This year is the 100th season since the Cubs won the World series… 100 years is a LONG time…and in fact it’s so long that until you really look at the stuff that has occurred since then you really have no idea how long a 100 years is.
Compounding this is the fact that the Blackhawks in the NHL haven’t won a championship since the early 1960’s and that even the Arizona Cardinals who began in Chicago and are currently the team in the NFL with the longest championship drought actually have a shorter view back at their successful past (NFL Championship in Chicago in 1947) the Cubs do.
The Bears have won two championships between the present and the Cardinals victory in the 47 game, the Bulls of course were darlings of the town after these long droughts and their run at a record run of championships (outside the Celtics world) was lapped up by the fans in Chicago like ice cream at a kids party. Even the White Sox who had their own run at futility and defeated that monster.
So in Chicago imagine if there is still someone… someone who is still a Cardinal fan, a Blackhawk fan and a Cub fan.
For them the beginning of any season is hope, or another run at disappointment.
100 years… say it out loud… 100 years, the last time the Cubs won the World Series the USA was 132 years old and horse and buggy’s rule the roads.. in fact a lot has happened since then, more then you realize and when you see the tip of what has happened you have to wonder about everything else too.
So let’s check it out.
1908-1910 Winning Percentage = .666
1908 - Kerosene outsells Gasoline as a fuel and Henry Ford sells his first Model T
1909 - Indianapolis opens their famous Race Track and stages the 1st ever event.
1910 - May 18 - The earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.
1911-1919 Winning Percentage = .553
1911 - IBM incorporated as Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) in New York.
1912 - The RMS Titanic sinks, along with 1,494 people.
1913 - General Electric begins to sell stoves and toasters.
1914 - Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day’s labor.
1915 - Orson Welles is born
1916 - The light switch was invented by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg
1917 - The National Hockey League is formed .
1918 - Canned Tomato Sauce is introduced.
1919 - The United States Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would guarantee suffrage to women.
1920-1929 Winning Percentage = .526
1920 - The first commercial radio station in the United States, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1921 - Green Bay Packers are formed with $500 of backing from a local meat packing plant.
1922 - In The Bronx, construction begins on Yankee Stadium.
1923 - Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
1924 - American airman Russell L. Maughan flew from New York to San Francisco in 21 hours and 48 minutes on a dawn-to-dusk flight in a Curtiss pursuit
1925 - Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
1926 - U.S. Route 66 was established.
1927 - The first demonstration of television before a live audience.
1928 - Sliced Bread Introduced
1929 - The radio comedy show Amos and Andy makes its debut
1930-1939 Winning Percentage = .579
1930 - Betty Boop premiers in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.
1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling.
1932 - Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.
1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration,
1934 - John Dillinger and two others shoot their way out of an FBI ambush in northern Wisconsin
1935 - World’s first parking meters, in Oklahoma City.
1936 - The Girl Scouts of America sell their first cookie.
1937 - Spam is invented
1938 - Du Pont announced a name for its new synthetic yarn: “nylon”.
1939 - The Hewlett-Packard Company is founded.
1940-1949 Winning Percentage = .479
1940 - RKO releases Walt Disney’s second full-length animated film, Pinocchio.
1941 - Captain America Comics #1 issues the first Captain America & Bucky comic.
1942 - Lions became extinct in Iran by this date.
1943 - Rioting between military personnel and Mexican American youths erupts in East Los Angeles and is dubbed the “Zoot Suit Riots”.
1944 - Anne Frank and sister Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
1945 - Micky Dolenz is born
1946 - Frozen French Fries are invented
1947 - The Chicago Cardinals the NFL’s oldest franchise wins their last championship, they are now in Arizona and playing the role of the Cubs in that league.
1948 - Hells Angels founded in California.
1949 - First Television Western, Hopalong Cassidy, airs on NBC.
1950-1959 Winning Percentage = .437
1950 - Britain formally recognizes Israel.
1951 - I Love Lucy debuts on CBS.
1952 - Bob Costas is born
1953 - Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay perform the first successful ascent to the summit of Mount Everest.
1954 - The New York Giants win the World Series, the franchises last.
1955 - Disneyland opens, in Anaheim, California.
1956 - Elvis Presley enters the United States music charts for the first time, with “Heartbreak Hotel.”
1957 - Better Home and Gardens publishes their first Microwave cook book
1958 - December 28 - The Baltimore Colts beat The New York Giants 23-17 in overtime to win The NFL Championship.
1959 - The Barbie doll debuts.
1960-1969 Winning Percentage = .459
1960 - 1960 Summer Olympics: Cassius Clay wins the gold medal in boxing.
1961 - Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller.
1962 - AT&T’s Telstar, the world’s first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit, and activated the next day.
1963 - ZIP Codes are introduced in the U.S.
1964 - Coke in a can is introduced
1965 - Bob Dylan releases his album Highway 61 Revisited
1966 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the Moon.
1967 - The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. The last time they won the championship
1968 - Johnny Cash records “Live at Folsom Prison”.
1969 - The Mets win the World Championship in their 8th season… beating the Cubs.
1970-1979 Winning Percentage = .487
1970 - Riverfront Stadium opens
1971 - Nine MLB pitchers throw more then 285 innings, 4 of them topping 310.
1972 - Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model-T when the 15,007,034th Beetle is produced.
1973 - O.J. Simpson of the Buffalo Bills became the first running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a pro football season.
1974 - Stephen King publishes his first novel, Carrie, under his own name.
1975 - NBC airs the first episode of Saturday Night Live
1976 - The Seattle Seahawks first football game is played.
1977 - The first Apple II computers go on sale.
1978 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds gets his 3,000th major league hit.
1979 - The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for $1 billion to avoid bankruptcy.
1980-1989 Winning Percentage = .472
1980 - Mobster Henry Hill busted on drug possession.
1981 - Pope John Paul II is shot and nearly killed
1982 - The car brand Toyota Camry introduced.
1983 - Hooters opens up in Clearwater, Florida.
1984 - Cubs win Division then lose in Playoffs
1985- Mike Tyson makes his professional debut in Albany, New York, a match which he wins by a first round knockout.
1986 - Hands Across America: At least 5,000,000 people form a human chain from New York City to Long Beach, California
1987 - Two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom
1988 - The Chicago Cubs play their first ever night game at home in Wrigley Field,
1989 - The Loma Prieta earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, strikes the San Francisco-Oakland region.
1990-1999 Winning Percentage = .476
1990 - Microsoft releases Windows 3.0.
1991 - Magic Johnson announces that he has HIV.
1992 - H. Ross Perot re-enters the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign.
1993 - Late Night with Conan O’Brien premieres on NBC.
1994 - South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections.
1995 - Yahoo! is founded in Santa Clara, California.
1996 - The Nintendo 64 video game system is released in Japan.
1997 - The Detroit Red Wings win their first Stanley Cup championship in 42 years
1998 - Smoking is banned in all California bars and restaurants.
1999 - Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.
2000-2007 Winning Percentage = .484
2000 - Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba with his father
2001 - Beatle George Harrison dies of cancer.
2002 - Cincinnati’s Cinergy Field is demolished.
2003 - The Concorde makes its last commercial flight
2004 - The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918,
2005 - The Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros in 4 games to win their first World Series since 1917.
2006 - The world’s longest running music show, Top of the Pops, broadcasts for the last time on BBC Two.
2007 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 14,000 for the first time in history.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by George Anderson
