Nationally, around 5,000 deaths were associated with the heat wave.
For example, in La Crosse, Wisconsin there were 14 consecutive days (July 5th-18th) where the high temperature was 90 degrees or greater, and 9 days that were at or above 100 degrees. In Decorah, Iowa the temperature hit 111 degrees on July 14, 1936.
Also that year the Baseball Hall of Fame was founded in Cooperstown, New York. Ty Cobb got more votes than Babe Ruth in the first inductees. Cobb was a great player, but during his career, he was a hated player who was involved in numerous fights on and off the field and profanity-laced shouting matches.
In June 196. he was taken to a hospital after falling into a diabetic coma; he died there on July 17, 1961, at age 74.
The year 1936 was significant in US, chess history because the first modern championship was held that year.
Organizers planned for preliminary round-robins to select eight qualifiers for the 16-man finals. Seeded into the finals were: Reshevsky, Fine, Dake, Kashdan, Kupchik, Steiner, Horowitz and Kevitz.
However, there were so few advance entries for the preliminaries that the organizers had to drop the registration fee from $10 (about $221 today) to $5 and eventually 48 players entered.
It was interesting because of two unheralded New Yorkers (George N. Treysman and Albert C. Simonson) and a frequent visitor to the city were in the finals (Arthur Dake).
The 55-year old Treysman was well known He was a professional coffeehouse player who earned dimes playing speed chess, often at upto and including Queens (!) at the rundown East Side chess clubs that at the time were located all over Manhattan.
The youngest contestant was Albert C. (Buddy) Simonson and his result came as a huge surprise. Even though he had played on the US
World Championship Team at Folkestone in 1933, his record was not all that great, but there had been a steady increase in his playing
strength since then. He was also recognized as one of th city’s best bridge and backgammon players.
The other player to watch was a merchant seaman from Portland, Oregon which is 2,900 miles from New York. Arthur Dake already already had an international reputation as a result of his play in the Olympiad team tournament held the previous year in Warsaw. There he achieved a remarkable score of +13 -0 =5.
The tournament started with Kashdan going 4-0 followed by Treysman with 3.5. But then in the 5th round they both lost and Dake assumed the lead and by round 9 he had scored +5 -0 =5.
For the favorite, Reshevky, the tournament was, to use his words, “something of a nightmare."
He started out win and a draw, but the blundered badly against the
Sidney Bernstein and was completely outplayed by Al Horowitz in Round 4.
One of his main rivals was Isaac Kashdan and when they met in round 8 Reshevsky’s opening play lead to Kashdan getting a good advantage, but later he underestimated Reshevsky’s threats and played too passively. As a result, Reshevsky got compensation for the exchange he had lost earlier and ended up catching Kashdan in a cheapo. After that, Reshevsky became invigorated and won nine and drew only once in the next ten games.
Another favorite was Reuben Fine, but he was stuck in a quagmire of draws. As for Dake, he suddenly fell apart and only scored two points in his last six games which started with a loss to Reshevsky.
In all the excitement of major tournament one tends ot concentrate on the play of the leaders, but other players were participating aod they sometimes produced exciting games.
One such game was the next to last round game between Dake and the eccentric and erratic Weaver dams. In this game Adams unsuccessfully played the aggressive Falkbeer Counter ambit.
[Event "US Championship, New York"]
[Site ""]
[Date "1936.05.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Arthur Dake"]
[Black "Weaver Adams"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C31"]
[Annotator "Stockfish 15.1"]
[PlyCount "51"]
[EventDate "1936.04.25"]
{Falkbeer Counter Gambit} 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 {An aggressive defense in which
black opens up the center in an attempt to exploit white's weakened K-side. In
my database 8 our of 10 games are decisive with the results being almost
equally distributed between white wins and black wis!} 3. exd5 (3. fxe5 {
is a gross blunder.} Qh4+ 4. g3 (4. Ke2 Qxe4+ 5. Kf2 Bc5+ 6. Kg3 Qg6+ 7. Kf4 (
7. Kf3 Qg4#) 7... Qf5+ 8. Kg3 Qf2#) 4... Qxe4+) 3... e4 {This is the old main
line. Nimzovich favored 3...c6 which fares quite well in my database with
black winning 2/3s of the games.} (3... exf4 {is occasionally seen.} 4. Nf3 Nf6
(4... Qxd5 5. d4 Bg4 6. Bxf4 {Now black should probably play 6...Nc6} Bxf3 7.
Qxf3 Qxf3 8. gxf3 {Unclear.}) 5. c4 c6 6. d4 {the chances are equal.}) 4. d4 f5
(4... Nf6 5. c4 b5 6. cxb5 Nbd7 7. Nc3 Nb6 8. Qb3 Bd6 {Black is slightly
better. Fernandez Rubio,U-Campora,D (2549) Seville 2005}) (4... Qxd5 5. c4 Bb4+
6. Bd2 Bxd2+ 7. Qxd2 Qd6 8. Nc3 Nf6 9. O-O-O O-O {equals. Van den Heever,D
(2274)-Bhawoodien,S (2135) Cape Town RSA 2014}) 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 a6 7. Nh3 {
[%mdl 32]} b5 {Aggressive play. If black does not play aggressively white will
certainly get the better of it.} 8. Be3 {The immediate 8.Ng5 was also good.}
bxc4 9. Bxc4 Bd6 {Black probably should have played 9...h6 here to stop the N
from improving its position.} ({Better is} 9... h6 $1 $15) 10. Ng5 $11 Qe7 11.
O-O O-O 12. Ne6 {[%mdl 2048] A bone in black's throat!} Re8 (12... Bxe6 13.
dxe6 Nc6 14. Nd5 {White naturally avoids closing the Bs diagonal with 11.d5}
Nxd5 15. Bxd5 {with a fine position.}) 13. h3 Nbd7 {Adams does not sense the
danger or he would have played 13...Kh8} ({Black should try} 13... Kh8 $14) 14.
Nxc7 {[%mdl 512]} Nb6 (14... Bxc7 15. d6+) 15. Nxe8 Nxe8 {Black plays on out
of inertia. It's unlikely that Dake would somehow manage to lose from this
position.} 16. Bb3 Nf6 17. Bf2 Qb7 18. Bh4 Qf7 19. Bxf6 Qxf6 20. a4 a5 21. Nb5
Bb7 22. Rc1 {Dake has baited a trap into which Adams falls...not that it
matters because he is quite lost} Nxd5 {Of course...materially black now has a
B vs a R+P} 23. Nxd6 (23. Nc7 {really smashes black!} Bxc7 24. Rxc7 Qb6 25. Rd7
Qc6 26. Rxd5) 23... Qxd6 24. Rc5 Kh8 25. Bxd5 Bxd5 26. Qd2 {Seeing no reason
to play on, Adams resigned.} 1-0
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