Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) is the third Twentieth-Century Fox film starring Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan. Inspector Chan and Jimmy Chan, played by Victor Sen Yung, are flying to the San Francisco World Exposition in 1939 as the film opens. The bumpy ride is making Jimmy very nervous. Also on the flight is Charlie’s friend Paul Essex, played
For my birthday this year, I purchased one of my favorite books, The Way to Live in Health and Strength (affiliate link) by Georg Hackenschmidt. Georg Hackenschmidt set many weightlifitng world records before focusing on professional wrestling. Hackenschmidt would win the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship in 1901. Hackenschmidt would reign as undefeated World Champion for 7 years until losing his
Sunday morning, August 12, 1900, St. Louis Police arrested four former Transit Line streetcar workers for blowing up the Olive Street line on Maryland Avenue between N. Taylor and N. Euclid Avenues on the previous night at 11:00 p.m. Police arrested Maurice Brennan, Fred E. Northway, James Schwartz and James Finnesey. Police found 30 pounds of dynamite and 30 feet
In one of those strange coincidences of history, the Streetcar Union President Sherman C. Patterson was stabbed by a union machinist named Edward Canty after a saloon disagreement. At a time when several of his opponents in the 1900 St. Louis Streetcar Strike would love to have seen him sent on a train out of town, Patterson is stabbed by
William Muldoon, a former New York City detective, won the World Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship by defeating Thiebaud Bauer. Muldoon reigned for ten years before retiring as champion. After retiring, he began to make a living as a personal trainer. Muldoon trained many wrestlers but really came to prominence after getting a woefully out of shape John L. Sullivan fit for
After you earn your Green Rank, you will have completed your first year of training. Congratulations. On average, 75 percent of students who started with you have already quit training. Lucky for you, they will be much better targets for criminals. A humorous anecdote is told about two campers worried about a bear attack. One of the campers tells his
On Monday evening, July 16, 1917, St. Louis Police Officer Julius H. Petring assigned to the North Market Division entered a rooming house at 2301 N. Market Street. Petring asked the proprietor William Dietrich to rent a room for him and his wife. His “wife” was his recently divorced girlfriend Freda Hagenmeyer. Officer Petring had been seeing Freda Hagenmeyer, who
When I started researching the family history, I only knew about two of my great-grandmother Caroline “Lee” Ellis’ nee Johannpeter’s siblings. My grandfather told me a lot about his Uncle “Jules”, Julius Johannpeter. Grandpa lived with Uncle Jules from the time he left Missouri Military Academy in 1932 until he married my grandmother, Alvina Ellis nee Mosblech in 1938. Grandpa
Tom Hyer won the American Bare Knuckle Prizefighting Championship in 1841. Like most prizefighting champions of the Nineteenth Century, he did not fight very often. Hyer normally paid his bills as an enforcer for political parties in New York. Originally, Hyer employed his talents for the Whigs but would switch allegiances to the “Know Nothing Party” with his friend William
The secret to success in the martial arts or any area of life is mastering the basics. While this statement sounds intuitive, very few people actually do it. Many practitioners find the basics “boring” and want to move onto more advanced moves. The problem with this approach is emphasizing a 1 percent move over a 99 percent move. Taking Taekwondo