On this date in ...
1919: Four sudden deaths in one day — a suicide and three accidents, two due to asphyxiation — overwhelmed the Albany coroner’s office. Motion picture projectionist Theodore P. Matthews, 33, shot himself in the chest at his Elm Street rooming house, and letters found at the scene indicated he was despondent over an unrequited love. Peter Malone, 36, was asphyxiated by illuminating gas in his N. Pearl Street rooming house, shortly after the gas was turned off to the building because of a leak. Joseph Corellis, 14, of Cedar Hill died when he collapsed from exhaustion after chasing a horse, and in the fall a rib punctured his lung. Mr. and Mrs. Myron Storm were taken to the hospital suffering from asphyxiation from a gas leak in their Elm Street home. She died, but he was farther away from the leak so suffered less of the effects and survived.
1969: Thirty five black students, members of the Afro-american Society at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., seized Hopkins Hall, the college’s administration building, to press for acceptance of 15 “non-negotiable” demands made on college officials earlier. Participants on both sides of the dispute were gentlemanly. A small group of white students showed support by sitting on the front steps of Hopkins Hall. A spokesman for the college’s FM radio station reported students who had barricaded themselves had a supply of food on hand and that the administration had offered additional food to tide the students over if needed before an end to the impasse.
1994: Baby strollers full of stuffed grocery bags were wheeled into the offices of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Ralph Marino and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. No, the state’s political leaders weren’t suffering from nutritional deprivation. It was just the way a group of organizations who ran food pantries and Meals on Wheels programs for the elderly chose to demonstrate what they saw as a desperate need for increased funding of the programs in this year’s budget. Actually, the bags were stuffed with newspapers, to which a list of food items was attached.
▶ Want to read more about the Capital Region’s past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today’s events? See http:// blog. timesunion.com/ histor y/