Ichnologists examined animal tracks found near the coast of Spain at 4 sites, and they date to the last Interglacial ranging in age from 90,000 years BP-140,000 years BP. Ichnology is the study of animal tracks. They found tracks that compare favorably to the enormous, extinct straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), horse, red deer (known as elk in North America), wolf, stone marten, and beetle. The sites include Torro de Copa, Calblanque, Monte de la Ceniza, and Pena del Aquela Regional Nature Park. The tracks are important evidence that these species occurred here because their remains are not found in the local fossil record, though they are found in other parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
Location and geological setting of sites where fossil tracks of animals dating to the last Interglacial were found in Spain.From the below referenced paper.
The tracks were found in fossilized sand dunes created by Ice Age winds. Note the impressions of raindrops. This indicates the sand was wet when the tracks were made. From the below referenced paper.
Fossilized elephant tracks. From the below referenced paper.
Map of sites where evidence of extinct elephants have been found. The yellow represent tracks; the red circles represent bones. From the below referenced paper.
Straight-tusked elephants were 1 of the largest land mammals of all time. There were 4 species and they ranged across Africa, Europe, and Asia. I believe they would still exist today, if not for man. During Ice Ages mammoths replaced them in colder regions, but they could still occur in warmer regions of Europe and Asia.
Ichnologists find impressions of rain drops in the sand next to the tracks, indicating the sand was wet from rain when the tracks were made. The tracks were made on coastal sand dunes that formed during a previous Ice Age when climate was dry, and wind blew sand into big dunes. However, by the time these tracks were made, wetter climate fostered the spread of beach shrubs that stabilized the dunes. They were walking through a scrubby habitat with many bare spots. The dunes were adjacent to a mixed forest of ash, birch, fir, and hornbeam. Straight-tusked elephants likely fed on the twigs and leaves of these plants. Some tracks appear as if the animals were just passing through, perhaps as part of a seasonal migration. Other trackways suggest the animals were congregating on the spot and trampling the ground. Neanderthals likely hunted these animals here.
The sites were dated using uranium-series dating of coral and seashells. They must have been rapidly covered by sediment that today is being eroded away, making them visible. It’s a nice snapshot of the local fauna during the interglacial. If not for man, all of these species would still enjoy living next to the Mediterranean Sea today.
Reference:
Carvalho, C.; et al
“New Vertebrate Track Sites from the Last Interglacial Dune Deposits of Coastal Murcia (Southeastern Spain): Ecological Corridors for Elephants in Iberia”
It’s the week of the Super Bowl, but I don’t care who wins. I watch the NFL for entertainment and do not have a favorite team. I often mildly root for the team with the most former Georgia Bulldog players on their roster. I wanted to see the Rams in this year’s Super Bowl because Mathew Stafford, their quarterback, played for Georgia between 2006-2008, but alas, the Rams fell short in Seattle where they also battled the referees. The only sports team that I passionately favor is the Georgia Bulldogs football team. Most sports fans, and even Georgia Bulldogs’ fans don’t know how Georgia earned the nickname–Bulldogs. Here is the story of how that happened.
Before 1920 the Georgia football team was simply known as the Red and Black. During 1893, just their 2nd season, some fans did call them Bulldogs, but the name didn’t stick. By 1920 the press started calling them the Wildcats, however Georgia earned the nickname Bulldogs when they were playing Virginia on the road. Virginia athletic rules at the time didn’t allow freshmen to play, and 3 of Georgia’s star players were freshmen. Despite this handicap, Georgia held Virginia to a scoreless draw. The game included 2 goal line stands by Georgia, and a sportswriter by the name of Cliff Wheatley wrote Georgia “bulldogged Virginia at the goal line.” Georgia has been known as the Bulldogs ever since.
Georgia won the Southern Conference (precursor to the SEC) in 1920, and 1 pollster ranked them number 1 in the nation. They destroyed every team except Virginia and Alabama. The game against Alabama was an exciting classic, but unfortunately there is no film of it.Note how short the season was. Just 2 months.
The 1920 Georgia Bulldogs had a strong line. They were so good, Georgia started scheduling games against Ivy League powers the next year. The Ivy League still dominated college football during the 1920s.
The 1920 Georgia Bulldogs were a great team, finishing 8-0-1 in the Southern Conference, precursor to the SEC. The Berryman Quality Points Rating System rated them number 1 in the whole nation 70 years later, but official polls at the time gave the national championship to California and Princeton. Georgia destroyed most of the teams they played that year. Too bad, they didn’t play Georgia Tech that year because the Yellow Jackets also finished undefeated. The most exciting game of the year was against Alabama. Georgia took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, but Alabama fought their way back into the game. With 2 minutes left Alabama attempted to drop kick a short field goal that would have probably won the game, but Georgia’s Kirk Whelchel blocked the kick, and Buck Cheves returned it 87 yards for the winning touchdown. Descriptions of the play are sketchy because sportswriters at this time were a bunch of incoherent drunks, and there is no film of it. Football was not widely filmed yet. Georgia’s coach, Herman Stegeman, coached for 2 more seasons and later became athletic director and scout for the football team. The next year, Georgia began scheduling traditional Ivy League powers that were still considered the best teams in the nation during the 1920s.
I’ve always been fascinated with the Sangamonian Interglacial, known as the Eemian Interglacial in Europe. It’s the most recent climate phase when average annual global temperatures were the same or even higher than those of today. No major extinction of megafauna occurred during this phase–the best evidence against climate models of Pleistocene megafauna extinction. The Sangamonian Interglacial lasted from 132,000 years BP-118,000 years BP, although the below referenced study frames it between 128,000 years BP-117,000 years BP. Climate was likely not noticeably different during the discrepancy between these 2 parameters. The north polar ice cap completely melted during the Sangamonian Interglacial, resulting in higher sea levels than today. The north polar ice cap also completely melted during the early Holocene about 10,000 years ago. (Note: and polar bears did not become extinct as alarmists claim will happen.) Scientists are also interested in the Sangamonian because it provides an analogue for today’s climate but without the influence of manmade greenhouse gases. Recently, scientists studied ancient shorelines that existed during the Sangamonian Interglacial at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They appear today as ridges or terraces, referred to as outcrops as well, and they consist of crushed consolidated seashells including coral, clams, and oysters. 1 of these outcrops has a layer of peat inside the shelly sediment, suggesting the existence of a marsh, and another 1 has an eolian or windswept sand dune embedded in the layer from dunes that formed during an arid climate cycle.
Location of the area studied in the below referenced paper. Yellow lines represent high stands. Peninsular Florida was mostly submerged with the exception of a few islands. During the Pliocene shoreline was even higher and extended into the middle of South Carolina where the shoreline consisted of sea cliffs. Today, it is the eroded Orangeburg Escarpment.
Another map from the below referenced study showing terraces from former shorelines when sea level was higher than today.
Cold water coral (Desmophyllum pertusum) occurs on the Blake Plateau off the coast of South Carolina. It forms an important ecosystem. Scientists date ancient shorelines using radiometric dating, specifically Uranium series dating of coral found in the terraces.
Ribbon corals, also known as sea whips occur in shallow water off the coast of South Carolina. They are not a true coral.
The scientists dated these old shoreline ridges using uranium series dating from coral fossils and by using optically stimulated luminescence. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optically_stimulated_luminescence ) They determined sea level rose no more than 15 feet during the early Sangamonian. Throughout the Sangamonian sea level fluctuated between 9-21 feet higher than that of today. Sea level rose rapidly during the early Sangamonian, stabilized, then rose again. Fluctuations were rapid and corresponded with unstable ice sheets. This new study agrees with earlier studies of these marine high stand terraces at other locations. During Ice Ages sea levels retreated as more of earth’s moisture became locked in glaciers, and dry land habitat occurred as much as 50 miles off the modern-day coast.
Reference:
Dean, S.; et al
“Last Interglacial Relative Sea Level Changes at Myrtle Beach, S.C.”
There is an ongoing study of birds at the Panola Mountain State Park in Rockdale County, Georgia located on the outskirts of Atlanta. Panola Mountain State Park is 1600 acres and features an erosion resistant granite monadnock, wetlands, lakes, and a restored grassland. Farmland and a golf course were converted to a grassland starting in 2001 by removing non-native plants and planting native bluestem grasses that originally occurred throughout much of the state. Periodic controlled fires help maintain the native landscape. The grassland is surrounded by forests.
191 species of birds are known to occur in the park and 90 species have been banded here. Scientists capture birds with mist nets that they set up at least once a month from morning until noon, and they’ve been doing this since 2007. The most recent study analyzed evolutionary changes in the birds that live in the park either seasonally or year-round.
Map showing location and banding areas in Panola Mountain State Park. It’s located on the outskirts of Atlanta.From the below referenced study.
Graph showing average annual temperature increase over the past 17 years from a nearby weather station. Also from the below referenced study.
There is an erosion resistant granite monadnock in the park.I will probably visit this park some day.
Restored grassland in the park where birds are captured and studied.
Western palm warblers migrate through the park.
Indigo buntings live year-round in the park. They are vicious little birds. I saw one chasing another bunting into a window. It pecked the stunned bird in the head until it was dead.
Field sparrows and other species of sparrows thrive in the restored grassland.
Average annual temperatures at this locality have increased by 4 degrees F over the past 17 years, according to data from the nearby Jonesboro weather station. Scientists expected changes in local birds that followed Bergman’s Rule and Allen’s Rule. Bergman’s Rule states that species of animals in warmer climates will grow on average to a smaller size than those same species that occur in colder climates. Allen’s Rule states that species of animals in warmer climates will grow longer appendages than their northern cousins. Scientists captured 2,938 birds including 668 recaptures for the body size part of the study. They analyzed 9 species. Gold finches, field sparrows, and savannah sparrows grew smaller wings in contradiction to Allen’s Rule. The other 6 species had unchanged wing lengths. Bergman’s Rule was contradicted by data from 4 species. Scientists hypothesize local variations contributed to these contradictions. Birds often live for part of the year in other locations that may have had different temperatures.
1,128 birds including 45 recaptures were used to study the migratory phenology (the time of year when birds begin their migration). They found 1 species did have an earlier spring migration and 2 species started migrating later in the fall. The study also looked at demographics. 1 species had a higher male sex ratio than previously, and another species had a higher population of juveniles than formerly.
The authors of this paper believe restoring grasslands can help mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change because they see so little change here. In my opinion that is a stretch. It’s a relatively small sample size from just 1 location, and climate has always changed, and those changes are not always detrimental.
Reference:
McMahaon, A.; K. Stumpf and C. Muise
“Changes in Morphology, Phenology, and Demography of Several Avian Species over 18 Years at a Restored Grassland”
My media center, also known as my computer room, was a terrible mess. 3 big boxes of books, the excess spilling over, were up against 1 wall, blocking a closet door. The other side of the room had all kinds of crap piled all over the place–an accumulation of over a decade’s worth of junk. I finally got tired of looking at it and decided to straighten it up. The real impetus was a book I recently read but couldn’t find. I was also looking for some tax forms. I spent hours cleaning the room and discovered a plumbing disaster. The carpet underneath the junk was wet, and I determined it was from a leaky sink drainage pipe on the other side of the wall, leading to a $1000 repair. After the repair the carpet dried and I purchased a $60 bookshelf from Amazon to get the boxes off the floor and suffered through more aggravation. It was a cheap piece of shit made in Vietnam, and I could not put it together. The top part of the bookshelf was supposed to connect with the bottom part using small plastic pegs that wouldn’t line up. Moreover, the shelves were supposed to rest on ridiculously tiny pegs, and the whole thing fell apart every time I barely touched it. I devised an alternative construction using wooden blocks and a shitload of wood glue. My concept worked, but I became really angry with my own stupidity. After installing the first shelf I went looking for the other 2 and realized I’d forgotten that I’d put them on the bottom of the case to get them out of the way. I’d glued the blocks underneath the first shelf on top of the other 2. I felt like the 3 Stooges wrapped in 1 person. I fixed the snafu by sawing extra wood from the frame of the original bookcase I didn’t use, and those served as the additional shelves. Below are before and after photos of my media center.
Boxes of overflowing books blocked my closet door.
I discovered a plumbing disaster under this mess. If I hired a maid, she would probably take one look at it, quit and cry.
Now, I can at least get into my closet without dragging hundred-pound boxes of books out of the way.
I built this bookshelf using the leftover frame of another bookcase that I could not put together with wooden blocks and a shitload of wood glue.
I did find the book I was looking for, but I never found the tax forms. I also found a box of film noir and Wild Kingdom DVDs. I’d completely forgotten about the latter and probably hadn’t watched them in over 20 years. Wild Kingdom was my favorite show when I was a little kid. I remember crying in 1968 when our family had just 1 television, and my father chose to watch The Ed Sullivan Show instead of Wild Kingdom. This long running nature series was the successor to Zoo Parade, a series that ran from 1952-1957, and it was also hosted by Marlin Perkins. He convinced the Mutual of Omaha insurance company to sponsor the next version of the show in 1962, and new episodes have been produced off and on ever since. The original Wild Kingdom aired on NBC and syndication from 1963-1988 with Marlin Perkins hosting it until shortly before his death from skin cancer in 1986. The show was revived in 2002 and again in 2011. It was a YouTube series from 2013-2018, and since 2022 it has been part of NBC’s Saturday morning line up of shows for kids.
Marlin Perkins wrestling a giant anaconda. He said, “a bite from an anaconda could be very painful.” His statements of the obvious were often fodder for late night comedians.
Wild Kingdom is 1 of the greatest nature shows of all time and was especially educational for children. Each episode often features many different species of animals interacting with each other. For example in an episode about the Okefenokee Swamp they showed alligators, alligator snapping turtles, common snapping turtles, water moccasins, egrets, mallard ducks, barred owls, red-shouldered hawks, black bears, raccoons, bobcats, gray foxes, striped skunks, and fox squirrels. A bobcat hunting the ducks and squirrels became prey for an alligator. Some episodes feature conservation projects that show game managers or scientists capturing wild animals to study them or to relocate problem individuals. (They’ve been accused of unnecessarily handling animals for the camera. I think that is true in some cases.) Other episodes follow individual animals and are narrated in story form. Below is a link to Wild Kingdom’s YouTube channel where hundreds of episodes are available.
Google searching for answers and research is much easier now. Google AI answers the questions, and there is no need to scroll through pages of websites to find a satisfactory answer. I suspect Google AI is responsible for reducing the average daily views to my site by 50% over the past 6 months, but it doesn’t matter because I don’t make any money doing this. It’s just a hobby for me, and I don’t feel bad for the owners of WordPress.
I’ve always been fascinated with adobe houses. They are built using primitive technology yet are comfortable and especially able to keep indoors cool in the American Southwest where they are most prevalent. American Indians built adobe houses, and some were built embedded on mountainsides where they were accessible by ladders which could be withdrawn, keeping the people in them safe from other hostile tribes. My fascination led me to read Woody Guthrie’s only published novel House of the Earth. Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” and was a great folk song writer, though he was a stupid communist. His novel, written in 1947 but not published until recently, is a good example of really bad writing. The corny dialogue is tedious and pointless, and Guthrie sometimes uses a dozen similes to describe 1 thing, a style of gross overwriting that I found hard to endure. Moreover, in the novel, the characters never get to building their adobe dream house–the part I was most looking forward to reading. How unfulfilling.
I asked Google AI whether an adobe house could withstand a F5 tornado. Tornadoes are rated according to the Fujita Scale, and an F5 is the most devastating with winds that exceed 200 mph. Google AI emphatically said no. I then asked Google AI for an example of an adobe home destroyed by any scale of tornado, and it was unable to give any, though it still insisted a tornado would destroy an adobe home.
An F5 tornado will obliterate almost anything in its path.
Map showing area where adobe homes are common in the U.S. The eroded sedimentary rock found in this region is good for making adobe brick.
Many tribes of Southwestern Indians used adobe brick.
This is a really attractive adobe home.
Another nice adobe home. Authentic adobe homes usually have flat roofs, but this one has a modern roof.
Reinforced concrete with embedded steel can survive a direct hit from a tornado.
Dome-shaped homes can also survive tornados because of aerodynamics. The shape deflects high winds and distributes pressure evenly, and there is no weak point that attaches the roof to the walls. An adobe home shaped like a dome could also survive a tornado, so I propose Google AI is wrong about this.
Adobe homes are made from sun dried bricks as opposed to regular bricks which are dried using heat. Straw is mixed with the local soil and dried in piles. The walls of an adobe home can be made several feet thick and can keep inside temperatures constant, like a cave. The roofs are made with poles, lattices, and branches held together with adobe. The roofs are often flat. Adobe houses can be built in Georgia, where I live, but they need large overhangs to prevent precipitation from eroding the walls. Usually, an extra coat of cement plaster or stucco attached to iron mesh is used to give the adobe home a better look.
Tornadoes destroy homes by causing internal pressure on the home that makes it implode. The wind tears the roof off, and windblown debris also can cause severe damage to homes not directly in its path. Tornado proof safe rooms can be built using concrete reinforced with embedded steel. There is more than 1 case of a dome-shaped structure withstanding tornadoes due to the aerodynamic nature. The shape deflects the wind and distributes the internal pressure evenly. Google AI might be wrong. An adobe house built in a dome shape could possibly still stand after a hit from an F5 tornado.
The rich kelp forests surrounding the Commander Islands off the Alaskan Coast hosted the last of the Ice Age giants until 1768. Steller’s sea cows were manatees that diverged from tropical ancestors by evolving the ability to survive in frigid waters. This species was likely already in decline when discovered by Europeans in the middle of the 18th century. Sea cows formerly had a much larger range, occurring as far south as the Catalina Islands off the coast of California, but it seems likely indigenous fisherman were wiping them out before Europeans delivered the coup de grace to the final relict population just 37 years after discovering them. Some scientists think climate change caused the range reduction, but this seems unlikely because their favored habitat–kelp forests–remained widespread.
Killer whales hunt other whales. They must have hunted sea cows as well.
There are 20 ecotypes of killer whales. Scientists will eventually distinguish several species, but for now they are considered 1 species.
Sea cow range map. By the time Europeans discovered them, they were restricted to a final relict population located around islands off the Alaskan coast.
Artist’s rendition of a sea cow. They were big vegetarians that ate kelp all day. They did ram boats when hunted.
Steller’s sea cow was first described by George Steller, a German naturalist who sailed with a Russian exploration ship. (Their mission was to determine if Asia was connected to North America which it was during Ice Ages.) He had the chance to study sea cows when he was shipwrecked on Bering Island for 9 months. He published his description of sea cows along with the first scientific descriptions of northern fur seals, sea lions, and sea otters. He also found mammoth skeletons from a late population of them. He observed live sea cows and dissected dead ones. His work was difficult–arctic foxes, too naive to fear humans, swarmed his study area and stole his maps, books, and ink. He paid sailors with tobacco to help him dissect the beasts, and they complained. Nevertheless, his descriptions of sea cows are the only science-based observations we have. Sea cows were massive mammals 10 feet long and 20,000 pounds. They had tough skin and thick layers of blubber, and they traveled in small family groups. Gulls perched on them and fed on their parasites. The flesh was red and tasted like beef. Sea cow meat kept for a long time perhaps because the kelp they spent all day eating was high in nitrites, the same chemical used to preserve lunch meat. The blubber was reportedly as sweet as butter. Steller found 30 square feet of chewed up kelp in just 1 sea cow stomach, and dislodged, bitten off, kelp from sea cow feeding washed up on shore in great piles. Their stomachs were full of parasitic worms. When hunted by humans, sea cows would defend each other and ram boats.
I wonder how sea cows defended themselves from killer whales. Steller never saw any species preying on sea cows, but killer whales are known to attack blue whales–the largest animal to ever live. I’m sure the tough skin and thick blubber helped sea cows survive unsuccessful killer whale attacks. They likely placed themselves between killer whales and their more vulnerable calves, like whales, and they likely displayed communal defense and fought off killer whale attacks by ramming them. Their habitat may have been their best defense. They stayed hidden within kelp forests and were difficult to find for passing killer whale pods that didn’t know they were there.
There are 20 different ecotypes of killer whales, and they each vary in diet preference, genetics, appearance, and vocalization. Although there is only 1 official species of killer whale, that is likely to change soon. Scientists are on the verge of naming several new species after further study.
Reference:
Steller, G.; translated by W. Miller, J. Miller, and P. Royster
The Beasts of the Sea
Novi Commentaris Academiae Scientatum Imperiali Petropoitanae Tomii ad annum 1751
Dry climates prevailed worldwide during Ice Ages because so much of earth’s atmospheric moisture was locked into massive Ice Sheets. Less precipitation meant less vegetative cover, and with fewer plant roots holding soil into place, the strong winds, also caused by Ice Sheet expansion, blew dirt and sand great distances. Some settled into huge sand dunes; other particles were blown all over the planet into the oceans and as far north as Greenland. Scientists take ice cores from the 125,000-year-old glacier in Greenland, and they have a year-by-year diary of past climatic conditions. Rings from summer melting mark the years exactly. Oxygen isotope ratios from air bubbles trapped inside the annual rings help scientists determine past average annual temperatures, but they also can determine how dry the climate was based on the quantity of dust and sand from inside each annual ring. The quantity of dust particles deposited was highest during the dryest years of the Ice Age.
Pleistocene sandstorms were fatal to the animals and plants buried under the dust. Animals that escaped these massive storms still suffered, perhaps fatally from getting the dust in their lungs. These sandstorms benefitted Pacific Ocean ecosystems because iron from sediment blown into the ocean fed phytoplankton, the base of the food chain. Scientists think most of the minerals came from the Gobi Desert which expanded during Ice Ages. Some recent studies suggest dust storms in Europe were even larger when they occurred during late winter and early spring. In North America, especially along the Mississippi River, waterways shrank, and exposed riverine sands blew into large dunes, still visible today.
Sand blown from the Gobi Desert during Ice Ages fertilized the Pacific Ocean.
Windblown sediment from the edge of Ice Age glaciers and exposed riverine sand blew into huge dunes still visible today.
Map showing where windblown sediment deposited from melting glaciers settled. This sediment is known as loess.
This diagram shows how dust particles were deposited into the Greenland Ice Sheet. The ice core rings are an annual diary of climate going back 125,000 years.
These are the types of minerals found in ice cores. Iron-rich minerals fertilized oceans.
The best facsimile of these ancient dust storms from the historical record occurred during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930’s. The ravages of World War I reduced Russian and European production of wheat. American farmers took advantage of the high wheat prices and ploughed over all the prairie grasses in order to plant as much wheat as possible, and at first they thrived because they planted during an unusually wet weather cycle. Starting in 1930 several years of severe drought shriveled all the plants, leaving thousands of square miles bare of any vegetation. High winds blew this dried out soil as far east as the Atlantic Coast. In the dust bowl area including Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado; the dust was so thick it covered houses, cars, and livestock. Many of the farmers left, leading to the famous Okie migration to California. In response to this disaster the government used the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant 200 million trees and created the Great Plains Shelter Belt. The government also advised famers to use better farming techniques such as contour ploughing (perpendicular to hills) and crop rotation to reduce soil erosion. Some programs even pay farmers not to plant–a socialist policy modern conservative farmers still use, demonstrating their political hypocrisy.
Main area of the 1930’s dust bowl disaster.
Poor farming practices led to this scary disaster.
The dust covered everything and caused health problems. The dried-out soil carried diseases and pesticides that made people suffer from long term health problems.
The holidays caught up with me, and I didn’t have enough time to research and write a new article this week, so I am re-running this one from 11 years ago. At the time I was confused about the “white” bear killed during this ring hunt. I thought it was either a polar bear that wandered far to the south of its range or an albino black bear. I later learned white bear was an archaic term for grizzly bear. This would be the only evidence that grizzly bears occasionally wandered this far east. There is fossil evidence of grizzly bears in Kentucky from Welsh Cave.
On a message board a reader expressed disbelief over the abundance of wildlife, especially carnivores, but there are eyewitness accounts of heavy concentrations of wildlife in Kentucky and Oklahoma during the 19th century. That abundance extended east until European settlers destroyed it. Another reader (some kind of sadist) thought the idea of a ring hunt was fun.
35 years ago, I saw a photograph of Jack Johnson and was so impressed with his physique that I was inspired to buy a punching bag. I’ve been banging on the heavy bag for 4 5-minute rounds twice a week ever since. For some stupid reason (I don’t know why) punching the bag gave me more confidence than tennis or weight-training–2 other physical activities with which I was fairly proficient. I was surprised to recently learn that neither my wife nor my sister had ever heard of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world. He won the championship in 1908 when roughly 10% of the U.S. population belonged to the KKK, and this hate group was mainstream, not like today when it’s just an organization for a few hateful losers. The heavyweight boxing champion was the most famous celebrity in sports throughout the entire 20th century, and boxing was 1 of the most popular sports in 1908, ranking behind baseball, horse racing, and maybe bicycle racing. (Football was in its infancy. The forward pass had just been legalized.) Today, most people aren’t aware of the heavyweight champion (Olexander Usyk from Ukraine), and I (a boxing fan) even had to look his name up to remind myself of who the current champion is. It was a big disaster for white supremacists and racists when a black man won this coveted title near the turn of the last century. Here is a brief history of Jack Johnson’s life.
Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas during 1908. His parents were former slaves who worked their way into a respectable middle-class standard of living. His father was a janitor, and his mother washed other people’s clothes. His family included 8 natural brothers and sisters and an adopted brother. Nevertheless, his parents managed to buy a nice house that was later destroyed by the famous Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Galveston was a port city with many different types of people, and it was less viciously racist than most other cities of the time. Jack’s best childhood friend was white. To make money as a child, Jack held on to the milkman’s horse when he took bottles to people’s front doors.
Jack didn’t like working on the docks as a teenager, and he started boxing for money. He hoboed on a train and went to Chicago for his first fight where he met Jack Curley, the promoter who transmogrified pro wrestling into the pre-arranged spectacle that it is today. Curley would later promote Jack’s fight with Jess Willard. Jack’s first fight was a battle royale, an event where a group of black men wearing blind folds swung at each other, and the last man standing was the winner and would get a few bucks. White spectators thought these events were hilarious. Jack was the winner. Jack worked a little while as a sparring partner in New Jersey, then returned to Galveston and beat the local heavyweight champion. His first notable fight was against the Jewish boxer Joe Choynski, an experience fighter who had had bouts with 5 different champions. (Choynski was the first boxer ever to get hit by a left hook, a punch invented by Gentleman Jim Corbett during his 26-round fight against Choynski on an offshore barge. Corbett had broken his hand but it hurt less to land a hook. Corbett won the fight but had to be told he won because he was senseless himself.) Boxing was illegal in Texas, so the bout between Johnson and Choynski was billed as a physical education exhibition. Choynski knocked Johnson out in the 3rd round with a sudden left hook to the eye, and as soon as the fight was over, 6 Texas Rangers entered the ring and arrested the fighters. The judge told Choynski he should be ashamed of himself for beating up a poor black kid who didn’t know anything about boxing, and he sentenced the 2 of them to spend their days in jail, though at night Choynski went to a hotel and Johnson went home. They sparred for the guards and reporters while in jail and became good friends. Choynski advised Johnson to become a more defensive fighter, and this change in tactics made him more successful. The judge released them, and Johnson headed to California where boxing was legal and popular.
Johnson’s physique inspired me to buy a heavy punching bag 35 years ago, and I’ve been banging on it ever since. His bout with Ketchel was semi-fixed, but Ketchel sucker punched Johnson who got up and really knocked Ketchel out.
Johnson and Choynski were arrested after their fight in Texas because boxing was illegal there. Choynski advised Johnson to become a defensive fighter and the counseling made him a better fighter.
Johnson’s 1st legal wife. She was an actress who killed herself. Johnson was reviled by both black and white for marrying white women.
Johnson developed into a great defensive fighter with a terrific right uppercut. The uppercut was an effective punch for the style of fighting then that involved much clinching and infighting. (I can’t really analyze his fights because the ancient film quality is so poor I can’t determine if punches land.) Early during his career he had a hard time with Klondike Smith, another black fighter with a defensive style, but he fought him 5 times and eventually beat him. Johnson’s first manager was Frank Carillo, a saloon-owner who had financial interests in racehorses as well. Carillo was the kind of unscrupulous crook who would set up illegal cock fights, call the police on the participants, and loan bail money to the people in jail at exorbitant interest rates. Sportswriters first took note of Johnson when he was Kid Carter’s sparring partner, and he was beating him. Johnson won the “colored” heavyweight championship in 1903 and fired Carillo for stealing his money. In another important bout he defeated Ed Martin in a 20-round fight, knocking him down 3 times despite being outweighed by 70 pounds. Next, he destroyed the former heavyweight champion Bob Fitzimmons–an easy 3 round knockout. Johnson began campaigning to fight the white heavyweight champion, Jim Jeffries, but Jeffries refused to give a black man the chance to win the heavyweight championship for blatantly racist reasons. Jeffries retired after wiping out all the white contenders. Tommy Burns won a tournament to replace Jeffries as champ, and he promised Johnson his turn, but first he took on all the top white contenders. Johnson even followed Burns to Australia to challenge him. Eventually, Burns agreed to the fight, though he earned 6 times more money than Johnson for the bout. Burns was only 5’7″, but he was a good fighter often beating much larger opponents. Johnson’s skill had him outclassed. His rushing style was tailor made for Johnson’s defensive style. Johnson knocked him out in the 15th round. Racist white people were appalled. Newspapers referred to Johnson with every racist epithet I’ve ever heard, and some I haven’t. Southerners offered to lynch him.
Johnson’s first notable defense after a couple of exhibitions was a fight with the middle weight champion Stanley Ketchel, the first “Great White Hope.” (All the white fighters who challenged Johnson were the hope of racists.) The fight was semi-fixed. (It may have been so they could sell film rights for a long bout, but no one really knows why.) Johnson was supposed to carry Ketchel for 20 rounds and get the decision. Ketchel had a rushing style, also tailer made for Johnson. However, Ketchel double crossed Johnson and sucker punched him, knocking him down. Johnson got up and knocked Ketchel out with a blow so hard it knocked 4 of his teeth out which stuck in Johnson’s glove. Now, the public demanded Jeffries come out of retirement to save the honor of the white race. Nat Fleischer, founder of Ring Magazine, saw every heavyweight champion from Gentleman Jim Corbett to Muhammad Ali, and he claims Jeffries was the best in his prime. Jeffries was no longer in his prime by the time he agreed to fight Johnson. He had been retired for 5 years, was drinking heavily, smoked 6-7 packs of cigarettes a day, and had ballooned up to 300 pounds. He did get back into shape, and the fight took place in 1910. It was by far the biggest most anticipated sporting event of the 20th century up to that point. Jeffries might have won a few early rounds, but Johnson outboxed him and knocked him out in the 15th round. The overtly racist crowd attending the fight was stunned silent. As a result of the fight, race riots across the country led to the deaths of 11 people. Scores more were wounded.
Jack Johnson defeated Jim Jeffries in 1910. A sea of white people were stunned silent by the result.
Johnson went to Europe due to legal difficulties which I will discuss below. There, he beat overmatched competition in exhibitions simply for pocket money, including the first all-black heavyweight championship bout (for the real title) against Battling Jim Johnson. His next big fight was in 1915 in Havana, Cuba against Jess Willard, an ex-bronco buster who was as big as modern heavyweights at 6’7″ and 230 pounds. By now, Johnson was not training hard and was overconfident. He agreed to a 45 round fight and easily outboxed Willard for most of 20 rounds. If it would have been like a modern 12 or 15 round fight, he would have easily retained his crown by decision. Instead, it was very hot, and Willard used his weight to wear Johnson out. Finally, he knocked Johnson out in the 26th round. Years later, Johnson claimed he threw the fight, but evidence suggests this was not true, and he was trying to sell a phony story for money. It was over 90 degrees F, and it doesn’t make sense that he would toil so hard in that heat, if he was planning on taking a dive. Johnson continued to fight exhibitions for money but never fought a top contender after losing his crown. He wanted to fight Jack Dempsey who destroyed Willard in 1919 to win the heavyweight crown, but Dempsey’s promoter wouldn’t let him fight black boxers. Though Dempsey’s aggressive style was tailor made for Johnson, he was much younger and in much better shape. Dempsey likely would have won. Johnson fought well into his sixties because he was always nearly broke. Until he was 48 he won against overmatched competition and made top contender Firpo look bad in sparring, but in his late 40s he even started losing to lesser opponents.
Johnson was already reviled for being a black heavyweight champion, but he made even more enemies by openly courting and marrying white women when miscegenation was illegal in more than half of the states. Most of the women were prostitutes who he referred to as his wife when in public. He did fall in love with the mentally unstable actress Etta Duryea, and he really married her. Johnson’s conduct was questionable. He continued seeing prostitutes behind her back, and he beat her (putting her in the hospital) at least once. She suffered from depression and committed suicide. 3 weeks later, Johnson started seeing another white prostitute, Lucille Cameron who performed in his integrated night club known as the Cafe de Champion. He married her, and her mother, with the aid of a crooked lawyer, falsely accused Johnson of forcibly holding her captive. This began Johnson’s legal troubles, eventually forcing him to live overseas as a fugitive from justice. There was a popular conspiracy theory then that Jews were kidnapping white women and forcing them to live as slaves for rich black men. As a result, Congress passed The Mann Act which expressly forbade the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. (An unmarried couple who went out of state for a vacation together could be prosecuted, showing how ridiculous this law was.) Johnson tried to bribe his way out of it but was forced to flee to Canada to avoid a certain prison sentence. From there he went to England and France and performed a strong man act and acted in plays in theaters between fights. He even starred in a Spanish movie, though that film hasn’t survived the ravages of time. He spent some time in Cuba where he lost to Willard, and Mexico before crossing the border and turning himself in to authorities. The feds sent him to Leavenworth prison for 2 years, but thanks to his political connections, he was treated better than the average prisoner and put on boxing shows for inmates.
After his release from prison, Johnson performed in small theaters and boxed for small prize winnings, but he was not popular and was no longer front-page news. He stumbled from one failed money-making scheme to another, and he never saved much money. He was always a spend-thrift. He did buy a house for his mother, but he spent most of his money on fast cars, jewelry, and women. His 2nd wife divorced him. Shortly after this divorce, he married his 3rd and final wife, Irene Pineaux. She said he was charming, and she always vigorously defended his reputation.
Johnson was a reckless driver. He once spent 2 weeks in jail for repeated speeding tickets, and 1 year when he was drinking heavily, he totaled 4 cars. He drove even faster during ice storms, and some of his friends refused to be passengers in his car. On a road trip from Chicago to Texas, he and his companion stopped at a restaurant but were forced to eat behind the establishment because they didn’t serve black people. Johnson drove so angrily after this incident, he wrecked his car and died as a result of the accident. His passenger survived. Johnson was 67.
Black boxers of later generations blamed Johnson for their difficulties in getting chances to fight for titles. They thought his open defiance of social norms gave black fighters a bad reputation. Joe Louis overcame this obstacle and became the first black boxing champion who was mostly accepted by white people. Johnson had a feud with Louis and openly rooted for his opponents. Jack Blackburn was Louis’s trainer. Blackburn was a great lightweight boxer who never had a chance to fight for the title. Despite being a lightweight, he outboxed Johnson in sparring decades earlier, and they didn’t like each other. Johnson wanted Louis to fire Blackburn and hire him as his trainer. Louis’s refused to fire Blackburn, and a bitter jealous Johnson constantly belittled Louis in the press, starting a feud that never ended, while they lived. Muhammad Ali, however, always expressed his admiration for Johnson’s defiance against the racist norms of the time.
Reference:
Ward, Geoffrey
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
GeorgiaBeforePeople 