This Week in History: The Titanic and Yankee Stadium

On Tuesday, The New York Yankees celebrated the 100th anniversary of the opening of Yankee Stadium.  Below are two pictures that were provided by the Library of Congress, but they did not provide it to me.  The stadium is known as "The House That Ruth Built," and below is Babe Ruth shaking hands with President Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States.  Babe Ruth is known as the greatest baseball player of all time and he had a better career than President Harding, so it would be more accurate to say President Harding was shaking Babe Ruth's hand.  The second picture was taken about two weeks before the stadium opened.  The third picture is the current Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees on opening day one hundred years ago, beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1 with Babe Ruth hitting the first home run in the new stadium.  The first hit in the stadium was by Boston's first baseman, George Burns. (Not George Burns the comedian)  John Phillip Sousa provided the music to open the game and the first ball was thrown out by New York Governor, Al Smith. The game started at 3:30 in the afternoon. The stadium was built in only 284 days and although there were seats for 58,000 fans, the opening day attendance was listed as 74,200.  There were a lot of people standing. The game was completed in two hours and five minutes.  

My dad took me to many games at Yankee Stadium growing up and I have a lot of wonderful memories with him and watching games at Yankee Stadium.  Happy birthday, Yankee Stadium.

Saturday, April 15th, marked the 111th anniversary of the tragic maiden voyage of The Titanic pictured below.  I read a few interesting things about it this week and I thought I'd share them:

1. It was built in Ireland at a cost of $7.5 million.

2. A life size replica of it is being built in China since 2014 and people someday will be able to get on board The Titanic, although it will not be sailing anywhere.

3. The Titanic, in addition to the 1,500 lost lives, had 12 dogs on board and only 3 of them survived the trip.  Since it was being used to deliver mail also, it is estimated that between 6-9 million pieces of mail were lost. (Yes, million)

4. All 26 of the Titanic's engineers stayed at their post until the very end which saved some lives, but none of the engineers survived.

5. The Titanic was finally found in 1985, 73 years after it was sunk. It was found 12,400 feet below the ocean.

Finally, five days after the Titanic sunk, Boston opened up a new baseball stadium, Fenway Park. After three consecutive rainouts, baseball took the tragedy of the Titanic off everyone's minds for a few hours. I'd tell you more about Fenway Park, but it's not Yankee Stadium.