On this date in ...
1918: Otto Nabholz, a 23-year-old Swiss waiter, was arraigned before Judge James Brady on a charge of first degree burglary. It was alleged that he had broken into a home at 96 Western Ave. — owned by James Fenimore Cooper, the namesake grandson of the famed writer — at 3 a.m. The wife of the home’s caretaker was awakened by strange noises and woke up her husband, who jumped from his second-story bedroom window clad only in his nightclothes and ran across the street to ask help from a soldier on duty there. The soldier refused until he got permission from his sergeant, but when the sergeant arrived, he too declined to watch the house while the caretaker ran to the nearby police precinct. Eventually two police officers showed up and found Nabholz hiding under a bed in the house. After a struggle, the police pulled him out by his leg, discovering a sharp dirk knife in his pocket.
1968: New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller was among five presidential candidates who endorsed stronger gun controls. The Emergency Committee for Gun Control said Hubert Humphrey, Eugene J. Mccarthy, Richard M. Nixon and Harold E. Stassen had also endorsed its drive for additional firearms controls but some had stopped short of advocating licensing and registration as sought by the committee. The announcement came as Congress prepared to act on President Johnson’s bill to ban all mail order gun sales.
1993: Throughout the area, a quick but violent storm, accompanied by lightning and heavy rain, uprooted dozens of trees, smashed windows, knocked out power to 15,000 and sent manhole covers into the air. The National Weather Service at the Albany County Airport had reports of several deluges, including 1.25 inches of rain in a short period of time in Averill Park, 2.45 inches of rain during two storms in Bolton Landing, and 0.6 inches of rain in 10 minutes at the airport station around 3:30 p.m. The winds measured 30 to 40 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Barton said.
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