After the October 1, 2017 shooting in Las Vegas, there were some claims that it was the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. This isn’t surprising, since 58 people were killed and another 489 wounded. In the minds of the media, it displaced the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting (49 killed and 58 wounded) as the worst shooting.
Very few people in 1951 thought that the idea of having an NBA All-Star game would work, yet NBA Publicist Haskell Cohen had a different opinion.
At the time, Walter Brown was the head coach of the Boston Celtics, and he was in the same boat as Cohen, with the idea to have a mid-season All-Star game which will hold 20 of the NBA’s most talented players. Yet the Commissioner, Maurice Podoloff, wanted the game to be called off just days before the game would be played.
In 1870, Auguste Bartholdi began designing “Liberty Enlightening the World”. This was not the first time he had designed a giant statue if a robed woman holding a torch. He had planned on as part of a lighthouse for the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869. He called it “Egypt Brings Light to Asia”. But, there was a change in plans and that statue was never built.
The statue we call the Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884 and presented to the United States Ambassador to France. It was shipped to the U.S. and assembled in New York in 1886 and dedicated on October 28 of that year. The arm and torch had visited America earlier, in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. It was then sent to New York City until 1882.
In 1984 the statue’s original torch was replaced by a copper torch covered in 24k gold leaf.
The statue represents the Roman goddess Libertas and the tablet she holds is inscribed with the date “July 4, 1776″. From toes to torch top, she is 151 feet and 1 inch tall.
Statue of Liberty National Monument Visitor’s Information Guide