Sports History - Daily

On October 13th in 1960, baseball witnessed one of the most electric and improbable endings in the history of the World Series, when Bill Mazeroski of the Pittsburgh Pirates stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Seven against the mighty New York Yankees and did something that had never been done before in a decisive World Series game. He hit a home run to win it all, right then and there, with nobody on base and the score tied four to four.

The game itself had been an absolute rollercoaster. The Yankees, loaded with legends like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Bobby Richardson, had actually outscored the Pirates across the series by a staggering margin, pounding out blowout wins of sixteen to three, ten to zero, and twelve to nothing. On paper, New York looked like the superior team by a country mile. But baseball has never cared much for paper, and Pittsburgh kept finding ways to hang around in the games that mattered most.

Game Seven at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh was chaos from start to finish. The lead changed hands multiple times. The Pirates jumped out front early, the Yankees clawed back, and by the time the eighth inning rolled around New York had taken a seven to four lead that felt like it might finally seal their fate. Then Pittsburgh exploded for five runs in the bottom of the eighth, highlighted by a bad hop ground ball that struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat, and a three run homer from light hitting catcher Hal Smith that sent the Forbes Field crowd into a frenzy. The Pirates suddenly led nine to seven.

But the Yankees were not finished. They tied it right back up in the top of the ninth, knotting the score at nine apiece and setting the stage for Mazeroski, a slick fielding second baseman not particularly known for his power at the plate, to lead off the bottom of the ninth against Yankees reliever Ralph Terry.

On a one and zero count, Terry delivered a high fastball, and Mazeroski turned on it, sending the ball soaring over the left field wall. As soon as contact was made, the Forbes Field crowd erupted, and fans poured onto the field even before Mazeroski had rounded the bases, forcing him to sprint home through a gauntlet of jubilant Pittsburgh supporters, hat in hand, grinning from ear to ear. It remains one of the most iconic images in baseball history, captured in grainy black and white footage that still gives fans chills more than six decades later.

That swing gave the Pirates their first World Series championship since 1925, and it remains to this day the only time in Major League Baseball history that a winner take all Game Seven of the World Series has ended on a walk-off home run. Don Larsen's perfect game and Mazeroski's blast are often mentioned in the same breath as the two signature moments of that golden era of baseball, but Mazeroski's homer carries the added weight of finality, since there was no Game Eight to play, no tomorrow to worry about.

Mazeroski, who was already considered perhaps the finest defensive second baseman of his generation, suddenly found himself immortalized for his bat rather than his glove. He would go on to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, with that single swing on October 13th forever cemented as the signature moment of his career and one of the most unforgettable endings in the history of American sports.

On October 12th in 1968, the world turned its eyes to Mexico City as the Games of the Nineteenth Olympiad officially opened, marking the first time the Olympics were held in Latin America and the first time they were hosted in a Spanish speaking country. The ceremony unfolded at Estadio Olímpico Universitario before a packed crowd, with Mexican hurdler Enriqueta Basilio making history as the first woman ever to light the Olympic cauldron, a moment that signaled a shift toward greater visibility for women in the Games.

These Olympics were unlike any before them, largely because of geography. Mexico City sits over seven thousand feet above sea level, and that thin air became the defining storyline of the entire competition. Coaches and scientists had spent months debating what the altitude would do to athletes, and the results were staggering. Explosive events saw remarkable performances, since the reduced air resistance helped sprinters and jumpers, while endurance events became brutal tests of survival as runners struggled to find oxygen over longer distances.

The Games that kicked off that day would go on to produce one of the most jaw dropping individual feats in sports history just days later, when Bob Beamon shattered the long jump world record by nearly two feet, a mark so absurd that officials needed a special optical device to measure it because the existing equipment could not reach that distance. It stood as the record for twenty three years.

Mexico City 1968 also introduced firsts that reshaped how the Olympics were run going forward. These were the first Games to use a fully synthetic track surface instead of cinder, which contributed to faster times across the board. They were also the first Olympics to implement mandatory doping controls and gender verification testing for female athletes, reflecting growing concerns in the international sports community about fairness and competitive integrity.

Beyond the athletic spectacle, the opening ceremony took place against a backdrop of intense social and political tension. Just ten days earlier, Mexican security forces had violently suppressed student protests in the Tlatelolco massacre, and global attention was already fixed on questions of civil rights, protest, and the role of politics within sport. That tension would explode onto the world stage days later when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the medal stand, but the seeds of that charged atmosphere were already present as the torch was lit and the flags of ninety three nations paraded into the stadium.

The opening ceremony itself was a vibrant affair, blending traditional Mexican culture with Olympic pageantry. Folkloric dancers, mariachi music, and elaborate costumes gave the event a distinctly festive, colorful identity that contrasted sharply with the political undercurrents swirling around the Games. Thousands of doves were released into the sky, a traditional symbol of peace that had become an Olympic opening ceremony staple since the 1920 Antwerp Games.

Looking back, October 12, 1968 stands as a pivotal date not just for what happened in the stadium that day, but for everything it set in motion over the following two weeks. It was a Games defined by extremes, record breaking triumphs made possible by thin mountain air, groundbreaking inclusion symbolized by a woman lighting the Olympic flame for the first time, and a powerful reminder that the Olympics have never existed in a bubble separate from the world's larger struggles. Few single days in sports history carry that much weight, blending athletic wonder, scientific curiosity, and social upheaval into one unforgettable afternoon in the Mexican highlands.

On October 11th back in 1987, baseball history took a wonderfully weird turn into the world of synthetic turf and climate control. That evening in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Twins hosted Game 1 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, marking the very first World Series game ever played indoors.

The atmosphere was unlike anything baseball had seen before. Fans packed the Dome waving white Homer Hankies, a marketing gimmick that somehow became one of the most iconic symbols in postseason history. The roof, inflated fabric that made the building look like a giant marshmallow from the outside, trapped crowd noise in a way outdoor stadiums simply could not. Players from both teams later admitted the sound was disorienting, almost physically overwhelming, as if the building itself were alive and rooting against the visiting team.

The Twins made the most of their strange new home field advantage. They thumped the Cardinals ten to one, with Dan Gladden launching a grand slam that sent the crowd into an absolute frenzy. Frank Viola took the mound for Minnesota and looked completely comfortable pitching under that bizarre, billowing ceiling, a setting that gave fielders fits trying to track fly balls against the white fabric backdrop. Outfielders famously lost pop ups in the roof panels that season, something that became a running joke across baseball, yet on this particular night it was St. Louis struggling to adjust while Minnesota thrived in their own peculiar ecosystem.

What made this moment so significant wasn't just the final score. It represented a genuine shift in how baseball could be played and experienced. For decades the sport had been tied to open skies and grass, weather delays and shadows creeping across the infield as afternoon turned to evening. Suddenly here was a World Series game happening in a climate controlled bubble, impervious to rain, wind, or cold, the crack of the bat echoing off plastic seats and that stretched white ceiling.

The Twins would go on to win that World Series in seven games, becoming the first team to ever win a championship where every single game was decided by the home team, a quirky statistical footnote that still gets brought up whenever people discuss that unusual Metrodome home field advantage. St. Louis simply could not solve the acoustics, the lighting, or the sheer disorientation of playing in Minnesota that October.

Looking back, that Game 1 on October 11th stands as a snapshot of baseball in transition, a sport wrestling with its traditions while embracing a strange new indoor future. The Homer Hankie phenomenon alone spawned imitators across professional sports for years afterward, teams everywhere trying to bottle that same manufactured, deafening home crowd energy. The Metrodome itself became legendary, equal parts beloved and mocked, eventually demolished in 2014 to make way for what is now Allegiant Stadium... wait, no, that's Las Vegas. The Metrodome gave way to new ballparks as baseball largely moved back toward outdoor, retro style stadiums in the decades that followed.

Still, on that one October night, something genuinely novel happened in sports history. A sport built on sunshine and summer afternoons proved it could thrive indoors too, loud, strange, and utterly unforgettable, setting the stage for a championship run that Minnesota fans still celebrate warmly whenever the Homer Hankies come back out of storage for old times sake.

On October 10th in 1973, baseball fans witnessed one of the most electric moments in postseason history when the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds brawled during the National League Championship Series, forever remembered as the Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson fight. The Reds were down in the series and desperate to keep their season alive, and tensions had been simmering between the two clubs all series long, with the Mets playing the role of lovable underdogs under manager Yogi Berra.

During Game Three at Shea Stadium, Pete Rose, the ultra competitive Reds star known as Charlie Hustle, slid hard into second base trying to break up a double play. His target was Bud Harrelson, the Mets small but scrappy shortstop. Rose came in with a takeout slide that many felt was overly aggressive, and words were exchanged almost immediately. Harrelson, who gave away several inches and a good amount of weight to Rose, was not about to back down, and within seconds the two were tangled up and throwing punches. Benches cleared in an instant, and what followed was a chaotic scrum of players, coaches, and eventually even a few fans who leapt onto the field to join the fray.

The Shea Stadium crowd, already rowdy and fueled by a pennant race atmosphere, turned hostile when Rose returned to his position in left field. Fans began pelting him with debris, including bottles, cups, and even a whiskey flask, forcing umpires to briefly halt play out of concern for his safety. Things got so heated that Mets management, including Yogi Berra himself along with star players like Willie Mays and Tom Seaver, had to walk out to left field to personally plead with fans to calm down and stop throwing objects, fearing the game might be forfeited to Cincinnati if order could not be restored.

Order was eventually restored, and remarkably the game continued, with the Mets going on to win behind a strong pitching performance, taking a commanding two games to one lead in the series. The Mets would go on to win the pennant in five games, pulling off a stunning upset over the heavily favored Big Red Machine, before ultimately falling to the Oakland Athletics in a thrilling seven game World Series.

The Rose and Harrelson fight became one of those legendary only in New York sports moments, emblematic of the gritty, chip on your shoulder mentality of that era of baseball. Pete Rose never apologized for his aggressive style of play, famously saying that was simply how the game was meant to be played, and the incident only burnished his reputation as one of the fiercest competitors the sport has ever seen. For Mets fans, it became part of franchise lore, a symbol of a scrappy team that refused to be intimidated, and it added another unforgettable chapter to one of the most storied rivalries in National League history during the 1970s.

October 9th carries a lot of baseball weight, but let's talk about one of the wildest moments in that sport's history, which unfolded on this date in 1971 during the World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles.

Game Four of that Fall Classic, played at Three Rivers Stadium, became a landmark for an entirely different reason than the final score. It was the first World Series game ever played at night. Major League Baseball had finally bowed to the pressures of television, realizing that primetime broadcasts would draw a massive audience compared to weekday afternoon games that working fans and kids in school would miss entirely. The decision changed the sport forever, shifting the biggest stage in baseball from sunlit afternoons to the glow of stadium lights, a format that has stuck ever since.

The game itself delivered plenty of drama to match the historic occasion. Pittsburgh took the contest by a score of four to three, evening the series at two games apiece behind a strong effort from their pitching staff and clutch hitting when it counted most. The Pirates were riding the brilliance of a twenty one year old outfielder named Roberto Clemente, who was in the process of reminding the entire country just how special he was. Clemente played with a ferocity and grace that postseason, hitting safely in every single game of the series, and his performance that October is still remembered as one of the greatest individual showcases in World Series history.

Pittsburgh would go on to win that series in seven games, with Clemente capturing World Series Most Valuable Player honors after batting over four hundred for the series with two home runs and plenty of highlight reel defensive plays in right field. It was a crowning achievement for a player who had spent years being somewhat overlooked nationally despite his brilliance, and that series finally gave the country at large a chance to see what Pirates fans had known for years.

But stepping back to that night game itself, the ripple effects on the business and culture of sports cannot be overstated. Before that night, World Series games were daytime affairs, often meaning that the biggest moments in baseball played out while most of America was at work or in school. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the league office saw an opportunity to grow the audience and the revenue by moving at least one game into primetime. The television ratings bore out the wisdom of the decision, and within just a few years, night games became the standard for World Series play, with day games fading into history entirely by the end of that decade.

So when you watch a World Series game today under the lights, with the energy of a nighttime crowd and the drama amplified by darkness falling outside the stadium, you can trace that tradition directly back to October ninth, 1971, in Pittsburgh. It was a night where baseball modernized itself right in the middle of a series defined by one of the game's all time great players doing something special on the sport's biggest stage. Clemente's performance that October would later feel even more poignant, given that he tragically passed away a little over a year later while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. That World Series run remains one of the defining chapters of his legacy, forever linked to the night baseball stepped into a new era.

October 8th carries a lot of baseball history, but let's talk about the 1956 World Series, because what happened on this date is still the gold standard for pitching perfection under pressure.

On October 8th, 1956, at Yankee Stadium, a journeyman right hander named Don Larsen took the mound for the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series against their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen was not exactly a household name. He had actually been pulled early from his previous start in the series after struggling with his control, and earlier that season he had posted a losing record. Nobody expected history that afternoon.

But Larsen, working from a simplified no windup delivery he had adopted just weeks earlier, was untouchable. He needed only ninety seven pitches to retire all twenty seven Dodger batters he faced, one after another, without a single one reaching base. No hits, no walks, no errors, nothing. He threw the only perfect game in World Series history, and to this day it remains the only no hitter of any kind thrown in postseason baseball.

The lineup he dismantled was loaded with legends, too. He got Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, and Gil Hodges all in order throughout the game. The final out came against pinch hitter Dale Mitchell, who took a called third strike on a pitch that was arguably outside the zone, but home plate umpire Babe Pinelli, fittingly working the last game of his own career behind the plate, rang him up anyway.

The image that defines the moment is Yankees catcher Yogi Berra sprinting out to the mound and leaping into Larsen's arms in pure joy, a photograph that has become one of the most iconic images in all of sports history.

What makes the story even richer is the contrast between Larsen's career and that single afternoon. He was a lifetime .500 pitcher across eighteen major league seasons, bouncing around with several teams, never an All Star workhorse or a Hall of Famer. Yet for two hours and six minutes on one October day, he was the most perfect version of a baseball player that anyone had ever seen on the largest stage the sport offers. The Yankees went on to win that World Series in seven games over Brooklyn, but it's Larsen's perfecto that everyone remembers from 1956.

Larsen himself leaned into the legacy for the rest of his life, signing autographs and attending ceremonial events tied to the anniversary for decades afterward, including throwing out ceremonial first pitches at later perfect games and no hitters as a kind of good luck charm. He passed away in 2020, but every October 8th, baseball historians and fans alike tip their caps to the day an ordinary pitcher delivered the most extraordinary game baseball's biggest stage has ever seen.

On October 7th, 1968, baseball fans witnessed something genuinely wild during Game One of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers, when Cardinals ace Bob Gibson delivered one of the most dominant pitching performances in postseason history. Gibson struck out seventeen Detroit Tigers hitters that day, a record that still stands as the most strikeouts in a single World Series game, and it remains one of those numbers that just makes you shake your head in disbelief nearly six decades later.

What made the performance even more remarkable was who Gibson was mowing down. The Tigers lineup that season featured legitimate stars like Al Kaline, Willie Horton, and Norm Cash, yet Gibson made them look like they were swinging wet noodles. He struck out the side in the ninth inning alone, punching out Mickey Stanley, Kaline, and Cash to slam the door on a complete game shutout, winning the contest four to nothing. Catcher Tim McCarver later described the sensation of catching Gibson that day as something close to watching a man operate on an entirely different plane from everyone else on the field.

Gibson finished the 1968 regular season with an earned run average of 1.12, which remains the lowest single season ERA in the modern era for any pitcher who qualified for the title, so by the time October rolled around he was already pitching with an aura of near invincibility. That Game One performance against Detroit only cemented the legend. He broke the previous World Series strikeout record of fifteen, which had been set by the great Sandy Koufax just five years earlier in 1963, and Gibson did it with a kind of icy, intimidating focus that became his trademark throughout his career.

The Cardinals would go on to lose that World Series in seven games to the Tigers, with Detroit's Mickey Lolich outdueling Gibson in the decisive Game Seven, but nothing could diminish what Gibson accomplished on this particular October afternoon. His seventeen strikeout game is still talked about as a benchmark of pitching excellence, the kind of outing that gets referenced every single October when broadcasters are searching for historical comparisons during a dominant postseason start. Pitchers like Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and even modern flamethrowers have had their big strikeout days measured against Gibson's mark, and it has held firm since 1968.

Gibson himself was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, and that 1968 season, capped by this historic Game One performance, is often cited as the signature moment of his career. Major League Baseball actually lowered the pitcher's mound the following season specifically because pitching had become so dominant across the sport, with Gibson's otherworldly numbers serving as exhibit A in that conversation. So in a strange way, this single game on October 7th didn't just make history, it actually changed the physical dimensions of the game itself going forward, which is a pretty remarkable legacy for one afternoon of swinging and missing in St. Louis.

On October sixth, nineteen forty five, one of the most colorful and enduring legends in baseball history was born at Wrigley Field in Chicago, during Game Four of the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers.

A local tavern owner named William Sianis, who ran the famous Billy Goat Tavern, arrived at the ballpark that day with two tickets in hand, one for himself and one for his pet goat, who was affectionately named Murphy. Sianis had grown quite fond of using the goat as something of a mascot and publicity gimmick for his restaurant, and he figured a World Series game was the perfect stage to show him off. The goat reportedly wore a blanket that read, “We Got Detroit’s Goat,” a cheeky jab at the opposing Tigers.

For a while, everything seemed to go smoothly. Sianis and Murphy made their way to their seats, and fans nearby found the whole spectacle rather amusing. But then the goat’s unmistakable barnyard aroma became too much for the people sitting around them, and stadium ushers were sent to politely, and then not so politely, ask Sianis to remove the animal from the premises. Accounts differ on the exact words exchanged, but the result was clear, Sianis and his goat were unceremoniously escorted out of Wrigley Field.

Furious and more than a little wounded by the rejection, Sianis is said to have declared that the Cubs would never win another World Series, or perhaps never even play in one again, as long as they continued to treat him and his goat so poorly. And thus, the legend of the Curse of the Billy Goat was born.

What makes this story so irresistible to baseball fans and historians alike is just how long the so called curse seemed to hold. The Cubs lost that World Series to the Tigers in seven games, and remarkably, they would not return to the World Series again until two thousand sixteen, a drought that stretched an astonishing seventy one years. During that time, the curse took on a life of its own, blamed for heartbreaking collapses, bizarre injuries, and of course the infamous Steve Bartman incident in two thousand three, when a fan's attempt to catch a foul ball became forever intertwined with Cubs postseason misfortune.

Sianis himself never fully let the Cubs off the hook either. Over the years he and his family sent letters to the team, offering to lift the curse if only they would let him and a goat back into the ballpark. The Cubs occasionally obliged with ceremonial appearances by goats at Wrigley, but the championship drought continued decade after decade, feeding into the mythology of Chicago sports heartbreak.

It wasn't until the Cubs finally broke through in two thousand sixteen, defeating the Cleveland Indians in a dramatic seven game World Series that included a rain delay before the deciding tenth inning, that fans could finally say the curse, real or imagined, had been lifted. Members of the Sianis family, who still run the Billy Goat Tavern to this day, were invited to celebrate alongside the team, bringing the story full circle more than seven decades after that fateful October day.

So while October sixth, nineteen forty five might not have featured a walk off home run or a no hitter, it gave baseball something arguably even more powerful, a story that blended superstition, humor, heartbreak, and eventual redemption into one of the most beloved tales in the history of the sport. It’s a wonderful reminder that sometimes the most legendary moments in sports don’t happen on the field at all, but in the stands, with a stubborn tavern owner and his unlikely companion, a goat named Murphy, who inadvertently became part of baseball folklore forever.

On October fifth back in nineteen forty one, baseball served up one of the most gut wrenching collapses in World Series history, a moment so infamous it still gets whispered about in Brooklyn bars to this day. The Yankees and the Dodgers were tangled up in Game Four at Ebbets Field, and Brooklyn was on the verge of evening the series at two games apiece. The Dodgers led four to three heading into the top of the ninth inning, and their relief pitcher Hugh Casey had the Yankees on the ropes. Two outs, nobody on, and Tommy Henrich stepped into the batter's box representing the final out of the game.

Casey fired a nasty breaking ball, Henrich swung and missed for strike three, and for one brief shining moment the Ebbets Field crowd began to roar in celebration, believing the game was over. But catcher Mickey Owen could not corral the pitch. The ball skipped past him and rolled toward the backstop, and Henrich, heads up, sprinted down the line and reached first base safely. Instead of a game ending strikeout, the Yankees had new life.

What happened next was pure devastation for Dodger fans. Joe DiMaggio followed with a single. Charlie Keller then ripped a double off the right field wall that scored both Henrich and DiMaggio, flipping the score in New York's favor. Bill Dickey drew a walk, and Joe Gordon added another double to plate two more runs. By the time the dust settled, the Yankees had scored four runs with two outs in the ninth, turning a sure Brooklyn victory into a stunning seven to four Yankees win.

The psychological blow was enormous. Instead of a series tied at two games each with momentum swinging to Brooklyn, the Dodgers found themselves down three games to one, and they would lose the series the very next day. Mickey Owen, a good defensive catcher having a fine season, became forever linked to that single dropped third strike, a cruel twist of baseball fate that overshadowed an otherwise respectable career. Hugh Casey always maintained he threw a spitball that even he could not have caught, while others insisted it was simply a wicked curve that fooled everybody, including the man behind the plate.

For Brooklyn fans already accustomed to heartbreak, the Mickey Owen game became another chapter in the legend of lovable losers, a franchise that would not taste true World Series glory until nineteen fifty five. For the Yankees, it was just another example of their uncanny ability to find a way to win when it mattered most, a trait that would define the franchise for decades to come.

On October 4th, 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers finally conquered their biggest demon in baseball when they beat the New York Yankees in Game Seven of the World Series, winning their first and only championship while based in Brooklyn.

For decades the Dodgers had been baseball's lovable almost heroes, a team so synonymous with heartbreak that fans affectionately called them the Bums. They had faced the Yankees in the World Series five times before this, in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, and lost every single time. The phrase wait till next year had practically become a motto for the borough of Brooklyn, spoken with equal parts hope and exhaustion every autumn.

But 1955 was different. Johnny Podres, just twenty three years old, took the mound for Brooklyn on that October afternoon at Yankee Stadium and pitched the game of his life. He tossed a complete game shutout, allowing just eight hits while silencing a Yankees lineup that featured legends like Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Bauer. The final score was two to nothing, and Brooklyn had its championship at last.

The defining moment of the game came in the bottom of the sixth inning. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Yankees slugger Yogi Berra sliced a fly ball toward the left field corner that looked destined to tie the game. But Dodgers left fielder Sandy Amoros, inserted into the game for defensive purposes, raced across the outfield grass and made a spectacular backhanded catch right at the foul line. He then wheeled and fired a relay throw that doubled off Gil McDougald at first base, snuffing out the Yankees threat and preserving Podres's shutout. That single defensive play is still remembered as one of the greatest in World Series history.

When the final out was recorded, pandemonium broke loose across Brooklyn. Church bells rang, people poured into the streets, and strangers hugged each other in celebration. For a borough that had endured so much postseason disappointment, this victory felt almost impossible, a dream finally realized after years of near misses and broken hearts.

Sadly, the sweetness of that triumph would not last long in Brooklyn itself. Just two years later, in 1957, owner Walter O'Malley announced the Dodgers would be relocating to Los Angeles, breaking the hearts of the very fans who had waited so patiently for that one shining championship. This makes the 1955 title even more poignant in hindsight, a singular moment of glory for a team and a community right before everything changed forever.

Johnny Podres was named World Series Most Valuable Player for his heroics, and he became an eternal folk hero in Brooklyn lore. The victory also held cultural significance beyond sports, symbolizing the triumph of the underdog and giving voice to an entire borough's identity and pride during the 1950s, a feeling that still resonates with longtime baseball fans and historians today whenever they tell the story of October 4th, 1955.