Moultonborough Historical Society
Moultonborough Boston Post Cane
Current Holder of the Cane
Winston Woodward Staples
Born: July 20, 1908
Winston Woodward Staples
b. July 20, 1908, Orange, Mass.
Major events on July 20th.
July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
July 20, 1944: Assassination plot against Hitler fails
Major Events In 1908
President: Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
Vice-President: Charles W. Fairbanks
New Hampshire Governor: Charles Miller Floyd, of Manchester
World Series: Chicago Cubs won and it’s the last time they won in the past 97 years
1908 Summer Olympics – London, England:
It is written that it was the wettest most contentious in modern Olympic history. It rained almost every day for the event from April 27 – October 31, 1908. There were many controversy’s during this Olympics, but the most contentious was over the flags of the countries. This was the first Olympics where the athletes entered the stadium marching in their athletic uniforms behind their flag bearer carrying the flag of their country. It was also the first Olympics that a stadium was specifically built for the games, and flew the flags along the top, of the countries competing in the games.
Finland was not allowed to fly their flag because they were under Russian rule, so instead of carrying the Russia flag they chose not to carry a flag at all. Ireland was forced to compete on the Great Britain team, so many Irish athletes withdrew from the games, refusing to march behind the British flag. The Swedish flag was not flown with the other flags on top of the stadium, so they refused to participate in the opening ceremonies.
Another flag not flown with the other nations was the American flag. The Americans did march in the ceremony, but when they passed the host, King Edward VII, the American bearer did not dip the American flag, as was/is tradition and respect to leaders of host countries. The bearer later was stated to have said, “This flag dips to no earthly king”. It has become tradition ever since not to dip the American flag in any ceremony.
1908 was the year that Henry Ford began the world’s first mass production automobile, the Model T. The Model T was produced until 1928, when the line was changed to produce the Model A. In that 20 year span, 17 million Model T’s were produced world wide.