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The 1900 Big Game Disaster
🕑 Added 2022-11-15 11:15:00 +0000 UTCIt was quite difficult to find information on this relatively forgotten disaster, but nonetheless I came across some interesting errata while reading up on it.
The Story of TJ Parker
This old Google site has a number of clippings from newspapers published at the time, including one that tells the story of fireman TJ Parker. Mr Parker attended the scene of the disaster to help the injured... only to find his own son amongst them.
The story appears in only one brief clipping, so we may never know how this particular story turned out... though the outlook doesn't seem good; the paper states that: "He suffers from internal injuries, and will probably die."
That short, bleak tale is just one of many from a disaster which affected hundreds of young people.
The History of the Big Game
In the video, I don't go into too much depth on the history of the Big Game, as it so often overshadows the disaster. If you do want to read about it, though, it's certainly well-documented.
There are a number of lesser incidents in the history of the annual game, as well as periods when the tradition seemed to be somewhat in danger.
For example, in 1906, concern over the number of injuries involved in American Football caused the sport to be dropped by both universities. Rather than call off the game altogether, organisers decided to play under the rules of rugby instead... which they did for several years, despite it being poorly understood by spectators, and every bit as dangerous as American Football.
Comments
Fascinating Horror
Thank you! I often find stories that are local to me that I had absolutely never heard of before - there's such a wealth of history out there. Will keep reading and researching; there are definitely some more stories from your region in the pipeline
I started following FH because so many things kept coming up that I had never heard of. I have always thought of myself as "80% history literate" from my generation, born in 1970. FH continues to surface material I had never seen before, even thought I've lived in Norcal my entire life! Please keep up the Historian effort! There's some awesome stories out there.
Fascinating Horror
I really enjoyed reading about the Altamont Free Concert, so I've been looking at other music history-related stories ever since. Will add this to the list
Michael Rutherford
How about a video on the New London School explosion 1937?
