On November 1, 1950, there was an assassination attempt on President Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists. The day before the attempt, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola boarded a train to Washington from the Bronx in New York. They carried with them two pistols and had the goal of bringing national attention to the cause of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
There was a shootout and White House policeman Leslie Coffelt became the first and only member of the Secret Service to die protecting the President from an assassination attempt. Griselio Torresola (July 19, 1925 – November 1, 1950) was, in turn, killed by a returned shot from Coffelt.
Oscar Collazo (January 20, 1914 – February 21, 1994) was convicted and sentenced to death, but Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. In 1979 Collazo's sentence was commuted to time served by President Jimmy Carter. He was paroled and he return to Puerto Rico where he continued to participate in activities related to the independence movement. On February 21, 1994, he died of a stroke in Vega Baja, having passed his 80th birthday by just over a month.
Today you step into an elevator and push a button for the floor you want and that’s it. But it wasn’t always that way. In 1950, the first self-service elevator was installed in Dallas, Texas by Otis Elevator.
Before that there used to be elevator operators. A good elevator operator had to have skills. Early elevators were usually controlled by a lever and the operator had to start and stop it, regulate its speed which required a good sense of timing because he had to stop it so the car was lined up the with the floor. They operator also had to open and close the doors manually. They were also trained in safety and in large department stores they served as greeters, announced product available on each floor and occasionally mentioning special offers.
In the chess world the year started off with Laszlo Szabo of Hungary winning at the Hastings 1949/50 tournament. Larry Evans, age 17, finished 4th.
In early January, Liudmila Rudenko (1904-1986) won the 2nd Women's World Championship, held in Moscow.
David Bronstein and Isaac Boleslavsky won the first candidates tournament, held in Budapest. Bronstein won the playoff, 7.5-6.5. Reshevsky was unable to play because the State Department would not allow US citizens to travel to Hungary.
FIDE met in Copenhagen and awarded the first Grandmaster title to 27 players, 94 International Master titles and 17 International Women Master titles.
The first USCF rating list was published; there were 2,306 rated players, Fine was top rated at 2817 and Reshevsky was 2ndat 2770.
James B. Cross won the US Junior championship and Arthur Bisguier won the 1950 US Open.
The Yugoslav team (Gligoric, Pirc, Trifunovic, Rabar, Vidmar, Jr. and Puc) won the Dubrovnik Olympiad. The US team (Reshevsky, Steiner, Horowitz, Shainswit, Kramer and Evans) took 4th.
Miguel Najdorf won the Amsterdam international. Samuel Reshevsky was 2nd. Paul Keres won the USSR Championship.
I used to own a duplicate of the Dubrovnik chess set, but it was destroyed when our house flooded this past summer. It's shown here with my chess table and vintage Russian chess clock, both of which survived.
Boris Velinsky (1888-1950) the 1920 USSR champion died in Moscow. In the US , Maurice Wertheim (1886-1950) died in Cos Cob, Connecticut at the age of 64. He was former president of Manhattan Chess Club and chess patron.
Lost in all that was a small international tournament in Vienna that was played at the end of the year and finished in 1951. It was won by Alfred Beni (1923-1995), an Austrian International Master.
The following game from that little known event was played by the little known Karl Kopetzky (1909-1985) of Austria and Bora Tot (1907-1987) of Yugoslavia.
Karl Kopetzky–Bora Tot1–0B08Vienna 1950/51Vienna12.1950Stockfish 16
B08: Pirc Defence: Classical System 1.e4 d6 2.d4 f6 According to Garry
Kasparov, the Pirc Defense is "hardly worth using in the tournaments of the
highest category" because it gives white "too many opportunities for anybody's
liking." Black will have counterplay but has to be cautious about playing too
passively. 3.c3 g6 4.f3 The main line is 4.f4. In this line qhite
contents himself wityh the classical P center (Ps on d4 and e4). g7 5.h3
The main line is 5.Be2, but white has been quite successful with this move. 0-0 6.e3 bd7 7.d2 c5 8.0-0-0 8.d5 a6 9.a4 a5 10.a2 h5 11.g4 xc3 12.xc3 xc3+ 13.bxc3 g7 14.h4 White's position is the more active.
Tsuboi,E (2344) -Rodriguez,A (2485) Sao Paulo 2004 8.e2 cxd4 9.xd4 c5 10.f3 d7 11.0-0 is equal. Gerasimenyk,M (2211)-Kubanov,N Evpatoria 2006 8...a5 Well played...it gives black active play on the Q-side since white's
castling there could prove somewhat risky. 9.b1 9.c4 didn't work out
too well for white in Jelson,Y-Le Hoang Tran,C Thailand 2005. Black should now
continue b6 10.e2 xc4 11.xc4 b5 12.xb5 xb5 13.xb5 xe4 with a
good game. 9...b6 But this move is far too passive. The aggressive
followup to black's last move was 9...b5! 9...b5 10.xb5 b6 11.c3 b7 12.e5 Whte must continue aggressively to have any hpe of success. 12.d3 ab8 13.b3 b4 with sufficient play for the P/ 12...dxe5 12...cxd4 13.xd4 c7 14.exf6 13.xe5 xe5 14.dxe5 fd8 15.e1 d5 Black has good
play, but the chances are about equal if white defends carefully. 10.h6
While it's true that this eliminates black's B it really does not accomplish
much. Aginn, 10.e5 is better. 10.e5 cxd4 11.xd4 xe5 12.f4 c5 12...a5 13.c6 h5 14.e2 h4 15.xe7+ h8 16.f2 h6 17.g4 with a winning
attack. 13.e6 wuth a excellent position. 10.e5 dxe5 11.dxe5 e8 12.h6 xe5 13.xe5 xe5 14.d5 xc3 15.bxc3 xc3 16.xa8 with a decisive
advantage. 10...cxd4 11.xd4 b7 This logical followup to his last move
misses a tactical shot that maintains the balance. Now white gets the better
of it. 11...xe4 12.xe4 xd2 13.xd2 13.xd2 xh6 wins 13...xd4 14.g5 g7 15.f3 with equal chances. 15.xe7 e8 16.xd6 xe4 and wins 12.xg7± xg7 13.b3 h5 After this it's clear black's
Q-side operations have come to a halt. Of course on h5 the Q is subject to
harassment. 13...e5 This is the only other available position for the Q,
but after 14.f4 h5 15.g4 his position is even worse. 14.g4 h4 15.g2 c5 16.f4 xb3 The decision not to take the e-Pawn was the correct one. 16...fxe4 17.xe4 xe4 18.xe4 xe4 19.d4+ f6 20.g5 wins the pinned N.
16...xe4? just transposes. 17.xe4 cxe4 18.xe4 xe4 19.d4+ f6 20.g5 16...ad8 17.axb3 ad8 18.e3 g8 19.f3 h6 20.hg1 d7
Obviously it would prove too dangerous to take the h-Pawn, but his best chance
was countering in the center with 20...e5 20...e5 21.f5 gxf5 22.g5
This excellent move rips open the K-side. hxg5 23.xg5+ xg5 24.xg5+ h7 25.xf5 g8 26.h5+ h6 27.b5 A not so obvious ,ove it would have been
difficult to OTB! d5 27...a6 28.xd6 c8 Otherwise Nf5 29.xe5 e6 30.h5 d7 31.e5 and white is winning. 28.exd5 f5 29.c4 e4 and black can
at least put up a fight. 21.g5 The threat is 22.Rg4 h5 22.e2 fe8 22...xh3? 23.h1 e6 24.d4 traps the Q 23.h1 a6 Black
should still try ...e5 24.c4 Preserving jis N b7 25.d4 Instead of this
move which allows black to equalize, white should have pressed on with his
attack. 25.f5 e5 26.fxg6 fxg6 27.xd6 White is clearly better. 25...e5 Suddenbly black has equalized! 26.xd6 exf4 This only improves the
position of white's pieces. 26...c5 27.fxe5 xe4+ 28.xe4 xe4+ 29.xe4 xe4 30.xd8 xd8 The mass exchanges have made black's defense much easier
and here the chances would be equal. 27.xf4 c5 28.xd8 xd8 29.d5 c8
This attack on the h-Pawn is not dangerous, but his position has already badly
deteriorated to the point that it's hard to suggest any improvements. 30.d1 e6 30...xh3 leads to mate. 31.f6+ g7 32.xd8 f1+ 33.a2 xf6 34.gxf6+ xf6 35.f4+ f5 36.exf5 d3 37.xd3 g7 38.fxg6 f6 39.d7+ xg6 40.e4+ f5 41.xf5+ h6 42.g6# 31.e7+ Black resigned; white picks up the R.
1–0
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