First Inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame

On January 29, 1936, the first five men elected for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame were publicly announced: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.  However, the official induction ceremony did not take place until 1939 when the Hall opened in Cooperstown, New York.  To date, 297 individuals have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and approximately 350,000 baseball fans make the pilgrimage to Cooperstown each year.

Ty Cobb with Young Boy in Seattle, ca. 1922. Image courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry, made available via King County Snapshots.

Walter Johnson and Babe Ruth during a charity baseball game held in Anaheim, CA in October 1924. Image courtesy of the Anaheim Public Library, made available via Calisphere.

Christy Mathewson in New York, ca. 1914. Image courtesy of the Bain Collection at the Library of Congress.

Honus Wagner, ca. 1910. Image courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, made available via Historic Pittsburgh Images.

The images above were all culled from collections in Opening History where you can find additional primary source materials related to baseball and the history of sports in America.

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Jesse Owens

American track and field athlete Jesse Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama (as James Cleveland Owens) on September 12, 1913. Owens is famous for winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin (in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the broad jump, and the 400-meter relay), defeating Nazi athletes.

The photograph featured below, courtesy of Teenie Harris Collection, part of a larger Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections , features Jesse Owens arriving at Allegheny County Airport in Pennsylvania in 1942.

Olympic sprinter Jesse Owens arriving at Allegheny County Airport (1942)

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World Oceans Day

World Oceans Day has recently been officially designated by the United Nations as June 8th. Unofficially, the World Oceans Day, the concept for which was proposed by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, has been celebrated since 1992. World Oceans Day provides an opportunity each year to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea. This year’s team is “one ocean, one climate, one future.”

The photograph above, taken by Shirley V. Bacon ca. 1900, courtesy of California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960, pictures a group of bathers posing in the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach, California.

Below, a view of Atlantic Ocean from Bar Harbor, Maine, taken by Charles Cushman in 1941, courtesy of Indiana University, Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection.

Islands off east coast of Mt. Desert Island from top of Cadillac Mtn., Bar Harbor, Maine

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Wilbur Wright and John Glenn: aviation and astronautics

Two important events in the history of aviation and astronautics happened this week: one 142 years ago, another almost a century later.

American aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867. The photograph of Wilbur Wright below is courtesy of Wright Brothers Negatives collection, in Opening History aggregation.

Portrait of Wilbur Wright, 1905

On April 12, 1961, the era of astronautics began, when the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. World Day of Aviation and Astronautics is celebrated on April 12.
The photograph below features astronaut John Glenn, who was the third person and the first American to orbit the Earth (1962). Courtesy of Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, part of a larger King County Snapshots collection (more information about this collection from Opening History ).

John Glenn on the monorail at the World's Fair, Seattle, 1962

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Olympics

On April 6, 1896, the first Olympics of the modern era was held in Athens, Greece. The Opening History aggregation includes two digital collections focusing on recent 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah — Governor’s Olympic Photograph Collection and Olympic Legacy Collection, and a number of items related to earlier Olympic Games (e.g., 1924 Paris Olympics, 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, 1936 Berlin Olympics, 1932 and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 1996 Atlanta Olympics, etc.) in several other collections.

Shot putter Herman Brix, Univ.of Washington, ca.1928

For example, this photograph pictures an athlete from University of Washington — an 1928 Amsterdam Olympics silver medalist shot putter Herman Brix , who later went on to a successful movie career as Bruce Bennett and became well-known for his Tarzan roles. Photograph courtesy of University of Washington Campus Photograph Collection , part of a larger King County Snapshots collection (more information from Opening History).

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