Today -100: May 27, 1917: Of race riots, deadly pencils, and millionaire actors

There’s a race riot in NYC’s Upper East Side, following an incident where a bartender over-charged a black man that escalated thanks in part to some incompetent policing by National Defense Guards, who were covering for regular cops taking the sergeant’s exam. White and black men attack each other with razors and guns, and police shoot one black men dead.

Headline of the Day -100: 

Baron von Rosen of Sweden is arrested in Norway with “an amazing collection of bombs, poisons, and deadly bacilli”. And exploding pencils! Which blow up whoever tries to sharpen them. But evidently the good baron is breaking no Norwegian law, so they let him go and tell him to leave the country.

The film industry has stopped blabbing about how much it’s paying its stars now that Congress is looking for sectors of the economy to soak in order to pay for the war, but three stars are evidently making more than $1,000,000 a year. And yes, they’re Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford (the Bank of America’s sweetheart), and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

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