Few people have heard of Harry Rich today, but for a brief stretch of the early part of the 20th century he was a major attraction in the upper midwest, even claiming the title of "Demon of the Air."
According to some sources, Rich was a magician, but his enduring claim to fame came as one of those young barnstorming daredevils of his era. The Davenport (Iowa) Democrat and Leader newspaper described Rich's stunt of performing dangerous trapeze tricks from the top of a high bank at a homecoming performance as "foolish ... because anything of that kind, which is done merely to make folks shudder, we deem foolish."
Born in Imperial, Nebraska, on January 24, 1888, Rich likely fell into the orbit of a pair of legendary Nebraska entertainment moguls, brothers Walter and Arthur Savidge. In 1906, the Savidges started what would become the Walter Savidge Amusement Company, a traveling sideshow that had as many as 125 employees and traveled in its own train, mostly between New York and Nebraska, setting up shop with its tents, freak shows, dramatic productions and daredevils wherever there was a chance to make a buck.
The brothers had a falling out just before World War I and Arthur created his own troupe under the pseudonym of Elwin Strong. When Rich registered for the World War I draft, he listed his occupation as an aerial performer for the Elwin Strong Company. By that time, Rich had been married - to another performer, Lillian Hawkins - and had fathered a child. The marriage reportedly took place on stage between performances at one of the troupe's stops.
Rich apparently built his career around balloonist skills, trapeze prowess, raw nerve and extraordinarily strong teeth.
As a balloonist, Rich would soar to heights unimaginable in those days before giving the nervous crowd a brief scare by tumbling from the gondola, only to arrive safely back on earth via parachute. On one such occasion, however, a gust of wind caught Rich shortly before touch down and dragged him through the trees of an apple orchard, where the trees' branches shredded most of his clothing, inflicted numerous lacerations from head to toe and fractured both of his ankles.
As a trapeze artist, Rich rigged his equipment high above the ground, usually atop a building. When no building was available, he erected a tower that stood nearly 100 feet tall. From his lofty perch, Rich would swing out over the huge crowd that inevitably gathered on the street below, performing various feats, all without benefit of nets or any safety devices of any kind. The climax came when Rich pretended to lose his grip, catching the bar with his feet while his head dangled toward the alarmed crowd.
Not satisfied with the trapeze act alone, Rich brought his teeth to center stage, firing a 200-pound cannon while it was suspended from his mouth or pulling as many as three automobiles by his teeth alone.
But none of that compared to his signature act, his "Slide for Life." While it is hard to know when Rich perfected "the slide," it was the dramatic finale to his appearances after 1919.
In the "Slide for Life," a tightwire was strung from the top of a building to the ground. Early accounts had Rich riding the wire to the ground while resting on the small of his back, but later reports described a trick far more dangerous. One description claims that Rich fastened a special contraption to his head, went into a headstand on the tightwire atop the building and slid the length of the wire to the ground while inverted. Another (and probably more likely) description has Rich making the descent while dangling from the wire while attached through a specially designed mouthpiece.
On July 1, 1925, Rich prepared for an appearance at State Fair Park near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rich, who had recently arrived from an appearance in Houston, Texas, spent part of the day doing a splice repair on his tightwire. That evening, he began his "Slide for Life" from the top of the fairgrounds' horse pavilion.
As he neared the end of the descent, the wire snapped and Rich tumbled some 30 feet to the ground, landing on his left side. He broke his left arm and left leg and suffered a fractured skull. He died in a Milwaukee hospital four hours later. He was 36 years old.
A ring once owned and worn by Rich showed up on the PBS program, Antiques Roadshow, 85 years after his death. Here's a video of that segment:
Harry Rich, magician/aerial performer Born: January 24, 1888 Died: July 1, 1925, age 36
Dinah Washington was looking forward to Christmas.
After six weeks out west, singing for adoring audiences in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, she was finally settled in her Detroit home where she would spend her first Christmas with her husband of five months, Dick "Night Train" Lane.
She and her husband had just returned from Detroit Metropolitan Airport with her two sons from previous marriages, who had flown home from their preparatory school in Boston. Lane turned in early to rest for what promised to be a busy weekend.
Lane was a standout cornerback for the Detroit Lions professional football team, which was scheduled to play its season finale at Chicago in two days and the team would be leaving for Chicago the next day.
Washington joined her husband in the bedroom and they watched television together before he drifted off to sleep.
Around 3:45 a.m., Lane was awakened by the buzzing of the television set, which remained on long after the station they were watching had signed off. After seeing Washington lying on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive, he called for help.
Dr. B.C. Ross responded as soon as he could, but at 4:50 a.m. he pronounced Washington dead. She was 39 years old.
Those closest to Washington were not surprised by the cause of death: an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. For several years, Washington had struggled with her weight and had turned to pharmaceutical solutions, including controversial mercury injections and prescription diet pills, to which she may have become addicted.
Washington also struggled to find the right man in her life. As she sang in her first hit, Evil Gal Blues:
I've got men to the left, men to the right, Men every day and men every night! I've got so many men, I don't know what to do.
In her short life, Washington was married seven times. In addition to these legal nuptials, she had several more "rent-a-husbands." Most of these relationships were with men who were merely opportunistic, looking for an easy meal ticket who was also easy on the eyes.
But, in Dick "Night Train" Lane, her friends say, she finally found the kind of supportive - and self-supportive - man she'd been looking for.
"She was very, very happy," said her personal secretary, Shirley Couch, right after Washington's death on December 15, 1963.
Born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on August 29, 1924, she moved to Chicago with her family in 1928 and began singing in her church choir with her mother as a young girl. By the time she was 15, young Ruth Jones had won a talent contest at Chicago's Regal Theater and began performing with the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers.
Jones idolized Billie Holiday, though, and began sneaking off to sing at night clubs though just 17 years old. Her mother disapproved and Jones dropped out of school and married John Young two months before her 18th birthday. The marriage lasted just three months. Besides singing at Chicago nightclubs like Joe Louis' Rhumboogie Cafe, Jones worked as a washroom attendant at the Garrick Lounge, where she also sang in the Downbeat Room.
Music manager Joe Glaser caught her singing at the Garrick and tipped off bandleader Lionel Hampton, who hired her and gave her the stage name of Dinah Washington. Her first recordings were made under the direction of songwriter and jazz critic Leonard Feather in 1943.
Washington met husband No. 2, Hampton drummer George Jenkins, in 1944. The couple had a son born in June 1946, a few months before they divorced and about the same time she left the Hampton band to pursue a solo career with the new label, Mercury Records, which promoted her as "Queen of the Blues."
Between 1946 and 1961, Washington would record more than 400 songs for Mercury. She also married - and divorced - four more husbands in that same time span while adding a second son.
Washington broke out as a crossover star in 1959 when her recording of "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" broke into the Top Ten popular charts and won a Grammy as top rhythm and Blues record. The next year she scored two more pop hits, teaming up with Brook Benton for "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" and "A Rockin' Good Day."
But Washington's pop sales slipped in the early 1960s and she jumped to Morris Levy's Roulette label, which was totally immersed into the twist craze after establishing itself with such diversely popular artists as rockers Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen, folk singer Jimmie Rodgers and the novelty act, the Playmates.
Washington recorded nearly 100 sides in her three years with Roulette and kept busy with night club performances, even taking a stab at running her own club. In February 1961 she took over the Roberts Show Club on Chicago's South Side and renamed it Dinahland. She underwrote the club's operations for months before abandoning the project.
Washington enjoyed the trappings of her success. Some associates even called her a spendthrift.
She once bought an eight-passenger airplane but sold it at a loss after just three flights because it was too slow. On an extended tour of Europe she spent $100 a day on phone calls back home just to chat. She owned at least six mink coats and bought several more for her background singers.
On the day before her death, Washington reportedly bought some $2,400 worth of Christmas presents and wrapped them while waiting for a mink-trimmed sofa to be delivered. Washington was happy with her relatively new husband.
"He's one of the few very real men I've met in my life," she said of Lane. "I kind of think he'll be the one to grow old with."
Lane, whose star power was equal to Washington's at the time of their marriage, had risen to football fame from a hard-scrabble Texas background. Born to a prostitute and pimp in Austin, Texas, on April 16, 1928, Lane was abandoned in a dumpster when 3 months old and was rescued by Ella Lane, a widow with two children.
Lane played football in high school and junior college and served in the U.S. Army before taking a laborer's job in Los Angeles. Frustrated by the work, he persuaded the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League to give him a tryout.
The Rams gave him a chance, trying him first in the offensive line. By the time he moved to the defensive backfield, he had picked up his nickname of Night Train from a song of the same name. As a rookie cornerback in 1952, Lane set a league record for interceptions in a season with 14 in 12 games. He also gained a reputation as a fierce hitter and his "Night Train Necktie" eventually led to the NFL's ban of the clothesline tackle.
Lane first met Washington during his rookie NFL season. After he was traded to the Chicago Cardinals in 1954, he would occasionally run into her on the streets of her adopted home town. Even after he moved to the Detroit Lions, Lane would catch Washington's nightclub act whenever possible.
After Lane was divorced from his first wife in January 1963, he began dating Washington. By June they had decided to wed, which they did on July 2 in Las Vegas.
Both Lane and Washington were inducted into their respective career halls of fame - Washington into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and Lane into the National Football League Hall of Fame in 1974. Lane died on Jan. 29, 2002, of a heart attack at age 73.
Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez - better known as Manolete - stepped wearily to the microphone in an anteroom of the San Sebastian, Spain, bullring, looking far older than a man who had recently marked his 30th birthday.
Manolete, the most celebrated bullfighter of his day, had just killed his 1,000th bull and the radio announcer asked him to comment on his achievement.
Speaking in a soft voice, barely audible over the roar from his fans in the stadium just beyond the room, Manolete delivered a somber response. "They are asking for more than I can give," he said. "Always more and more. All I can say is I wish the bullfighting season was over."
Manolete had actually considered retirement a year earlier but was persuaded to return for one last go-round in the 1947 season. Antonia Lupe Sino, a Spanish actress and Manolete's long-time girlfriend, did not think the decision would satisfy the matador's rabid fans.
"They'll never let him go until they see him dead," she said.
Less than a month after his depressing radio interview, Manolete, the most famous bullfighter of the 20th century lay dead, killed by a bull of the same Miura breed that killed his great uncle and many other famed Spanish matadors.
Matadors ran in Manolete's family, which came from Cordoba, Spain - the heart of bullfighting country. His mother was the widow of a matador before she married the man who would be his father, also a matador. His father went blind and died when Manolete was 5 years old.
After serving one month as a novice, Manolete was promoted to full-fledged bullfighter around his 13th birthday. The slim, clumsy teenager was spotted by Jose Camara, a retired bullfighter and agent who saw great potential. Thus began a life-long association that saw Manolete improve his footwork to the point of a classic gracefulness, refine his bold style and perfect a stoic technique that would vault him to the top of the bullfighting world. He was widely praised as the successor to Juan Belmonte, the Spanish bullfighting legend who finally retired in 1935.
By the time he reached his 20s, Manolete was considered a Spanish cultural treasure. He commanded huge fees and filled arenas with fans who applauded his skills and lined up days before his appearances to guarantee a seat.
During the World War II years, Manolete did most of his fighting in Latin America, where his reputation continued to grow. Fans fought over tickets to his events and his cult-like following resulted in Manolete dolls for little girls and Anis Manolete liquor for adults. He made an estimated $4 million in the 1940s and even drove a Buick imported from the U.S., even though fuel for it was not readily available in Spain.
Manolete's rock star image also played a role in his eventual downfall.
Promoters recognized his box-office potential and, rather than risking getting him hurt, started supplying "arranged bulls" for his appearances. These bulls had shaved horns, an illegal but common practice, that made injury by goring less likely.
Manolete also became a target for young matadors intent on replacing him as Numero Uno. The wear and tear of so many fights became obvious as Manolete approached his 30th birthday on July 4, 1947.
His killing of bulls, which he had elevated to an art form with his bold, stylish technique, was becoming a bit more sloppy. The gorings - he sustained somewhere between 11 and 33, according to various sources - were becoming more common. He was reportedly drinking more and the erosion of his skills was becoming more apparent with each fight.
In the summer of 1947, Manolete was challenged by a 21-year-old up-and-comer, Luis Miguel Dominguin. A joint appearance was set for August 28, 1947, in the small bullring at Linares, Spain.
Over 10,000 people squeezed into the Linares ring to watch Manolete, Gitanillo de Triana and Dominguin do battle with a string of Miura bulls, considered the fiercest and most unpredictable fighting bulls on the planet.
Manolete delivered a lackluster performance in his first kill, which was followed by a brilliant display by Dominguin in a fight that had the crowd roaring with approval. As Manolete entered the ring for his second fight of the day, he was greeted by a smattering of boos.
The bull he drew was named Islero. Islero was known as a fierce fighter, but had poor eyesight and a tendency to chop with his right horn.
Manolete appeared to be on top of his game. Fifteen times he stood his ground, using only his cape as Islero passed, his sharp horns just inches from the gold embroidery on Manolete's fabled "suit of lights." Emboldened, Manolete turned his back on Islero, his scarlet cape behind him, as he prepared for El Momento Supremo, the kill.
Instead of delivering the fatal blow from the side - the more prudent approach - Manolete favored a more straightforward attack. Clamboring over Islero's horns, Manolete drove his sword between Islero's shoulders to the hilt.
Islero paused briefly then hooked his horn into Manolete's thigh, severing his femoral artery, and tossed him aside. As blood gushed from the wound, a hobbling Manolete tried to stop the flow with his hands. Dominguin was among those who rushed to Manolete's aid and carried him from the arena. Islero staggered to the fence, stumbled to his knees and died.
As he lay in the infirmary, Manolete lit a cigarette and asked in a weak voice, "Is the bull dead?" After being informed that the bull was, indeed, dead, Manolete said that he could not feel his legs.
Doctors began what would be a series of transfusions of dry plasma. At 11 p.m. they transfered him to the hospital in Linares and summoned Dr. Luis Gimenez Guinea from Madrid, who arrived around 4 a.m. the next morning. At 5:07 a.m., Manolete uttered his final words, "My mother will not be happy about this. Don Luis, I can't see. I can't see anything!"
Tributes poured in from across Spain and the bullfighting world. Manolete was recognized as one of the most importanrt matadors in bullfighting history who "died fighting and killed before dying."
He was buried in his hometown of Cordoba, home of the Cordoba Museum of Bullfighting, which is dedicated to him. His bloody "suit of lights" was put on exhibition at the Museum of Bullfighting in Madrid and the head of Islero, the bull that killed him, is displayed in the Museum of Bullfighting in Seville.
Islero was also honored by Italian automaker Ferruccio Lamborghini, who was born just a year before Manolete. Lamborghini so admired Spanish bulls for their fierce fighting skills that he launched a line of Miura sports cars in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he introduced the Islero as his newest sports car.
Manolete's life has been the subject of many books and in 2007 it became the subject of a movie. The film, Manolete, starred Adrian Brody as Manolete and Penelope Cruz as his girlfriend, Antonia Lupe Sino. Sino starred in several films after Manolete's death before dying of a stroke at age 42 on Sept. 13, 1959.
The young matador who challenged Manolete to the fatal encounter in Linares, Luis Miguel Dominguin, pronounced himself "Numero Uno" after Manolete's death and went on to have a distinguished and colorful career. Some bullfighter watchers even say he was the best of the 20th Century.
Wearing flashy uniforms designed by his friend Pablo Picasso, Dominguin was a multimillionaire with 2,300 kills to his credit before his 30th birthday. He dated some of the world's most glamorous women, including Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth and Brigitte Bardot. He counted Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway among his closest friends.
Dominguin retired three times but couldn't stay away from the sport he loved until his final fight in Barcelona at age 47 in 1973. Late in his career, he explained the lure of the sport:
"It is like being with the woman who pleases you most in the world when her husband comes in with a pistol. The bull is the woman, the husband and the pistol, all in one. No other life I know can give you all that."
Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez (Manolete) Born: July 4, 1917 Died: August 29, 1947, age 30
Photo caption: The death of Manolete. Guillermo,
his sword-handler (left), with his hand against thewound trying to stop the blood. Luis Miguel Dominguin (right), with cape. Photo by Paco
Caño.
George Armstrong Custer and Crazy Horse were among the most revered leaders of their times.
Custer had distinguished himself on the battlefields of the Civil War as a crafty strategist and bold leader. He was also seen as insufferably vain and preoccupied with perpetuating a mythical legacy.
Crazy Horse was seen as a brave leader and fierce fighter whose sole motivation was to halt the white man's encroachment on Native American lands and to preserve his tribe's way of life.
It was almost inevitable that their paths would cross as Custer was tasked with rounding up and relocating the Plains Indians that Crazy Horse had vowed to protect. That meeting came at Little Big Horn, Montana, on June 25, 1976. As a result, neither man would live to see his 38th birthday.
George Armstrong Custer's father intended for his son to become a preacher but the younger Custer had different ideas. Following high school, Custer tried teaching but longed to do something more adventurous. He eventually landed at West Point where he graduated 34th in his class of 34 cadets. The Army - desperate for officers after the Civil War erupted - graduated Custer's class a full year early, in 1861.
It was while serving as a junior staff officer in the Union cavalry under Major General George B. McClellan, that Custer first made a name for himself.
After his commander hesitated while considering a risky river crossing at a point of undetermined depth, Custer dashed to the middle of the river on his horse and turned to his astonished commander, shouting "That's how deep it is. Mr. General!" The crossing and battle were successful, launching Custer's high-profile career.
He later became the protege of Major General Alfred Pleasonton, who gave Custer his first command. Custer - an athletic-looking 6-foot-tall man who refrained from smoking and drinking alcohol - adopted a flashy, personalized uniform style that included a red cravat. His adoration for the spotlight created a love-hate relationship with the men under his command, who detested his showmanship but applauded his willingness to lead attacks.
His vanity earned him the derisive nickname of "Ringlets," a reference to his long, curling, cinnamon-scented blond hair but, because of his physical stamina and strict discipline, he was more commonly referred to as "Iron Butt" or "Hard Ass" by those under his command.
Three days prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, 23-year-old Custer was given a battlefield promotion from captain to brigadier general of the volunteers, making him one of the youngest Union Army generals. Custer became known for the "Custer Dash," a tactic that included Custer leading his Michigan Brigade into battle aboard his mount while delivering a full-throated "Michigan yell," often startling the rebel forces.
At Hunterstown, such a charge led to Custer falling from his wounded horse only to be rescued by one of his troops. By war's end, it was reported that 11 horses had been shot out from under Custer. Near Gettysburg, however, a Custer dash was credited with foiling a Confederate assault, although Custer's loss of 257 men was the most of any Union cavalry brigade at Gettysburg.
It was Custer's division that blocked the retreat of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the final days of the war and accepted the first flag of truce from a rebel commander. Custer was present at Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and was later presented the table on which the surrender was signed.
Custer assumed his permanent rank of captain after the war and considered leaving the Army for a career in banking, mining or politics but instead assumed the top position in the Soldiers and Sailors Union before being appointed a lieutenant colonel in the cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas. There he took part in an 1867 campaign against the Cheyenne Indians.
Custer was court martialed after the campaign, accused of going AWOL to see his wife. Although he was suspended for a year, the suspension was lifted early so he could resume fighting in the Indian Wars. In 1868 he led the cavalry against the Cheyenne in the Battle of Washita River in the Dakota Terrritory.
Although Custer reported killing 103 Cheyenne warriors and 875 Indian ponies in that batttle, he neglected to report his relationship with Mo-nah-se-tah, daughter of Cheyenne chief Little Rock, who was killed in the skirmish. Two members of Custer's unit later reported that Custer married Mo-nah-se-tah after the battle and Cheyenne oral history says that union produced a child, although some historians claim that the child's father was actually Custer's brother, Thomas.
Custer remained in the Dakota Territory until 1871 when he was re-assigned to Kentucky. He returned to Dakota in 1873 and in 1874 he led an expedition into the Black Hills. It was Custer's announcement that gold had been discovered in the region that triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush and heightened tensions between the U.S. and Plains Indians. President Grant ordered the Indians to report to their designated reservations by January 31, 1876, or be considered hostile.
But Sitting Bull, chief of the Sioux tribe, led a resistance against the intrusion into Native American holy lands. In the spring of 1876, he summoned area tribes to a gathering that eventually encamped on the banks of the Little Big Horn where they considered their options in their battle against U.S. forces. Crazy Horse was among the 2,000 warriors at the assemblage.
Crazy Horse was the third male in his Oglala Sioux Native American family to carry that name. His future as a tribal chief was foretold
when he stole horses from the rival Crow tribe before he was 13 years
old. He went on to become known as a fierce fighter in the escalating
battle against encroaching white American settlers.
In 1873, he had led an attack on a survey party led by Custer. On June 17, 1876, while en route to Sitting Bull's gathering, Crazy Horse's forces of some 1,200 Cheyenne and Oglala warriors turned back soldiers led by General George Crook, who were advancing on Sitting Bull's encampment.
Meanwhile, Custer's scouts had located the Sitting Bull camp and Custer deployed his forces in three batallions in an effort to surround the Indians and cut off possible avenues of retreat.
From the first wave of attacking soldiers on June 25, the attack went poorly as the Indians repelled their advances. Cavalry skirmish lines failed to hold against the Indians, who quickly broke through. Many soldiers panicked and dropped their weapons. As the soldiers fell, the Indians retrieved their weapons and used them against the soldiers.
Surviving soldiers killed their horses to use as protection against a final attack but to no avail. All the soldiers, including Custer, were killed.
When the battlefield was discovered two days later, army soldiers reported that the bodies had been stripped, scalped and mutilated. Custer had been shot twice - above the heart and in the head. The soldiers' remains were buried in a shallow grave but some were later retrieved for re-burial. Custer was buried with full military honors at West Point on October 10, 1877.
Sitting Bull fled to Canada after the battle, but Crazy Horse remained as the U.S. Army continued its pursuit of the rebellious Indians. Several battles followed through the winter of 1876-77 before Crazy Horse decided the best option for his people was to surrender.
For four months, he and his tribe lived in a village near Fort Robinson, Nebraska. He was arrested in September 1877 when he took his wife, who was ill with tuberculosis, on an unauthorized trip to her parents' village.
After he returned to Fort Robinson, he was stabbed with a bayonet during an altercation. He died later that night. According to Native American oral history, Crazy Horse was defiant to the end, dying on the floor instead of on the white man's cot.
Custer's legacy took a bashing after the Battle at Little Big Horn where critics have alleged that his stubborn style of leadership led to several tactical errors that resulted in the death of every white person who was there. That included both of his younger brothers - Thomas and Boston Custer - and a 45-year-old Associated Press reporter, Mark Kellogg, who is generally considered the first AP correspondent to die in the line of duty.
Custer, who is still considered a controversial figure today, went to great lengths to mold his image in the most positive light possible while he was alive. For several years prior to his death, he was a regular contributor to Galaxy magazine with articles about life on the plains. Several of these articles were assembled in a book in 1874, My Life On the Plains. He often invited journalists on his campaigns and wrote articles on hunting for several magazines. Just months before his death, he met with a publisher about publishing his life story.
His wife, Elizabeth, who often accompanied Custer on his expeditions, wrote at least three books about her late husband following his death.
But perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Little Big Horn will be that of Crazy Horse. In 1948, sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski - who had come to America from Poland to work on the presidential mountain-carving project at Mount Rushmore - began work on the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills. Although Ziolkowski died in 1982, the massive mountain-shaping project continues today. When completed, the head of Crazy Horse will be larger than the combined size of all four presidents' heads on Mount Rushmore.
George Armstrong Custer Born: December 5, 1839 Died: June 25, 1876, age 36
Crazy Horse Born: early 1840s Died: September 5, 1877
After hours of grinding and polishing plutonium pellets through a protective glovebox, she checked for radioactive exposure. After a modest positive result, the glovebox was replaced. By the time she left the Kerr-McGee plant where she worked in Cimarron, Oklahoma, five hours later, she was clean.
But over the next two days, tests showed confusing patterns of radioactive contamination. Within days, Silkwood, a roommate and boyfriend were flown to Los Alamos, New Mexico, for further testing and within a week, Silkwood would be dead - not from the radiation, but from injuries suffered in a suspicious automobile accident.
Silkwood's death would spark a heated debate over nuclear safety as well as a lengthy court case. It would also inspire a movie that earned numerous Academy Award nominations, including for Meryl Streep (best actress) and Cher (best supporting actress).
Karen Silkwood was a native Texan and a straight A student in high school, where she was the only girl in a chemistry class. She earned a scholarship which she used to study medical technology at Lamar College in Beaumont, Texas.
But Silkwood quit school after her freshman year to begin a common-law marriage to Bill Meadows, a California transplant who found work in the Texas oilfields. But, three children later, the marriage dissolved and Silkwood left her children behind to find work in Oklahoma City in 1972.
She landed a job as a laboratory analyst at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site near Crescent, Oklahoma, where she began work making plutonium pellets for fuel rods to be used in nuclear reactors.
Kerr-McGee started as an oil company founded by former Oklahoma politician Bob Kerr in 1929. After luring Phillips Petroleum chief geologist Dean McGee in 1946, Kerr-McGee was born. Merging Kerr's skill at securing lucrative contracts through his political connections with McGee's nose for oil, the company was solidly in the Fortune 500 in the 1970s. Since beginning uranium production at Cimarron in 1965, it was the largest private-sector uranium producer in the world by the time Silkwood went to work there.
Silkwood, the granddaughter of a Texas oil worker and union member, recognized the value of a union, even in a right to work state like Oklahoma, and joined the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union (OCAW). Within months, the union went on strike. Although the vast majority of union members abandoned the picket lines during the months-long strike, Silkwood was one of 20 who stuck it out. She was rewarded in August 1974 by becoming the first woman to be elected to the OCAW bargaining committee and was put in charge of health and safety.
As Silkwood began documenting the spills and contamination she observed in Cimarron, which had a turnover rate of 60 percent and was manned by many poorly trained workers, another member of the bargaining committee complained to officers of OCAW International about working conditions at the plant. At the end of September 1974, the committee's three members flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with union officials.
There they were told for the first time that plutonium was a carcinogen. Since Kerr-McGee was pressing for decertification of the OCAW due to its dwindling membership. national union officials saw an opportunity to resurrect its withering local. The first step was to warn Cimarron employees of the serious dangers of the material they were producing. The second was to take the damaging information Silkwood was collecting and give it to a New York Times reporter to generate public support for the workers' plight.
On October 10, 1974, about 100 Kerr-McGee workers attended a union-sanctioned workshop about the toxicity of plutonium. One week later, workers defeated the Kerr-McGee proposal to decertify the union by an 80-61 vote. But workers still lacked leverage in bargaining sessions. Union officials figured that a page one story in the New York Times might give them the muscle to give workers some much-needed plant reforms.
Silkwood was encouraged to continue collecting evidence against the company before meeting with New York Times reporter David Burnham.
On November 5, after grinding and polishing plutonium pellets that would be used in fuel rods, a routine check showed that Silkwood had been exposed to radiation. After showering with Clorox and Tide detergent, she was determined to be clean and was sent home with instructions to collect urine and fecal samples for the next five days.
On November 6, Silkwood arrived at the Kerr-McGee plant early to prepare paperwork for a bargaining meeting. Even though she had not worked with plutonium since the previous day, she was found to be even more contaminated than the day before. A painful shower with abrasive chemicals designed to remove the outer layer of skin followed, but the contamination remained.
When she arrived for work on November 7, Silkwood immediately reported to the Health Physics Office where it was determined that she was dangerously contaiminated. After a check of the plant and Silkwood's car came up negative, a team of Kerr-McGee investigators headed to Silkwood's apartment.
Investigators in full protective gear found intense contamination, especially in the kitchen and bathroom, but Silkwood's roommate and co-worker, Sherri Ellis, only had low-level exposure to radiation. Suspecting that Silkwood may be exposing herself intentionally, Kerr-McGee investigators took advantage of the opportunity to read Silkwood's diaries and other documents found in the apartment and dispatched company lawyers to question her.
At the recommendation of union officials and Atomic Energy Commission investigators, Silkwood, Ellis and Silkwood's boyfriend, Drew Stephens, were flown to Los Alamos, New Mexico, on November 10 for two days of intense testing. Although Ellis and Stephens were found to be relatively clean, Silkwood was determined to have higher - but not life-threatening - levels of contamination. She was reassured that despite the contamination she should go on to live a normal life.
But Silkwood, a heavy smoker with asthma who had lost 20 pounds in recent weeks and was down to 94 pounds, wasn't so sure. Plus, her cover as a union investigator was blown. Union officials decided to move up her meeting with Times reporter Burnham. It was set for 8:30 p.m. on November 13, 1974, at the Holiday Inn in Oklahoma City, about 30 miles from the Cimarron plant.
Silkwood and Ellis were re-assigned to new jobs when they reported for work on Nov. 13. Silkwood also attended a union bargaining session before a union meeting at the Hub Cafe began at 5:30 p.m. After the union meeting, Silkwood confided to a friend and co-worker that she had been contaminated and that she feared she would later contract cancer. She also said that she had photos of defective welds and documents proving falsification of records by Kerr-McGee.
Clutching a folder containing the photos and documents, Silkwood climbed into her white 1973 Honda Civic around 7:15 p.m. and started driving to her appointment with Burnham.
Burnham arrived at the Holiday Inn around 8:30, where he joined union official Steve Wodka and Drew Stephens. When Silkwood failed to arrive by 10 p.m., Wodka began making phone calls. That's when he learned the shocking news: Silkwood had been killed in an automobile accident on a two-lane rural road.
The trio immediately headed to the accident scene and found the accident investigator, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Rick Fagen. Fagen ultimately determined that Silkwood crashed after falling asleep, possibly while under the influence of drugs. He found sedatives and evidence of marijuana use - but no documents - in Silkwood's car.
Suspecting foul play, the union hired its own investigator, A.O. Pipkin, a former policeman who had investigated more that 2,000 accidents. Pipkin challenged the notion that Silkwood was unconscious before the crash. First he disputed the driving pattern of the crash itself. Silkwood's car veered off the road to the left, then traveled in a straight line for 240 feet before slamming into a concrete culvert. Pipkin argued that sleepy drivers usually drift off the road to the right and crash or roll immediately.
Furthermore, Pipkin argued, the steering wheel was bent in on two sides, suggesting that Silkwood was bracing herself for impact at the time of the crash.
Then there was the problem of the dents. Silkwood's car had dents on its rear bumper, marks the Oklahoma Highway Patrol attributed to towing the car out of the culvert after the crash. A microscopic examination ordered by Pipkin, however, proved otherwise. That examination said the dent was fresh and contained paint chips from another vehicle. Pipkin's final analysis was that someone in another car had forced Silkwood from the road.
An autopsy the next day showed that Silkwood's bloodstream had twice the recommended dosage of Quaalude necessary for causing drowsiness and that even more undissolved Quaalude was in her stomach. Subsequent tissue analysis revealed that she had serious recent plutonium contamination with the highest concentrations in her gastrointestinal tract, indicating that she had ingested plutonium shortly before her death.
Although Kerr-McGee tried to paint Silkwood as a vindictive plutonium smuggler who infected herself to make the company look bad, an Atomic Energy Commission report released less than two months after her death said that isotope studies showed that Silkwood never had ready access to the type of plutonium found in her body.
Reporter Burnham wrote several stories about the Silkwood case in the weeks following the accident, but the story had largely run its course by January 1975. Meanwhile, Kerr-McGee ran its own investigation, using lie detector tests to question employees, reassigning local union officials and closing down operations for two weeks around Christmas 1974, leaving employees without income for that period.
National union official Tony Mazzocchi, an environmental activist who was a major architect of the Occupational Safety & Health Act and had been involved in the Silkwood case from the beginning, vowed to continue his investigative efforts into what he considered a murder case despite what the union viewed as intimidation on the part of Kerr-McGee.
Despite his own serious automobile accident on January 17, 1975, Mazzocchi was instrumental in getting major Silkwood articles published in two magagazines - Ms. and Rolling Stone. National Public Radio also did an update on the case and the National Organization of Women used the Silkwood case as a rallying cry in its "Stop Violence Against Women" campaign.
Although the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plant was shut down in 1975, the company was sued by the Silkwood estate in 1979. That trial resulted in a $10.5 million award to the family, but the Federal Court of Appeals reduced the award to a mere $5,000. After further legal wrangling, the parties agreed to a $1.38 million settlement in 1986, with $810,000 reportedly going to legal fees.
Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen collaborated on the screenplay for the 1983 movie, Silkwood, that was nominated for five Academy Awards. In preparation for her starring role, actress Meryl Streep was given recordings of union conversations with Karen Silkwood. The result was a best acting nomination for Streep, although many of Silkwood's friends thought Cher - who played Silkwood's roommate in the film and earned a best supporting actress nomination - more closely resembled Silkwood.
One of the great ironies of the case is that a December 7, 1985, story in the New York Times reported that the fuel rods questioned by Silkwood in 1974 turned out to be "among the best Kerr-McGee performers" and "posed no hazard while often exceeding contract specifications for useful life and power production."
Defenders of Silkwood maintain that it was still proper to blow the whistle since the intent to cover up and misrepresent flaws was the real problem from the start.
On June 14, 1995, Silkwood's ex-boyfriend, Drew Stephens, was practicing acrobatic loops in his plane outside of El Reno, Oklahoma, when the plane careened through a wheat field and burst into flames, killing him instantly. He was 45 years old.
Karen Gay Silkwood Born: February 19, 1946 Died: November 13, 1974, age 28
Here is the first part of a series of videos about Karen Silkwood. You can find the rest here: part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.
Nick Piantanida was on a mission, a mission that took him over Iowa at an altitude higher than anyone had ever achieved by a balloon anywhere.
It also cost him his life.
Piantanida's pursuit of a world record for a high altitude dive from the sky brought him to the Midwest in the mid-1960s. His reputation as a risk-taking daredevil preceded him.
After a stint in the U.S. Army, Piantanida and buddy Walt Tomashoff planned an expedition to Venezuela where they hoped to become the first to climb Devil’s Mountain. Since neither had any climbing experience, they bought a book on the subject and practiced by day by climbing on the Hudson
River Palisades above Hoboken, New Jersey, while working in a can factory at night.
Although someone else had climbed the mountain by the time they reached Venezuela, Piantanida and Tomashoff managed to become the first to climb the mountain by a more difficult route along Angel Falls that was thought to be unclimbable.
Piantanida returned to the United States with some exotic animals and tried to parlay that into an exotic animal business. That business never took off so Piantanida worked a variety of jobs in his native New Jersey to support his wife and growing family. Along the way, he acquired a taste for skydiving at Lakewood Sport Parachute Center on the Jersey Shore.
It was a tough crowd that took up the sport in its early days, before steerable parachutes and rip-stop jumpsuits. Equipment malfunctions were frequent, as were fatalities. Rough landings and broken bones were common. While many jumpers had military experience, Piantanida had to start from scratch.
Early on, Piantanida decided he wanted to take aim at the highest, longest skydiving jump in history. The longest free-fall parachute up to that time was the 80,380-foot descent by Russian Yevgeni Andreyev on November 1, 1962. On the same day, another Russian, Pyotr Dolgov, who ascended in the same capsule as Andreyev, attempted a jump from 10,000 feet higher but struck his helmet as he exited, cracking his visor, which led to rapid depressurization and his death,
The highest jump on record was from 102,800 feet by Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger Jr. on August 16, 1960, although it wasn't recognized since it wasn't officially monitored by an international organization. Kittinger's jump also set records for longest free-fall (4 minutes 36 seconds) and fastest speed by
a human being through the atmosphere (614 miles per hour).
For two years, Piantanida pushed his project, criss-crossing the country doing 435 exhibition jumps, working wherever he could, seeking colunteers and sponsors and promoting his project through interviews with reporters. Once the Air Force offered training facilities, the David Clark Company offered to create a pressurized suit and Raven Industries of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, offered a balloon, Piantanida's Project Strato-Jump was born.
On his first jump attempt on October 22, 1965, a wind shear tore off the top of his balloon, forcing him to bail out at 16,000 feet and land in a St. Paul, Minnesota, city dump.
Piantanida prepared for his second attempt with a free fall from a plane at 16,000 feet in temps of minus-30 degrees from over Rock Rapids, Iowa, on January 28, 1966. All was good for his formal attempt by balloon, which would take him from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to somewhere around Estherville, Iowa.
All was going well on the morning of February 2, 1966, as Piantanida's balloon carried him to the world-record altitude of 123,500 feet (21.21 miles) above Estherville. But, as Piantanida stood in the doorway of the gondola ready to leap, he couldn't disconnect his oxygen hose. The decision was made from the ground to separate the gondola from the balloon and let it free fall some 25,000 feet before the cargo chute would deploy and safely return the gondola to earth.
Piantanida's bulky suit kept him from re-attaching his seat belt so he was forced to stand in the doorway for the entire descent. It was feared that the force of the deploying cargo chute might forcefully eject him into space or disconnect his oxygen hose but neither event occurred and Piantanida was successfully rescued.
At a subsequent news conference, Piantanida expressed frustration at the malfunction that he could have fixed "with a $1.25 wrench." He also promised to try again.
That third attempt came on Sunday, May 1, 1966, when he again lifted off from Sioux Falls after promising his wife that he'd be back in time for 11 a.m. Mass. He also promised that it would be his last jump.
The ascent was going well when at 57,000 feet, the ground crew heard a "whooshing" sound and a brief "Emergency, emer..." from Piantanida, whose face mask had depressurized. The ground crew immediately cut the gondola loose from the balloon and it began what would be an agonizing 26-minute descent.
After the still-unconscious Piantanida was removed from the gondola 17 miles northwest of Spirit Lake, Iowa, he was rushed to a hospital in Worthington, Minnesota. He was later flown to Hennepin County General Hospital for treatment in one of the country's few hypobaric chambers at the time. Doctors felt he had a chance for survival but brain damage was inevitable. A month later, though, they described him as being in a "waking coma" and transfered him to the National Institute of Health at Bethesda, Maryland.
Piantanida was later transfered to the Veterans Adminstration Hospital at Philadelphia where he died on August 29, 1966. He never regained consciousness.
The high altitude mark that Piantanida was seeking to break was finally broken 46 years later by Austrian Felix Baumgartner on October 14, 2012, when he jumped from a height of 128,100 feet and became the first human to break the sound barrier outside of a vehicle by reaching 834 miles per hour. Baumgartner's free fall time of 4 minutes and 19 seconds was just 17 seconds shy of Kittinger's 1960 jump.
Nicholas Piantanida Born: August 15, 1932 Died: August 29, 1966, age 34
Robert Falcon Scott was ambitious, competitive and destined for a spot among British aristocracy.
But in the end, his ambition and competitive drive - and, some critics say, his poor decisions and lack of leadership skills - cost him more than a knighthood. It also cost him and four of his companions their lives.
From an early age, Scott and his younger brother, Archibald, were guided toward military careers, following their grandfather and four uncles into the British service. At age 13, Scott began his military career as a naval cadet. He caught the eye of Clements Markham, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.
In 1897, Scott was a 29-year-old torpedo officer when his father died, leaving his mother and two of her daughters dependent on Scott and brother Archie's incomes. It all fell on Scott a year later when Archie died of typhoid fever.
Concerned with scant propects of promotion, Scott was intrigued when he learned that Markham and the RGS were planning an Antarctic expedition. Within two years, Scott earned a promotion to commander and was named leader of Discovery Expedition that set sail for Antarctica on March 11, 1902.
The expedition was a success, highlighted by a march that took Scott and two companions within 530 miles of the South Pole. By the time the explorers returned to England in September 1904, they were hailed as heroes. Scott was awarded several medals and was promoted to captain. He spent more than a year attending receptions and giving lectures before returning to naval service.
He married in 1908 and became a father in 1909, not long after he announced that he would be heading up a new Antarctic expedition aboard the ship Terra Nova in 1910.
Although the Terra Nova expedition was officialy designated as a scientific trip, Scott made it clear that his No. 1 goal was to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Fellow Brit Ernest Shackleton had recently gotten within 100 miles of the pole. Scott soon learned he was in a race to achieve that feat as Norwegian explorer Roald Amundson was leading a similar expedition at the same time.
In preparation for the expedition, Scott's crew gathered ponies and motorized sledges for the arduous trek. Before reaching Antarctica, however, the Terra Nova was trapped in ice for 20 days. Upon arrival, the largest of the motorized sledges broke through the ice and sank into the sea.
Scott and his crew began their march to the pole on November 1, 1911, following the same route earlier taken by Shackleton. The 12 men were broken into groups, with only the five-man group headed by Scott assigned to reach the pole with the other groups in support roles for the nearly 1,800-mile trip to the pole and back.
One by one the ponies died or were shot as they were unable to cope with the deep, soft snow, leaving the men to pull the 200-pound sledges by themselves in snow that sometimes limited their advances to a few miles a day. By January 3, 1912, only Scott's group continued toward the pole.
As they approached the pole on the afternoon of January 18, they spotted an apparent cairn. By the time they got there, they saw what it really was - a small tent with a Norwegian flag attached to a bamboo pole. As Scott wrote in his journal: "This told us the whole story. The Norwegians have forestalled us and are first at the Pole."
Indeed, Amundson had reached the pole more than a month earlier, on December 14, 1911. Nevertheless, Scott wrote: "We built a cairn, put up our poor slighted Union Jack and photographed ourselves - mighty cold work all of it."
The team rested a day before starting its trip back to the base camp. Within a week, team members suffered snow blindness and frostbite. They became lost at one point and the weather deteriorated with gale-force winds.
The first casualty came on February 16 when Edgar Evans fell behind the others and froze to death. Lawrence Oates, who had intense pain from his frost-bitten feet, simply gave up on March 5 and left his tent in a blizzard where he died from exposure. Scott wrote: "We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to disuade him, we knew it was an act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit and assuredly the end is not far."
On March 19, the remaining three team members - Scott, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers - made camp in another raging blizzard. It would be their last camp. The last entry in Scott's journal is dated March 29, 1912: "Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W.
We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the
20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but
outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not
think we can hope for better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but
we are getting weaker of course, and the end cannot be far."
It would be eight months before their bodies would be found. They were covered by a cairn topped with a cross made from skis. It is estimated that 75 feet of snow and ice now cover their frozen tomb, which has moved some 30 miles from its original location. Within 300 years, it is estimated, their bodies will fall into the Ross Sea, perhaps in an iceberg.
Robert Falcon Scott, explorer Born: June 6, 1868 Died: circa March 29, 1912, age 43
Ulrike Maier was a special skier. As a member of the powerful Austrian ski team, that's no small feat.
For starters, she was the only mother to compete on the World Cup downhill circuit in the early 1990s. Indeed, she was three months pregnant when she won the first of her two world titles in 1989. Maier - whose nickname was Ulli - came back two years later to claim her second world title in super-G.
Maier, who was denied an Olympic medal in the 1992 Games at Albertville, France, was aiming for redemption in the 1994 Games at Lillehammer, Norway. But Maier and the rest of the World Cup women competitors were so upset with the easy course planned for the 1994 Games that they went on strike before the 1993 Norwegian Games. The tactic worked as Olympic officials changed their plans and switched to a shorter version of the more-difficult men's course for the women's competition.
The trend of women racing on men's courses created alarm among some downhill officials. Improvements in equipment and techniques had caused speeds to soar to what many saw as dangerous ranges. For example, when famed French skier Jean-Claude Killy sped to victory in the first World Cup season in 1967, his average speed over a 1.86-mile course was just over 54 miles per hour. The average top speed for world class women competitors in 1994 was closer to 68 miles per hour.
Maier was coming off her fifth World Cup win on January 21, 1994, in Maribor, Slovenia, when she headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, for a final tuneup before the Lillehammer Games. Although the 26-year-old Maier had announced that she would retire after the 1993-94 season and marry the father of her daughter, she reportedly was reconsidering as she was enjoying great success.
As she hurtled down the course at speeds topping 65 miles per hour, Maier's right ski appeared to catch a patch of soft snow two-thirds of the way down, causing her to lose balance and go off course. Her head hit a pile of snow (initial reports erroneously said she struck a timing tower), lost her helmet and tumbled several times down the course.
Although emergency workers quickly reached her and she was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital within minutes, she was declared dead. The cause was a broken neck.
In Austria, where downhill skiing is as popular as professional football is the the U.S., the event was witnessed live on television. Maier was the fifth Austrian ski team member to die in three years. The others were Gernot Reinstadler (ski accident, 1991), Rudolf Nierlich (car crash, 1991), Peter Wirnsberger (ski accident, 1992) and coach Alois Kahr (car crash, 1991).
It's sometimes called "the curse of the Grateful Dead keyboardists."
The first four keyboard players for the famed rock group died untimely deaths - three of them before they'd reached their 38th birthdays.
Without Ron McKernan, the Dead might not have happened at all. It was McKernan who first suggested forming the band that began as the Warlocks and evolved into the Grateful Dead. In the band's earliest years, McKernan acted as front man, playing the harmonica and keyboards while adding gritty blues vocals.
The son of an R&B disc jockey who moonlighted as a boogie woogie piano player around his San Bruno, California, home base, McKernan's drinking and biker image led his expulsion from Palo Alto High School around the same time he met Jerry Garcia, who played for a local band, the Zodiacs.
Although McKernan was a mediocre keyboard player and had a rough, unpolished voice, Garcia was impressed with his rough-edge persona. Garcia - who tagged McKernan with the nickname "Pigpen" - eventually added him to his band, which evolved into Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Band, then the Warlocks and, finally, the Grateful Dead. In 1965 - as the band was shifting away from folk music - McKernan suggested they go electric.
That was just one change for the band, however. While Garcia and most of his Dead bandmates started experimenting with psychedelic drugs, McKernan elected instead to stay with his Thunderbird wine and Southern Comfort.
McKernan's drinking forced his bandmates to recruit some backup help to fill in for their increasingly unreliable keyboard player. But whenever possible, the Dead called on McKernan to close their shows with Turn On Your Lovelight, the Bobby Womack song that McKernan had transformed into what famed critic Ralph Gleason once referred to as "a one-man blues project ... building to climax after climax."
But McKernan's hard-drinking life finally caught up with him. He was hospitalized with liver trouble in 1971 and his failing health caused himto leave the band for good in June 1972. On March 8, 1973, he was found dead in his apartment at age 27 of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.
Keith Godchaux, the backup who filled in for the ailing McKernan in 1971, became his permanent replacement in 1972. A Seattle, Washington, native, Godchaux grew up in the East Bay area of Concord, California, and had played with Dave Mason before Garcia invited him into the Dead. Godchaux's wife, Donna, also joined the group.
Godchaux spent most of his first three years with the Dead on the road, then spent the next three years mostly on the sidelines as the band took a break. He filled the time with recording projects with his wife and Garcia. In 1978, the Dead hit the road again where Godchaux succumbed to anxiety. Bouts of depression and heavy drug use followed and, after a few shows where he nodded of at the keyboards and Donna sang off-key, both were booted out of the band in 1979.
Keith and Donna formed a new group, the Heart of Gold Band. After a night of rehearsals at the Dead's Front Street Studio, Godchaux and a friend drove from a toll plaza into the back of a flatbed truck. He died at age 32 two days later from injuries sustained in the crash.
Godchaux's place in the Grateful Dead had been taken by Brent Mydland, a Bay Area musical veteran who caught Garcia's attention as keyboardist for a band that Dead guitarist Bob Weir had put together for a solo project.
Mydland was a better fit for the band than his predecessor and contributed many songs to the Dead catalogue, including Far From Me, Easy to Love You, Tons of Steel and I Will Take You Home. During his tenure with the Dead, Mydland also took part in some of the band's many side bands.
On July 26, 1990, shortly after completing a summer tour with the Dead, Mydland died in his Lafayette, California, home of an accidental drug overdose. He was 37 years old.
Bruce Hornsby was a temporary fill-in on keyboards for the Dead until another Bay Area music veteran, Vince Welnick stepped in as Mydland's replacement. Welnick, a former member of avant garde group The Tubes, had also played for Todd Rundgren before joining the Dead.
In 1995, though, Welnick was diagnosed first with throat cancer, then emphysema. While he beat the cancer, the emphysema was more persistent. Coupled with the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia on August 9, 1995, Welnick was overcome by depression and attempted suicide while on tour with bandmate Bob Weir's RatDog Revue later that year.
Welnick left the band and never quite regained his footing. He died, apparently by suicide at his California home, at age 55 on June 2, 1996.
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan Born: September 8, 1945 Died March 8, 1973 (age 27)
Keith Godchaux Born: July 19, 1948 Died: July 21, 1980 (age 32)
Brent Mydland Born: October 21, 1952 Died: July 1, 1990 (age 37)
Vince Welnick Born: February 21, 1951 Died: June 2, 2006 (age 55)
Here's McKernan performing his signature song:
Here's a rehearsal for Uncle John's Band that features Godchaux:
Ira Hayes deserved to be proud of his military service.
As Marine Private Ira Hayes, a 22-year-old Pima Indian from Arizona, he survived the bloody battle to take the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese at the height of the South Pacific fighting during World War II and was one of six members of America's fighting forces captured in the iconic flag-raising image by photographer Joe Rosenthal on Feb. 23, 1945.
Yet, moments after he was cited as a true American hero by President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the dedication of the Iwo Jima monument in Washington, D.C., in 1954 and was asked by a reporter "How do you like the big celebration?," Hayes just hung his head and quietly replied, "I don't."
Hayes was more than a reluctant hero. Within three months, he was dead, an apparent victim of unsought celebrity. Of the six Americans forever captured by Rosenthal's lens, he was the fourth to die. Three of them never made it off the island alive.
Hayes didn't have to be there at all.
The eldest of six children born to a World War I veteran subsistence farmer and devoutly religious mother in Arizona's Gila River Indian Community, Ira Hamilton Hayes was a quiet yet precocious child, learning to read and write English before age four. Hayes attended high school for just two years and worked as a carpenter and spent some time with the Civilian Conservation Corps before enlisting in the Marine Corps following the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor.
Hayes qualified as a parachutist and spent 11 months in combat in the South Pacific, earning the nickname of Chief Falling Cloud. After the parachute unit was disbanded in early 1944, Hayes signed on for another tour of duty and headed back to the South Pacific in September 1944.
On February 19, 1945, Hayes and others in the 5th Marine Division began their assault on Iwo Jima. Four days later, he was in the group that headed up Mt. Suribachi to plant the flag that has become such an American icon. That event did not stop the fighting that would claim half of the flag-planting crew.
Pennsylvanian Mike Strank was the first to die. It was Strank who led the five Marines and one Navy corpsman to the top of Mt. Suribachi to replace the first flag planted by U.S. forces with a larger one so "every Marine on this cruddy island can see it." On March 1, Sgt. Strank was killed by a mortar round as he was diagramming a battle plan in the sand.
Strank's second in command, Harlon Henry Block, a former high school football star from South Texas, briefly took over leadership of the unit but he, too, was struck down by a mortar blast just hours after Strank.
Franklin Sousley, a 19-year-old from Kentucky, was the third of the unit to die on Iwo Jima when he succumbed to combat injuries on March 21. By the time Iwo Jima was won, more than 6,000 Americans and 20,000 Japanese were dead.
The three surviving members of the flag-raising unit - Hayes, fellow Marine Rene Gagnon and Navy Pharmacist's Mate John Bradley - were summoned back to the states in April where they were temporarily assigned to duties connected to the Seventh War Bond Drive.
They met with President Truman before beginning a 32-city tour where they were presented to the public as heroes in an effort to spur war bond sales. Hayes was not comfortable with his new role.
"How could I feel like a hero when only five men in my platoon of 45 survived?" he later lamented to a reporter. "Everywhere we went people shoved drinks in our hands and said 'You're a hero!' We knew we hadn't done that much but you couldn't tell them that."
Even after his honorable discharge in November 1945, Hayes could not escape his fame. In 1949, he, Gagnon and Bradley played themselves in the John Wayne movie, Sands of Iwo Jima. Hayes returned to his hometown in Arizona, but never fulfilled the promise he had shown as a youngster.
Suffering from what would be diagnosed today as post-traumatic stress disorder, Hayes turned to the bottle and was frequently in trouble with the law. He was arrested as many as 50 times on drinking-related charges. On Jan. 24, 1955, after Hayes was involved in a scuffle during a card game, Hayes was found dead near his home. He was later buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Hayes' story was documented in the 1961 film, The Outsider, with Tony Curtis portraying Hayes. His story was also popularized in the song, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, a big hit for Johnny Cash in 1964. The song was written by Peter LaFarge, a Native American of Pima heritage and military veteran of the Korean war. LeFarge also died young, at age 33 on Oct. 27, 1964. The cause of death is listed as a stroke but many friends believe it was a suicide.
The historic flag that was raised on Mt. Suribachi in 1945, was placed in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Filmmaker Clint Eastwood told the story of the battle for Iwo Jima in two 2006 films - Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Both received Oscar nominations.
Photographer Joe Rosenthal died in 2006 at the age of 94; Rene Gagnon died in Manchester, N.H., on October 12, 1979, at age 54 and John Bradley died in Antigo, Wisconsin, on Jan. 11, 1994, at age 70.
Ira Hamilton Hayes
Born: January 12, 1923, Sacaton, Arizona
Died: January 24, 1955, Bapchule, Arizona (age 32)
Here is a 3-minute mini-documentary about the flag-raising:
Here is my favorite version of "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," by Kris Kristofferson:
