indians
attacked and killed all but 40 Wampanoag Indians under Philip. NY
Gov. Edmund Andros had urged the Mohawks to attack the Wampanoags.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)
1683 Secatogue Indians deeded
land on the South Shore of Long Island to William Nicoll.
(WSJ, 10/9/07, p.D6)
1685 The Old Dutch Church was
built in Tarrytown and later immortalized by Washington Irving.
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)
1686 Jul 22, Albany, New York,
began operating under an official charter.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1686 Two Mohican Indians signed
a mortgage for their land in Schaghticoke with simple markings. It
was notarized by Robert Livingston, whose family became one of the
greatest agricultural landlords and int'l. merchants in the colony
of New York.
(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)
1690 Feb 8, Some 200 French and
Indian troops burned Schenectady, NY, and massacred about 60 people
to avenge Iraquois raids on Canada.
(AH, 2/05, p.17)
1695 Sep 12, NY Jews petitioned
governor Dongan for religious liberties.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1704 May 20, Elias Neau formed
a school for slaves in NY.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1708 Feb 28, A slave revolt in
Newton, Long Island, NY, left 11 dead.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1712 Apr 7, There was a slave
revolt in New York City. A slave insurrection in New York City was
suppressed by the militia and ended with the execution of 21 blacks.
[see Jul 4]
(HN, 4/7/97)(HNQ, 6/10/98)
1712 Jul 4, Twelve slaves were
executed for starting a slave uprising in New York that killed nine
whites. [see Apr 7]
(HN, 7/4/98)(PCh, 1992, p.278)
1720 Sep 12, Frederick Philips
III, NYC, land owner (Bronx, Westchester & Putnam), was born.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1727 Nov 15, NY General
assembly permitted Jews to omit phrase "upon the faith of a
Christian" from abjuration oath.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1731 Aug 7, William Cosby
arrived in New York to assume his post as Governor for the New York
Province.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengeraccount.html)
1733 Nov 5, John Peter Zenger
(b.1697), German-born immigrant, published the 1st issue of the New
York Weekly Journal. Zenger, the partner of William Bradford, had
left the Gazette to form the rival New York Weekly Journal. Attorney
James Alexander hired Zenger in order to publish anonymously his
criticism of NY Governor William Cosby.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R43)(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1734 Oct 22, NY Gov. William
Cosby ordered the hangman and whipper of NY to burn 4 back issues of
the New York Weekly Journal.
(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1734 Nov 17, John Zenger was
arrested for libel against NY colonial governor William Cosby.
Zenger was later acquitted.
(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1736 Mar 10, NY colonial Gov.
William Cosby died. George Clarke became the new governor.
(ON, 11/04,
p.10)(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/chronology.html)
1745 Nov 28-29, French troops
attacked Indians at Saratoga, NY.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1752 Gouverneur Morris
(d.1816), chief writer of the US Constitution (1787), was born in
NY. Morrisania, the family manor, stretched for 1,900 acres from the
Harlem River to Long Island Sound in what later became the Bronx.
(WSJ, 5/28/03, p.D8)
1753 Oct 12, Sir Danvers Osborn
(b.1715), British colonial governor of New York, hanged himself 5
days after arriving in NYC. His wife had recently died and the New
York assembly refused to support him in the style he felt his rank
deserved.
(Econ, 1/12/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_Osborn)
1754 Jun 19, The Albany
Congress opened. New York colonial Gov. George Clinton called for
the meeting to discuss better relations with Indian tribes and
common defensive measures against the French. The attendees included
Indians and representatives from Connecticut, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode
Island. Benjamin Franklin attended and presented his Plan of Union,
which was adopted by the conference. The meeting ended on July 11.
(AH, 2/06,
p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress)
1755 Sep 8, British forces
under William Johnson and 250 Indians defeated the French and their
allied Indians at the Battle of Lake George, NY.
(HN, 9/8/98)(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.G6)
1755 Sep 18, Ft. Ticonderoga
opened in NY.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1757 Aug 9, English Ft. William
Henry, NY, surrendered to French and Indian troops.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1758 Jul 8, During the French
and Indian War a British attack on Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, New
York, was foiled by the French. Some 3,500 Frenchmen defeated the
British army of 15,000, which lost 2,000 men.
(HN, 7/8/98)(AH, 10/02, p.27)
1759 Jul 26, The French
relinquished Fort Carillon in New York, to the British under General
Jeffrey Amherst. The British changed the name to Fort Ticonderoga,
from the Iroquois word Cheonderoga (land between the waters).
(HN, 7/26/98)(AH, 10/02, p.26)
1766 The Beekman Arms of
Rhinebeck began serving beer. In 2000 it was the oldest continuously
operating tavern in the US.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, Z1 p.2)
1775 May 10, Ethan Allen and
his Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress at
Ticonderoga, N.Y.
(AP, 5/10/97) (HN, 5/10/98)
1775-1783
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4171/index.htm
1776 Jul 4, The Continental
Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of
Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John
Hancock--President of the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson,
Congress secretary, without dissent. However, the New York
delegation abstained as directed by the New York Provisional
Congress. On July 9, the New York Congress voted to endorse the
declaration. On July 19, Congress then resolved to have the
"Unanimous Declaration" inscribed on parchment for the signature of
the delegates.
(HNQ, 7/4/98)(AP, 7/4/97)(HN, 7/4/98)
1776 Aug 29, General George
Washington retreated during the night from Long Island to New York
City.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1776 Aug 29, Americans withdrew
from Manhattan to Westchester.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1776 Sep 12, Nathan Hale left
Harlem Heights Camp (127th St) for a spy mission.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1776 Oct 11, C. Randle painted:
"A View of the New England Arm’d Vessels on Valcure Bay on Lake
Champlain." It depicted the fleet of Benedict Arnold just before the
Battle of Valcour Island on this day. The fleet was defeated but it
slowed the British advance from Canada.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A3)
1776 Oct 11, The naval Battle
of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain was fought during the American
Revolution. American forces led by Gen. Benedict Arnold suffered
heavy losses, but managed to stall the British.
(AP, 10/11/07)
1776 Oct 13, Benedict Arnold
was defeated at Lake Champlain by the British, who then retreated to
Canada for the winter. Arnold’s efforts bought the colonists 9
months to consolidate their hold in northern New York. In 2006 James
L. Nelson authored “Benedict Arnold’s Navy.”
(HN, 10/13/98)(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W5)
1776 Oct 28, The Battle of
White Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a
limited British victory. Washington retreated to NJ.
(AP,
10/28/06)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1283.html)
1777 Apr 14, NY adopted a new
constitution as an independent state. Governeur Morris was the chief
writer of the state constitution. [see Apr 20]
(MC, 4/14/02)(WSJ, 5/28/03, p.D8)
1777 Apr 20, New York adopted a
new constitution as an independent state. [see Apr 14]
(MC, 4/20/02)
1777 Jul 6, British forces
under Gen. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga from the Americans.
(AP, 7/6/97)(MC, 7/6/02)
1777 Jul 7, American troops
gave up Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, to the British.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1777 Sep 19, During the
Revolutionary War, American soldiers won the first Battle of
Saratoga, aka Battle of Freeman's Farm (Bemis Heights). American
forces under Gen. Horatio Gates met British troops led by Gen. John
Burgoyne at Saratoga Springs, NY.
(AP,
9/19/97)(www.americanrevolution.com/BattleofSaratoga.htm)
1777 Oct 7, The second Battle
of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. During the battle
General Benedict Arnold was shot in the leg. Another bullet killed
his horse, which fell on Arnold, crushing his leg. The "Boot
Monument" sits close to the spot where Arnold was wounded, and is a
tribute to the general's heroic deeds during that battle. Although
Arnold's accomplishments are described on the monument, it pointedly
avoids naming the man best known for betraying his country. The
British forces, under Gen. John Burgoyne, surrendered 10 days later.
(AP, 10/7/97)(HNQ, 7/20/01)
1777 Oct 7, Simon Fraser,
English general, died in the battle of Saratoga, NY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Simon_Fraser_of_Balnian)
1777 Oct 17, General John
Burgoyne with British forces of 5,000 men surrendered to General
Horatio Gates, commander of the American forces at Schuylerville,
NY. In the fall of 1777, the British commander Gen'l. Burgoyne and
his men were advancing along the Hudson River. After Burgoyne had
retreated to the heights of Saratoga, the Americans stopped
and surrounded them. The surrender was a turning point in the
American Revolution, demonstrating American determination to
gain independence. After the surrender, France sided with the
Americans, and other countries began to get involved and align
themselves against Britain.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)(HNPD,
10/17/99)(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.C10)
1777 George Washington led a
campaign against the British and their Iroquois allies in
Pennsylvania, New York, and the Ohio country. These included the Six
Nations Indians: Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, and
Tuscarora. In 2005 Glenn F. Williams published “The Year of the
Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the Iroquois.
(WSJ, 7/26/05, p.D8)
1778 Jul 8, George Washington
headquartered his Continental Army at West Point.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1778 Aug 31, British killed 17
Stockbridge Indians in Bronx during Revolution.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1778
Nov 11, British redcoats, Tory rangers and Seneca Indians in central
New York state killed more than 40 people in the Cherry Valley
Massacre. A regiment of 800 Tory rangers under Butler (1752-1781)
and 500 Native forces under the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant
(1742-1807), fell upon the settlement, killing 47, including 32
noncombatants, mostly by tomahawk.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Cherry-Valley-Massacre)(AP,
11/11/07)
1778 Federalists won over
anti-Federalists in a crucial New York state ratifying convention
for the Constitution.
(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A18)
1778 In the winter of 1778,
American troops stationed at West Point on the Hudson River
nicknamed the place "Point Purgatory." Now the site of the famous
military academy, during the Revolutionary War West Point was a
strategic highland on the Hudson. Both the British and the Americans
considered it very important for controlling the vital Hudson.
(HNQ, 5/29/00)
1779 Jul 16, American troops
under General Anthony Wayne, aka Mad Anthony Wayne, captured Stony
Point, NY, with a loss to the British of more than 600 killed or
captured.
(HN, 7/16/98)(http://hhr.highlands.com/stpt.htm)
1780 Aug 5, Benedict Arnold
took over the command of West Point from American Major Gen. Robert
Howe.
(ON, 11/01, p.2)
1780 Aug 30, General Benedict
Arnold betrayed the US when he promised secretly to surrender the
fort at West Point to the British army. Arnold whose name has become
synonymous with traitor fled to England after the botched
conspiracy. His co-conspirator, British spy Major John Andre, was
hanged in an act of spite by Washington ("it's good for the
armies").
(MC, 8/30/01)
1780 Sep 21-22, General
Benedict Arnold, American commander of West Point, met with British
spy Major John André to hand over plans of the important
Hudson River fort to the enemy. Unhappy with how General George
Washington treated him and in need of money, Arnold planned to
"sell" West Point for 20,000 pounds--a move that would enable the
British to cut New England off from the rest of the rebellious
colonies. Arnold's treason was exposed when André was
captured by American militiamen who found the incriminating plans in
his stocking. Arnold received a timely warning and was able to
escape to a British ship, but André was hanged as a spy on
October 2, 1780. Condemned for his Revolutionary War actions by both
Americans and British, Arnold lived until 1801.
(HNPD, 9/21/98)
1780 Sep 23, British spy John
Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold's
plot to surrender West Point to the British. Arnold had switched
sides partly because he disapproved of the US French alliance.
(AP, 9/23/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1780 Sep 25, American General
Benedict Arnold joined the British.
(MC, 9/25/01)(ON, 11/01, p.5)
1780 Oct 2, British spy John
Andre was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict
Arnold.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1782 Dec 5, Martin Van Buren,
8th US President (1837-1841) was born in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was the
first chief executive to be born after American independence.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1783 Nov 3, Washington ordered
the Continental Army disbanded from its cantonment at New Windsor,
NY, where it had remained since defeating Cornwallis in 1781.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1784 NY state awarded Thomas
Paine 227 acres in New Rochelle.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.A7)
1784 John Jacob Astor
(1763-1848) arrived in New York in 1784 at age 20 and worked for a
fur merchant. He built up his own fur business and invested in real
estate. "Buy the acre, sell the lot." He married into the Brevoort
family and left $20 million when he died.
(HN, 7/17/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(WSJ, 3/2/00,
p.W10)
1787 Alexander Hamilton
sponsored a New York law that recognized adultery as the only ground
for divorce. It remained in force until 1967.
(WSJ, 8/6/07, p.B1)
1788 Jul 26, New York became
the 11th state to ratify the Constitution.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1790 Oct 28, NY gave up claims
to Vermont for $30,000.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1791 Aaron Burr (1756-1836),
later US vice president (1801-1805), was elected as US Senator from
New York (1791-1797).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Burr)
1792 An edition of the Bible
was first printed in New York.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1794 Nov 11, The Treaty of
Canandaigua was signed at Canandaigua, New York, by fifty sachems
and war chiefs representing the Grand Council of the Six Nations of
the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy (including the Cayuga,
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes), and by
Timothy Pickering, official agent of President George
Washington. The Canandaigua Treaty, a Treaty Between the
United States of America and the Tribes of Indians Called the Six
Nations, was signed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Canandaigua)
1795-1840 New York state and local governments
entered into 26 treaties and several purchase agreements with the
Oneida Indians to acquire all but 32 of 270,000 acres. Almost none
of the transactions were approved by Congress as required by a 1790
law.
(SFC, 1/13/99, p.A9)
1797 Jan 1, Albany became the
capital of New York state, replacing New York City.
(AP, 1/1/98)
1797 Jun 2, 1st ascent of
"Great Mountain" (4,622') in Adirondack, NY, was by C. Broadhead.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1799 Mar 28, NY state abolished
slavery.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1800 Jan 7, Millard Fillmore,
13th US president (1850-1853), was born in Summerhill (Locke), N.Y.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(AP, 1/7/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1801 May 16, William Henry
Seward was born. He was later Gov. of New York, the American
Sec. of State from 1861-1869 under Pres. Lincoln and purchased
Alaska for the United States.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1187)(HN, 5/16/99)(WSJ,
11/20/01, p.A16)
1802 Feb 23, Dewitt Clinton
(1769-1828) began serving as US Senator from New York and continued
to 1803.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton)
1802 Mar 16, The US Congress
authorized the establishment of the US Military Academy at West
Point, N.Y. President Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the
establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
(www.usma.edu/history.asp)(AP, 3/16/97)
1802 Jul 4, The United State
Military Academy opened its doors at West Point, New York, welcoming
the first 10 cadets.
(AP, 7/4/97)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1802 Joseph Ellicott, New York
Quaker surveyor, founded Genessee County and the town of Batavia:
"God made Buffalo, I will try and make Batavia."
(WSJ, 6/28/02, p.W13)
1804 Jul 11, Vice President
Aaron Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton (47), former first
Treasury Secretary, in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. A warrant
for Burr’s arrest was soon issued in New Jersey and New York, where
Hamilton died. In 1999 Richard Brookhiser wrote "Alexander Hamilton:
American." In 2001 Joanne B. Freeman edited his writings and
published: Alexander Hamilton: Writings."
(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)(WSJ, 2/25/99,
p.A16)(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.A17)(ON, 12/08, p6)
1804 Jul 12, Alexander Hamilton
(47), US Sec. of Treasury, died in New York of wounds from a pistol
duel in New Jersey with VP Aaron Burr. In 1920 Frederick Scott
Oliver authored a Hamilton biography. In 2002 Stephen Knott authored
"Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth." In 2004 Ron
Chernow authored the biography "Alexander Hamilton." Lawyer Ambrose
Spencer (1765-1848) said Hamilton “more than any man, did the
thinking of his time.”
(WSJ, 2/4/04, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.M3)(WSJ,
10/20/04, p.D12)
1805 Charles Willson Peale,
American painter began his painting "The Exhumation of the
Mastodon." It was based on an 1881 real exhumation in rural New York
that helped topple biblically inspired beliefs of the history of the
earth.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.E3)
1807 Jan 11, Ezra Cornell,
founder of Western Union Telegraph and Cornell University (NY), was
born in Westchester, NY.
(AP, 1/11/07)
1807 Aug 17, Robert Fulton’s
"North River Steam Boat" (popularly, if erroneously, known to this
day as the Clermont) began heading up New York’s Hudson River on its
successful round-trip to Albany. It was 125 feet (142-feet) long and
20 feet wide with side paddle wheels and a sheet iron boiler. He
averaged 5 mph for the 300-mile round trip.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.F4)(WSJ, 9/21/01, p.A22)(AP,
8/17/07)
1807 Aug 19, Robert Fulton's
North River Steamboat arrived in Albany, two days after leaving New
York.
(AP, 8/19/07)
1807 Aug 21, Robert Fulton's
North River Steamboat set off from Albany on its return trip to New
York, arriving some 30 hours later.
(AP, 8/21/07)
1813 Jul 31, British invaded
Plattsburgh, NY.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1813 Sep 7, The earliest known
printed reference to the United States by the nickname "Uncle Sam"
occurred in the Troy Post.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1813 Nov 16, The British
announced a blockade of Long Island Sound, leaving only the New
England coast open to shipping.
(HN, 11/16/98)
1813 Dec 19, British forces
captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812.
(AP, 12/19/06)
1813 Dec 30, The British burned
Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.
(AP, 12/30/06)
1814 May 5, The British
attacked Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1814 May 11, Americans defeated
the British at Battle of Plattsburgh.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1814 Oct, The name Uncle Sam, a
nickname for the United States, was coined during the War of 1812.
Workers at Samuel Wilson's meat-packing plant in Troy, N.Y., which
supplied provisions to the U.S. Army, joked that the U.S. stamped on
the barrels bound for the troops actually stood for their boss Uncle
Sam Wilson. Army contractor Elbert Anderson, Jr. sought bids to
provide food for the 5,000 soldiers at the Greenbush Cantonment near
Troy, NY. The firm of E. & S. Wilson (Ebenezar and Samuel,
d.1854 at 87) provided many of the rations in oak casks labeled
"E.A.-U.S.," as required by the contract. A quip attributed the
casks to Elbert Anderson and his Uncle Sam. Later government
property in general became referred to as "Uncle Sam's."
(Hem., 7/95, p.89)(WC, Summer '97, p.3)
1815 Nov 12, American
suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in Johnstown, N.Y.
(AP, 11/12/97)
1816 Medical records from
upstate NY showed that a patient paid 25 cents to have a tooth
pulled and $1.25 to have a baby.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, Z1 p.8)
1816 Gouverneur Morris
(b.1752), chief writer of the US Constitution (1787), died at
Morrisania, NY. In 2003 Richard Brookhiser authored "Gentleman
Revolutionary," a biography of Morris.
(WSJ, 5/28/03, p.D8)
1817 Jul 1, Dewitt Clinton
(1769-1828) began serving his first term as governor of New York and
continued to 1822.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton)
1817 Work began on the
Erie Canal, more properly named the New York State Barge Canal. The
canal connected Lake Erie with the Hudson and opened on October 26,
1825. The canal was proposed by NY Gov. Dewitt Clinton and
detractors called it "Clinton's Folly." Workers were paid a quart of
whiskey a day plus $1.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A8)(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet,
12/7/98)(SFEC, 12/27/98, Z1 p.8)(SFEC, 1/31/99, Z1 p.8)
1818 May 27, American reformer
Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who popularized the "bloomers" garment that
bears her name, was born in Homer, N.Y.
(AP, 5/27/99)
1819 May 31, Poet Walt Whitman
was born in West Hill, N.Y.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1819 Oct 22, The 1st ship
passed through Erie Canal (Rome-Utica).
(MC, 10/22/01)
1819 Washington Irving
published "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon," which included "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)
1820 Joseph Smith claimed that
God and Christ appeared to him in Palmyra, NY, and told him not to
join any existing church but to prepare for an important task.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1820 Eliphalet Snedecor rented
land on Long Island, NY, and established a tavern. It became popular
among fisherman and bird shooters.
(WSJ, 10/9/07, p.D6)
1822 Mar 9, The first patent
for false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see Jun 9, 1882]
(HN, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)
1822 Jun 9, Charles Graham
patented false teeth. [see Mar 9, 1822]
(MC, 6/9/02)
1823 Sep 21, The Angel Moroni
1st appeared to Joseph Smith (b.1823), according to Smith (founder
of Mormon Church). Smith in New York claimed that an angel named
Moroni led him to ancient golden plates that revealed the untold
story of America during biblical times.
(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A-1,6)(MC, 9/21/01)
1823 Dec 23, The poem "A Visit
from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore, often called "Twas the night
before Christmas," was published in the Troy, N.Y., Sentinel. Recent
scholarship reveals the original to have been written by Major Henry
Livingston (1748-1828).
(AP, 12/23/97)(AH, 4/01, p.12)(AH, 2/05, p.18)
1824 Mar 2, In the Supreme
Court case of Gibbons v Ogden held that the power to regulate
interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause
of the Constitution. The Court found that New York's licensing
requirement for out-of-state operators was inconsistent with a
congressional act regulating the coasting trade. Gibbons had hired
Cornelius Vanderbilt as captain of his boat, which operated under a
federal license.
(http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595569/gibbons_v_ogden.html)(Econ,
4/18/09, p.90)
1824 Mar 9, Leland Stanford
(d.1863), railroad builder and founder of Stanford University, was
born in what was then Watervliet, New York (later the town of
Colonie).
(HN,
3/9/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford)
1824 Nov 5, Stephen Van
Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School with a letter to Rev.
Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which he asked him to serve as the first
president. The first engineering college in the U.S., Rensselaer
School, opened in Troy, New York, on Jan 3, 1825. It later became
known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute)(WSJ,
6/2/06, p.79)
1825 Jan 1, Dewitt Clinton
(1769-1828) began serving his 2nd term as governor of New York and
continued to 1828.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton)
1825 Oct 26, The Erie Canal was
opened in upstate New York. It cut through 363 miles of wilderness
and measured 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. It had 18 aqueducts and
83 locks and rose 568 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The
first boat on the Erie Canal left Buffalo, N.Y. after eight years of
construction. At the request of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton,
the New York state legislature had provided $7 million to finance
the project. The canal facilitated trade between New York City and
the Midwest--manufactured goods were shipped out of New York and
agricultural products were returned from the Midwest. As the canal
became vital to trade, New York City flourished and settlers rapidly
moved into the Midwest and founded towns like Clinton, Illinois.
[see 1826] Gov. Clinton rode the Seneca Chief canal boat from
Buffalo to New York harbor for the inauguration. In 2004 Peter L.
Bernstein authored “Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the
Making of a Great Nation.” In 2009 Gerard Koeppel authored “Bond of
Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire.”
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.T10)(AP, 10/26/97)(HN,
10/26/98)(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 1/14/05, p.W6)(Econ, 2/28/09,
p.89)
1925 Nov 16, American
Association for Advancement of Atheism was formed in NY.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1825 Nov 26, The first college
social fraternity, the Kappa Alpha Society, was formed at Union
College in Schenectady, N.Y.
(AP, 11/26/97)(HN, 11/26/98)
1825 Sing Sing Prison opened on
the banks of the Hudson River. The name was from the local Sint
Sinct Indian tribe. [see 1901]
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.A1)
1825 Mordecai Noah attempted to
establish a Jewish state called Grand Island near Buffalo. No one
came to the grand opening ceremony. At this time there were about
1000 Jews living in Manhattan.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.E1,8)
1826 The Erie Canal, 387 miles
long and completed in 1826, connected Lake Erie, at Buffalo, to the
Hudson River at Albany, New York. Begun in 1817 through the
determined efforts of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, the canal,
which utilized light packet boats drawn by horses, reduced the
passenger schedule between Buffalo and Albany from the 10 days
required by stage service to three-and-a-half days. The canal
brought many settlers to the Mohawk Valley and formed a great
highway for freight from the Northwest to the seaboard. [see 1825]
(HNQ, 12/29/99)
1826 In Batavia Capt. William
Morgan was kidnapped by brother Masons for divulging fraternity
secrets. His body was never found. His book "Illustrations of
Freemasonry" revealed some Mason secrets. His death inspired
America's 1st third party, the anti-Mason, who dominated western NY
for almost a decade.
(WSJ, 7/25/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/6/02, p.A16)(WSJ,
6/28/02, p.W13)
1827 Jul 4, New York state law
emancipated adult slaves. The laws were rewritten to make sure that
all slaves would eventually be freed.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, BR p.5)(Maggio, 98)(ON, 11/99,
p.5)
1827 Joseph Smith, Mormon
founder, received his tablets on Mount Cumorah near Palmyra, NY.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1828 Feb 11, Dewitt Clinton
(b.1769), American politician and naturalist. He had served as a US
Senator, 2-time governor of New York state and 3-time mayor of NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton)
1828 In Cobleskill, NY, cows
fell into a cave, that was turned into the Secret Caverns tourist
attraction. [see 1842]
(SFC, 7/25/03, p.A2)
1829 May 15, Joseph Smith was
"ordained" by John the Baptist- according to Joseph Smith.
Mormon church was founded in NY.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1829 Oct 17, Sam Patch (~23),
stunt diver, successfully dove 120 feet from a platform on Goat
Island at Niagara Falls.
(MC, 11/13/01)(ON, 4/02, p.6)
1829 Nov 13, Sam Patch (~23),
stunt diver, dove 125 feet from a platform at the Genesee Falls on
Friday the 13th in Rochester, NY. His body was found the following
March in the Genesee River ice. In 2003 Paul E. Johnson authored
"Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper."
(ON, 4/02, p.6)(SSFC, 6/15/03,
p.M6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Patch)
1829 Abner Cutler started a
cabinet making business in Buffalo, New York. The company
manufactured roll-top desks for decades.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.G5)
1830 Apr 6, The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith and five
others in Fayette, Seneca County, N.Y. Joseph Smith published the
"Book of Mormon" in Palmyra, New York. He claimed that the
manuscript was based on ancient golden plates revealed to him by the
angel Moroni and written in the language of the Egyptians. The book
records the journey of an ancient Israelite prophet, Lehi, and his
family to the American continent some 2,000 years ago. [see 1827,
1831]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NH, 10/96, p.19)(AP,
4/6/97)(HN, 4/6/98)
1831 Aug 9, 1st US steam engine
train run was from Albany to Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1834 Feb 26, New York and New
Jersey ratified the 1st US interstate crime compact.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1834 Dec 3, 1st US dental
society was organized in NY.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1834 New York’s Gov. Marcy
warned the state not to enlarge the banking superstructure without
strengthening its foundation.
(Panic, p.17)
1834 New York and New Jersey
made a compact over Ellis Island, then a 3-acre site that held that
the surrounding submerged land belonged to New Jersey. By 1998 the
island was 27.5 acres due to landfill and its ownership was under
contention.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A2)
1835 Nov 23, Henry Burden
invented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. He then
made most of the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War.
Burden patented a Horseshoe manufacturing machine in Troy, NY.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.E3)(MC, 11/23/01)
1836 Aug 25, Bret Harte
(d.1902), American author and journalist, was born in Albany, NY.
"The only sure thing about luck is that it will change." [1839 also
given as a birth date]
(WUD, 1994 p.648)(AP, 4/2/98)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR
p.6)
1837 Dec 29, Canadian
militiamen, claiming self-defense, destroyed the Caroline, a US
steamboat docked at Buffalo, N.Y. It was being used to ferry
supplies to anti-British rebels in Canada.
(AP, 12/29/97)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.25)
1839 Jul 8, John D. Rockefeller
(d.1937), financier, philanthropist, founder of Standard Oil, was
born on a farm in Richford, New York. He moved into the refining end
of the oil business and gobbled up competitors. The 1890 Sherman
Anti-Trust Act forced the breakup of his Standard Oil Co. Ron
Chernow later published "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller."
His philanthropy totaled over $500 million and included the founding
of the Univ. of Chicago and the Rockefeller Inst. For medical
Research, later Rockefeller Univ.
(HN, 7/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(AP, 7/8/99)
1839 Jun 12, Baseball was said
to have been invented. According to legend Abner Doubleday chased
cows out of Elihu Phiney’s pasture and invented the game of baseball
at Cooperstown, New York, later home of the National Baseball Hall
of Fame and the Cooperstown Bat Company. In 1939 on the 100th
anniversary of the day Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the
sport, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated
in Cooperstown, N.Y. Americans began playing baseball in the 1840s.
It was derived from the British game called rounders.
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.T-11)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R34)(WSJ, 7/19/01, p.A20)
1839 Sep 28, Frances E.C.
Willard, founder of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, was born
in NY.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1839 New York’s Gov. William
Seward (1801-1872) made his 1st inaugural address.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)
1841 Sep 9, The Great Lakes
steamer "Erie" sank off Silver Creek, NY., and 300 people died.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1842 In Cobleskill, NY, cows
stumbled across a cave on property owned by Lester Howe. The area
was turned into the Howe Caverns tourist attraction. [see 1928]
(SFC, 7/25/03, p.A2)
1843 Alonzo Blanchard of
Albany, NY, patented a stove design called “Washington.” It featured
a cast-iron statue of George Washington on top.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.G5)
1844 Sep 25-1844 Sep 27, The
first int’l. cricket match was played between the USA and Canada at
the St George's Cricket Club, Bloomingdale Park, NY. Canada won by
23 runs.
(Econ, 7/24/10,
p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v_Canada_%281844%29)
1845 Beriah Swift of Millbrook,
N.Y., patented a coffee mill and built a factory to make the mills.
He was joined by William and John Lane about 1880 and the company
moved to Poughkeepsie.
(SFC, 10/14/98, Z1 p.3)
1845 Baseball players in
Hoboken formed the Knickerbocker club. Alexander Joe Cartwright was
one of the pivotal figures.
(WSJ, 7/19/01, p.A20)
1847-1852 Durfee’s Knickerbocker root beer was
bottled in Rochester, New York, during this period. Durfee used a
12-sided bottle in Ohio and New York. In 2008 the bottles were
valued at about $125.
(SFC, 3/26/08, p.G3)
1848 Mar 29-1848 Mar 31,
Niagara Falls slowed to a trickle for about 30 hours due to an ice
jam from Lake Erie in the Niagara River.
(ON, 12/05, p.10)(SSFC, 3/29/09, p.C10)
1848 Jul 19, The first women’s
rights convention convened in Seneca Falls, New York. Organized by
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the two-day convention
discussed such topics as voting, property rights and divorce. It
launched the women’s suffrage movement. The convention issued a
"Declaration of Sentiments" based on the Declaration of
Independence. "The ideal newspaper woman has the keen zest for life
of a child, the cool courage of a man and the subtlety of a woman."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton made her first public speech at the Woman's
Rights Convention. After Cady Stanton was denied participation in an
anti-slavery convention and was told that women were
"constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings," she and
four other women, including abolitionist Lucretia Coffin Mott,
planned a convention to challenge that notion. They drafted a
"Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," 11 resolutions calling
for equal rights for women, including the right to vote. After
lengthy debate, the document was amended and signed by 68 women and
32 men of the approximately 300 attendees, setting the American
women's rights movement in motion. Susan B. Anthony joined the
movement in 1852.
(HNPD, 7/19/98)(SFEC, 7/20/97, Par p.8)(SFEM,
6/28/98, p.30)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.D8)
1848 Jul 26, Charles Ellet Jr.,
engineer, completed a light suspension bridge over the Niagara
River. A boy's kite was used to transfer the 1st line across.
(ON, 7/02, p.8)
1848 Aug 9, The Barnburners
(anti-slavery) party merged with the Free Soil Party and nominated
Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, N.Y.
The Hunkers and the Barnburners were two factions within the
Democratic Party of New York split over the slavery issue in 1848.
They injected the issue into the Democratic National Convention held
in Baltimore in 1848 when they both sent delegations. The
Barnburners (who were also known as the "Softs" while the Hunkers
were called the "Hards") were firm supporters of the Wilmot Proviso
of 1846 that sought to restrict the spread of slavery to newly
acquired territory.
(AP, 8/9/97)(HNQ, 11/28/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1848 John Humphrey Noyes
(b.1811) founded the Oneida Community in upstate New York. The
Perfectionists were organized around communal property and a complex
marriage that wed all members to each other. In 1993 Spencer Klaw
(d.2004) authored “Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida
Community.”
(MC, 9/3/01)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.A6)(SFC, 6/21/04,
p.B5)
1849 Jan 23, English-born
Elizabeth Blackwell, the 1st woman to receive medical degree,
graduated at the top of her class from the medical school of Hobart
College in Geneva, N.Y.
(http://campus.hws.edu/his/blackwell/biography.html)(ON, 4/03, p.2)
1850 Senator Henry Clay of
Kentucky introduced the 8 provisions of the Great Compromise Bill.
The provisions of the Great Compromise bill were reduced to 5 and
passed one by one. They were in sum: 1) the admission of California
as a free state; 2) slavery in the territories of Utah and New
Mexico would be resolved by popular sovereignty; 3) slavery would be
ended in the District of Columbia; 4) the federal government would
assume a $10 million debt by Texas; 5) the federal government would
be responsible for the return of runaway slaves. New York Sen. W.F.
Seward stated: "The unity of our empire hangs on the decision of
this day."
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)
1851 Sep 14, James Fenimore
Cooper (b.1789), writer, died at Cooperstown, NY.
(www.online-literature.com)
1852 Apr 13, Frank W. Woolworth
(d.1919), founder of the retail chain of 5&10 cent stores, was
born on a farm near Watertown New York.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.B2)(HN, 4/13/98)
1852 Jul 4, Frederick Douglass
delivered the keynote speech for the Independence Day celebration in
Rochester, NY. In 2006 James A. Colaiaco authored Frederick Douglass
and the Fourth of July.”
(WSJ, 7/1/06, p.P6)
1852 Sep 27, "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," premiered in Troy, NY.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1852 Elisha Graves Otis
invented a safety elevator in Yonkers, NY. Otis invented the safety
elevator to brake the car to a halt if the supporting cable broke.
Otis Steam Elevator Works made its 1st sale in 1854 to P.T. Barnum
for display at the New York’s World Fair. In 1889 (the same year
Eiffel built his Tower) the elevator met electricity. United
Technologies acquired Otis in 1976. In 2001 Jason Goodwin authored
"Otis, Giving Rise to the Modern City."
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(HNQ, 4/21/01)(WSJ, 10/9/01,
p.A20)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1853 Aug 24, The 1st potato
chips were prepared by Chef George Crum at Saratoga Springs, NY.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1853 Oct 1, Robert Schuyler,
the president and general transfer agent of the New York & New
Haven Railroad Company, began issuing, shares of stock beyond the
capital limited by its charter.
(http://tinyurl.com/dbok8a)(http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/111/111.US.156.html)
1853 Elizabeth Schermerhorn
James, the aunt of Edith Wharton, built the Wyndclyffe mansion in
Rhinebeck, NY.
(WSJ, 9/29/03, p.A1)
1854 Apr 15, The immigrant
steamer ship "Powchattan" (Powhattan) struck Brigantine Shoals and
sank off Long Beach, NY. Over 300 people died.
(www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/js051854.html)
1854 May 30, Vermont
native Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) unveiled his invention, the
safety elevator at the New York World's Fair. Audiences gasped as
Otis, riding on the hoist's platform, dramatically ordered the
lifting rope cut. Instead of falling, the car locked safely into the
elevator shaft. Prior to the 1850s there was no existing market for
passenger elevators because there was no safety mechanism in the
event of a cable break. In 1852 Otis was a master mechanic working
at a bedstead factory in Yonkers, N.Y., when he built a hoisting
machine with two sets of metal teeth at the car's sides. If the
lifting rope broke, the teeth would lock into place, preventing the
car from falling. Otis never realized the potential of his
invention. His sons built the Otis Elevator Company, enabling the
skylines of cities throughout the world to be transformed with
skyscrapers.
(HNPD, 5/30/99)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1854 Jul 12, George Eastman
(d.1932), inventor of the Kodak camera, was born in Waterville, N.Y.
(AP, 7/12/99)
1854 Dec 26, Wood pulp paper
was 1st exhibited in Buffalo.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1855 The stone Lydig Monson
Hoyt House, overlooking the Hudson River in Dutchess County, N.Y.,
was designed by Calvert Vaux. It was acquired by the state in 1962
for $300,000. It became an orphan property of the state and in 1998
was offered to private benefactors on a 40-year lease.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.9)
1857 The state's Republican
governor created a rival police force in NYC to undercut the
criminally affiliated Democratic Mayor, Fernando Wood. The court
ruled in favor of the governor.
(WSJ, 8/2100, p.A14)
1858 Sen. Seward denounced "an
aristocracy of slaveholders" who controlled the country through
their southern legislators: "I know that the Democratic Party must
go down, and the Republican Party must rise in its place.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)
1859 Feb 19, Daniel E. Sickles,
NY congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary
insanity. This was the 1st time this defense was successfully used.
Sickles had shot and killed Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott
Key, author of "Star Spangled Banner." He shot Lee, the DC district
attorney, in Lafayette Square for having an affair with his wife.
Sickles pleaded temporary insanity and the sanctity of a man's home
and beat the murder rap.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.W10)(MC, 2/19/02)
1859 Jul 1, John Wise (d.1879),
O. A. Gager and John La Mountain took off on a maiden balloon flight
to carry mail from St. Louis to NYC. They landed in Jefferson
County, New York state on July 2. Their over 800-mile flight stood
as a record until 1900.
(ON, 11/00, p.8)
1859 Nov 28, Washington Irving
(b. Apr 3,1783) American essayist, author, historian, biographer,
attorney/lawyer, died. He was buried in the Hudson Valley Old Dutch
Church cemetery in Tarrytown. He was born in New York City and wrote
the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."
(DT, 11/28/97)(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)
1859 Jun 30, French acrobat
Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) crossed Niagara Falls on a
tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched.
(AP, 6/30/97)(HN, 6/30/98)
1859 Aug 17, Harry Colcord
crossed over the Niagara Falls while strapped to the back of French
tightrope walker Blondin.
(www.simpenguin.com/genealogy/blondin/charlesblondinbio.html)
1860 Aug 3, The American Canoe
Association was founded at Lake George, NY.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1860 Sep 7, Anna Mary Robertson
Moses (d.1961), American folk painter, was born in Greenwich, NY.
She began painting at the age of 78. She won worldwide fame in the
1950s with her paintings of rural American farm life.
(AP,
4/19/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses)
1860 Bard College began as a
small school in Annandale-on-Hudson. It was next to Montgomery
Place, whose landscape was attributed to Andrew Jackson Downing,
America's most famous 19th century landscape architect.
(WSJ, 11/24/98, p.A20)
1861-1885 The New York Stoneware Co. was in
business in Fort Edward, NY, during this period. It also worked
under the name of Satterlee and Morey.
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.F12)
1862 Jan 30, The USS Monitor
was launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.
(HN, 1/30/99)(AH, 12/02, p.8)
1862 Mar 12, Jane Delano
(d.1919), nurse, teacher and founder of the American Red Cross, was
born in Montour Falls, New York. She helped the American Red Cross
Nursing Service to be recognized as the nursing reserve for the Army
and Navy.
(www.wordiq.com/definition/Jane_Delano)
1862 Jul 24, Martin Van Buren
(79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook,
N.Y.
(AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)
1862 The Buffalo Fine Arts
Academy was founded in Buffalo, NY. In 1905 it opened the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery following a generous gift from Buffalo
entrepreneur and philanthropist John J. Albright.
(WSJ, 11/15/06,
p.D14)(www.albrightknox.org/geninfo.html)
1863 Jan 4, Roller skates with
4 wheels were patented by James Plimpton of NY.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1863 Aug 3, Horatio Seymour
(1810-1886), two-time governor of NY (1853-54 and 1863-64), asked
Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.
(SC,
8/3/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Seymour)
1863 Aug 3, Saratoga Racetrack
opened in NY.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1864 Apr 30, New York became
the 1st state to charge for a hunting license.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1864 Grover Cleveland, a lawyer
and politician in Buffalo, New York, dodged the draft by provided a
substitute when he was drafted.
(HNQ, 8/4/00)
1865 Cornell Univ., the
youngest member of the Ivy League, was founded by Ezra Cornell and
Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational, non-sectarian institution
where admission was offered irrespective of religion or race.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University)
1866 Feb 26, New York
Legislature established the NYC Metropolitan Board of Health.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1866 May 5, Villagers in
Waterloo, NY, held their 1st Memorial Day service. In 1966 Pres.
Johnson gave Waterloo, NY, the distinction of holding the 1st
Memorial Day. On Apr 13, 1862, volunteers led by Sarah J. Evans had
paid homage to the graves of Civil War soldiers in the Washington
area.
(SFC, 5/26/03, p.A2)
1866 May 29, US Gen'l. Winfield
Scott (79) died at West Point, New York. Union General Winfield
Scott was the originator of the military strategy known as the
"Anaconda Plan." Scott's plan for defeating the Confederacy featured
a naval blockade of the South designed to slowly "strangle" the
fledgling country. The Union did impose such a blockade, but by 1861
Scott was considered too old to lead the federal armies and he
retired that November. Although a Virginian born on June 13, 1786,
Scott-popularly called "Old Fuss and Feathers"-remained loyal to the
Union and its army he commanded when war broke out.
(HNQ,
2/19/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott)
1866 A group of NY sportsmen
purchased some 4,000 acres on Long Island centered around Snedecor’s
Tavern and established the Southside Sportsmen’s Club. Around 1963
the land was turned into a state preserve.
(WSJ, 10/9/07, p.D6)
1867 Jun 19, The first running
of the Belmont Stakes horserace in the US. It later became part of
the Triple Crown. Oldest of the three U.S. horse races that
constitute the Triple Crown. The Belmont is named after August
Belmont. The stakes is held in early June at Belmont Park, near
Garden City, Long Island; the course is 1.5 mi (2,400 m).
(HFA, '96, p.32)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.8)(YB)
1868 Oct 7, Cornell University
was inaugurated in Ithaca, N.Y.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1868 Nov 3, Republican Ulysses
S. Grant was elected 18th president. He won the election over
Democrat Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), two-time governor of NY
(1853-54 and 1863-64), by 27,000 votes. Seymour ran fairly close to
Ulysses Grant in the popular vote, but was defeated decisively in
the electoral vote by a count of 214 to 80. Grant used the 1867
typewriter phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the
aid of the party" for his campaign.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Seymour)(AP, 11/3/97)(SFEC,
3/22/98, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 2/17/99, p.A22)
1868 Dec 5, 1st American
bicycle college opened in NY.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1868 Maud Humphrey, artist, was
born in Rochester, N.Y. She worked as a watercolorist and
specialized in portraits of children dressed in Victorian fashions.
One of her children was movie star Humphrey Bogart.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)
1868 Emily and Elizabeth
Blackwell opened the world’s 1st medical school for women, the
Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary.”
(ON, 4/03, p.3)
1868 In Syracuse NY the Everson
Museum of Art was founded.
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1869 Aug 24, Cornelius
Swarthout of Troy, New York, patented the waffle iron.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1869 The Bardovan Theater in
Poughkeepsie was built.
(WSJ, 7/15/99, p.A16)
1869 Daniel E. Sickles was
appointed minister to Spain. A newspaper summed up his career: "mail
robber, spy, murderer, confidence man, general, satrap, politician."
In 2002 Thomas Keneally authored "American Scoundrel," a biography
of Sickles.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.W10)
1869 The petrified man hoax
known as the "Cardiff Giant" was promoted in New York, Boston,
Albany and Syracuse. A 10 foot 4 ½ inch limestone statue of a
man was claimed to have been dug up in Cardiff, N.Y.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.B3)
1869 John Augustus Roebling,
inventor of the steel wire cable and designer of the bridge, was
killed in a construction accident at the outset of construction of
the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling had earlier completed the first
suspension bridge over the Niagara gorge linking the US and Canada.
His son and partner, Washington A. Roebling, supervised the Brooklyn
Bridge to its completion in spite of a debilitating illness.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AP, 5/24/97)(HNPD, 5/23/99)(WSJ,
6/10/99, p.A24)
1870 Feb 2, The "Cardiff
Giant," supposedly the petrified remains of a human discovered in
Cardiff, N.Y., was revealed to be nothing more than carved gypsum.
(AP, 2/2/97)
1870 Feb 2, Samuel Clemens,
Mark Twain, married Olivia Langdon in Elmira, New York. He fell in
love with her photograph during an 1867 trip to the Holy Land with
her brother Charles.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)
1871 Jan 3, Henry
W. Bradley patented oleomargarine in Binghamton, NY.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1872 Nov 5, Suffragist Susan B.
Anthony and a number of other women voted in Rochester, New York, in
the US general election. On Nov 18, 1872, she was arrested for
voting in the presidential election.
(ON, 8/09,
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony)
1873 Jun 18, Suffragist Susan
B. Anthony (1815-1906) was fined $100 in Canandaigua, NY, for
attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election. The fine was
never paid [see Nov 5, 1872].
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(ON, 12/09, p.4)
1873 Asa T. Soule of Rochester,
NY, concocted the alcohol laced Hop Bitters patent medicine and made
a fortune. The Univ. of Rochester later declined a $100,000 offer to
change its name to Hops Bitters Univ.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)
1873 Mar 1, E. Remington and
Sons (1816–1896), a firearms manufacturer founded in 1816 by
Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, started manufacturing the
first commercial typewriter. James Densmore and George Yost
contracted Remington to build 1,000 machines designed by Christopher
Latham Sholes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons)(ON, 12/10, p.8)
1874 Feb 17, Thomas J. Watson
Sr. (d.1956), U.S. industrialist, was born in upstate New York. In
1914 he began running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a
predecessor to IBM. He converted the financially ailing
manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.
(WUD, 1994, p.1614)(HN, 2/17/99)(WSJ, 5/15/03,
p.A1)
1874 Mar 8, Millard Fillmore
(b.1800), the 13th president of the United States (1850-1853), died
of a stroke in Buffalo, N.Y.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(AP, 1/7/98)(AP, 3/8/98)
1874 The Chautauqua Institution
began as a Methodist community 60 miles south of Buffalo and
established a reputation as a purveyor of summer "learning
vacations." [see 1878] The Chautauqua Institution was founded to
further adult education. In 1970 Alfreda L. Irwin authored a study
of the community: "Three Taps of the Gavel."
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Par p.13)(SFEC, 5/30/99,
p.T2)(WSJ, 8/1/00, p.B1)
1874 The 1st rail line to the
Hamptons ran to Bridgehampton. 20 years later it was extended to
Montauk, Long Island. The 4-day trip from NYC was reduced to 1 day.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.W12)
1874 Winslow Homer (1836-1910),
son of a local whaler, took up painting in East Hampton, NY.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.M2)
1875 John Durant Larkin
established a soap company in Buffalo, N.Y. The Larkin Co. attracted
customers by offering premium gifts. In 1901 the company founded
Buffalo Pottery to manufacture dishes given as premiums. The company
closed in 1962.
(SFC, 2/11/98, Z1 p.6)
1876 Feb 2, The National League
of Professional Base Ball Clubs was formed in New York.
(AP, 2/2/97)
1876 T. Southard of Peekskill,
NY, became Southard, Robertson & Co. The Southard company had
manufactured toy wood-burning heating stoves as early as 1850.
(SFC, 3/1/06, p.G7)
1877 Richard Dugdale, American
social reformer, authored “The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism,
Disease, and Heredity.” The Jukes clan from upstate New York counted
prostitutes, thieves and drunkards in its ranks.
(WSJ, 1/15/09, p.A9)
1878 Aug 10, In Chautauqua, New
York, John H. Vincent (46), clergyman, introduced his idea for the
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. His vision was to spread
education around the globe with organized reading programs. The 1878
class read "Old Tales Retold from Grecian Mythology" by Augusta
Larned and "Studies of the Stars" by Henry w. Warren.
(WSJ, 8/1/00, p.B1)
1878 Aug 21, The American Bar
Association was founded in Saratoga, N.Y.
(AP, 8/21/97)
1878 Scribner’s Magazine sent a
crew of bohemian writers and artists, the Tile Club, to report on
life in East Hampton, NY.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.M2)
1878 George Eastman of
Rochester, NY, developed his own dry-plate formula for taking
pictures, an improvement on a method by British photographer Charles
Bennett.
(ON, 3/05, p.10)
1879 Feb 22, Frank Winfield
Woolworth's 'nothing over five cents' shop opened at Utica, New
York. It was the first chain store. The "Great 5-Cent Store" failed
within weeks.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.B2)(AP, 2/22/99)(HN, 2/22/99)
1879 Genesee Brewing began
producing beer in Rochester, NY.
(SFC, 3/13/00, p.B2)
1879 George Eastman of
Rochester, NY, perfected a ready-to-use dry plate for photography.
Eastman sought to improve the chemistry and the processes of
photography that had, for 40 years, required subjects to remain
perfectly still for exposure times of up to a minute.
(HN, 7/12/99)
1880 Dec, George Eastman
received an order for photographic dry-plates and together with
Henry Strong launched the Eastman Dry Plate Co.
(ON, 3/05, p.11)
1881 Aug 27, New York state's
Pure Food Law went into effect to prevent "the adulteration of food
or drugs."
(HN, 8/27/00)
1882 Jan 30, The 32nd president
of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was born in Hyde
Park, N.Y.
(AP, 1/30/98)
1882 Jul 22,
Edward Hopper (d.1967), American artist (Nighthawks), was born in
Nyack, N.Y.
(www.fact-index.com)
1882 Lake Placid Lodge was
built in the Adirondacks by a German family.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.27)
1883 Jul 24, Matthew Webb
(b.1848), the 1st person to swim the English Channel (1875), drowned
while trying to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.
(ON, 2/05,
p.12)(www.telfordlife.com/Capt%20Webb.htm)
1883 Sep 11, James Goold
Cutler, architect, patented the postal mail chute. The first one was
installed in Rochester N.Y. He later became the mayor of Rochester.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.E4)(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A1)(MC,
9/11/01)
1883 Echo Camp was built in the
Adirondacks for Gov. Phineas C. Lounsbury of Connecticut. It was
later turned into a private girl's camp.
(SFCM, 3/17/02, p.25)
1884 Sep 17, Charles Tomlinson
Griffes, composer (White Peacock), was born in Elmira, NY.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1884 Oct 14, Transparent
paper-strip photographic film was patented by George Eastman. He had
invented a flexible paper-backed film that could be wound on
rollers. To encourage amateur photography and film sales, Eastman
developed a simple black box camera that cost $25 and came already
loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was used up,
the entire No. 1 Kodak camera was shipped back to Eastman's factory
for developing and reloading, at a cost of only $10. Eastman's
photographic improvements proved successful, with 13,000 cameras
sold in 1888. The roll holder was designed by William Hall Walker.
Eastman renamed his corporation the Eastman Dry Plate and Film
Company.
(HN, 7/12/99)(HN, 10/14/00)(ON, 3/05, p.11)
1884 Prior to his first
election to the presidency in 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland, then
a bachelor, admitted that Republican charges accusing him of
fathering a child as a young man in Buffalo were true. His honesty
helped to calm the issue, despite the popular campaign chant against
him: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!"
Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House in 1886. He lost
a reelection bid in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, even though he won
the popular vote, but regained the White House in 1892 to serve a
second term as the 24th president.
(HN, 1/19/00)
1885 Mar 26, The Eastman Film
Co. of Rochester, N.Y., manufactured the first commercial motion
picture film. George Eastman had perfected a method for bonding
photographic emulsion onto thin strips of celluloid.
(AP, 3/25/98)(HN, 3/25/98)(ON, 11/03, p.5)
1885 Jul 23, Ulysses S. Grant
(b.1822), commander of the Union forces at the end of the Civil War
and the 18th president of the United States, died in Mount McGregor,
NY, at age 63. He had just completed the final revisions to his
memoirs, which were published as a 2 volume set by Mark Twain. In
1928 W.E. Woodward authored "Meet General Grant," and in 1981
William S. McFreeley authored "Grant: A Biography." His tomb was
placed in the largest mausoleum in the US on a bluff over the Hudson
River. In 1998 Geoffrey Perret published the biography "Ulysses S.
Grant: Soldier and President." In 2004 Mark Perry authored “Grant
and Twain.” In 2006 Edward G. Longacre authored “General Ulysses S.
Grant: The Soldier and Man.” In 2011 Charles Bracelen Flood authored
“Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year.”
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A7)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Par p.20)(AP,
7/23/98)(ON, p.11)(ON, 12/00, p.7)(WSJ, 5/14/04, p.W10)(WSJ, 8/5/06,
p.P9)(SSFC, 12/4/11, p.F5)
1886 Nov 30, 1st commercially
successful AC electric power plant opened in Buffalo.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1887 Frank Brownell, the maker
of George Eastman’s roll holder, created for Eastman a simple box
camera. Eastman named it “Kodak” and patented the name with the
camera.
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
1888 Apr 24, Eastman Kodak was
formed. The company produced the Kodak Camera.
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)
1888 May 7, George Eastman
patented his Kodak box camera.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1889 The first commercial
transparent roll film, perfected by George Eastman and his research
chemist, was put on the market. This flexible film made possible the
development of Thomas Edison's motion picture camera in 1891. A new
corporation, The Eastman Company, was formed, taking over the assets
of the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
(www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/about/chrono1.shtml)
1897 West Point military
academy adopted the motto: "Duty, Honor, Country."
(SFEC, 5/7/00, Par p.7)
1888 Feb 22, John Reid of
Scotland demonstrated golf to Americans at Yonkers, NY. Reid
converted his lawn to six hole for golf in Yonkers N.Y., the first
golf course in the US.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, Z1 p.8)(MC, 2/22/02)
1888 Apr 18, Roscoe Conkling
(b.1829), former US Senator from New York (1867-1881), died.
Conkling was the undisputed leader of Republicans in NY.
(www.nndb.com/people/241/000050091/)
1888 Apr 24, Eastman Kodak was
formed. The company produced the Kodak Camera.
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)
1890 Apr 11, Ellis Island was
designated as an immigration station.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1890 Jul 13, John C.
"Pathfinder" Fremont (76), US explorer, governor (Arizona,
California), died. He was buried in obscurity in Sparkill, NY.
Fremont (b.1830) was the 1st Republican presidential candidate in
1856. In 1999 David Roberts authored "A Newer World: Kit Carson,
John C. Freemont and the Claiming of the American West." In 2002 Tom
Chaffin authored “Pathfinder: John Charles Fremont and the Course of
American Empire.” In 2007 Sally Denton authored “Passion and
Principle: John and Jessie Fremont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics
and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century America.”
(WUD, 1994, p.567)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)(SSFC,
12/22/02, p.M1)(SSFC, 7/1/07, p.M1)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on
behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to
demonstrate the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of
power favored by Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state
legislature had recently designated electrocution as the official
means for capital punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1890 Aug 6, Convicted murderer
William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in the
electric chair as he was put to death at Auburn State Prison in New
York. He had been convicted of murdering his lover, Matilda
Ziegler, with an axe. In 2003 Jill Jonnes authored "Empires of
Light," and account of how Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse brought
electric power to public use.
(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC, 8/6/02)(WSJ,
8/19/03, p.D5)
1890 Nov 29, The first
Army-Navy football game was played, at West Point, New York. Navy
defeated Army by a score of 24-to-nothing.
(AP, 11/29/00)
1890 Frank and Charles Menches
included a recipe for the first known chopped-beef sandwich called a
"hamburger." They named it after the town of Hamburg, N.Y.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.E3)
1890 The Shepard Hardware Co.
of Buffalo, NY, began manufacturing its Jonah and the Whale
mechanical banks.
(SFC, 1/11/06, p.G2)
1890s The federal government
purchase Plum Island, located off the tip of Long Island. It was
used as a fort during both world wars. An Army project for
conversion to a biological warfare lab was later halted and the
island was turned over to the Agriculture Dept.
(WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A8)
1891 William Merritt Chase
opened the Shinnecock Summer School in the Hamptons to teach
plein-art painting.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.W12)
1892 Mar 15, New York State
unveiled the new automatic ballot voting machine.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1892 Mar 27, Ferde (Ferdinand
Rudolf von) Grof, composer, was born in NY.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1892 Apr 15, General Electric
Co., formed by the merger of the Edison Electric Light Co. and other
firms, was incorporated in New York State.
(AP, 4/15/02)
1892 Sep 8, An early version of
"The Pledge of Allegiance" appeared in "The Youth’s Companion,"
published in Boston and edited by Francis Bellamy, a Christian
socialist, and cousin of writer Edward Bellamy. Frank E. Bellamy
(1876-1915) of Cherryvale High School in Kansas had authored a
500-word patriotic essay which included the words of the Pledge of
Allegiance and instructions on saluting the American Flag. His
teacher entered the "Salute to the Flag" in a contest sponsored by
the popular scholastic publication The Youth's Companion. His essay
won first place in this national school contest.. [see Oct 12]
(AP, 9/8/97)(SSFC, 6/30/02,
p.A3)(www.leatherockhotel.com/FrankBellamy.htm)
1892 Oct 12, The American
Pledge of Allegiance was 1st recited in public schools to
commemorate Columbus Day. Francis Bellamy, a magazine editor of
Rome, NY, wrote the "Pledge of Allegiance." [see Sep 8]
(SFEC, 2/21/99, Z1 p.8)(Internet)
1892 Dec 20, Pneumatic
automobile tire was patented in Syracuse, NY.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1892 The Seneca Indians set up
a treaty whereby non-Indian residents of Salamanca, a town built on
the Seneca Nation of Indians' Allegany Reservation, paid rent to the
Seneca.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.C14)
1894 Mar 8, NY passed the 1st
state dog license law. [see Mar 10]
(MC, 3/8/02)
1894 Mar 10, New York Gov.
Roswell P. Flower signed the nation's first dog-licensing law. The
license fee was $2, renewable annually for $1.
(AP, 3/10/99)
1894 The National Guard Armory
at Glen Falls, NY, was built. In 2009 it was put up for sale.
(SSFC, 10/25/09, p.A20)
1894-1895 The Guaranty Building in Buffalo,
designed by Louis Sullivan, was later considered America's most
beautifully ornamented urban construction.
(WSJ, 8/20/03, p.D12)
1895 Nov 5, George B. Selden of
Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for an "improved
Road Engine."
(AP, 11/5/07)
1895 The National Trust started
in the Lake District to "hold places of national interest and
natural beauty for the benefit of the nation."
(SFCM, 3/17/02, p.18)
1895 William West Durant built
the Sagamore Lodge in the Adirondacks as a summer camp for the
Vanderbilts. His father had built the Adirondack railroad.
(SFCM, 3/17/02, p.25)
1895 Bastian Brothers was
founded in Rochester, NY, as a jewelry store. It later expanded to
manufacture custom award pins, medals and similar items.
(SFC, 5/21/08, p.G7)
1896 Dec 1, 1st certified
public accountants received certificates in NY.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1896 Andrew Dickson White,
scientist and the 1st president of Cornell Univ., authored "History
of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom." He argued
that his fellow Protestants kept mankind in darkness and tried to
prevent him from establishing Cornell as a secular Univ.
(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W15)
1897 Nov 15, The electricity
plant at Niagara Falls opened sending AC power 26 miles to Buffalo,
NY. It contained AC generators built by Westinghouse Electric and
transformers built by General Electric under license from
Westinghouse Electric.
(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1897 In Le Roy, New York,
Pearle Wait, a carpenter, and his wife May, made a concoction of
gelatin and fruit flavor that they named Jell-O.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A2)
1897 The US Army began building
Fort Michie on Great Gull Island to protect the eastern approaches
to Long Island Sound.
(NH, 10/02, p.12)
1897 The Ellis Island
immigration center was destroyed by fire.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)
1898-1900 Theodore Roosevelt served as governor of
New York.
(ON, 12/99, p.12)
1899 Alfred Mosher Butts
(d.1993), the inventor of the Scrabble game, was born in
Poughkeepsie, NY. The game was initially called Lexico and then
Criss-Cross Words. It was named Scrabble in 1947. Sales took off in
1952.
(WSJ, 6/28/01, p.B1)
1899 The New York State
Historical Association was founded. It was based at the Fenimore Art
Museum in Cooperstown, NY.
(WSJ, 6/22/04, p.B8)
1899 In Le Roy, New York,
Pearle Wait, a carpenter, and his wife May, sold their formula for
Jell-O for $450 to neighbor Orator Frank Woodward.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A2)
1900 Frank Brownell, creator of
Eastman’s Kodak camera, designed the Brownie camera.
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
1901 Mar 1, At the Pan American
Exposition in Buffalo, NY, the electric current was turned on at the
Agricultural building by Henry Rustin, chief of the Mechanical and
Electricity Bureau, and the 4000 lamps on the exterior of the
building blazed into radiant beauty. The Exposition, which opened
informally on May 1, was held on a 342 acre site between Delaware
Park Lake on the south, the New York Central railroad tracks on the
north, Delaware Avenue on the east, and Elmwood Avenue on the west.
The fair featured the latest technologies, including electricity and
the baby incubator building, and attracted nearly 8 million people.
A 400-foot electric tower was the centerpiece.
(WSJ, 6/5/01,
p.A23)(http://panam1901.bfn.org/thisday/marcharchives.html)
1901 Apr 25, New York became
the first state to require automobile license plates; the fee was
one dollar.
(AP, 4/25/98)
1901 Sep 6, At the Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo, New York, anarchist Leon Czolgosz (28) made
his way along a reception line filing past President William
McKinley. Concealed within a handkerchief, Czolgosz held a
.32-caliber revolver. As he came face to face with the president, he
fired two shots through the handkerchief, striking McKinley in the
chest and the abdomen. McKinley died eight days after the shooting
and became the third American president assassinated. He was
succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Czolgosz, explaining
that he "thought it would be a good thing for the country to kill
the President," was put to death by electrocution 45 days later.
Emma Goldman was one of the people blamed for the assassination.
(AP, 9/6/97)(Hem, Dec. 94, p.70) (WSJ, 5/17/95,
p.A-18) (WSJ, 12/11/95, p.A-1)(HNPD, 9/6/98)(HN, 9/6/98)
1901 Sep 14, President McKinley
died in Buffalo, N.Y., of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin.
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President
of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was
shot eight days earlier.
(AP, 9/14/97)(HN, 9/14/98)
1901 Oct 24, Anna Edson Taylor
(d.1921), a 43-year-old widow, was the first woman to go safely over
Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award
offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch. Taylor
died in poverty.
(AP, 10/24/97)(HN, 10/24/98)
1901 Oct 29, Leon Czolgosz was
electrocuted for the assassination of President McKinley at Auburn
Prison in NY state. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot McKinley on
September 6 during a public reception at the Temple of Music in
Buffalo, N.Y. Despite early hopes of recovery, McKinley died
September 14, in Buffalo.
(AP, 10/29/97)(HN, 10/29/98)(ON, 4/00, p.5)(AH,
10/01, p.30)
1901 Nov 2, The Pan American
Exposition, held in Buffalo New York, closed. Though it
attracted visitors from throughout the world, bad weather, and the
unfortunate assassination of Pres. William McKinley in September,
affected attendance. The Exposition lost money. The only
structure still standing on the site is the Buffalo & Erie
County Historical Society, formerly the New York State
Building.
1901 Sing Sing, home of Sing
Sing prison, changed its name to Ossining.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.A1)
1901 The Buffalo Pottery Co.
was founded in Buffalo, NY., by the Larkin Soap Co. to make pottery
used as premiums for customers who bought Larkin soap.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.G2)
1902 Mar 24, Thomas E. Dewey,
New York governor, was born.
(HN, 3/24/01)
1902 Aug 19, Ogden Nash
(d.1971), American author and humorist, was born in Rye, NY. Vanity,
vanity, all is vanity/ That's any fun at all for humanity. "Winter
comes but once a year, And when it comes it brings the doctor good
cheer."
(WUD, 1994 p.951)(AP, 10/24/97)(AP, 12/21/98)(HN,
8/19/00)(MC, 8/19/02)
1902 In Buffalo, NY, the U.S.
Hame Co. was formed as the result of a consolidation of two 19th
century hame and saddlery manufacturers, the United Hame Co. of
Buffalo, NY, and the Consolidated Hame Co. of Andover, New
Hampshire. In 1917 it changed its name to USHCO and started making
chassis for Ford and Chevrolet trucks.
(www.coachbuilt.com/bui/u/us_body/us_body.htm)(SFC, 8/15/07, p.G7)
1903 Feb 22, The US side of
Niagara Falls ran short of water due to drought.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1903 The Buffalo Pottery
Company opened in Buffalo. It was established by the Larkin Co., a
soap manufacturer, to make premiums for its customers.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)
1903 The Adirondack Fire in NY
state burned some 637,000 acres.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1904 May 18, Jacob K. Javits,
US Senator-R-NY, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1904 Sep 11, The battleship
Connecticut, launched in New York, introduced a new era in naval
construction.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1904 Frank Lloyd Wright
designed the Larkin Building in Buffalo, NY. It was demolished in
1950. His Darwin Martin house was built in this year for an official
of the Larkin company.
(WSJ, 8/20/03, p.D12)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a
motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making
gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that Tom Baldwin
was building in California.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1905 Senior executives of
Equitable Life Insurance attempted to displace James Hyde, son of
founder Henry Hyde, from leadership. In 2003 Patricia Beard authored
"After the Ball," an account of the affair.
(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.W10)
1905 Charles Evans Hughes
supervised a New York state investigation into the insurance
industry.
(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.W10)
1905 Alliance Furniture was
founded in Jamestown, NY, by a group of 8 partners of Swedish
heritage. The company manufactured high-quality dining-room
furniture until at least the 1950s.
(SFC, 6/18/08, p.G3)
1906 Mar 21, John D.
Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1906 Nov 6, Republican Charles
Evans Hughes was elected governor of New York, defeating newspaper
publisher William Randolph Hearst. In 1910 he was appointed to the
US Supreme Court and served until 1916. In 1930 he was appointed as
Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and served until 1941.
(AP, 11/6/99)(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A15)
1906 A typhus fever outbreak on
Long Island was traced by George Soper, a sanitary engineer, to Mary
Mallon, a cook and healthy carrier of salmonella typhi. Mallon (aka
Typhoid Mary) was arrested and confined to North Brother Island.
(ON, 7/01, p.11)
1906-1930 The Heintz Art Metal Shop of Buffalo,
N.Y., owned by Otto L. and Edwin Heintz, made decorative wares over
this period.
(SFC, 4/1/98, Z1 p.7)
1907 Nov 14, William Steig,
children author ("Shrek"), was born in New York.
(AP, 11/14/07)
1907 The Kutscher brothers
opened a country club in the Catskills called Kutscher's. Milton
Kutscher (d.1998 at 82) built it up to a leading resort.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.D10)
1907 William Walker founded the
American Thermos Bottle Co. in Brooklyn, NY. In 1913 he moved his
factory to Norwich.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.G6)
1908 Mar 4, The New York board
of education banned the act of whipping students in school.
(HN, 3/4/98)
1908 Mar 12, The Aerial
Experiment Association (AEA) launched their new airplane, called Red
Wing, from a frozen lake near Hammondsport, NY. Pilot F.W. Baldwin
rose 20 feet and flew 319 feet before crashing. Newspapers hailed
the test as the “first public flight” in the US.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Jul 4, Glenn Curtiss flew
a new airplane, called the June Bug, at a competition sponsored by
Scientific American, for the first heavier than air machine to fly
one kilometer. The Aero Club sent 22 members to Hammondsport, NY, to
view the event. Curtiss easily covered the distance, angering the
Wright Brothers, who felt that their patent was being infringed.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1908 Dec, The Aerial Experiment
Association (AEA) took out patents on ailerons and in March 1809 the
group disbanded.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jul 17, Glenn Curtiss
entered and won the Scientific American trophy for a 2nd year by
flying a total of 25 km. in 12 circuits on Long Island. His Golden
Flier was sponsored by the Aeronautic Society of New York.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Dec 9, The 1st US
monoplane was flown by Henry W. Walden at Long Island, NY.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1910 Feb 19, Mary Mallon (aka
Typhoid Mary) was released from 4 years of quarantine on North
Brother Island. In 1914 she caused a typhus outbreak in the Sloane
Maternity Hospital. She was again arrested and returned to North
Brother Island where she died Nov 11, 1938.
(ON, 7/01, p.12)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking
Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New
York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the
Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in
pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a
transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win
the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3
days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average
speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach,
California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings,
suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so
completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original
equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1911 Oct 20, Will Rogers Jr,
actor (Down to Earth), was born in NY.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1911 New York authorized
private wing-shooting preserves to hunt pheasants. Private preserves
proliferated rapidly toward the end of the century.
(WSJ, 2/1/99, p.A1)
1912 In Buffalo, NY, St.
Gerard’s church was built by Italian immigrants and modeled after
St. Paul Outside the Walls, a Renaissance-style basilica in Rome. it
was closed in January 2008 as part of a diocese-wide restructuring.
In 2010 a Roman Catholic parish in an affluent northern suburb of
Atlanta began raising $16 million to import the closed church.
(AP, 5/29/10)
1913 Mar 10, Harriet Tubman,
abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR, died in NY. In 2004
Catherine Clinton authored "Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom" and
Kate Clifford Larson authored "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet
Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero."
(MC, 3/10/02)(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M1)(USAT, 2/5/04,
p.5D)
1913 May 14, New York Governor
William Sulzer approved a state charter for the Rockefeller
Foundation. John D. Rockefeller had given $100 million to the
Rockefeller Foundation. This insulated a large part of Rockefeller's
fortune from inheritance taxes. At this time Rockefeller’s net worth
approached $900 million, about $13 billion in 1998 dollars.
(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W10)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.68)
1913 New York state passed “the
eight foot sheet law” to ensure that the upper sheet in a hotel was
of sufficient length to cover the face so “that the inhalation by
the occupant of bacteria &c, may be prevented.”
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1914 Jun 19, Harry Lauter,
actor (Waterfront), was born in White Plains, NY.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1915 Jul 16, Barnard Hughes,
actor (Tron, Where's Poppa, Best Friends), was born in Bedford
Hills, NY.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1916 Sep 11, The "Star Spangled
Banner" was sung at the beginning of a baseball game for the first
time in Cooperstown, New York.
(HN, 9/11/00)
1917 Nov 6, NY allowed women to
vote.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1918 Oct 9, E Howard Hunt,
involved in Watergate break-in, was born in Hamburg, NY.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1918 Nov 4, Art Carney
(d.2003), actor (Ed Norton-Honeymooners), was born in Mount Vernon,
NY.
(EntW, 12/03, p.96)
1918 Alfred E. Smith
(1873-1944) was 1st elected governor of New York.
(TMC, 1994, p.1944)(WUD, 1994 p.1345)(WSJ,
3/6/00, p.A20)
1919 Jan 6, The 26th president
of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y.,
at age 60.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1919 Jun 11, Sir Barton won the
Belmont Stakes, becoming horse racing's first Triple Crown winner.
(AP, 6/11/97)
1920 Jun 11, Robert Hutton,
actor (Torture Garden, Rocket), was born in Kingston, NY.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1921 Feb 22, An air mail plane
left San Francisco at 4:30 a.m., landing at New York (Hazelhurst
Field, L. I., N. Y.) at 4:50 p.m. on February 23.
(www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm)
1921 Nov 22, Rodney
Dangerfield, [John Cohen], comedian (Caddyshack), was born in
Babylon, NY.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1921 The Martin Act was adopted
in NY state under Gov. Al Smith in response to numerous security
fraud scandals. It was named after legislator Francis J. Martin, who
later became a state court judge. It provided a model for the 1934
federal statute that created the US Securities and Exchange
Commission.
(WSJ, 10/2/02, p.C1)
1921 Frederick E. Walrath
(b.1871), master studio potter, died. Most of his work was done
during the years he spent teaching at the Mechanics Institute of
Technology (later named the Rochester Institute of Technology) in
Rochester, NY, (1908-1918).
(SFC, 11/15/06, p.G7)
1922 Feb 5, The Reader's Digest
began publication in Pleasantville, New York. In 1939 it moved to
Chappaqua, NY. In 2005 it published its 1,000th issue.
(HN, 2/5/01)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.D6)
1923 Feb 28, Charles Durning,
actor (Fury, Sting, Tootsie), was born in Highland Falls, NY.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1923 May 2, Lieutenants Okaley
Kelly and John Macready took off from New York for the West Coast on
what would become the first successful nonstop transcontinental
flight.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1923 Gov. Al Smith repealed the
mechanism by which New York enforced Prohibition.
(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.A20)
1924 Mar 10, The U.S. Supreme
Court upheld a New York state law forbidding late-night work for
women.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1924 Oct 10, Edward D. Wood Jr,
director (Plan 9 from Outer Space), was born in Poughkeepsie, NY.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1924 Dec 28, Rod Serling
(d.1975), writer and host (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery), was born
in Syracuse, NY. He was also the author of "Requiem for a
Heavyweight." He was remembered in the PBS production titled:
"Submitted for Your Approval," first broadcast on 11/29/95.
(WSJ, 11/27/95, p.A-14)(MC, 12/28/01)
1924 John J. Rigas, founder of
Adelphia Communications, was born in Wellsville, NY.
(USAT, 7/9/04, p.3B)
1924 The Hearst Corp. acquired
the Albany Times Union.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1925 Apr 14, Rod Steiger, film
actor (Illustrated Man, Pawnbroker), was born in West Hampton, NY.
(SFC, 7/10/02, p.A6)(MC, 4/14/02)
1925 Apr 19, Hugh O'Brian,
[Krampke], actor (Wyatt Earp), was born in Rochester, NY.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1925 Oct 3, Gore Vidal, writer
(Myra Breckinridge, Lincoln, DC, Burr), was born in West Point, NY.
He was named Eugen Luther Gore Vidal. His first book at age 20 was
titled "Williwaw." A memoir of his 1st 39 years was titled
"Palimpsest." In 1999 some collected essays were published under the
title "Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings." In 1993 a
collection of essays was titled "United States: 1952-1992".
(SFEC, 11/7/99, BR p.5)(HN, 10/3/00)
1925 Oct 20, Art Buchwald,
humorist, was born in Mt. Vernon, NY.
(HN, 10/20/00)(MC, 10/20/01)
1925 Nov 17, Charles Mackerras,
Australian conductor, was born in Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 11/17/01)
c1925-1929 Ashbel Barney, NY investor, purchased
the Chateau des Thons near Dijon, France. He had it taken apart and
shipped it to Long Island where it was rebuilt.
(WSJ, 12/8/00, p.W16)
1927 May 20, Charles Lindbergh
(25) took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, NY, at 7:40 AM
aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to
France. The Minnesota native had decided to compete for a $25,000
prize, offered in 1919 by Raymond Orteig, NY hotel owner, to the
first pilot to complete the feat. The Spirit of St. Louis, was
capable of flying 4,000 miles on 425 gallons of fuel. His greatest
problems on the 33-hour, 30-minute flight were staying awake and
keeping ice from forming on the airplane’s wings.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)(HNPD, 5/21/00)(USAW,
5/19/02, p.26)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Jun 27, Robert Casey,
actor (Henry-Aldrich Family Show), was born in Rochester, NY.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1927 Aug 12, Ralph Waite, actor
(John-Waltons, Roots), was born in White Plains, NY.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1928 Jan 12, Ruth Snyder
(b.1895) became the first woman to die in the electric chair. She
was electrocuted by “state electrician” Robert G. Elliott at Sing
Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, along with Judd Gray, her lover
and co-conspirator, for the murder of her husband, Albert on March
20, 1927. This was billed in the press as “The Dumb-Bell Murder.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Snyder)
1928 Feb 8, 1st transatlantic
TV image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Mar 19, Patrick McGoohan,
actor (#6-Prisoner, Secret Agent), was born in Astoria, NY.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 Jul 30, George Eastman
showed the 1st color motion pictures in the US. [see Jun 4, 1929]
(MC, 7/30/02)
1928 The 1st Saks Fifth Avenue
branch outside NYC opened in Southampton.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.M2)
1929 Feb 19, A medical
diathermy machine was 1st used in Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1929 Jun 4, George Eastman
demonstrated 1st Technicolor movie in Rochester, NY.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1929 Nov 20, Kenneth DeWitt
Schermerhorn, conductor, was born in Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1929 Dec 1, Dick Shawn, actor
(Producers, Maid to Order, Angel), was born in Buffalo, NY.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1930 Nov 4, New York reelected
Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt by a landslide.
(ON, 12/07,
p.2)(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/timeline.php?id=32)
1930 Herman G. Fisher
(1898-1975) and Irving L. Price co-founded the Fisher-Price toy
company in East Aurora, NY. Quaker Oats Company acquired the firm in
1969. Mattel Inc. acquired Fisher-Price in 1993.
(www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/274/)(WSJ, 12/21/05, p.A8)
1930s The McKee Glass Co. made
Bottoms-Up glasses. The cocktail glasses could not stand up and were
designed to be held until emptied. The idea was copied from pottery
glasses of White Cloud Farms of Rock Tavern, N.Y.
(SFC, 1/28/98, Z1 p.3)
1931 Jan 13, The Bridge
connecting New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington
Memorial Bridge.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1931 May 25, John Gabriel,
actor (Cat Gang, Fantasies), was born in Niagara Falls, NY.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1931 Oct 25, The George
Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, was
completed at a cost of $59 million and 12 lives. The US Post Office
featured a commemorative stamp. It was described as the most
beautiful bridge in the world.
(http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/george-washington/)(SFC, 9/3/98,
p.A19)
1931 Castro Convertible Corp.
began operating in New York as a maker of convertible sofa beds. It
was sold to Krause’s Furniture in 1993. Krause closed in 2002.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1932 Jan 23, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his candidacy for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1932 Feb 4, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the Winter Olympic Games at Lake
Placid, N.Y.
(AP, 2/4/97)(HN, 2/4/99)
1932 Mar 31, 150 wild swans
died in Niagara waterfall.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1932 Mar 14, George Eastman
(77), founder of Eastman Kodak, committed suicide. “To my friends.
My work is done, why wait?”
(ON, 3/05, p.12)(http://tinyurl.com/5fjeq)
1932 Jul 1, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the Democratic
convention in Chicago.
(AP, 7/1/07)
1932 Jul 2, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt won the nomination for president on the 4th
ballot at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
(ON, 12/07, p.3)
1932 Nov 8, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the
presidency.
(AP, 11/8/97)
1933 Jun 11, Jud Strunk,
singer, comedian (Laugh-In), was born in Jamestown, NY.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1933 Jul 10, 1st police radio
system began operations at Eastchester Township, NY.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1933 Camp Wonundra, later known
as The Point, was built on Upper Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks for
William Avery Rockefeller.
(SFCM, 3/17/02, p.27)
1934 Jul 1, The 1st x-ray photo
of entire body was made in Rochester, NY.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1934 Dec 14, 1st streamlined
steam locomotive was introduced in Albany, NY.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1934 Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
(89), artist, died on Staten Island. His work included "A Friend in
Need," commonly known as "Dogs Playing Poker."
(SFC, 6/17/02, p.D5)
1935 Jan 9, Bob Denver, actor
(Dobie Gillis, Gilligan's Island), was born in New Rochelle, NY.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1935 Mar 22, Michael Emmet
Walsh, actor (Wildcats, War Party), was born in Ogdensburg, NY.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1935 Mar 22, Blood tests were
authorized as evidence in court cases in NY.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1935 Apr 1, The first radio
tube to be made of metal was announced in Schenectady, NY.
(OTD)
1935 The name "Triple Crown
Winner" was coined by writer Charlie Hatton after the 3-year-old
Omaha won the Kentucky Derby, the NY Belmont Stakes and the Maryland
Preakness.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.E3)
1935 Scientists at Cornell
Univ. reported that restricting calories had an antiaging effect in
rodents.
(WSJ, 10/30/06, p.A11)
1936 Jan 29, The first members
of baseball's Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner,
Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson were named in Cooperstown,
N.Y.
(AP, 1/29/98)(http://tinyurl.com/33ko5fd)
1937 Sep 1, Ron O'Neal, actor
(Superfly), was born in Utica, NY.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1937 Sep 27, The 1st Santa
Claus Training School opened in Albion, NY.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1937 Air service was launched
between La Guardia and East Hampton, NY.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.M2)
1938 Mar 18, NY 1st required
serological blood tests of pregnant women.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1938 Apr 10, NY made syphilis
testing mandatory for a marriage license.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1938 Apr, Louis J. Caldor, NYC
engineer and art collector, began purchasing the art work of Anna
Mary Moses (77), a widow living in Eagle Bridge, NY.
(ON, 8/20/11, p.11)
1938 Sep 1, George Maharis,
actor (Buz-Route 66, Most Deadly Game), was born in Astoria, NY.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1938 Sep 21, A Category 3
hurricane struck parts of New York and New England, causing
widespread damage and claiming more than 600 lives. Winds hit 183
MPH in New England and 700 were killed. The storm hit Long Island
and Connecticut and caused $308 million in damage.
(AP, 9/21/97)(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.B1)
1938 Dec 29, Jon Voight, actor
(Deliverance, Midnight Cowboy), was born in Yonkers, NY.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1938 King's College was founded
in Tuxedo, NY. It went bankrupt in the 1990s and was bought by the
Campus Crusade for Christ. It reopened in the Empire State Building
in 1999.
(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.W11)
1939 Jun 12, The National
Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated in Cooperstown, NY,
on the 100th anniversary of the day Abner Doubleday supposedly
invented the sport.
(http://baseballhall.org/museum/experience/history)(AP, 6/12/97)
1939 Jun 28, Pan American
Airways began regular trans-Atlantic passenger air service as the
"Dixie Clipper" left Port Washington, N.Y., for Portugal.
(AP, 6/28/99)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1941 Jun 7, Whirlaway won the
Belmont Stakes & the triple crown.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1941 Nov 30, 101 year old
Nyack-Tarrytown (NY) ferry makes it's last run.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1942 Mar 2, Lou Reed [Louis
Firbank], vocalist, guitarist (Walk on the Wild Side, Velvet
Underground), was born in Freeport, NY.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1942 Mar 7, Michael Eisner, CEO
(Walt Disney), was born in Mt. Kisko, NY.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1942 Jun 13, Four men landed on
a Long Island beach from a German submarine with plans to sabotage
NYC's water system and industrial sites across the Northeastern US.
[see Jun 27]
(SFC, 11/30/01, p.A1)
1942 Jun 27, The FBI announced
the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from 2
submarines, one off New York’s Long Island and the other off of
Florida. The men were tried by a military court and 6 were secretly
executed in a DC jail. Ernest Burger and George Dasch were sentenced
to 30 years in prison for their help in revealing the plot. They
were pardoned in 1948 by Pres. Truman.
(AP, 6/27/97)(SFC, 11/30/01, p.A18)
1943 Dec 23, The 1st telecast
of a complete opera (Hansel & Gretel) was made from Schenectady,
NY.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1943-1955 Thomas E. Dewey (d.1971), born in
Owosso, Mich., in 1902, served as governor of New York. He also was
a two-time Republican presidential nominee,.
(HN, 3/24/01)(AP, 3/24/02)(AH, 12/02, p.4)
1944 Mar 4, Louis Buchalter,
aka Lepke, was executed at Sing Sing along with Mendy Weiss. Lepke
and fellow gangsters had dispatched Weiss in 1935 to kill Dutch
Schultz, who had planned to kill NYC prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey.
(AH, 12/02, p.4)
1944 A 5.8 earthquake was
centered in Massena, 3 miles from the Canadian border.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A2)
1944 Al Smith (b.1873), former
4-term governor of New York, died. In 2001 Robert A. Slayton
authored "Empire Statesman," a biography of Alfred E. Smith.
(TMC, 1994, p.1944)(WUD, 1994 p.1345)(WSJ,
3/6/00, p.A20)
1945 Jan 6, George Herbert
Walker Bush married Barbara Pierce in Rye, N.Y.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1945 Mar 12, NY became the 1st
state to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Jul 1, New York
established the New York State Commission Against Discrimination to
prevent discrimination in employment because of race, creed or
natural origin; it was the first such agency in the United States.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1945 Jackson Pollock (d.1956)
and Lee Krasner (d.1984) purchased a property in East Hampton, NY,
with a loan from Peggy Guggenheim. It was declared a National
Historic Landmark in 1994. (www.pkhouse.org)
(Brochure, 2002)
1945 Constellation Brands of
Fairport, NY, began as Canandaigua Industries, a bulk-wine business
in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY.
(WSJ, 1/16/04, p.A7)
1946 Apr 25, Talia Shire,
actress (Adrienne-Rocky, Godfather), was born in Lake Success, NY.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1946-1977 PCBs were released into the Hudson River
by 2 General Electric plants and were buried in sediment along 197
miles that was later declared a Superfund site. The EPA expected GE
to dredge some 35 miles at a cost of some $1 billion. GE fought the
cleanup law and was also involved in Superfund sites at Hoboken NJ
and Milford NH. Cleanup of the Hudson River began in 2009 at an
estimated cost of $750 million, to be paid by GE. The sludge was
scheduled to be buried in West Texas.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(SFC,
6/22/09, p.A9)
1947 Jan, Chester Carlson,
patent attorney and kitchen inventor, signed a licensing agreement
with Haloid Corp. of Rochester, NY, to develop a copy machine. This
marked the beginning of Xerox’s copy business. 12 years later, the
company launched a practical dry copier. Entrepreneur Joe Wilson
propelled Xerox to success. In 2006 Charles D. Ellis authored Joe
Wilson and the Creation of Xerox.”
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)(ON, 11/04, p.8)(Econ,
11/18/06, p.86)
1947 Mar 14, Billy Crystal,
comedian (Soap, SNL, City Slickers), was born in Long Beach, NY.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1948 Jun 19, The first women's
rights convention convened in Seneca Falls, New York. Organized by
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the two-day convention
discussed such topics as voting, property rights and divorce. It
launched the women's suffrage movement. The convention issued a
"Declaration of Sentiments" based on the Declaration of
Independence. "The ideal newspaper woman has the keen zest for life
of a child, the cool courage of a man and the subtlety of a woman."
(AP, 7/19/97)(DT internet 6/19/97)(SFEC, 7/20/97,
Par p.8) (HN, 6/19/98)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.30)
1948 Jul 1, New York
International Airport at Idlewild, later renamed John F. Kennedy
International Airport, was officially opened.
(AP, 7/1/98)
1948 Oct 2, In New York the 1st
Grand Prix at Watkins Glen was held. Cameron Argetsinger (1921-2008)
was the main driving force behind the race which was won by Frank
Griswold. Formula racing continued there until bankruptcy in 1981.
Two year later Corning Glass Works revived the Watkins Glen race
course in partnership with Int’l. Speedway Corp.
(WSJ, 4/26/08,
p.A6)(www.nascar.com/races/tracks/wgi/index.html)
1948 The Green Chimneys Farm
and School was founded as a refuge for youngsters, mainly boys, who
came from troubled families. In 1998 a film documentary was made of
3 boys at the residential treatment center whose aim was to return
children to their homes.
(WSJ, 5/14/98, p.A20)
1949 Apr 21, Patti LuPone,
actress, singer (Evita, Life Goes On), was born in Northport, NY.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1949 Aug 28, A riot prevented
Paul Robeson from singing near Peekskill, NY. A fundraising concert
for the widows and orphans of the Spanish Civil War turned into the
Peeksill riots. Helen Krimont Seitz (d.2001 at 90), a pioneer of
modern day care, helped organize the concert.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.C4)(MC, 8/28/01)
1949 The US government ceded
Great Gull Island in Long Island Sound to the American Museum of
Natural History.
(NH, 10/02, p.12)
1949 William Scandling, Will
Laughlin and Harry Anderson founded Saga Corp., a food services
operation, in Geneva, NY. It was named after Kanadasaga, an Indian
village that preceded Geneva. In 1986 Marriot Corp. bought out the
company.
(SSFC, 9/11/05, p.A25)
1950 Feb 17, In New York 31
people died in a train crash at Long Island’s Rockville Center.
(www.emergency-management.net/pass_train.htm)
1950 Nov 22, In New York 78
died in a train crash in Richmond Hills (later Kew Gardens), NY.
(www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-lirr/lirr-0650-OL.html)
1950 The population of Buffalo,
NY, was around 580,000. By 2006 it dropped to 280,000. In 2006 Diana
Dillaway authored “Power Failure,” a look at Buffalo’s decline.
(WSJ, 6/30/06, p.W4)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.42)
1951 Aug 3, Frank Pace, Jr.,
Secretary of the Army, announced that 90 cadets of the United States
Military Academy at West Point, NY, were to be expelled for cheating
during examinations. Many of them were on the football team. In 1996
James Blackwell authored “On Brave Old Army Team: Cheating Scandal
That Rocked the Country - West Point, 1951.”
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=13874)(http://tinyurl.com/yfw7u3)
1952 May 2, Christine Baranski,
actress (Maryann-Cybill, Birdcage, Sweeney Todd), was born in
Buffalo, NY.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1952 Aug 27, Paul Reubens
(Pee-wee Herman), actor (Pee-wee's Big Adventure), was born in
Peekskill, NY.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1952 Dec 29, The 1st
transistorized hearing aid was offered for sale at Elmsford, NY.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1953 Mar 18, Margaret L.
Augustine, project manager for Biosphere 2, was born in Buffalo, NY.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1953 Jun 19, Julius
(b.5/12/1918) and Ethel Rosenberg (b.9/28/1915), convicted of
passing U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II,
were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. The Supreme
Court had vacated a stay granted by Justice William O. Douglas and
President Eisenhower refused to intervene, despite a massive
worldwide campaign to free them. In 1983 Ronald Radosh and Joyce
Milton authored “The Rosenberg File.” In 2001 Sam Roberts authored
“The Brother,” an account of David Greenglass, the younger brother
of Ethel Rosenberg and star witness against her and Julius. In 2008
Morton Sobell (91), a former Soviet spy who had spent nearly 20
years in Alcatraz, fingered Julius Rosenberg as a fellow Soviet spy,
but not Ethel.
(TL, 1988, p.114)(BEP, 1994)(WSJ, 10/1/01,
p.A22)(WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A19)
1954 Jan 12, Howard Stern,
"Radio's Bad Boy," was born in Roosevelt, NY.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1954 Margaret Vanderbilt
donated Sagamore Lodge (1895) to Syracuse Univ. as a conference
center.
(SFCM, 3/17/02, p.24)
1954 Dr. George Moore and
colleagues at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute at Buffalo, NY,
published a pioneering study of male patients with cancer of the
mouth showing that a majority of them had been tobacco chewers for
significant periods of time.
(SFC, 6/16/08, p.B3)
1955 New York Gov. Averell
Harriman signed legislation that prohibited the distribution of
lurid comics, banned their sale to people under the age of 18 and
banned such words as “crime,” “terror,” “horror,” and “sex” from
comic book titles. In 2008 David Hajdu authored “The Ten-Cent
Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America.”
(WSJ, 3/14/08, p.W2)
1956 Jan 3, Mel
Gibson, Academy Award-winning director and actor, was born in
Peekskill, New York. His films included Braveheart (1995) actor and
director; Maverick, The Man Without a Face, Lethal Weapon series,
Forever Young, Hamlet, Bird on a Wire, Tequila Sunrise, Mad Max
series, Mrs. Soffel, The Road Warrior, The Year of Living
Dangerously, Summer City.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000154/)
1956 Aug 11, Abstract artist
Jackson Pollock (b.1912) died in an automobile accident in East
Hampton, N.Y. He was born in Wyoming and became a leader of the
abstract expressionist school of art.
(AHD, 1971, p.1015)(AP, 8/11/97)
1957 Charles and Margaret Dyson
founded the Dyson Foundation to improve the lives of children in the
Mid-Hudson Valley.
(SFC, 9/25/00, p.B2)
1957 Martin Stone (d.1998 at
83) founded WVIP Radio in Mount Kisco. He produced "Howdy Doody" at
NBC in the late 40s and early 50s and "Author Meets the Critics."
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)
1958 Haloid Corp. changed its
name to Haloid-Xerox and produced a prototype of the 914 copy
machine.
(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1959 Jun 10, Eliot Spitzer,
later NY state governor (2007), was born in the Bronx. In 2008 he
faced the end of his political career amidst a sex scandal.
(WSJ, 3/11/08, p.A18)
1959 The West End Brewing Co.,
producers of Utica Club Beer, began running TV commercials in the
Northeast US. The ad campaign included the Schultz and Dooley
ceramic mugs based on the ad characters.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.G6)
1960 Mar, The Xerox model 914
plain-paper copier made its debut. It was invented by Chester
Carlson and had been nursed along by Batelle research institute of
Ohio and Haloid, a NY manufacturer of photographic paper. In 1961
Haloid became Xerox.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.W8)(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1960 Jul 9, Roger Woodward (7)
and his sister, Deanne Woodward (17), were rescued from the Niagara
River after being tossed from family friend James Honeycutt's
12-foot aluminum boat. New Jersey tourists John Hayes and John
Quattrochi pulled Deanne Woodward to shore just before the brink.
Honeycutt was swept with Roger Woodward over the Horseshoe Falls and
died. Roger survived the 162-foot plunge.
(AP, 7/16/10)
1960 Edmund Wilson and Joseph
Mitchell authored “Apologies to the Iroquois.” It memorialized the
seizure by Robert Moses, the unelected head of the New York Power
Authority, of 600 acres by eminent domain for a power reservoir near
Niagara Falls.
(www.nyslittree.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/DB.PersonDetail/PersonPK/500.cfm)
1961 Feb 10, Niagara Falls
hydroelectric project began producing power.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1961 Dec 13, Anna Mary
Robertson Moses (b.1860), US painter and folk artist known as
Grandma Moses, died in Hoosick Falls, New York.
(SFC, 3/26/97, z1
p.7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses)
1962 Jun 25, The Supreme Court
ruled that the use of an unofficial, nondenominational prayer in New
York public schools was unconstitutional.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1963 Mar 18, Vanessa L.
Williams, 1st black Miss America (1983), singer, was born in
Millwood, NY.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1964 Jul 18, Riots erupted in
the African American communities of NYC and Rochester, NY.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F5)
1964 Jul 24-27, A race riot
took place in Rochester, New York, and 4 people were killed.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1964 Jul 25, There was a race
riot in Rochester, NY.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1964 Oct 20, Herbert Hoover
(b.1874), the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933),
died in New York at age 90.
(AP, 10/20/97)(AH, 12/02, p.20)
1964 Nov 3, Robert Kennedy was
elected senator from New York.
(HN, 11/3/98)
1964 Nov 21, New York's
Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened. It was the world's longest
suspension bridge at the time. It was designed by Swiss
émigré Othmar Ammann.
(AP, 11/21/97)(MC, 11/21/01)(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.D8)
1964-1971 Howard Boatwright (d.1999 at 80) served
as the dean of the music school at Syracuse Univ. His compositions
included String Quartet No. 2 (1975).
(SFC, 2/25/99, p.C2)
1965 Feb 13, James Mitchell
(23), amateur explorer, died inside Schroeder’s Pants Cave in
Dolgeville, NY. His remains were recovered in 2006.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.A13)
1965 Apr 13, Lawrence Wallace
Bradford Jr. (16) was appointed by New York Republican Jacob Javits
to be the first black page of the US Senate.
(AP, 4/13/02)
1965 Apr 21, New York World's
Fair reopened for a 2nd and final season.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1965 In western New York the
Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River opened. Construction of the dam
forced the departure of Pennsylvania's last Native Americans, the
Senecas, who now live near Salamanca, New York, on the northern
shores of land flooded by the dam.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinzua_Dam)
1966 Jul 29, Bob Dylan was hurt
in motorcycle accident near Woodstock, NY.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1967 Jun 27, There was a race
riot in Buffalo, NY, and 200 were arrested.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_riot_of_1967)
1967 Jun 28, Fourteen people
were shot in race riots in Buffalo, New York.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1967 Jul 17, John Coltrane
(b.1926), jazz composer-musician died in Huntington, N.Y. He gained
attention through recordings as part of Miles Davis’ quintet in the
50s. By 1960, following critical acclaim, Coltrane was leading his
own quartet that eventually dissolved in 1965. He worked with
various musicians for the next two years until succumbing to liver
cancer in 1967. Coltrane’s style, developed over the years from
influences ranging from Miles Davis’ forms of modal improvisation to
Eastern musical theory, has influenced and been imitated by numerous
jazz musicians since. His album’s included "Kulu Se Mama" written by
Juno Lewis (d.2002). In 2002 Ashley Kahn authored "A Love Supreme:
The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album.” In 2007 Ben Ratliff
authored “Coltrane: The Story of Sound.”
(SFC, 4/23/02, p.A18)(SSFC, 12/8/02, p.M5)(AP,
7/17/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.104)
1967 Charles Burchfield,
artist, died at 73. He spent most of his time on the outskirts of
Buffalo. His work included the watercolor "New Moon in January"
(1918) and "Wind Blown Asters" (1951).
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1967-1997 The New Rochelle Mall opened with about
100 stores. It was demolished to make way for the $170 million,
450,000-sq-foot New Rochelle Center scheduled to open in Fall, 2000.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.B8)
1968 Nov 5, Shirley Chisholm of
Brooklyn, New York, was the first black woman elected to serve in
the House of Representatives.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1968 The Everson Museum in
Syracuse moved into a new poured-concrete structure designed by I.M.
Pei.
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1969 Apr 19, In Ithaca N.Y.
some 80 armed, militant black students at Cornell Univ. took over
Willard Straight Hall. They demanded a black studies program and cut
a deal with frightened administrators for total amnesty. In 1999
Donald Alexander Downs described the events in his book: "Cornell
'69."
(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A18)
1969 Aug 15, The Woodstock
Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York. 400,000 young people
gathered at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the Bethel hamlet of White
Lake, N.Y. for the Woodstock music festival. Wavy Gravy (Hugh
Romney) and companions from the Hog Farm Commune handled security
and ran a free kitchen and "bad trips tent." The performers included
Joan Baez; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Creedence Clearwater; the
Grateful Dead; Jimi Hendrix; the Jefferson Airplane; Janis Joplin;
Canned Heat and Ravi Shankar.
(TMC, 1994,
p.1969)(SFC,5/17/96,p.E-1)(WSJ,10/22/96,p.A20)(SFEC,1/26/97,
p.A14)(AP, 8/15/97)(SFC,10/27/97, p.C2)(SFC, 2/3/99, p.E1)
1969 Aug 18, Two concert goers
died at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, one
from an overdose of heroin, the other from a burst appendix. The
Woodstock Music and Art Fair ended in Sullivan County, NY, with a
mid-morning set performed by Jimi Hendrix.
(HN, 8/18/99)(AP, 8/18/07)
1969 Fish and wildlife
officials in New York and Vermont banned fish shooting. In 1970 the
Vermont Legislature re-instated the sport.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A2)
1970 Jan 7, Woodstock, NY,
farmers sued Max Yasgur (1919-1973) for $35,000 for damages caused
by the "Woodstock" rock festival.
(www.woodstockpreservation.org/pastpresent/maxtribute.html)
1970 The C.W. Post College Dome
Auditorium was built at Long Island Univ. in Brookville. It
collapsed under snow and ice in 1978.
(WSJ, 10/10/01, p.B1)
1971 May 25, Justin Henry Rye,
actor (Kramer vs. Kramer, 16 Candles), was born in Rye, NY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Henry)
1971 Sep 9-1971 Sep 13, Some
1,000 prisoners seized control of the maximum-security Attica
Correctional Facility near Buffalo, NY, in a siege that claimed 43
lives. In 2000 a federal judge ordered an $8 million settlement to
some 400 inmates to settle a prisoner class action suit. $4 million
was for lawyers.
(SFC, 1/5/00,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riots)(AP, 9/9/08)
1971 Sep 13, State troopers and
prison guards stormed Attica Correctional Facility in New York. The
four-day inmates' rebellion over poor living conditions claimed 43
lives, including 11 guards and 32 prisoners. Inmate Frank Smith
(d.2004) was beaten tortured and abused by guards. In 1997 a federal
jury awarded him $4 million. Another 1,280 inmates sought $2.8
billion in damages against the state. In 2000 a federal court
described the guards' reaction as an "orgy of brutality" and ordered
the state to pay $8 million to inmates who were tortured after the
uprising.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/13/97)(SFC, 2/16/00,
p.A5)(SFC, 8/3/04, p.B6)
1971 Sep 9-13, In Attica, New
York, prisoners took 33 hostages. When police attacked on orders by
Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, 42 [43] were killed including 9
hostages. In 2000 a federal judge ordered an $8 million settlement
to some 400 inmates to settle a prisoner class action suit. $4
million was for lawyers.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A3)(SFC,
1/5/00, p.A3)
1972 Feb 14 Bill Torrey (38),
an executive vice president with the Oakland Seals, was named the
1st General Manager of the Islanders, a Long Island hockey team.
(http://tinyurl.com/4hfu8o)
1972 Apr 4, Adam Clayton Powell
Jr. (b.1908), American politician, died in Florida. He was elected
to the US House of Representatives from Harlem in 1945 and became
chair of the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. He was the first
black Congressman from New York.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.)
1972 Dec 24, Charles Atlas
(b.1892), Italian-born body builder, died in Long Beach, NY. Atlas
was born as Angelo Siciliano in Acri, Italy, and moved to the US in
1905.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397860/)
1973 Feb 8, Max Yasgur (53),
owner Woodstock festival farmland, died of a heart attack. In 1969
his dairy farm was the site of the Woodstock Music and Arts
Festival. He had offered his land for the festival over the
objection of local officials.
(http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/ynames-nf/Yasgur+Max)
1973 May 27, Betty Tyson (24),
a prostitute and heroin addict, was arrested for the strangulation
death of a businessman. Her murder conviction was overturned in
1998, due to a wrongfully suppressed police report, and she was
released from prison 25 years to the day from her arrest in New
York.
(SFC, 5/28/98,
p.A3)(http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A01251)
1973 May, The state of New
York, under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, passed a set of laws requiring
judges to impose sentences of 15 years to life for anyone convicted
of selling two ounces or possessing 4 ounces of narcotic drugs. The
legislation sent the state’s prison population soaring.
(Econ, 9/3/11, p.85)
1973 Jul 28, Bill Graham
produced a rock festival in Watkins Glen, NY, that featured the
Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead. The concert drew
some 650,000 people, the single largest paying crowd in concert
history.
(www.superseventies.com/watkinsglen.html)(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1973 New York State hired
Charles Gehring to translate some 12,000 pages of documents from New
Amsterdam. His work was used by Russell Shorto’s 2004 book “The
Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan
and the Forgotten Colony That shaped America.”
(AH, 10/04, p.73)
1974 Nov 13, In Amityville, NY,
6 members of the DeFeo family were shot and killed in their home.
Ronald DeFeo Jr., the oldest son, was convicted of the murders. A
year later George Lutz (1947-2006) and his family moved into the
Long Island house at 112 Ocean Ave. and stayed for 28 days before
being driven out by the alleged spirits of the DeFeos. In 1977 Jay
Anson authored “The Amityville Horror.” In 1979 the book was turned
into a movie, which was remade in 2005. In 1979 Austrian-born
paranormal investigator Hans Holzer (d.2009 at 89) authored “Murder
in Amityville,” which formed the basis for the 1982 film “Amityville
II: The Possession.” In 1977 Holzer and medium Ethel Johnson-Myers
allegedly channeled the spirit of a Shinnecock Indian chief, who
said the house stood on an ancient Indian burial ground.
(SSFC, 5/14/06,
p.B6)(www.warrens.net/amityvill.htm)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.B4)
1974 Nov 8, Singer Connie
Francis (b.1938) was raped in her hotel room after a concert at the
Westbury Music Fair on Long Island, NY.
(SFC, 9/1/96, Par.
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Francis)
1975 Jan 1, Hugh Carey (b.1919)
began serving as governor of New York. He served to the end of 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Carey)
1975 Jun 24, In New York 113
people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while
attempting to land during a thunderstorm at John F. Kennedy
International Airport. The crash was later attributed to a
microburst, not experienced at the control tower because of a sea
breeze front.
(AP, 6/24/97)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.D8)
1975 New York’s Gov. Carey
convinced the teachers’ union to invest a significant amount of its
pension funds in state bail-out bonds. In 2010 Seymour Lachman later
authored “The Man Who Saved New York: Hugh Carey and the Great
Fiscal Crisis of 1975.”
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.32)
1976 May 9, Harvey Fite,
professor of art at Bard College, died in Saugerties, NY, while
working on his multi-acre Opus 40 landscape sculpture. In 2010 the
37-year project was listed for sale for $3.5 million.
(SFC, 3/22/10, p.A4)
1976 May 13, In game 6 the NY
Nets beat the Denver Nuggets in 9th & final American Basketball
Association (ABA) championship, 4 games to 2.
(www.remembertheaba.com/New-York-Nets.html)
1976 Jul 4, Opening ceremony of
the Dai Bosatsu monastery Catskill Mt NY.
(Maggio)
1976 Jul 7, The 1st female
cadets enrolled at the West Point Military Academy in NY.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5159)
1976 Aug 27, Transsexual Renee
Richards was barred from competing in US Tennis Open in Forest
Hills, NY.
(www.nytimes.com/packages/html/sports/year_in_sports/08.27.html)
1976 Sep 10, 5 Croatian
terrorists captured a TWA-plane at La Guardia Airport, NY.
(http://nycslav.blogspot.com/2005/11/croatian-terroristsin-new-york.html)
1976 Oct 15, Carlo Gambino
(b.1902), US gangster, died at his summer home in Long Island.
(www.gambino.com/bio/carlogambino.htm)
1976 Dec 30, Governor Carey of
New York pardoned seven inmates to close the book on the Attica
uprising.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1977 May 29, Danny Gerard,
actor (Alan Silver-Brooklyn Bridge), was born in Mount Vernon, NY.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1977 Jun 11, Seattle Slew
(d.2002 at 28) won the Belmont Stakes, capturing the Triple Crown.
(AP, 6/11/97)(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.A1)
1977 Jul 13, A 25-hour power
blackout hit the New York City area and looters rampaged in the city
after lightning struck upstate power lines. Some 9 million people
were affected.
(TMC, 1994, p.1977)(AP, 7/13/97)(SFC, 8/15/03,
p.A7)
1977 Aug 10, Postal employee
David Berkowitz was arrested in Yonkers, NY, accused of being the
"Son of Sam" gunman responsible for six slayings and seven
woundings. Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive
25-years-to-life sentences.
(AP, 8/10/07)
1977 Emma Crapser (92) was
killed in her Poughkeepsie, NY, apartment. In 1983 Dewey Bozella
(b.1959) was convicted of her grisly murder on the testimony of two
convicted criminals and served 26 years in prison before being
finally in 2009 after the nonprofit Innocence Project intervened and
turned over evidence that had been suppressed during his trial.
(AP,
10/12/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Bozella)
1978 Jun 10, Affirmed
(1975-2001), ridden by Steve Cauthen, became a Triple Crown winner
after winning the NY Belmont Stakes by a nose over Alyadar.
(AP, 6/10/98)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A20)(NW, 12/31/01,
p.109)
1978 Dec 11, Six masked men
bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NY Kennedy Airport
& made off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry. Nicholas Pileggi
wrote "Wise Guys," which described his participation in the heist.
The robbery inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1979 Jan 26, Nelson A.
Rockefeller (70), former Vice President under Ford, died in New
York. He was also a 4-time governor of New York.
(AP,
1/26/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller)
1980 Feb 13, The opening
ceremonies were held in Lake Placid, NY, for the 13th Winter
Olympics.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1980 Feb 22, In a stunning
upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake
Placid, N.Y., 4-3.
(AP, 2/22/99)
980 Feb 23, Eric Heiden (21)
won his 5th speed skating gold at the Lake Placid Olympics. He went
on to become an orthopedic surgeon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_1980_Winter_Olympics)(SSFC,
9/22/02, p.E1)
1980 Mar 10, "Scarsdale Diet"
author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death in Purchase, N.Y. Jean
Harris (56) shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist
Herman Tarnower, co-author of "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet"
in Purchase N.Y. She was granted clemency by Gov. Mario Cuomo after
she served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in
January 1993.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/10/00)
1980 May 22, In response to a
request from the Governor of NY, President Carter declared a second
federal emergency at Love Canal, paving the way for federal aid to
relocate the more than 700 families who still lived near the former
toxic waste dump.
(www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/investigations/love_canal/lcreport.htm)
1980 Jun 7, Temperance Hill won
the Belmont Stakes (50:1 long shot).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kraynak)
1980 Sep 22-1980 Sep 24, In
Buffalo, NY, 4 African American men were shot in the
head.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c37rd)
1980 Oct 8-1980 Oct 9, In
Buffalo, NY, 2 African American taxi drivers were murdered and found
with their hearts cut out.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c37rd)
1980 Dec 1, The US Justice Dept
sued Yonkers, NY, citing racial discrimination.
(http://tinyurl.com/2m6tyl)
1980 Dec 11, President Carter
signed into a law legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental
"superfund" to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste
dumps. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or Superfund) was established by the
US Congress to clean up America's worst hazardous waste sites.
Fifteen years later more than $20 billion had been spent with 1300
waste sites identified but only a small fraction cleaned. The fund
was established in response to toxic chemicals seeping into a
housing development at Love Canal in New York. The aim was to
require private parties to clean up past pollution when they could
be found. The Fed would pay where the responsible parties could not
be determined.
(WSJ, 10/25/95, p.A-18)(SFC, 6/8/96,
p.A13)(www.epa.gov/superfund/20years/ch2pg3.htm)
1981 Jan 15, Emanuel Celler
(92), (Rep-D-NY, 1923-73), died.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1981 Feb 15, A rocket-powered
ice sled attained 399 kph on Lake George, NY.
(440 Int'l., 2/15/99)
1981 Feb 24, A jury in White
Plains, New York, found Jean Harris guilty of second-degree murder
in the fatal shooting of "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman
Tarnower.
(AP, 2/24/01)
1981 Mar 20, Former girls'
school headmistress Jean Harris was sentenced in White Plains, New
York, to 15 years to life in prison for slaying "Scarsdale Diet"
author Dr. Herman Tarnower. Harris ended up serving almost 12 years.
(AP, 3/20/01)
1981 Jul 16, Singer Harry
Chapin was killed when his car was struck by a tractor-trailer on
New York's Long Island Expressway.
(AP, 7/16/01)
1981 Aug 29, Lowell Thomas
(89), broadcaster and world traveler died in Pawling, N.Y.
(AP, 8/29/97)
1981 Oct 20, Three members of
the radical Weather Underground were arrested following a bungled
armored truck robbery in Nanuet, N.Y., where a guard was killed. 2
police officers were killed when the getaway truck was halted in
Nyack. Susan Rosenberg assisted in surveillance, driving a getaway
car and passing orders. Kathy Boudin was sentenced 20 years to life
for assisting in the getaway. In 2003 Boudin was paroled and Susan
Braudy authored "Family Circle," an account of the Boudin family.
Rosenberg was arrested in Nov 1984 while unloading a cache of
weapons in New Jersey and received a 58-year sentence for her role
in the robbery. Pres. Clinton commuted Rosenberg’s sentence in 2001.
(AP, 10/20/01)(SFC, 8/21/03, p.A6)(WSJ, 11/26/03,
p.D10)(WSJ, 12/2/04, p.W15)
1982 Jan 31, Kathleen Durst
(29) disappeared after spending a weekend at the family cottage in
South Salem. Robert Durst, her husband, reported her missing Feb 5.
In 2001 Robert Durst was arrested and charged in the dismemberment
death of Morris Black (71) in Galveston, Texas. Durst was also a
suspect in the Dec, 2000, shooting death of author Susan Berman.
(SFC, 10/13/01, p.A15)
1982 A 23-year-old woman was
robbed and raped in a Buffalo nature preserve. Vincent H. Jenkins,
aka Warith Habib Abdal, was sentenced 20 years to life in prison for
the crime and served 17 years before he was cleared by a DNA test in
1999. Jenkins was the 61st inmate to be exonerated by DNA testing.
(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A3)
1983 Jan 1, Lt. Gov. Mario
Cuomo (b.1932) succeeded Hugh Carey as governor of New York. Cuomo
served 3 terms as the state’s 56th governor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Cuomo)
1983 Feb 26, Short-wave pirate
Radio USA in Wellsville, NY, began transmission.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1983 Dec 27, A propane gas fire
devastated 16 blocks of Buffalo, NY. The fire killed five
firefighters, two civilians, destroyed about a million in fire
equipment, and leveled several city blocks, as well as the infamous
fire alarm box # 29 also known as the Hoodoo Box.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Fire_Historical_Museum)
1983 Federal prosecutor Rudolph
Giuliani won a 43 year sentence against Silvia Baraldini for a
series of armored car robberies that included the 1981 Brinks
robbery in Nyack, NY, where a guard and 2 policemen were killed.
Baraldini was transferred to Italy in 1999.
(SFC, 8/26/99, p.A14)
1985 Jan 1, The 1st US
mandatory seat belt law went into effect in NY.
(www.nysgtsc.state.ny.us/seat-ndx.htm)
1985 May 31, Some 41 tornadoes
swept through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Ontario,
Canada, during an eight-hour period killing 88 people with over
1,000 injured.
(AP, 5/31/05)
1985 Jul 13, Lt. Cmdr. Michael
Gershon, a Navy Blue Angel pilot, was killed when 2 planes collided
during an air show at Niagara Falls, NY.
(SFC, 10/29/99,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Cochran)
1985 Nov 21, Yonkers, NY, was
found guilty of intentional discrimination in its housing and
schools.
(http://tinyurl.com/2oegnj)
1986 Mar 30, Actor James Cagney
(86) died at his farm in Stanfordville, N.Y.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1986 Jul 26, Averell Harriman
(b.1892), statesman and former New York Governor, died at age 94 in
Yorktown Heights, NY. He left his fabulous art collection, fortune,
and influence in the Democratic Party to his wife, Pamela Churchill
Harriman. She was later appointed by Pres. Clinton as ambassador to
France. In 1996 Sally Bedell Smith wrote her biography: "Reflected
Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman."
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.E6)(AP, 7/26/06)
1987 Feb 19, New York Governor
Mario Cuomo declared that he would not run for president in the next
election.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1987 Mar 22, A garbage barge,
carrying 3,200 tons of refuse, left Islip, N.Y., on a six-month
journey in search of a place to unload. The barge was turned away by
several states and three countries until space was found back in
Islip.
(AP, 3/22/97)
1987 Apr 5, In New York state
the Schoharie Creek Bridge, a New York State Thruway bridge over the
Schoharie Creek near Fort Hunter, collapsed killing 10 people.
(SFC, 4/11/09,
p.D12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_Creek_Bridge_collapse)
1987 Tawana Brawley (16)
charged that 6 white law-enforcement officers abducted and raped
her. Her claims were declared a hoax by a grand jury. 9 years later
a related trial opened in a defamation suit brought by a former
prosecutor against the Rev. Al Sharpton and 2 other advisers to
Brawley.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.A7)
1988 Aug 17, Franklin D.
Roosevelt Jr. (Rep-D-NY, 1949-55), died on his 74th birthday.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1988 Sep 7, Seymour (62) and
Arlene (54) Tankleff were bludgeoned to death in their Long Island
home. Their adopted son, Martin Tankleff (17), initially confessed
to the crime after a detective falsely told him the father had
implicated him. Martin quickly withdrew the confession, but was
sentenced to 50 years following one of the nation’s first televised
trials. In 2007 he was released after detectives turned up witnesses
that implicated a business partner of his father.
(SFC, 12/28/07,
p.A3)(www.courttv.com/news/2007/1228/tankleff_ap.html)
1988 Nov 2, A computer worm,
named Morris, unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student
began replicating, clogging thousands of computers around the
country, but causing no real damage. The virus infected an estimated
6,000 university and military computers over the Internet.
(AP, 11/2/98)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.C3)
1988 Dean Kamen, inventor,
bought North Dumpling Island, 3 acres off the Connecticut coast. His
inventions included the 1st portable insulin pump.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.B3)(http://tinyurl.com/2pntdd)
1989 Apr 12, NY State leaders
agreed to raise unemployment benefits to $245 per week.
(http://tinyurl.com/zevt2)
1989 Jun 10, Easy Goer won the
Belmont Stakes in New York, denying the Triple Crown to Kentucky
Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence.
(AP, 6/10/99)
1989 Jun 30, NY State
Legislature passed the Staten Island secession bill.
(http://tinyurl.com/htf9r)
1989 Dec 25, Billy Martin (61),
former baseball manager, died in a truck crash in Fenton, NY.
(AP, 12/25/99)
1989-1991 Robert Creeley served as the State Poet.
(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A21)
1990 Jun 9, "Go and Go" won the
122nd running of the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/9/00)
1990 Sep, The Ellis Island
Immigration Museum opened following a 6-year, $170 million
restoration.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T11)
1991 Jan 18, Former New York
Congressman Hamilton Fish Senior died in Cold Spring, New York, at
age 102.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Aug 12, The National
Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, began hosting a
two-day reunion of former Negro League players.
(AP, 8/12/01)
1991 Dec 20, New York Gov.
Mario Cuomo announced he would not be a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination, saying his first responsibility was to deal
with his state's budget problems.
(AP, 12/20/01)
1991 The film "New York City"
was produced by George Jackson (d.2000 at 42). The film portrayed
the rise and fall of a drug dealer in Harlem and caused fights
around the country where it played.
(SFC, 2/16/00, p.C2)
1991 Ithaca established a local
currency called Ithaca Hours to promote local spending.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, Par p.17)
1991 The president of Rochester
Inst. of Technology (RIT) resigned following a scandal over CIA
influence on research and curriculum, and his own work for the
agency.
(WSJ, 10/4/02, p.A1)
1992 May 19, In Massapequa, New
York, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by teen-ager
Amy Fisher (17), who claimed to be having an affair with Mrs.
Buttafuoco's husband, Joey, an allegation the Buttafuoco's denied.
Joey later pleaded guilty to 3rd degree rape and admitted to the
affair. In 1998 Mr. Buttafuoco planned to premier a TV show on
public cable access for "people jammed up in the media."
(AP, 5/19/97)(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A6)
1992 Dec 1, In Mineola, N.Y.,
Amy Fisher was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for shooting
and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Fisher was released in
1999 after serving 7 years.
(AP, 12/1/97)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A9)
1992 Dec 29, New York Gov.
Mario Cuomo commuted the prison sentence of Jean Harris, the
convicted killer of "Scarsdale Diet" author Herman Tarnower.
(AP, 12/29/97)
1993 Mar 13, A deadly blizzard
paralyzed much of the East Coast, leaving more than 100 dead in its
wake. Syracuse, NY, was covered with fresh snow 43 inches thick.
(AP, 3/13/98)(SFC, 3/13/09, p.D8)
1993 Jun 29, Joel Rifkin
pleaded innocent at an arraignment in Mineola, N.Y., to one count of
murder, a day after police found a woman's body in his pickup truck.
Rifkin, who later confessed to killing 17 women, is serving multiple
life sentences.
(AP, 6/29/98)
1993 Nov 15, A judge in
Mineola, N.Y., sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in jail for
the statutory rape of Amy Fisher, who is serving a prison sentence
for shooting and wounding Buttafuoco's wife, Mary Jo.
(AP, 11/15/98)
1993 Dec 24, The Rev. Norman
Vincent Peale, who had blended Christian and psychiatric principles
into a message of "positive thinking," died in Pawling, N.Y., at age
95.
(AP, 12/24/98)
1993 H. Carl McCall was
appointed as State Comptroller by Gov. Mario Cuomo. He went on to
get elected to the 4-year post.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.1)
1994 Oct 29, NY Lotto paid over
$60 million.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1994 Aug 4, Howard Stern
dropped out of the NY gubernatorial race.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1994 Aug 4, A truck carrying
millions of bees overturned on NY parkway.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1994 Aug 12, Woodstock '94
opened in Saugerties, N.Y.
(AP, 8/12/97)
1994 Aug 14, Rain turned the
final full day of Woodstock '94 in Saugerties, N.Y., into a mudbath.
(AP, 8/14/04)
1994 The nuclear power plant at
Shoreham, NY, begun in 1973, was decommissioned without ever
providing commercial service. It was completed and tested but never
allowed to start due to local opposition. Most of the $6 billion in
costs were passed to customers of the local utility.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.71)
1995 Mar 7, New York Gov.
George Pataki signed a death penalty bill into law. NY became the
38th state to adopt the death penalty. It became effective Sep 1.
(AP, 3/7/00)(www.nycdo.org/)
1995 Jun 10, "Thunder Gulch"
won the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/10/00)
1995 Aug 27, A wildfire in the
Hamptons, the largest in 50 years, ended after 4 days. A 16-alarm at
the St. George Hotel complex began in Brooklyn.
(www.emergency.com/hampton.htm)(www.fdnewyork.com/stgeorge.asp)
1995 Sep 1, The death penalty
in NY State, signed into law on March 7, became effective.
(www.nycdo.org/)
1996 Apr 2, A federal appeals
court rejected New York state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide,
saying it would be discriminatory to let people disconnect life
support systems while refusing to let others end their lives with
medication.
(AP, 4/2/01)
1996 Griffiss Air Force Base
near Utica, which employed 5,000 military and civilian workers, was
shut down.
(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A1)
1997 Jan 3, In NY in
Centereach, Long Island, William Sodders (21) shot and killed, James
Halverson, a firefighter out on a jog, in a random murder. Sodders
was later turned in to police by his father after admitting to him
the murder. Sodders was said to be influenced by the film "Natural
Born Killers." Halverson left a wife pregnant with twins and a
4-year-old daughter.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A7)
1997 Jun 1, Betty Shabazz (61),
the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her
grandson (12) in her Yonkers, N.Y., apartment. She died of the burn
wounds on Jun 23.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A15)(AP,
6/1/98)
1997 Oct 27, Authorities in
Chautauqua County, N.Y., said Nushawn Williams (20), an HIV-positive
man who allegedly traded drugs for sex with young women and teens,
had infected a number of them with the AIDS virus. Later 48 partners
were identified and 13 women and girls tested positive. Williams
struck a plea bargain, after only 2 victims agreed to testify, and
was sentenced to 4-12 years in prison.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A5)(AP, 10/27/98)(SFC, 4/6/99,
p.A2)
1997 In Le Roy, N.Y., the
Jell-O Museum opened.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A2)
1998 Jan 8-1998 Jan 9, The US
Northeast and Canada were hit with a severe ice storm and at least
16 people were reported killed. Millions of people were left without
power in upper New York, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)
1998 May 26, The US Supreme
Court ruled that Ellis Island is mainly in New Jersey, based on an
1834 border agreement between New York and New Jersey.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A3)
1998 Jul 13, A jury in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ruled that the Rev. Al Sharpton and two others
had defamed a former prosecutor by accusing him of raping Tawana
Brawley. Steven Pagones won a $345,000 judgment.
(AP,
7/13/08)(www.cnn.com/US/9807/13/brawley.verdict.02/)
1998 Aug 20, In Southampton,
N.Y., townspeople met to express their concerns over the
construction of a 110,000 square foot home by Ira Rennert, a
businessman who bought troubled companies and leveraged them for the
next purchase. The spread was to be the largest home in America.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A7)
1998 Sep 2, Investigators in
Poughkeepsie arrested Kendall Francois for the murder of Catina
Newmaster (25), one of 8 women missing since 1996. The bodies of 3
women were pulled from his house.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 7, At the New York
State Fair in Syracuse two people were killed during a heavy storm.
Gov. George Pataki declared a disaster emergency in 9 counties.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A2)
1998 Oct 23, Dr. Barnett
Slepian, an obstetrician, gynecologist and abortion practitioner,
was gunned down in his kitchen in Amherst, N.Y. James Charles Kopp
(44), aka "Atomic Dog," was later sought in relation to the killing.
In 1999 a warrant was issued for Kopp's arrest. Kopp was arrested in
France in 2001. Kopp was returned to the US in 2002 and pleaded not
guilty. In 2003 Kopp was found guilty of 2nd degree murder.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 11/5/98, p.A7)(SFC,
5/6/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/30/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A5)(SFC, 1/19/02,
p.A1)
1998 Nov 6, Sen. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan (d.2008 at 76), D-N.Y., announced he would not run for
re-election in 2000.
(AP, 11/6/08)
1998 Margot Magowan and Naomi
Wolf purchased 368 acres in upstate New York and founded the
Woodhull Institute to help women spur each other to success.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.E7)
1999 Apr 11, In Yonkers, NY,
some 400 Americans prepared to fly to Albania to fight as volunteers
with the KLA.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar, A Staten Island
woman, Donna Fasano, was reported to have given birth to 2 boys, one
black and one white due to an error by the embryologist who
performed in vitro fertilization. Deborah Perry-Rogers and Robert
Rogers, genetic parents of the black child, filed suit seeking
custody of the black child.
(SFC, 4/17/99, p.A3)
1999 May 9, In Salamanca Penny
Brown (39), a nurse and midwife, was killed by a teenage member of
the Seneca tribe.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.C14)
1999 Jun 5, "Charismatic"
failed in his bid to win racing’s Triple Crown, finishing 3rd, with
fractures in the lower left front leg, behind "Lemon Drop Kid" and
"Vision and Verse" in the Belmont Stakes.
(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A20)(AP, 6/5/00)
1999 Jul 16, US Representative
Michael Forbes of New York announced his switch from the Republican
to the Democratic Party.
(SFC, 7/20/99, p.A5)
1999 Jul 23, The 3-day
Woodstock '99 music festival began at the decommissioned Griffiss
Air Force Base in Rome, NY, with some 225,000 people. The $35-38
million production ended in chaos with hundreds of concertgoers
burning fires, looting and vandalizing.
(USAT, 7/26/99, p.1D,5D)(SFC, 7/26/99, p.E3)(SFC,
7/27/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 28, The 109th
Washington County Fair was held. Over 600 visitors later reported
illness from E. coli contamination and at least 3 people died.
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep, The story "Ship of
Fools" by Theodore Kaczinski was scheduled for print in the Off!
Magazine by students at State Univ. of NY at Binghampton.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A2)
1999 Dec 12, Joseph Heller,
author of "Catch-22," died at age 76 in East Hampton, N.Y. His 1998
memoir was titled "Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here." Other
novels included "God Knows" (1984) and "Closing Time" (1994). His
final work was "Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man." In 2011 Tracy
Dougherty authored “Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller.”
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W9)(SSFC,
8/21/11, p.F1)
1999 Four leaders of the New
Square community of Rockland County were convicted of stealing over
$30 million in government funds. They received prison sentences from
2 ½ to 6 ½ years. In 2001 Pres. Clinton reduced their
sentences to 2 and 2 ½ years.
(SFC, 2/24/01, p.A1)
2000 Jan 7, Johnny Ely (66), a
short-order cook, won the New York State Lottery Millennium Millions
$100 million jackpot. He elected a one-time pay out of $44 million
with $17 million in taxes.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A2)
2000 Apr 3, A regional director
of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students
who work as teaching and research assistants at New York Univ. may
organize a union.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 20-21, A sudden snow
storm dropped 25 inches on Buffalo. A state of emergency was
declared in the area as schools and government buildings were
closed.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.S3)
2001 Jan 5, Frank Wright, a
Suffolk county police officer, was suspended without pay after 3
women came forward with stories of how he had forced them to strip
after they had failed alcohol breath tests in order to avoid drunk
driving charges.
(SFC, 1/6/01, p.A6)
2001 Jan 9, The Giuliani
administration agreed to pay up to $50 million so settle a
class-action suit on behalf of tens of thousands of people who were
illegally strip searched by jail guards between 1996-1997.
(SFC, 1/10/01, p.A7)
2001 Mar 12, An anonymous donor
pledged a no-strings-attached $360 million to Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (RPI), the largest donation to a university in US history.
(SFC, 3/13/01, p.A4)
2001 Mar 29, James Kopp, the
fugitive wanted in the 1998 slaying of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a
Buffalo, N.Y., abortion provider, was captured in France. Kopp was
convicted in 2003 of killing Slepian and is serving a sentence of 25
years to life.
(AP, 3/29/02)
2001 Jun 9, Point Given won the
Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/9/02)
2001 Jun 28, Gov. George Pataki
signed legislation that banned the use of handheld cell phones by
drivers, effective Nov 1. Emergencies were exempted.
(SFC, 6/29/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 5, Heywood Hale Broun
(83), sports commentator, died in Kingston, N.Y.
(AP, 9/5/02)
2001 Nov 1, A NY state cell
phone law went into effect. It required motorists to use hand-free
systems for use while driving.
(WSJ, 10/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 12, American Airlines
Flight 587, bound for the Dominican Republic, crashed in Belle
Harbor in the Far Rockaway district of Queens just after takeoff
from JFK Airport. All 260 crew and passengers were killed as well as
5 people on the ground. The A300-600 plane appeared to have fallen
apart. The vertical tail section cracked off when composite fittings
failed possibly due to turbulence from a preceding 747. In 2004 a
safety board said the pilot’s “unnecessary and excessive“ use of the
rudder contributed to the crash.
(SFC, 11/14/01, p.A14)(SFC, 11/15/01, p.A19)(SFC,
10/27/04, p.A3)(AP, 11/12/05)
2001 Dec 4, The Bush
administration ordered tons of PCBs removed from the upper Hudson
River. Dredging was expected to cost GE $500 million.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A6)
2001 Dec 28, Buffalo, NY, dug
out from a 5-day storm that left nearly 7 feet of snow.
(SFC, 12/29/01, p.A6)
2002 Mar 12, In Lynbrook, NY,
Rev. Lawrence Penzes (50) was shot dead at Our Lady of Peace Church
on Long Island along with Mrs. Eileen Tosner (73) sitting in a pew.
Penzes (b.1952), ordained in 1978, was shot in the back as he turned
to sit just after finishing the homily next to the altar. Long
Island police soon captured mentally-deranged Peter J. Troy (34),
who had fired at least six shots from a.22-caliber rifle.
(SFC, 3/13/02,
p.A7)(www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4mar/h4mar12.html#deaths)
2002 Mar 20, At Fort Drum, NY,
a soldier was killed and 14 were injured when 2 artillery shells
fell far short of their target.
(SFC, 3/21/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 1, Pres. Bush said he
would sell Governor's Island in NY Harbor to NY state and NYC for a
nominal charge.
(SFC, 4/2/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 20, A 5.1 earthquake
was centered near Plattsburgh.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A2)
2002 Jun 1, President Bush told
West Point graduates the United States would strike pre-emptively
against suspected terrorists if necessary to deter attacks on
Americans, saying "the war on terror will not be won on the
defensive."
(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.A1)(AP, 6/1/03)
2002 Jun 8, Sarava, a 70 to 1
longshot, won the 134th running of the Belmont Stakes. Favored War
Emblem came in 8th.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 15, Larry Rivers (78),
painter, sculptor, jazz musician and poet, died in Southampton, NY.
Rivers was born as Yitzroch Grossberg in Bronx, NY.
(SFC, 8/16/02, p.A25)(NW, 8/26/02, p.9)
2002 Aug 23, New York publicist
Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty in a hit-and-run crash that injured 16
people outside a Hamptons nightclub. Grubman ended up serving 37
days of a 60-day sentence at the Suffolk County, N.Y., Jail, with
time off for good behavior.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2002 Sep 14, In Lackawanna, New
York, 5 men of Yemeni descent were charged with supporting foreign
terrorist organizations. They trained in an al Qaeda camp run by
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in the spring of 2001. A 6th
member of the cell was arrested in Bahrain. All 6 were indicted Oct
21. In 2003 Mukhtar al-Bakri was sentenced to 10 years, Yasein Taher
to 9 years. All terms ranged from 7-10 years.
(AP, 9/15/02)(SFC, 9/17/02, p.A12)(SFC, 10/22/02,
p.A7)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 11, A US Army
Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Fort Drum, NY, and 11 of 13
soldiers were killed.
(SFC, 3/12/03, p.A5)
2003 Mar 26, Daniel Patrick
Moynihan (76), former NY Senator (1976-2000) and scholar, died. He
wrote or edited some 18 books. In 2010 Steven Weisman edited his
letters: “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an
American Visionary.”
(SFC, 3/27/03, p.A1)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.104)
2003 Apr 7, Syracuse beat
Kansas 81-78 in the NCAA Basketball finals.
(SFC, 4/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 8, Kidnapper-rapist
John Jamelske, was arrested. He had imprisoned 5 women and girls,
one after another, as sex slaves inside a makeshift dungeon in his
DeWitt, NY, home.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2003 Jun 10, In NY state John
Jamelske (68) pleaded guilty to holding 5 women captive as sex
slaves in a bunker at his home in Syracuse.
(SFC, 6/11/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 9, The Dutch cargo
ship Stellamare capsized at the Port of Albany, NY.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.D10)
2003 Dec 25, In Schenectady,
NY, 2 home fires left 5 people dead. At least 4 people in one
fire were killed by shotgun blasts.
(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A5)
2004 Jan 20, NY Gov. Pataki
proposed funding cuts to low-income families as part of his proposed
budget.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2004 Jan 22, It was reported
that Kodak, headquartered in Rochester, NY, planned to cut its work
force by as much as 21% by the end of 2006.
(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 2, NY state filed
charges against the mayor of New Paltz for marrying gay couples.
(WSJ, 3/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 5, Smarty Jones lost
to Birdstone (36-to-1) at the 136th running at Belmont Park.
(SSFC, 6/6/04, C1)
2004 Jul, Homeland Security
officer Robert Rhodes subdued Zhao Yan (38), a Chinese
businesswoman, who was touring Niagara Falls near the Canadian
border. In 2005 Rhodes was found not guilty of violating her civil
rights. Zhao Yan filed a $10 million lawsuit against the US
government.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2004 Aug 15, In NY Spencer
Tunick, photographer, gathered 1,826 people at Buffalo’s old Central
Terminal for a group session of nude photographs.
(SFC, 8/17/04, p.E5)
2004 Sep 30, Love Canal, NY,
was formally removed from the Superfund list. The land was deemed
safe only for industry. In the center a 16-acre canal dump site
remained fenced.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A8)
2004 Oct 14, New York State
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced the initiation of a civil
action against Marsh & McLennan, a US insurance brokerage firm,
alleging impropriety in the steering of clients to insurers with
whom the company maintained payoff agreements, and for soliciting
rigged bids for insurance contracts from the insurers. The firm
later apologized and paid $850 million in compensation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_&_McLennan)(WSJ, 10/27/04,
p.C1)(WSJ, 10/28/04, p.C1)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.70)
2005 Jan 31, Marsh &
McClennan Cos. reached an $850 million settlement of civil fraud
charges with NY state’s attorney Eliot Spitzer and the state
insurance department.
(WSJ, 1/31/05, p.C1)
2005 Mar 29, New York’s top
court ruled that an out-of-state programmer must pay state taxes on
his full salary despite working mostly via computer. On Oct 31 the
US Supreme Court declined to hear the case and the ruling against
Thomas Huckaby stood.
(WSJ, 3/30/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Jun 13, Leonard Pickell,
former president of the James Beard Foundation, was sentenced 1 to 3
years in prison in NY state for stealing over a $1.1 million from
the foundation.
(SFC, 6/14/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 28, Arthur Zankel,
financier and philanthropist, fell to his death from his ninth-floor
apartment on NYC’s Upper East Side. Police called it an apparent
suicide. In 2006 details of his will indicated donations of $120
million that included some $40 million for Skidmore College in
Saratoga Springs, NY, and $22 million to Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall.
(www.nysun.com/article/17769)(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.W2)
2005 Sep 19, L. Dennis
Kozlowski (58), former Tyco International Ltd. CEO, was sentenced to
up to 25 years in prison for looting the company of hundreds of
millions of dollars. Tyco's former finance chief, Mark Swartz (44)
received the same sentence. NY State Supreme Court Justice Michael
Obus ordered the defendants to pay a total of $134 million in
restitution to Tyco. In addition, the judge fined Kozlowski $70
million, and Swartz $35 million.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 26, In Mineola, NY,
ex-Roslyn schools chief Frank Tassone (58) admitted he stole
millions of dollars in taxpayer money to finance everything from his
breakfast bagel to European jaunts on the Concorde. Records showed
that Tassone and a former school official withdrew the district's
money from ATMs almost every day between February 2001 and October
2002, with Tassone taking out a monthly average of $21,747. As part
of a plea bargain Tassone will spend four to 12 years in prison and
pay back an estimated $2 million.
(AP, 9/26/05)
2005 Oct 2, In New York the
40-foot boat the Ethan Allen capsized on Lake George over so quickly
that none of the 47 passengers from Michigan could put on a life
jacket. 20 people were killed.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 29, Saint Liam won the
Breeders' Cup Classic at Belmont Park.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2005 Oct 31, The US Supreme
Court declined to hear an appeal by, Thomas Huckaby, a Tennessee man
who was charged by NY state for taxes on all of his income derived
from his employer in NY.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2006 Jun 10, In New York Jazil
cruised to victory, holding off Bluegrass Cat in the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2006 Jun 29, East Coast rains,
which began over the weekend, have been blamed for five deaths in
Pennsylvania, four in Maryland, one in Virginia and three in New
York.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jul 6, New York's highest
court ruled that gay marriage is not allowed under state law,
rejecting arguments by same-sex couples who said the law violates
their constitutional rights.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2006 Jul 6, Emmanuel "Toto"
Constant (49), an elusive former strongman from Haiti, accused of
sanctioning rape to silence dissent there in the early 1990s, was
arrested in a mortgage fraud scheme on Long Island, NY.
(AP, 7/7/06)
2006 Jul 15, Robert Wilson
(64), theater and opera director, opened his $12 million Watermill
Center on Long Island, NY. The arts center was setup to host
conferences, student workshops and serve as an intercultural
exchange.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.82)
2006 Jul 24, Power companies
worked to restore electricity to thousands of customers throughout
California as a scorching heat wave threatened to push the state
into a power emergency with the potential for more blackouts. Storm
problems cut power to areas of New York and Missouri.
(AP, 7/24/06)(WSJ, 7/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 23, Annie Donnelly
(38) of Long Island, NY, pleaded guilty to stealing $2.3 million
(1.2 million pounds) from her employers. She spent the money on
lottery tickets, buying as much as $6,000 worth of tickets a day in
a bid to hit the jackpot.
(Reuters, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 28, Five people were
killed and dozens injured after a Montreal-bound Greyhound bus from
New York City overturned on a highway in upstate New York.
(Reuters, 8/29/06)
2006 Aug 31, In New York 2
state troopers were shot while staking out the property of a former
girlfriend of escaped convict Ralph Phillips. Trooper Joseph
Longobardo (32) died from his wounds on Sep 3. Phillips, a
44-year-old career thief who has spent 20 of the past 23 years in
state prison, surrendered Sep 8 without firing a shot.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.A3)(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Oct 13, In New York a
record-breaking early snowstorm walloped the Buffalo area, leaving
thousands without power and 12 people left dead.
(AP, 10/14/06)(WSJ, 10/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 19, A NY state judge
ruled that Richard Grasso, former head of the NYSE, must return as
much as $100 million of his $187.5 compensation package. In 2008 a
state appeals court ruled that Mr. Grasso can keep all of his
compensation.
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.D3)(WSJ, 10/21/06, p.B1)(WSJ,
7/2/08, p.A1)
2006 Nov 7, Eliot Spitzer
defeated John Faso to become the first Democratic governor of New
York since 1994. He faced budget gaps of almost $7 billion over the
next 2 years along with a bloated Medicaid program.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycxm58)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.37)
2006 Brooke A. Masters authored
“Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer.”
(WSJ, 7/28/06, p.W4)
2006 Robert Congel of Pyramid
Companies, planned to develop a $20 billion mall named Destiny in
Syracuse, New York. He hoped to accompany it with a 325-acre
research and development park just north of the city.
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.35)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice
storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These
included 20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New
York, 5 in Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine
and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 12, In upstate New
York intense lake-effect snow squalls that buried communities along
eastern Lake Ontario for nine straight days started up again.
Unofficially, the squalls have dumped 12 feet, 2 inches of snow at
Redfield.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 14, Sleet stung the
faces of pedestrians in New York and snow and ice coated windshields
and streets as a Valentine's Day blizzard roared out of the Midwest
and shut down parts of the Northeast.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Mar 14, New York Gov.
Eliot Spitzer signed legislation authorizing “civil confinement” of
certain sex offenders who have finished their prison terms, but were
still considered a threat.
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.37)
2007 Apr 11, New York Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo said he will announce a settlement with a
"significant" student lender as a probe into a college loan scandal
continued to broaden.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 15, Airlines canceled
300 flights as a hard-blowing nor'easter gathered strength along the
East Coast and threatened to deliver some of the worst flooding to
coastal Long Island in 14 years.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Jun 2, Four Muslim men
were arrested and in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a
jet fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and
runs through residential neighborhoods. Two men allegedly involved
in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport
were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago and the police commissioner
said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third
suspect still at large. In 2011 Kareem Ibrahim (65) of Trinidad was
found guilty of convincing plotters to seek aid from Iran.
(AP, 6/2/07)(AP, 6/3/07)(AP, 6/2/08)(SFC,
5/27/11, p.A6)
2007 Jun 9, In NY the filly
Rags to Riches outdueled Preakness winner Curlin in a breathtaking
stretch run and won the Belmont Stakes by a head.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Aug 13, Brooke Astor
(b.1902), philanthropist, died at her Holy Hill estate in NY.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.B5)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.79)
2007 Aug 27, Police arrested
Paul Devoe III (43) in Shirley, NY, following 5 recent murders in
Texas and one in Pennsylvania. On December 19, 2007, the Texas
Travis County District Attorney announced his office's intention to
pursue the death penalty. In 2009 Devoe was sentenced to death for
the 2007 slaying of two Jonestown, Texas, teenage girls.
(SFC, 8/28/07,
p.A6)(www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/us/28texas.html)(SFC, 10/9/09,
p.A4)
2007 Oct 5, Marion Jones (31),
three-time Olympic gold medalist, pleaded guilty in White Plains,
NY, to lying to federal investigators when she denied using
performance-enhancing drugs, and announced her retirement. Jones
said she took steroids from September 2000 to July 2001 and said she
was told by her then-coach Trevor Graham that she was taking
flaxseed oil when it was actually "the clear." Jones also pleaded
guilty to a second count of lying to investigators about her
association with a check-fraud scheme.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 27,
The Bush administration and NY state cut a deal to create a
new generation of super-secure driver’s licenses, which would also
allow illegal immigrants to get a version.
(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.A6)
2007 Dec 18, In New Jersey
authorities broke up a major organized crime ring that took in $2.2
billion in gambling bets over the last 15 months and supplied drugs
and cell phones to gang members in a New Jersey state prison. 2
ruling members of New York’s Lucchese crime family and 30 others
were arrested.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.A4)
2008 Jan 30, It was reported
that bats were dying off by the thousands as they hibernated in
caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers
scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white
nose syndrome." Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and
many more were showing signs of illness this winter.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Feb 13, NY Gov. Eliot
Spitzer hired a prostitute in Washington, DC, and paid her $4,300.
News of this broke on March 10, when he apologized to his family and
the public.
(WSJ, 3/11/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 13, A prosecutor in
Buffalo, NY, announced that a woman, who spent 13 years in prison
after being convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter, was
exonerated by forensic evidence showing she died of a cocaine
overdose. Lynn DeJac (44) insisted that a former boyfriend was
responsible.
(AP, 2/13/08)
2008 Mar 10, New York Gov.
Eliot Spitzer admitted to his role in a prostitution scandal. He
faced mounting calls to resign. The governor first came under
suspicion because of cash payments from several bank accounts to an
account operated by a call-girl ring.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 12, NY Gov. Eliot
Spitzer announced his resignation effective March 17, completing a
stunning fall from power after he was nationally disgraced by links
to a high-priced prostitution ring. This put Lt. Gov. David Peterson
in place as the nation’s first legally blind governor.
(AP, 3/12/08)(SFC, 3/12/08, p.A12)
2008 Mar 17, In New York David
Paterson was sworn in almost exactly a week after allegations first
surfaced that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was "Client 9" of a
high-priced call girl service. Paterson tried to come clean about
his own skeletons just hours after assuming office by acknowledging
a years-old affair.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Apr 23, New York’s Gov.
David Paterson signed into law a $1.25 per pack tax hike on top of
the state’s $1.50 per pack cigarette tax. NYC has an additional
$1.50 per pack tax. By July 1 smokers will be paying an average
$9.00 a pack for legal cigarettes. The taxes have encouraged major
criminal smuggling.
(WSJ, 5/7/08, p.A17)
2008 May 30, A jury in
Syracuse, NY, found Hewlett-Packard guilty of infringing a patent
for data processing held by Cornell Univ. and ordered the company to
pay Cornell $184 million.
(SFC, 6/4/08, p.C5)
2008 Jun 4, In New York Thomas
Gioeli (Tommy Shots), said to be the acting boss of the Colombo
organized crime family, was arrested along with 8 other suspected
gangsters on federal charges of coast to coast Mafia crimes.
(SFC, 6/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Jun 7, In New York Nick
Zito saddled 38-1 long shot Da' Tara to a 5 1/4-length upset at
Belmont. Big Brown, the favorite, came in last.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jun 9, In New York Samuel
Israel III (48), the former chief executive of hedge fund firm Bayou
Management LLC, was supposed to begin serving a 20-year prison term.
Israel had pleaded guilty in 2005 for losses that cost investors
some $400 million. His car was found near the Bear Mountain Bridge
over the Hudson River. The words “suicide is painless” were written
in the dust on the hood. Israel surrendered to police in
Massachusetts on July 2.
(WSJ, 6/11/08, p.A1)(SFC, 7/3/08, p.C3)
2008 Jun 26, In New York Varsha
Sabhnani (46), a millionaire who inflicted years of abuse on two
Indonesian housekeepers held as virtual slaves in her Long Island
mansion, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She had been convicted
with her husband in December on a 12-count federal indictment that
included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and
harboring aliens.
(AP, 6/27/08)
2008 Jul 24, New York Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo sued banking giant UBS for fraud, accusing the
company of marketing tens of billions of dollars of auction-rate
securities as safe even when they knew the investments were in
trouble.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 29, New York’s Gov.
David Paterson delivered a special address on the state’s
deteriorating fiscal condition. His new budget placed the state’s
deficit at $6.4 billion.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.36)
2008 Aug 5, John A. "Junior"
Gotti (44) was arrested at his Long Island home on charges linking
him to three New York murders. In 1999 Junior Gotti pleaded guilty
to racketeering crimes including bribery, extortion, gambling and
fraud. He was sentenced to 77 months in prison and was released in
2005.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Oct 3, The Great Lakes
Governors (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) applauded President George W. Bush for
signing a joint resolution of Congress providing consent to the
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.
It barred new diversions beyond the Great Lakes Basin.
(www.cglg.org/projects/water/CompactConsent.asp)(Econ, 5/22/10,
p.36)
2008 Oct 28, In Serbia Miladin
Kovacevic (21) was detained on suspicion that he "inflicted severe
bodily harm" on Bryan Steinhauer during the fight in a bar in
upstate New York last May. Steinhauer (22) only recently emerged
from a coma. In 2010 prosecutors filed assault charges against
Kovacevic. The beating left Steinhauer with skull fractures and a
severe brain injury.
(AP, 10/28/08)(AP, 3/2/10)
2008 Oct 29, In upstate New
York, more than 40,000 customers remained without power, a day after
the season's first big snowstorm blew through the region.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Nov 8, On Long Island, NY,
7 students from Patchogue-Medford High School attacked Marcelo
Lucero (38), an immigrant from Ecuador. Jeffrey Conroy (17) stabbed
and killed Lucero as he struggled to defend himself. Police soon
arrested the 7 teens. In 2010 Jeffrey Conroy )19) was convicted of
manslaughter.
(SFC, 11/22/08, p.A6)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2008 Nov 28, In New York
Jdimytai Damour (34), a Long Island Wal-Mart worker, was killed
after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors
at the suburban Valley Stream store and knocked him down. In 2009
Wal-Mart agreed to pay nearly $2 million and improve safety at its
92 New York stores as part of a deal with prosecutors that avoids
criminal charges in the trampling death.
(AP, 11/29/08)(AP, 5/6/09)
2008 Dec 13, In New Hampshire
370,000 customers still had no electricity following a huge ice
storm. Utility crews worked through a night of hand-numbing cold in
the Northeast but they still had a long way to go before restoring
power to all of the more than 1 million homes and businesses blacked
out by the storm. Most of the outages were in New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Maine and New York.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2009 Jan 4, In Syracuse, NY,
Shawn Rhines (15) killed public works department employee Casimir
Snyder (47). Police later said Ja-Le Johnson and Rhines would often
hang out in an attic across the street and shoot target practice
with rifles from a window. Police recovered two rifles from the
attic. Rhines confessed and faced 10 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 23, Gov. David
Paterson picked Democratic US Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill New
York's vacant US Senate seat, a day after Caroline Kennedy abruptly
withdrew from consideration.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Joseph Bruno (79),
former majority leader of the New York Senate, was indicted on
federal corruption charges.
(SFC, 1/24/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 26, Nicholas Cosmo,
founder of Agape World Inc., was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme
that bilked investors of an estimated $370 million. His Long Island,
NY, firm promised profits of 48-80% a year.
(WSJ, 1/28/08,
p.A12)(www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1874283,00.html)
2009 Feb 12, A commuter plane,
Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., coming in for
a landing nose-dived into a house in suburban Buffalo, sparking a
fiery explosion that killed all 49 people aboard and a person in the
home. It was the nation's first fatal crash of a commercial airliner
in 2 1/2 years. Historian Alison Des Forges (66), prominent human
rights advocate who documented genocide in Rwanda, was among the
victims of the crash.
(AP, 2/13/09)(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 12, In New York Aasiya
Hassan (37) was found beheaded at the Bridges TV offices. Muzzammil
Hassan, founder and CEO of Buffalo, NY-based Bridges TV, was charged
after reporting the death of his wife. He had launched Bridges in
2004 with a mission to show Muslims in a more positive light.
Muzzammil Hassan, pleaded that he was a victim of spousal abuse, but
was convicted on Feb 7, 2011.
(Reuters, 2/16/09)(SFC, 2/8/11, p.A6)
2009 Feb 14, In Canandaigua,
New York, Kimberly and Christopher Glatz were killed at their home.
Mary Silliman (23) was slain along with Randall Norman (41) a
motorist who intervened when he saw her being roughed up in the
parking lot in a pre-dawn attack outside Lakeside Memorial Hospital
in Brockport. In August Frank Garcia, a nursing supervisor, was
convicted of the Glatz killings and faced another trial for the
Brockport killings. On Sep 1 Garcia was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 8/14/09,
p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/myhxsv)(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A8)
2009 Feb 25, The FBI arrested
money managers Paul Greenwood (61) of North Salem, NY, and Stephen
Walsh (64) of Sands Point, NY, on charges of conspiracy, securities
fraud and wire fraud. They ware accused of misappropriating at least
$553 million.
(WSJ, 2/26/09, p.A1)
2009 Mar 2, A massive late
winter snow storm roared out of the Southeast and into the Northeast
overnight, idling hundreds of flights and making the morning rush
treacherous as motorists contended with nearly a foot of snow in
spots. Some 950 flights were canceled at the three main New York
area airports, an almost 300 canceled in Philadelphia.
(AP, 3/2/09)(SFC, 3/3/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 17, New York Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo said AIG, the troubled insurance giant, paid
bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, including 11 who no
longer work for the company.
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 19, In New York Hank
Morris, a political advisor, and David J. Loglisci were indicted on
allegations of extracting improper fees in exchange for investments
from New York state’s pension fund.
(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/crt5kx)
2009 Mar 19, Howard Feldman
(67), an American psychiatrist, was arrested in the Philippines on
charges of tricking an upstate New York couple into wiring him
$70,000 for a bogus liver transplant, that the husband died waiting
for. Feldman has been on the run since 2001.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 24, New York’s Gov.
David Paterson ordered layoffs that could total over 4% of state
workers after unions refused concessions.
(WSJ, 3/25/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 3, In Binghampton, NY,
Jiverly Wong (41) barricaded the back door of a community center
with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants
taking a citizenship class, killing 13 people before apparently
committing suicide. Officials the next day said the man, believed to
be Vietnamese immigrant, was depressed and angry over losing his job
and about his poor English skills.
(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A15)
2009 Apr 6, Andrew Cuomo, NY
state’s attorney general, filed a civil suit against J. Ezra Merkin,
a New York philanthropic leader and former chairman of GMAC, on
allegations that he betrayed hundreds of investors by repeatedly
lying to them about how he invested their money. Merkin had funneled
$2.4 billion from universities and nonprofit organizations into the
firm of Bernard Madoff, now in jail for running a multibillion
dollar Ponzi scheme.
(WSJ, 4/7/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 29, In New York Teresa
Tambunting of Scarsdale was charged with grand larceny and criminal
possession of stolen property. Prosecutors said she had stolen over
$12 million in gold over six years from the Queens jewelry
manufacturer where she worked. Police found 450 pounds of gold at
her home.
(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 2, Jack Kemp (b.1935),
Republican politician, died of cancer at his home in Maryland. A
former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp represented
western NY for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an
unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A16)
2009 May 23, It was reported
that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New
York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West
Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In
2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)
2009 Jun, Sludge containing
PCBs, released into the Hudson River between 1946-1977 by 2 General
Electric plants, began to be shipped for disposal to West Texas. The
sludge along 197 miles had been declared a Superfund site. Cleanup
of the Hudson River began in 2009 at an estimated cost of $750
million, to be paid by GE.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(SFC,
6/22/09, p.A9)
2009 Jul 14, Episcopalians
meeting in Anaheim, NY, declared gays and lesbians eligible any
ordained ministry.
(SFC, 7/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jul 23, Federal
prosecutors arrested over 40 people in New Jersey and New York as
part of a major corruption and international money laundering
conspiracy probe. They included New Jersey Assemblyman Daniel Van
Pelt, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, Secaucus Mayor Dennis
Elwell and Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini. Several rabbis in
New York and New Jersey were also arrested. Some were accused of
laundering tens of millions of dollars and of black-market
trafficking of kidneys and fake Gucci handbags.
(AP, 7/23/09)(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 26, In New York a car
crash in Briarcliff killed 8 people including 4 children. Diane
Schuler (36) was drunk and high on marijuana when she went the wrong
way on Taconic State Parkway and crashed into an SUV.
(SFC, 7/27/09, p.A4)(SFC, 8/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Dec 7, In New York a
federal jury convicted Joseph Bruno, a former NY state Senate
leader, on 2 counts of corruption.
(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 12, In New York state
truck driver Thomas Wallace hit a disabled car killing Julie
Stratton (33). The car was disabled after hitting a deer. On Sep 1,
2010, Wallace was sentenced to 3-9 years in prison after pleading
guilty to 2nd degree murder. His laptop computer was streaming
pornography when his rig hit the disabled car.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 21, New York State
police found the body of Dean Pierson (59) in his Copake barn. They
said the upstate dairy farmer had shot and killed 51 of his milk
cows in his barn before turning the rifle on himself.
(AP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan 25, In New York 2
Canadian men who pleaded guilty to conspiring to buy anti-aircraft
missiles and other equipment for the Tamil Tigers rebel group in Sri
Lanka were sentenced to 25 years in a US prison. Thiruthanikan
Thanigasalam (41) and Sahilal Sabaratnam (30) were among four men
arrested in Long Island, New York, in 2006 in an FBI sting operation
as they tried to buy surface-to-air missiles, missile launchers and
hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles to be used against Sri Lankan
forces.
(Reuters, 1/26/10)
2010 Feb 4, The New York
Attorney General’s filed civil charges against Bank of America and
former CEO Ken Lewis for misleading investors about Merrill Lynch
before it acquired the Wall Street firm in early 2009.
(SFC, 2/5/10, p.D4)
2010 Feb 26, An unceasing
winter storm unleashed multiple dangers across the Northeast,
blasting the coast with hurricane-force winds that fanned a New
Hampshire hotel fire, flooding parts of Maine, dropping 2 feet of
snow on parts of New York, and cutting power to more than a million
homes and businesses.
(AP, 2/26/10)
2010 Feb 26, New York Gov.
David Paterson abandoned his campaign for a full term as state
governor.
(SFC, 2/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 8, The resignation of
New York Rep. Eric Massa (50) took effect following an ethics
investigation. He had earlier cited health reasons but added that
Democratic House leadership forced him out due to his opposition to
the House version of the Health Care bill.
(SFC, 3/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 13, A storm battered
parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut with
gusts of up to 70 mph.
(AP, 3/14/10)
2010 May 6, In Ramapo, NY, Pro
Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor (51) was charged with raping
a 16-year-old runaway who police said was forced into prostitution
by a man who had beaten her up. Third-degree rape is a charge levied
when the victim is under the age of consent, which is 17 in New
York.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 27, In Utica, NY,
Jerome Feldman, a former psychiatrist, was sentenced to over 15
years in jail for duping people out of $400,000 with false promises
of organ transplants in the Philippines.
(SFC, 5/28/10, p.A8)
2010 May 28, A US federal judge
in Albany, NY, issued an injunction barring Gov. Paterson from
imposing furloughs on about 100,000 state workers and withholding
their raises. Unions had argued that the provisions violate the US
Constitution.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May, In Suffolk County,
NY, Shannon Gilbert (24), a prostitute, was reported missing after
fleeing a client’s home in Oak Beach. In December 2011, New York
investigators found bones in the wetlands of Long Island and soon
identified them as belonging to Gilbert.
(SSFC, 12/18/11,
p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/8y52x8g)
2010 Jun 26, In Fort Edward,
NY, a fire at a 2-story house killed 6 children ages 1-12.
(SFC, 6/28/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 14, In New York a
shooting outside a restaurant in downtown Buffalo left four people
dead and four wounded. Keith Johnson (25) was arrested and charged
with 4 counts of 2nd degree murder. Prosecutors soon dropped charges
against Johnson following examination of surveillance video. On Aug
25 Riccardo McCray turned himself in and was charged 4 counts of 2nd
degree murder.
(AP, 8/14/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A10)(SFC, 8/16/10,
p.A7)(SFC, 8/26/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 14, Regulators in New
York approved Verizon's request to stop mass-printing residential
phone books. There, the company estimates it will save about 3,575
tons of paper per year and conserve the energy associated with
printing, binding and distributing the directories. The company's
August request with Virginia regulators was estimated to save about
1,640 tons of paper annually.
(AP, 11/11/10)
2010 Oct 15, US federal
authorities aid they have rounded up over 40 people in New York and
Florida during a takedown of a wholesale marijuana ring. Agents
seized $1 million and almost 200 pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 10/16/10, p.A4)
2010 Oct 17, In New York Danroy
"D.J." Henry (20), a college football player driving away from the
scene of a fight, ended up dead hours after the team's homecoming
game, struck in a burst of police gunfire that pierced his
windshield in the Westchester County hamlet of Thornwood.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Nov 14, NY Gov. David
Patterson announced an agreement with Phusion Products to stop
shipments into NY state of Four Loko, a caffeinated alcoholic drink
already banned in 4 states.
(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A8)
2010 Nov 18, New York Attorney
Gen’l. Andrew Cuomo filed two lawsuits against Steven Rattner,
former head of Pres. Obama’s auto task force, alleging he paid
kickbacks to obtain $150 million from a large state pension fund to
be invested in Quadrangle Group. Rattner agreed to a settlement with
the SEC to pay $6.2 million and accept a 2-year ban on associating
with any investment advisor or broker dealer.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A7)
2010 Nov 27, New York state
police arrested Steven Pieper (21) just hours after searchers found
the body of a missing woman, believed to be Jenni-Lyn Watson (20), a
Mercyhurst College dance major.
(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 16, New York police
scoured a 10-mile stretch of a Long Island beach access road where
four bodies were discovered this week.
(AP, 12/16/10)
2011 Jan 1, Democrat Andrew
Cuomo (53) was inaugurated the 56th governor of New York.
(SSFC, 1/2/11, p.A10)
2011 Feb 1, New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo proposed laying off up to 9,800 state workers and
cutting billions from education and Medicaid as he laid out his
first budget designed to close a $10 billion deficit.
(Reuters, 2/1/11)(SFC, 2/2/11, p.A4)
2011 Feb 2, A massive storm
billed as the worst in decades barreled toward the northeast,
leaving vast swaths from Chicago to New York paralyzed by snow and
ice.
(AP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 9, New York state
Republican Congressman Christopher Lee (46) said he is resigning
after the release of e-mails he allegedly sent through an online
personals site. The website Gawker hours earlier published an
exchanged between the married Lee and an unidentified woman that
included a shirtless photo of him.
(SFC, 2/10/11, p.A4)
2011 Feb 26, In Kingston, NY, a
privately owned, vintage military jet crashed into the Hudson River.
Divers the next day recovered the body of pilot Michael Faraldi
(38).
(SSFC, 2/27/11, p.A9)(SFC, 2/28/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 25, NY state
information technology workers at the state Division of Housing and
Community Renewal hit the jackpot. They won $319 million in the
multistate Mega Millions game's fifth-largest prize in its history.
Each of the 7 winners will collect a check for $19.1 million, after
taxes.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 4, In NY investigators
found 3 more sets of remains at a beach area 45 miles east of NYC
bringing the total number of bodies to 8, all victims of a
suspected serial killer.
(SFC, 4/5/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 11, New York police
found human remains at two more locations at Jones Beach State Park
on Long Island, bringing to 10 the number of potential victims of a
possible serial killer.
(SFC, 4/11/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 12, In New York
Lashanda Armstrong drove 3 of her 4 children into the Hudson River
in Newburgh following a domestic dispute. Her 10-year-old son
survived by crawling out her car window.
(SFC, 4/13/11, p.A10)(SFC, 4/15/11, p.A8)
2011 May 9, In New York two
small planes collided near New Hampton killing two people. Both
planes were registered to men from New Jersey.
(SFC, 5/10/11, p.A6)
2011 May 24, In New York Luke
Wright (32) was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for raping,
scalding and torturing his disabled half-sister before their mother
killed her last year. An Erie County jury found him guilty last
month on 10 criminal counts. Laura Cummings (23) was suffocated by
her mother Eva Cummings in the family's North Collins home. She
pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last October.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 Jun 6, Under pressure from
bloggers and journalists, Representative Anthony Weiner of New York
finally admitted he sent inappropriate e-mails to six women he did
not know but met via social media. He also admitted to lying about
using Twitter to send a suggestive photo of himself to a young
woman. He had previously denied sending the photo, claiming
his account was hacked. After apologizing to his wife and his
constituents for his poor judgment, Weiner said he had no plans to
resign from his congressional seat.
(NYT, 6/6/11)
2011 Jun 8, An increasing
number of Democratic and Republican members of congress called for
scandal-plagued New York Representative Anthony Weiner to resign.
Meanwhile, sources revealed that his wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is
pregnant.
(AP, 6/8/11)(Reuters, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 11, Scandal-plagued
New York congressman Anthony Weiner, under pressure from the leaders
of his party to resign, instead announced he was taking a leave of
absence from congress to seek professional help. In a statement
Weiner said he hoped that therapy would help him to become “a better
husband and a healthier person.”
(Reuters, 6/11/11)
2011 Jun 11, New York’s the
Belmont Stakes was won by Ruler on Ice, a 24-1 long shot. Favorite
Animal Kingdom nearly fell at the beginning of the race and never
caught up, finishing fifth.
(AP, 6/11/11)
2011 Jun 18, A Cessna 210
crashed down near the Westchester County Airport, NY. The victims
were identified as Keith Weiner, the 63-year-old pilot; his wife,
Lisa Weiner (51), their daughter Isabel (14) and her friend, Lucy
Walsh (14).
(AP, 6/20/11)
2011 Jun 19, In New York a man
fatally shot 4 people in a pharmacy in Medford and then escaped.
(SFC, 6/20/11, p.A5)
2011 Jun 24, New York became
the sixth and largest state in the country to legalize gay marriage,
breathing life into the national gay rights movement that had
stalled over a nearly identical bill here two years ago. Pending any
court challenges, legal gay marriages can begin in NY by late July
after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his bill into law just before
midnight. It would be effective on July 24.
(AP, 6/25/11)(Econ, 7/2/11, p.22)
2011 Jul 13, In Salem, NY, 4
people were killed in a blast that destroyed a 2-story house. A 5th
person, a baby girl, died the next day. A propane gas leak was
suspected.
(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A7)
2011 Jun 19, In New York David
Laffer killed 4 people during a pharmacy robbery in Medford. In
September he pleaded guilty to murder charges and his wife, who
drove their getaway car, pleaded guilty to robbery.
(SFC, 6/20/11, p.A5)(SFC, 9/9/11, p.A15)
2011 Jul 24, Wedding fever hit
New York, as hundreds of gay and lesbian couples lined up to be
married on the first day that same-sex marriage was legal in the
state.
(Reuters, 7/24/11)
2011 Aug 30, Flooding isolated
entire towns in Vermont and New York, some communities warily
watched swollen rivers and more than a million people from Virginia
to Maine lacked electricity, three days after Hurricane Irene
churned up the Eastern Seaboard. The storm was blamed for at least
40 deaths in 11 states.
(AP, 8/30/11)
2011 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Lee
dumped heavy rain in the Northeast. The Susquehanna River and its
tributaries in New York and Pennsylvania swamped thousands of homes.
At least 15 deaths were blamed on the storm and its aftermath: 7 in
Pennsylvania, 3 in Virginia, one in Maryland and 4 others when it
came ashore on the Gulf Coast a week earlier.
(SFC, 9/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 19, Jamey Rodemeyer
(14), of Williamsville, NY, took his life after what his parents
claim was years of bullying because of struggles with his sexuality.
On Sep 25 Lady Gaga performed a tribute to Rodemeyer at the
iheartradio music festival.
(http://tinyurl.com/6k7qs22)
2011 Sep 30, Ralph Steinman of
Rockefeller University in New York, co-winner of this year's Nobel
Prize in medicine, died. His prize was announced Oct 3.
(AP, 10/3/11)
2011 Oct 29, A snowstorm socked
the Northeast US over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.7
million, snarling air and highway travel and dumping more than 2
feet of snow in a few spots as it slowly moved north out of New
England. States of emergency were declared in New Jersey,
Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.
(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Nov 24, The body of
alleged Mafia boss Salvatore Montagna, who US authorities said once
led New York's notorious Bonanno crime family, was fished out from a
river north of Montreal.
(AP, 11/25/11)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = New York
End of file.