100px|Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866–1944) was an American jurist who served
as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of
Baseball from 1920 until his death. He is remembered for his handling
of the Black Sox scandal (in which members of the Chicago White Sox
conspired to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series); he expelled
eight players from organized baseball and repeatedly refused their
reinstatement requests. His firm actions and iron rule over baseball in
the near quarter-century of his commissionership are generally credited
with restoring public confidence in the game. As a judge, Landis had
received national attention in 1907 when he fined Standard Oil of
Indiana more than $29 million. During and after World War I, Landis, an
ardent patriot, presided over a number of high-profile trials of draft
resisters and others whom he saw as opposing the war effort. He dealt
out heavy sentences to the defendants, though some of the convictions
were reversed on appeal; other sentences were commuted. Landis's
decisions in the Black Sox matter remain controversial: advocates of
Black Sox "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Buck Weaver contend that he was
overly harsh with them. (more...)
Recently featured: Egyptian temple – Parasaurolophus – Definition of
planet
Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenesaw_Mountain_Landis>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1929:
Jiddu Krishnamurti, tapped to be the messianic "World Teacher", shocked
the Theosophy movement by dissolving the Order of the Star, the
organisation established to support him.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Star_in_the_East>
1936:
African American athlete Jesse Owens won the first of his four gold
medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, dashing Nazi leaders' hopes of
Aryan domination.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens>
1940:
World War II: Italy began their invasion of British Somaliland.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conquest_of_British_Somaliland>
2005:
President of Mauritania Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a
military coup while he was attending the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi
Arabia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maaouya_Ould_Sid%27Ahmed_Taya>
2007:
Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga was
captured after having been on the run following a conviction for
kidnapping.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Iturriaga>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
garçonnière (n):
A bachelor pad
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gar%C3%A7onni%C3%A8re>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Perhaps there was no limit, there might, quite likely, be no such
condition as the ultimate; there might be no time when any creature or
any group of creatures could stop at any certain point and say, this is
as far as we can go, there is no use of trying to go farther. For each
new development produced, as side effects, so many other possibilities,
so many other roads to travel, that with each step one took down any
given road there were more paths to follow. There'd never be an end, he
thought — no end to anything.
--Clifford D. Simak
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak>