How to find The Fugitive
QUESTION How many U.S. states did Dr Richard Kimble visit while on the run in the TV series The Fugitive?
The Fugitive was a U.S. crime drama that ran for 120 episodes from September 1963 to August 1967. It was broadcast in Britain by ITV.
Wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife, Dr Richard Kimble (David Janssen) escapes when the train he is on crashes as he is being transferred to Death Row.
he heads off in pursuit of the real killer — the ‘one-armed man’ (Bill Raisch) — and i s hounded by the authorities, notably Lt Philip Gerard (Barry Morse).
Kimble moves from town to town, trying to remain unobtrusive but often failing when his identity is discovered or when helping a damsel in distress.
his adventures take place across 36 of the 50 U.S. states.
he didn’t visit the New england states of Maine, Vermont, New hampshire and Rhode Island, plus Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, hawaii and Alaska.
Graeme Black, Crawley, W. Sussex.
QUESTION Have any chess grandmasters lost a game to an amateur player?
GRANDMASTERS often play exhibition matches, taking on dozens of opponents, moving rapidly from board to board and taking only a few seconds for each move. Under such conditions, it is not unknown for a grandmaster to lose a game.
Records of losses by world champions emanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine and Bobby Fischer are well known.
In a North American simultaneous chess tour in 1964, Fischer played 2,022 games, winning 1,850, losing 67 and drawing 105.
In 2014, world No 1 Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, was doing a promotional tour of Armenia with local grandmaster Levon Aronian. he played speed games against politicians and made an uncharacteristic blunder against one of them, Tachat Vardapetyan, losing the match.
Louisa Slavick, Leicester.
IN 1961, at the age of 18, I was one of 20 players invited to play in simultaneous chess games against the world champion
Mikhail Botvinnik at Sunderland town hall. Another player and I had wins against him and were each awarded one guinea by the Sunderland echo.
D. Thorpe, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear.
QUESTION In Westerns, it’s always the 7th Cavalry coming to the rescue. Were there 1st to 6th cavalries?
The 7th Cavalry was the most famous of the regiments protecting settlers in the Old West, but for the wrong reasons.
Its popularity in films came from a disastrous battle in 1876, immortalised as Custer’s Last Stand.
After numerous atrocities committed against Native American tribes, mainly Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne, the 7th Cavalry was lured into a trap on June 25/26 and massacred at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, known by Native Americans as the Greasy Grass.
The number of migrants before and after the American Civil War created a huge demand for land. What had been designated as Indian Territory was encroached upon, bringing settlers into conflict with the tribes who lived there.
eventually, the U.S. government sided with the settlers and allowed them to grab pretty much what land they wanted.
Settlers found they had to travel further west to find land to farm — all the way to the Canadian and Mexican borders and to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. This was the start of the wagon trains that are often featured in Westerns.
The cavalry, being a mobile force, was the best way for the military to try to keep the peace between the settlers and Native Americans.
each regiment was given a large area to protect. After the end of the Civil War, there were six cavalry regiments, but the 7th to 10th were soon added.
The 9th and 10th were made up of black Americans, mainly former slaves — the so-called Buffalo soldiers.
The regiments were commanded by officers who had risen to more senior ranks during the Civil War and had to take a step down if they wished to continue serving.
George Armstrong Custer, commander of the 7th Cavalry, styled himself General because he had risen to Brigadier General during the Civil War, but was officially a Lieutenant Colonel.
The 1st Cavalry was posted to California after the Civil War, but over the next 20 years also served in Oregon, Idaho and Nevada. It was joined in California by the 8th Cavalry. The 2nd Cavalry served in Wyoming, and in the weeks before the Battle of the Little Bighorn had been serving with the 3rd Cavalry and with Custer’s 7th.
The 4th Cavalry served in Texas, along with the 9th. The 5th were in Kansas and Nebraska. The 6th served in Missouri before moving to Arizona. The 10th Cavalry started out in Kansas, but moved to Texas.
All of the regiments are recorded as having been engaged in the Indian Wars, as they were collectively named, though they were a series of separate outbreaks of violence. Most occurred in what weren’t states at the time, but territories claimed by the U.S.
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the 7th Cavalry was re-formed and served in Idaho and Montana, again fighting the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne tribes, who were using Canada as a safe haven.
Though films about the Wild West generally only feature the cavalry, there were also infantry regiments policing the reservations.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
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