Category Archives: History

Picture it: The date is October 25, 2012, and Quartz throws a launch party from the space-age future. Photo: Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Quartz (qz.com)

Quartz, a business publication, today announced its sale to G/O Media. This is yet another chapter of several in Quartzs history, co-founder and now editor-in-chief Zach Seward tells me. But how many chapters? Over the last decade, Quartz has moved faster and broken more things than nearly any other publication. Is Quartz a cautionary tale for publishers? Or an inspirational one? You decide.

Quartz launches in 2012 as a premium ad space, for fancy brands that love to reach business consumers, in the bosom of Atlantic Media. Everyone loves it. Quartz India launches 2014; Quartz Africa launches 2015. This is Original Quartz breaking ground in terms of article format mobile first, then drafting on the back of building an audience through social, says Seward.

In 2016, Quartz achieves an operating profit and launches a much-discussed chatbotlike app that is debated by media companies for months.

Quartz also rides a profitable but eventually exhausting and undermining industry wave, funded and delivered by Facebook, of native social video, going from zero to 200 million video views.

We and many other publishers felt the pull of continued growth there. I dont even regret it! says Seward. It meant that Quartzs remit expanded greatly. Whether that was the right or wrong choice, then, when Facebook traffic went away, the most important thing was we had a distinguishable brand that was focused and for a certain type of reader.

In late 2017: Quartz observes its fifth anniversary. It promises ambitious video series, a new culture-and-lifestyle vertical, and a new at work vertical.

As the Facebook era ends for publishers, Quartz enters its subscription era and, in July 2018, sells to Uzabase, a public company based in Japan, for $86 million.

Being acquired by a public company, I wouldnt recommend it as a life experience for everyone, but it was super-interesting to go through, Seward says.

Quartz is a rare success in a media industry that continues to struggle to adapt to the internet says the New York Times though it notes that despite its strengths, Quartz needs to shift its business model to paid subscriptions. Uzabase says that, by 2023, it will be the most important business website in the world. Quartz agrees its next biggest source of growth will come from reader revenue; in late 2018, the membership program is rolled out. In 2019, a paywall descends. Also, two rounds of layoffs happen, both on the business side. That October, co-founder and editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney leaves, replaced with Harvard Business Reviews Katherine Bell. (Bell did not reply to inquiries.)

The company loses a ton of money: In 2019, Quartz reported a $18.4 million loss on $26.9 million in revenue. The next May, Quartz brutally lays off 80 people, nearly half its staff.

Then, six months later, in a very unusual move, Quartz buys itself back from its owner. I have reached an agreement to acquire Quartz myself and take us private, Seward writes at the time, and shares equity with the staff.

He plans to raise money, but cannot. The site is making about $11 million in revenue.

Through the pandemic, Quartz looks from the outside that it is scrambling through iterations of its business model. In August 2021, Quartz refocuses subscription program on email newsletters for paying readers. Then, in April of this year, Quartz has permanently dropped its paywall, replacing it with a regi-wall to harvest emails.

This is the end of Quartz as its own company, Seward says.

Not having raised any money in its period of independence, and losing nearly $7 million last year, today Seward announced Quartzs sale to G/O Media, which owns the remains of the Gawker Media Network and the Onion, the Root, and A/V Club.

He plans to eventually drop the general-manager title after the business transition and remain as editor-in-chief, with Bell departing. I miss journalism! Theres nothing like running a newsroom, he says. All I get to write these days is memos and I pour a lot into those.

Having a parent company also allows Quartz to return to what it was like in the beginning. Weve already made a bit of a return to original Quartz in our tone and approach, Seward says, shortly before going to address the newsroom at 12:30 p.m. ET today. What does he expect from that meeting? Just like any other editor-in-chief, lots of questions about work from home.

Fortunately, or not, now he has a boss. G/O Media honcho Jim Spanfeller, often brutally dunked on by the companys writers, apparently sent an announcement to the staff this morning with the subject line Quarts News.

Quartz can join the companys other brands, for now, in sometimes benefitting from and sometimes fighting with management. Im looking forward to a more traditional workplace battle, Seward says. Not everything has to be existential all the time, as it sometimes felt.

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Quartz Is the History of Internet Media in Just 10 Years - New York Magazine

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The Steelers would have been more successful if they decided to take these players in the draft rather than their original selections.

The Steelers are one of the most consistent franchises in the NFL. They have been able to stay competitive for the most part since the dynasty began in the 1970s. There were some dark times in the 80s, but the team did compete. They finally became Super Bowl contenders again throughout the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s.

The draft is where this team has built its team and developed through time. Adding players through this part of the offseason is the preferred method by this franchise. It has been a common denominator that leads to the results made on the football field.

No matter how good a draft class is, there might be some players that continue to separate themselves from the pack. These Hall of Fame prospects could be huge misses if your team decides to go in another direction. Those misses have happened for the black and gold and will happen again in the future.

These draft options that the team passed over are tough to look back on. It will always lead to people wondering what would happen if this certain player got to play for this team? That answer will never be answered, but it is hard to stomach some players that Pittsburgh did select over them.

Many will remember some other draft takes that could have landed on this list. There have been many misses, especially in the later rounds of the draft. This team is mostly successful throughout the draft process, but they are not impervious to mistakes.

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5 players the Steelers regret passing on in the draft throughout history - Still Curtain

The 164th Airlift Squadron conducted a ceremonial final formation flight of two C-130H Hercules as part of itsFlying Legacy tribute ceremony April 23at the 179th Airlift Wing of the Ohio National Guard.

The unit invited current members, their family and friends as well as prior service members to join them in a private ceremony at the base at Mansfield Lahm Airport in order to pay tribute to the historical flying units aviation history as it enters a new era with a new non-aviation based mission, according to a Friday news release from the 179th.

Last year, the 179thwas chosen to become the first cyber wing in the Air National Guard.

More: Top stories: Nos. 2 and 1: 179th gets new mission, COVID-19 pandemic continues

More: 179th Airlift Wing welcomes new commander

Col. Darren Hamilton, 179th Airlift Wing commander, opened the ceremony by thanking those in attendance and briefing an outline of the plan for embarking on the ceremonial final formation flight, followed by remarks regarding the historical significance of the day for the crowd in front of a C-130H Hercules static display.

Its tradition to have a Fini Flight for aviators flying their last time. In this case, its a symbolic final flight for our C-130 community, a mission that has been our identity in Mansfield since 1976," Hamilton said. "We will continue to fly this mission into early June when the last of the iron leaves the ramp, but this was our last chance to give it the ceremonial ending it deserves and share that with our past and present members, their families and friends."

Hamilton has been a part of this C-130 community his entire life. He looked into the crowd and identified prior members who helped him along the way, detailing how he first visited the base as a child, later joined as an enlisted C-130 maintainer, took advantage of the Ohio Air National Guards state tuition assistance to obtain his degree and commission as an officer, eventually flying the C-130 and becoming the 179th Airlift Wing commander.

The skull patch that you see on our 164th Airlift Squadron is world-renowned. The heritage goes back to 1942, when it was first flown with the 363rd Fighter Squadron in World War II with Aces like Bud Anderson and Chuck Yeager. Hamilton said, Then in 1946, they transferred that unit to Mansfield and it was formally recognized by 1948. Thats 74 years, officially, of flying here and if you go back to the World War II lineage, thats 80 years of flying.

Ohio is home to a rich aviation history, known widely as the birthplace of aviation. The unit at Mansfield Lahm Air National Guard Base has a very rich history in military aviation.

The 363rd Fighter Squadron was established at Hamilton Field, California, in December 1942. The skull was first painted on a P-39 Airacobra door and followed the unit to World War II, flying the P-51 Mustang. That wartime 363rd Fighter Squadron was re-designated as the 164th Fighter Squadron and was allotted to the Ohio Air National Guard, on May 24, 1946, bestowing the lineage, history, honors and colors of the 363rd Fighter Squadron.

Over the past 74 years of aviation at Mansfield Lahm ANGB, the squadron has been assigned the F-51D/H Mustang, B-26 Invader, F-80C Shooting Star, F-84E/F Thunderstreak, F-100D/F Super Saber, C-130B/H Hercules and C-27J Spartan.

During the F-84 fighter era, Fred Haise Jr., flew with the unit before going on to become an astronaut and flew as the lunar module pilot as part of the historic Apollo 13 mission in 1970.

The unit transitioned from a fighter squadron to an airlift squadron in 1976, and has remained an airlift squadron until now.

Hamilton acknowledged that the transitions from one aircraft to another have always been hard, but this may be their greatest challenge yet.

Although the loss of the aviation based mission is not easy, it is important to recognize that the unit will carry on its legacy as it transitions to this new era as the 179th Cyber Wing.

We look to the future with optimism. We recognize the history this unit continues to make. Being selected to become the first cyber wing in the Air National Guard is another historic milestone in a long tradition of adapting to the call of duty. Hamilton said, In a world of increasing technological advancement, this new mission secures Mansfields future as a vital contributor to the defense of Ohio and this great nation for generations to come.

See more here:

179th ceremony pays tribute to aviation history at Mansfield base - Mansfield News Journal

The gnarled old locust tree standing at the southeast corner of S.W. Huntoon and Clay is the oldest tree in Topeka,according toa plaque located there.

That tree is among fivesignificant Topekatrees or groups of trees The Capital-Journal is recognizing to markArbor Day, which isFriday.

Here is the list:

Thirty-twostudents in an eighth-grade class at nearby Central Park School arranged for theplaque identifying it as Topeka's oldest tree to be attached in 1913 to the tree at S.W. Huntoon and Clay, according to the website of the Kansas Historical Society.

Theplaque was latermoved to a place on the ground near the tree's base, that site says.

"Believed to date from the city's early history, the tree may have been full-grown when Kansas was opened as a territory in 1854," itsays. "Trees commonly were planted as guideposts along the trail that carried travelers from Fort Leavenworth to theSanta Fe Trailjunction near Burlingame."

More: Jennie Chinn, who died Saturday, ran Kansas Historical Society for 18 years. Her job gave her joy.

The locust tree drew students'attention after it was mentionedin"The Price of the Prairie," a book about post-Civil War settlers in Kansaspublished in 1910 by Margaret Hill McCarter, the namesake for McCarter Elementary School at5512 S.W. 16th.

The historical society website says awoman who taughtat Central Park School in 1913saidthe tree might not have been the area's oldest, but"it was supposed to be the oldest tree between the Statehouse and Shunganunga Creek to the southwest."

City forester Travis Tenbrink said Topeka's city government has no official record or documentation of thetree's being Topeka's oldest,buthe has no reason to doubt that.

"We continue to trim the tree as needed, and actually have it on our schedule to be trimmed in the next few months," he said. "We are also planning to do some chemical treatments to help support, and hopefully improve the root system of the tree."

For more than a century, a massive, 90-foot-tall cottonwood tree stood on the Kansas Statehouse grounds, just southeast of the Capitol.

The historicalsociety website says legend has it that the tree grew from a stakeworkers drove into the ground while building the Statehouse. Another account says the treewas already present as a sapling when construction of the Statehouse began in 1866.

Kansas legislators, perhaps inspired by its nearby presence, voted in 1937 to choose the cottonwood as the Kansas State Tree.

The Statehouse cottonwood survived Topekas historic 1966 tornado, though it was badly damaged. Tree surgeons replaced a large piece of its trunk with concrete in an effort to keep it alive.

In the years that followed, the tree slowly died.All branches above the main trunk were cut down in 1983. The stump was removed in 1984.

More: What happened to Amelia Earhart? This $15 million Kansas museum will honor the pilot's legacy

Claire Swogger's favorite tree was the redbud.

The Topeka woman and her husband,Kaw Valley Bank & Trust Co. owner Glenn Swogger, consequentlygave the name "Redbud Foundation" to the philanthropic organization they formedto benefit various causes.

Thoseincluded creating Redbud Park, a public gathering place that features various redbud trees.

The park is located on the site of what used to be a parking lotat the southeast corner of N. Kansas Avenue and Gordon, in downtown North Topeka's NOTO ArtsDistrict.

Claire Swogger died in 2017, but Glenn Swogger survived long enough to takepart inribbon-cutting ceremonies held at the park in 2019. He died last August.

Tenmonths afterthe 1966 tornado killed many trees in Topeka, Fidelity State Bank & Trust Co. began a 53-year Arbor Day tradition of giving awayseedlings it had bought.

We started giving out trees in the lobby of the bank, the bank's late president and CEO, Anderson Chandler,told The Capital-Journal in 2016.We only had two locations then. By the next year, we decided that the best way to get more trees planted was to give them to schools.

The tradition continued through 2020.

Members of the Topeka History Geeks Facebook group spoke positivelythis past week on that site of the role in that effort playedby Chandler, who died in 2019.

"He was a very community-oriented businessman and a great Topeka citizen," said Topekan Kurt Kieffer.

The late Capital City Bank president Frank Sabatinispearheaded efforts to create and develop the Lake Shawnee Arboretum, which contains numerous trees and stands just southwest of S.E. 37th and West Edge Road.

The site was an open fieldwhenSabatiniset out in 1993 to make it anarboretum. That arboretumwas dedicated in 1997.

"Emotionally, it's just kind of a dream come true for me to leave some kind of legacy," Sabatini told The Capital-Journal at rededication ceremonies held in 2005.

Sabatini died in October.

The Kansas Forest Service says Topeka is the location of five "champion" trees, which are the largest of their type in Kansas.A report on the KFwebsitesaysthose trees are as follows:

Tim Hrenchir can be reached at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.

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Have you seen the 5 trees that helped make Topeka what it is today? Celebrate them Arbor Day. - The Topeka Capital-Journal

Paramores Hayley Williams will guide a deep dive into the history and evolution of emo in a new 20-part podcast series, Everything Is Emo.

The new weekly show is part of BBC Sounds Back to Back series, and the first episode perfectly titled All Music Is Emotional is available to listen to now. In the first episode, Williams discusses her all music is emotional theory and reflects on her own emo history by sharing music from some her favorite bands, as well as stories from Paramores early days (the soundtrack includes a mix of old and new hits, from the Postal Service, My Chemical Romance, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Wet Leg and Lime Garden).

Not long ago, people started calling me a veteran of my scene and of the music industry, Williams said in a statement. It sounds so funny to me because most of the time I still feel like a fan. The serious truth is I have, in fact, grown up in this scene for the last two decades. I guess thats a pretty long time. Im really excited to have the opportunity to publicly nerd out about bands and songs that make my favorite subgenre feel like home to me. And while it will be fun to take some trips down memory lane, Im just as excited, if not more, to play music from new artists Im discovering all the time.

Williams added that she designed the show to feel like a conversation, and she hopes the kind of interaction it fosters will feel somewhat reminiscent of the message boards and forums I used to frequent as a teenage scene kid. Per the shows website, fans can submit voice notes with band recommendations of their own, or with their own bits of emo nostalgia.

More than anything, I hope music fans and artists alike will be psyched to hear a highly considered spectrum of Emo in all its forms, Williams said. And yeah, of course, youll hear some Paramore.

As of this past January, Paramore were back in the studio working on their first album since 2017s After Laughter. The LP will also be the first that Williams, Zac Farro, and Taylor York have started and finished together as a trio (Farro came in halfway through the making of After Laughter).

While Williams told Rolling Stone at the time that the new LP was inspired by some of her earliest influences, she said the group wasnt necessarily plotting a comeback emo record. She continued: The music we were first excited by wasnt exactly the kind of music we went on to make. Our output has always been all over the place and with this project, its not that different. Were still in the thick of it but some things have remained consistent from the start. 1) More emphasis back on the guitar, and 2) Zac should go as Animal as he wants with drum takes.

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Hayley Williams to Deliver the Ultimate Emo History Lesson on New Podcast - Rolling Stone

ALBANY An appellate court issued a decision Thursday overturning the termination of a former high-ranking state official who was fired from his jobfollowing the release of an inspector general's report that found he had "a history of improper and sexually inappropriate acts" targeting female colleagues.

James "Jay" Kiyonaga was initially terminated from his job as executive deputy commissioner at the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities in May 2018, where he was the second-in-command. A spokeswoman for OPWDD at the time said Kiyonaga was fired due to the findings of the inspector general's office.

But his court case centered on a petition he filed challenging his subsequent termination from a second, fall-back civil service position he held as financial director at the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, where much of the alleged misconduct had occurred.

As a result of the appellate division's decision, Kiyonaga is expected to be reinstated to his civil service position with the Justice Center, including back pay and benefits. He was being paid more than $130,000 a year in that job.

"We are pleased with the courts decision protecting the due process rights of state employees like Mr. Kiyonaga," said Michael Hawrylchak, an attorney for Kiyonaga.

The convoluted employment battle unfolded for more than two years beginning in 2018 after Kiyonaga invoked his right to return to his Justice Center position, where he was suspended and eventually terminated by Denise M. Miranda, the director of that office.

In February 2020, a hearing officer dismissed all nine charges that had been filed against Kiyonaga related to his alleged misconduct, much of it involving remarks or his behavior involving female employees. But five months later, Miranda overruled the hearing officer on one of the charges and terminated Kiyonaga after determining he was guilty of official misconduct for an alleged remark to a female colleague.

But the appellate division ruled the state erred because when that charge was served on Kiyonaga it accused him of making the inappropriate remark at an after-hours social gathering outside the workplace. The female employee, however, testified that he made the remark in the workplace.

There were other issues with the state's case. Court records indicate the nine charges filed against Kiyonaga all charging him with official misconduct lacked details such as the identity of the alleged victims and witnesses or the dates and times of the purported misconduct.

The appellate ruling also noted that Miranda had overruled the hearing officer's dismissal of the charges without hearing any testimony in the case, which they characterized as "an abuse of discretion." They also found that Kiyonaga's right to due process was violated.

It's unclear whether the state can appeal the decision or seek to reinstate any disciplinary charges against Kiyonaga, which is unlikely given the statute of limitations governing disciplinary proceedings involving state employees.

The Justice Center is reviewing the decision and evaluating its legal options.

The Justice Center has zero tolerance for any type of workplace harassment," said Christine Buttigieg, a spokeswoman for the office. "Because this matter is ongoing, the agency cannot comment further."

A letter outlining the findings of the investigation by the inspector general's office was sent to Miranda in May 2018.

"My investigation, which involved numerous witnesses who testified under oath, revealed Kiyonaga's history of improper and sexually inappropriate acts towards and comments to fellow staff members and subordinates at the Justice Center," then-Inspector General Catherine Leahy-Scott wrote in the letter. "The specific acts and pattern of conduct described to my office under oath ranging from inappropriate sexual comments and comments about employee's sexual preferences to an unwanted sexual physical contact with an employee are reprehensible and indefensible."

Leahy-Scott, who is now a judge, also said that during the inspector general's investigation "a number of Justice Center employees testified to my office of other inappropriate acts by Kiyonaga in the workplace and at off-site social gatherings with staff members, including sexual comments to and about female employees and unwanted advances towards female staff members."

The Times Union had reported earlier that month that Kiyonaga had been the subject of complaints filed by women at various state agencies through the years, including the Justice Center, the Budget Division and the Division of Criminal Justice Services.

That same month, a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint was filed by Patricia Gunning, a former high-level attorney at the Justice Center, who cited a "complete failure of the governor's office and the state to deal with this serial sexual harasser and discriminator."

"By September 2017, Mr. Kiyonaga's 15 years in state employ had a consistent pattern," Gunning's complaint stated. "He fostered a boys' club atmosphere in the agencies where he worked. He favored women he found attractive. He retaliated against women who complained."

Gunning's complaint alleged Kiyonaga engaged in repeated sexual harassment, favored or promoted women who "were a willing recipient of his sexual advances," and "distorted Justice Center policy to accommodate his romantic liaison."

The EEOC complaint enabled Gunning to subsequently file a federal lawsuit against Kiyonaga and the Justice Center. That case is pending.

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Gunning said that the decision by the appellate division does not vindicate Kiyonaga and that his termination was "reversed on a technicality."

"In my reading of the transcripts, it appears that it was poorly handled by the Justice Center and now these women are faced with the possibility of him returning to their workplace," Gunning said. "Its not that hes been exonerated on the merits."

In 2012, several female employees at DCJS filed a complaint about inappropriate and sexually charged conversations that took place in Kiyonaga's 10th-floor office. Wanda Troche, a former affirmative action officer for the agency, told the Times Union four years ago that her investigation was overtaken by the agency's human resources director andfirst deputy commissioner.

Troche said she later was told that a sealed envelope apparently documenting something about the case she wasn't told what it contained -- was placed in Kiyonaga's personnel file.

Troche, who retired from the agency in 2015, said the incident was part of a pattern in which the agency's human resources director intervened in matters involving high-level appointees such as Kiyonaga, who transferred to another state agency not long after the incident.

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Court reinstates job of state executive with 'history of ... sexually inappropriate acts' - Times Union

By the spring of 1865, a weary, war-torn nation had had enough.

Americas deadliest war was sputtering to a bloody close. Its first president to die at an assassins hand had just been murdered and was awaiting burial. Next, the killer was killed.

Then came a tragedy so immense, that it still holds a record today.

It wasnt supposed to have turned out that way. It should have been the opposite, a Hollywood-style happy ending for men who had sufferedand survivedsome of the Civil Wars worst horrors. Yet in an instant, the Disney tale turned into a horror movie.

In 1865, hundreds of steamboats chugged the Mississippi River from Minnesota to New Orleans carrying products and people. It was a busy place then, the quickest way to travel long distances when you were in a hurry.

The men in blue were indeed in a hurry to get home. After all, most of them were Union soldiers recently released from the Andersonville POW camp in Georgia. With the war over, the weakened survivors wanted to put it behind them.

Enter the steamboat, Sultana. She was designed to carry cotton on runs from St Louis to the Big Easy. But money is money, and her owner supplemented his income by ferrying Federal troops up and down the river. When used as a passenger vessel, she was authorized to carry 376 people.

The Sultana was docked at Vicksburg, Miss. when an army officer came looking for Captain James Mason. The officer knew the war had hit Masons bottom line hard and that he desperately needed cash to keep his boat in business.

The officer had a problem of his own, too. A temporary holding camp outside town was overrun with liberated soldiers from Andersonville and another POW camp in Alabama. So, he offered a deal.

The army paid $2.75 for each enlisted man and $8 for every officer transported up the river. If Mason would turn a blind eye to the number of men crammed on board, plus give a generous kickback to the officer, the Sultanas trip upriver would be her most lucrative ever. They shook hands.

When the anchor was weighed and her side paddlewheel began churning on the night of April 24, an estimated 1,960 liberated prisoners, 22 other soldiers, an additional 70 paying travelers, plus a crew of 85 were aboard. That was 2,137 peopleon a boat designed to carry 461.

The sight was so unusual when the Sultana docked upriver at Helena, Ark. some 36 hours later, photographer Thomas Bankes rushed to the levy to capture the scene. Photography was cumbersome and time-consuming back then, meaning such an overloaded boat was so extraordinary it was considered worth preserving. The image clearly shows Sultana listing to port from the excess weight. A few hours later she took off again. There had been engine trouble. Worse was to come.

It was slow going, paddling against the ferocious current with a weight the boat was never intended to bear. On top of everything, the Mississippi was at flood stage just then. The boats complex steam engine, prone to problems even in ideal conditions, strained to provide power.

She reached Memphis around 7:00 p.m., dropped off some 200 men and 120 tons of sugar freight while taking on several tons of coal, then resumed plodding northward at midnight.

Two hours later, it happened.

There was a massive explosion. A giant fireball lit up the spring night. Bodies and pieces of wreckage flew everywhere.

Survivor Anna Annis recalled, my husband, with our child, jumped overboard I held on to the rudder till I was obliged to let go by the fire.

Solomon Bogart said, I jumped overboard among countless numbers of drowning men and made my way to the bank after hard swimming for eight or nine miles.

Well never know the exact number of fatalities. Estimates range from 1,100 to as many as 1,547. Recent research suggests it was likely close to 1,200.

Some people suggested it was an act of late-war sabotage. While many theories about the explosions cause abound, it was most likely mechanically related.

Two things are beyond dispute. First, no one was held accountable. Captain Mason died in the blast. The army officer who bribed him was found guilty in a court-martial, but his sentence was later overturned.

Second, it remains the worst disaster in American maritime history. The approximately 1,200 lives lost put it on par with the Titanics 1,500 death toll.

So given the magnitude, why dont we remember it today? Because it happened at the wrong time. It occurred at the end of a month that had already seen more than its share of death. It was finally one tragedy too many. Americans simply wanted to forget.

And forget they did.

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Holy Cow! History: The Record-Setting Tragedy You've Never Heard Of InsideSources - InsideSources

When the Yankees called up Nestor Cortes last year, it seemed like he was destined to be part of their Scranton Shuttle grouping of end of the bullpen relievers who they send back and forth whenever a fresh arm is needed. After 17.2 good outings of the bullpen, he got promoted into spot start duty, and spent most of the rest of the season in the rotation.

Flash-forward to this year, and hes retained that rotation spot and gotten off to a really good start this year as well, having allowed two runs in 15.2 innings and even threw an immaculate inning. While its maybe a stretch to say that hell be a Cy Young contender at the end of the season, hes become a genuinely important part of the Yankees roster. Why thats so notable is that is was completely unexpected when they reacquired him.

Cortes second stint as a Yankee the past two seasons have seen him put up 3.6 Baseball Reference WAR so far. Thats taken his career bWAR total to 2.8, meaning his previous MLB seasons had him in the red by a decent amount. Before 2021, his best season in terms of ERA was 5.67 in 66.2 innings in 2019 with the Yankees.

With Cortes success over the last two years somewhat coming out of nowhere, lets look at some other instances where a Yankee pitcher had a good run that couldnt have been predicted going of the rest of their careers.

Maybe the poster boy for that type of run is Aaron Small and his 2005 season with the Yankees.

Small had a mostly unremarkable career before 2005, playing for five teams from 1994-04, including two separate gaps (1999-2001 and 2003) where he didnt play a major league game. He was worth 1.2 WAR for the Athletics in 1997 after a solid season as a long reliever, but in total before joining the Yankees in 05, he had put up -0.4 WAR.

After starting the year in the minors and eventually getting called up due to injuries, Small came up huge for the Yankees, famously putting up a 10-0 record, including the first and only complete game shutout of his career. His 3.20 ERA in 76 innings saw him put up a 2.7 WAR. The Yankees re-signed Small for 2006, but he struggled and ended up DFAed before June ended. He never played in the majors again after that season and ended his career with a 1.6 bWAR, meaning his 2005 stretch kept him from finishing his career in the negatives.

Perhaps the weirdest career of this type belongs to Jim Coates. In five career seasons with the Yankees, he had two separate runs that vastly out-produced the rest of his career.

In 100.1 innings in 1959, he put up a 2.87 ERA (127 ERA+) and collected 1.3 WAR. Two years later, he had a 0.8 WAR season. The other seven seasons of his career, he was worth -2.3 on the mound, and if you factor in his hitting, he finished with a -0.4 career WAR.

Here is the weird thing, Coates was an All-Star in one year in his career. However, it was in neither year of his aforementioned genuinely good years. In fact, in came right in the middle of the two in 1960, when he put up a -0.6 WAR season. The reason he was an All-Star that year was almost certainly down to his win-loss record as he finished with the best winning percentage in the league that year. However, he only had an 84 ERA+ in 1960 and was greatly helped by the fact that on average he got nearly eight runs of support per game from the offense.

Despite being an All-Star that year, he is also remembered in that season for his performance in Game 7 of the World Series. While hes not the one that allowed Bill Mazeroskis series-winning, walk-off home run, Coates was one of two pitchers who combined to allow five eighth inning runs. Coates himself allowed the two-run home run to Hal Smith, which according to Championship Win Probability Added, is the most consequential play of all time, and increased the Pirates championship hopes by 63.62%.

In 148.2 innings across the 1971-72 seasons, Fred Beene was a genuinely very good pitcher for the Yankees. In 72 especially, his 219 ERA+ in 91 innings helped the team get within 6.5 games of first in the AL East, the closest they had gotten in a pennant race since they had won it in 1964. Over those two years, he put up 3.7 WAR. Those two seasons managed to keep him in the positives as he ended his career at 1.1 after -1.1 and -1.5 years in his final two seasons.

Maybe five years from now when Nestor Cortes is on his third All-Star appearance, we wont think of him coming out of nowhere and hell have long outgrown this list as him being good is just the norm. However, for now, hes still someone whose current run completely outpaces the rest of their career.

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Yankees History: Nestor Cortes and others whove come out of nowhere - Pinstripe Alley

Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, and colleagues take a page from the history of influenza to propose a five-step process for managing COVID-19. The authors look at the similarities between the emergence of influenza outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic and offer a call to arms based on science and history.

The commentary, Managing COVID-19 going forwardthe lessons from history, appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Medicine, which is published by the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland, the worlds oldest medical society.

In addition to Bucala, Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and Professor of Pathology and of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) and chief, Rheumatology, Allergy, & Immunology in the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, the authors are Gerald Friedland, MD, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health, and Frank Snowden, DPhil, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor Emeritus of History. Snowden is the recent author of the highly acclaimed Epidemics and Society, which was published in 2019.

Like COVID-19, influenza is caused by a respiratory virus that evolves in both animals and humans, and both infections require a level of human activity and interconnectivity that did not exist before the 20th century, with its densely populated cities, modern agricultural practices and networks of international commerce and travel, the authors write. Seasonal influenza was the result of the linkages we call globalization, and we have managed it well by combining viral surveillance, vaccination and public health measures, with only occasional breakthroughs, as with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

COVID-19 is no different, the authors say. Coronaviruses have long existed in human and animal populations, causing mostly minor colds. They add: Just like seasonal influenza, but more debilitating and lethal, the COVID-19 virus and future variants can be faced down with the same measures that have worked for influenza.

Their five-step process calls for global viral surveillance, vaccines, antiviral drugs, reimagined cities, and global equity.

Global viral surveillance: The positioning of unified virus surveillance and sequencing capabilities, coordinated internationally, would cost little while providing time to identify new variants and produce countermeasures. It has worked for the flu.

Vaccines: Like influenza, COVID vaccines will have to be tailored to the latest viral strain. Fortunately, we have had a very lucky break with the RNA vaccines, which are simple to engineer and will become less costly and easier to produce and distribute.

Antiviral drugs: Beyond the deployment of antiviral drugs to reduce disease, computational modeling and antibody engineering make possible the prepositioning of variant-specific antibodies, whose efficacy can be predicted, to protect those at greatest risk to outbreaks of new variantseverywhere in the world.

Reimagined cities: Epidemiological and historical studies have demonstrated that crowded cities and disadvantaged populations are the front lines in the battle against pandemics. Human vulnerability to such infections correlates with poverty, dense living and working conditions and poor access to health care. It is time to reimagine urban land use.

Global equity: Much of the scientific infrastructure exists and would need only expansion and reinforcement. But there is the significant final and perhaps a most challenging concern of global inequities and disadvantaged populations, where the costs of urban and rural restructuring would require sustained political will and commitment shouldered by the more advanced economies.

To read the complete commentary, go here.

The Section of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology is dedicated to providing care for patients with rheumatic, allergic and immunologic disorders; educating future generations of thought leaders in the field; and conducting research into fundamental questions of autoimmunity and immunology. To learn more about their work, visit Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology.

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Taking a Page from the History of Influenza to Fight COVID-19 - Yale School of Medicine

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The ancient Greeks, who staged the first Olympic Games back in 776 B.C., gave the world the idea of organized big-time sports events as entertainment for arenas full of spectators. More than that, they were the first culture in which people idolized their favorite athletic superstars, to a level that even todays most fanatical sports fans might find extreme.

The Greeks believed that athletes had special powers, explains David Lunt, an associate professor of history at Southern Utah University who is an expert on ancient Greek athletics and author of The Crown Games of Ancient Greece: Archaeology, Athletes and Heroes. They commissioned poems to be sung about them, and they told stories about statues of athletes that could heal people."

Lunt cites the example of Theagenes of Thasos, a champion boxer, runner and competitor in Pankration, the ancient equivalent of mixed martial arts, who was so idolized for his athletic prowess that archaeologists in the 1930s found an altar at which he was venerated, centuries after his death. As Lunt says, They were pretty crazy for these athletes.

The ancient Greeks may have loved sports because males grew up participating in them. As Lunt notes, every Greek city had its own gymnasium, where local males took off their clothes and competed in the nude at various sports, such as wrestling and foot races.

The Greeks valued physical and athletic prowess, and the toned male body was sought after as aesthetically pleasing, says Zina Giannopoulou, an associate professor of classics at the University of California, Irvine who has comparedthe ancient and modern Olympics. Physical strength and prowess were also signs of moral strength, denoting self-discipline, hard work, and dedication to winning. Athletes were seen as the epitome of arete, a Greek word that means virtue or excellence.

The Greeks also simply loved to watch competitions. In addition to the Olympics every four years, they held games at other religious festivalsthe Pythian Games for Apollo at Delphi, the Isthmian Games for Poseidon and the Nemean Games, which honored Zeus. The Crown Games, as these competitions collectively were known, featured a range of events, from chariot races to track and field events and combat sports.

The athletes who competed in these events most likely were well-to-do Greeks who could afford to train instead of having to work for a living. If you wanted to compete in the Olympics, you had to show up at least a month early to train under the watch of the officials, who presumably would weed out anybody who wasnt up to the level of competition, Lunt says.

The Greeks didnt have team sports, only individual competitions, and they didnt allow women to compete in eventsor even, in the case of married women, to attend the games. There was one legendary exceptionKallipateira of Rhodes, who disguised herself as a male trainer so she could watch her sons boxing match. When caught, she defended herself by saying that she of all women should be allowed to attend having had a father, three brothers, a son, and a nephew who had among themselves won eight times, says Giannopoulou. Her life was spared, but in the aftermath the trainers were required to attend the Games in the nude.

Here are some of the sports in which ancient Greek athletes competed.

Greek hero and king of Argos n Amphiaraus depicted competing in a chariot race in a relief dating to the 4th century B.C.

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Chariot races were one of the oldest Greek sportsartistic evidence on ancient pottery suggests that the event dates back to the Mycenean Period from 1600 to 1100 B.C., and the poet Homer describes a chariot race held at the funeral of Patroclus in the Iliad, Giannopoulou notes. First included in the Olympics in 680 B.C., drivers raced in both four and two-horse chariot races.

According to Miller, the race consisted of 12 laps around a hippodrome, or horse track, and then 12 times in the opposite direction. The actual length varied depending upon where the event was held. Chariot racing was an expensive sport to compete in, and the owners of the horses and chariotswho watched as drivers competed in their nameused the event to flaunt their wealth. Hippodromes didnt have a divider in the center of the oval, head-on crashes between chariots and horse teams sometimes occurred, which made chariot racing an extremely dangerous sport.

Relief depicting horses and riders commemorating the victory of the Leontis tribe in a horse race, Athens, Greece.

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Kele, or riders competing in horseback, was added to the Olympics in 648 B.C., according to Millers book. The race was about 1.2 kilometers (approximately three quarters of a mile) in length. The jockeyswho were young boys and probably slavesrode bareback, without stirrups, though they did have reins and a whip to guide the horses.

Art on an ancient Greek cup features athletes running.

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The Greeks loved footraces, particularly the stadion, which was named after an ancient unit of measurement and corresponded to the 200-meter sprint in modern track, according to Stephen Gaylord Millers Ancient Greek Athletics. From 776 to 726 B.C., it was the only event at the Olympic Games. The Greeks later added the diaulos, the equivalent of todays 400 meters event, as well as a distance event, the dolichos, which was between 7.5 and 9 kilometersroughly similar to the 10K event that countless recreational runners now participate in each weekend. But the Greeks had one event that has no modern counterpartthe hoplitodromos, in which competitors emulated Greek infantry, and ran wearing helmets and bronze shin guards and carried shields.

A relief depicting a wrestling competition between athletes, from Kerameikos necropolis, Athens, Greece, circa 510 B.C.

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In ancient Greek-style wrestling, grapplers fought in a standing position, with the object of throwing the opponent to the ground, according to Miller. The concept of pinning an adversarys shoulders to the ground didnt yet exist. Instead, wrestlers won a match by throwing an opponent three times. Another unique feature of the ancient event was that there were no weight classes, according to Lunt. The most fearsome wrestler of ancient times wasMilos of Kroton, who in legend developed his great strength by lifting and carrying a newborn calf until it grew into a full-sized ox.

A ancient Greek athlete competing in the discus.

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The discus and javelin, to modern field events, date back to the ancient Greeks, but back then, they werent separate events. Instead, they were part of the pentathlon, a five-event combination that also included the long jump, running and wrestling. The Greeks had lead or stone weights, called halteres, that some believe jumpers used in an effort to propel themselves further during the competition, though Lunt believes that the weights were only used in training.

Ancient Greek boxing, as portrayed on a ceramic vessel.

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Unlike modern boxing, the Greeks version had no rounds and no time limit. Instead, boxers simply fought until one man was either unable to continue or admitted that he was beaten. Like wrestling, the Greek boxers competed in a single open division, and they wore thin leather thongs called himantes around their knuckles and wrists, but no padded gloves.

The Pankration was an athletic contest that combined boxing, wrestling and kicking.

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This sport, whose name means complete victory in ancient Greek, was a sort of no-holds barred version of modern mixed martial arts. According to Thomas A. Greens Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia, Vol.1, contestants used some of the same techniques as modern MMA, including boxing punches, elbows, knee strikes, low kicks aimed at an opponents legs, submission holds and ground grappling. They also were allowed to hit or kick opponents in the groin, something thats not allowed in MMA, and unlike modern UFC fighters, they didnt wear gloves, which allowed them to use karate-style knife hand strikes. Only biting and gouging were outlawed.

According to Michael B. Poliakoffs Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture, Sostratos of Sikyon won numerous crowns in competitions by bending opponents fingers back painfully until they were in danger of breaking (another technique outlawed in MMA).

Instead of the octagon, with its padded surface, competitors fought in a sand pit. The result was a bloody, brutal contest that not only tested an athletes fighting skills, but his ability to endure pain. As the 2nd Century A.D. writer Lucian described, fighters would pummel each other until their mouths were full of blood and sand, as a referee urges them on and praises the one who struck the blow.

Ancient Greek athletes didnt earn anything comparable to the astronomical salaries that NBA and NFL players receive today, though they did have an opportunity to win prizes. At the Panathenaea, the games held to honor Athens and Athena, the winner of a foot race got 200 large, ornate jars filled with olive oil.

I guess he could sell it, or else it would be a lifetime supply, Lunt says. But for many ancient competitors, the adulation of the crowd, and the chance to achieve immortality because of their ability, may have been enough of a payoff.

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7 Sports of Ancient Greece - History