Sept 23 in History ●
1865 — Emmuska Orczy, baroness and writer (“The Scarlet Pimpernel”), is born in Tarnaörs, Hungary. Her family moves to London in 1880.
1909 — “Le Fantôme de l’Opéra” (The Phantom of the Opera), a novel by Frenchman Gaston Leroux, is first published as a series in Le Gaulois.
1913 — Roland Garros, French aviator after whom the famous tennis stadium in Paris is named, completes the first flight across the Mediterranean (780km from Saint-Raphaël, French Riviera, to Bizerte, Tunisia) in seven hours 57 minutes.
1926 — Gene Tunney, 29, an ex-marine, beats Jack Dempsey, 31, (champion since 1919) for the world heavyweight boxing crown; and again in their 1927 rematch. In 2006 veteran sportswriter Jack Cavanaugh pens “Tunney: Boxing’s Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey”.
1930 — Ray Charles, R&B star, is born in Albany, Georgia. He learns to play piano at age three from Wylie Pitman, who plays boogie-woogie at his Red Wing Cafe. Charles starts losing his sight (apparently from glaucoma) and is totally blind by age seven. At the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St Augustine he is taught to play the classical music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
1943 — Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer, is born in Madrid. He plays professional soccer and studies law, but is left unable to walk for two years after a car crash. A nurse gives him a guitar to help him regain the dexterity of his hands. He recovers, completes his law degree and becomes the top-selling Latin artist (more than 100-million records in 14 languages).
1949 — Bruce Springsteen, singer-songwriter and guitarist, is born in Long Branch, New Jersey.
1952 — Rocky Marciano, 29, knocks out Jersey Joe Walcott, 38, in the 13th round to become world heavyweight boxing champion. It is Marciano’s 43rd consecutive victory of 49.
1980 — Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter, plays his last concert in Pittsburgh, the finale of a tour that started in Zürich on May 30. He dies in Miami on May 11 1981 of skin cancer, aged 36.
1983 — Gulf Air Flight 771 from Karachi, Pakistan, is destroyed by a bomb in the baggage compartment on its approach to Abu Dhabi, UAE, killing the 112 people on board. Someone checked in baggage in Karachi, but never boarded the plane.
1983 — Gerrie Coetzee, 28, becomes SA’s first heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out WBA title holder Michael Dokes, 25, in the 10th round in Richfield, Ohio. It is named “Upset of the Year” by KO Magazine. But that famous punch comes at a cost. Coetzee’s right hand is broken and he undergoes surgery five days later in NYC.