Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Today -100: October 20, 1921: Of coups, perfume bombs, and lynch mobs


Military coup in Portugal.

Germany threaten an economic boycott of the parts of Upper Silesia granted to Poland.

A bomb (actually a grenade) is sent to US Ambassador to France Myron Herrick, in the guise of a package from “a well-known perfumery house,” but it only injures his English valet, who luxuriates in the very English-valet name Blanchard. Blanchard recognized the sound from his wartime service and hurls it into the bathroom. The police won’t let the ambassador into the crime scene to get his evening clothes, so the bomb inconveniences him by forcing him to go out to play bridge in the same clothes he’s been wearing all day. The French police suspect the Communists, who have been sending letters to Herrick about Sacco and Vanzetti. 

Police thwart a lynch mob in Vineland, NJ, getting confessed alliterative negro child-slayer Louis Lively to safety, which is nice of them considering he shot a cop who tried to capture him.

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