Pole sitting is the practice of sitting on top of a pole (such as a flagpole) as a test of endurance. A small platform is typically placed at the top of the pole for the sitter. Led by the stunt actor and former sailor Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, flagpole sitting was a fad in the mid-to-late 1920s, but mostly died out after the start of the Great Depression.
Pole sitting is predated by the ancient ascetic discipline of stylitism, or column-sitting. St. Simeon Stylites the Elder (c. 388–459) of Antioch (now Turkey) was a column-sitter who sat on a small platform on a column for 36 years. [1]
Flagpole sitting was a fad in the mid-to-late 1920s. The fad was begun by stunt actor and former sailor [2] Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, who sat on a flagpole, either on a dare by a friend [3] or as a publicity stunt. [2] Shipwreck's initial 1924 sit lasted 13 hours and 13 minutes. It soon became a fad with other contestants setting records of 12, 17 and 21 days. In 1929, Shipwreck decided to reclaim the title. He sat on a flagpole for 49 days in Atlantic City, New Jersey, setting a new record. [4] The following year, 1930, his record was broken by Bill Penfield in Strawberry Point, Iowa, who sat on a flagpole for 51 days and 20 hours, until a thunderstorm forced him down.
For the most part, pole sitting was confined to the 1920s, ending with the onset of the Depression. [5]
In a dialog sequence early in the 1932 movie The Most Dangerous Game , the character Zaroff introduces the protagonist Bob to his guests as a celebrity, upon which Martin guesses (incorrectly) that Bob might be a flagpole sitter.
In 2004, Danish film Tid Til Forandring / What's Wrong With This Picture the pole-sitting competition is prominently featured as a part of the film with the main character Inge winning the contest by abandoning the sitting as the sole remaining participant when a dog resembling her own passes by. [14] [15]
Tree sitting is a form of environmentalist civil disobedience in which a protester sits in a tree, usually on a small platform built for the purpose, to protect it from being cut down. Supporters usually provide the tree sitters with food and other supplies.
Stanley Anthony Coveleski was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for four American League (AL) teams between 1912 and 1928, primarily the Cleveland Indians. The star of the Indians pitching staff, he won over 20 games each year from the war-shortened 1918 season through 1921, leading the AL in shutouts twice and in strikeouts and earned run average (ERA) once each during his nine years with the club. The star of the 1920 World Series, he led the Indians to their first title with three complete-game victories, including a 3–0 shutout in the Game 7 finale. Traded to the Washington Senators after the 1924 season, he helped that club to its second AL pennant in a row with 20 victories against only 5 losses, including a 13-game winning streak, while again leading the league in ERA.
In a motorsports race, the pole position is usually the best and "statistically the most advantageous" starting position on the track. The pole position is usually earned by the driver with the best qualifying times in the trials before the race, although penalties may award it to the second fastest driver, as the pole position is statistically awarded to the driver starting in first position. The number-one qualifying driver is also referred to as the pole-sitter. The pole position starts the race "at the front of the starting grid. This provides the driver in the pole position the privilege of starting ahead of all the other drivers".
The act of swallowing live goldfish was a fad popularized in American colleges in the late 1930s.
Babe Ruth's called shot is the home run hit by Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees against the Chicago Cubs in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, held on October 1, 1932, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. During his at-bat, Ruth made a pointing gesture before hitting the home run to deep center field. One of the reporters at the game wrote that Ruth had "called his shot", using terminology from billiards. The episode added to Ruth's superstardom and became a signature event of baseball's golden age.
Edward Gottlieb was a Jewish-Ukrainian professional basketball coach and executive. Nicknamed "Mr. Basketball" and "The Mogul", he was the first coach and manager of the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and later became the owner of the team from 1951 to 1962. A native of Kiev, Ukraine, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year Award, the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, was formerly named after him.
"Flagpole Sitta" is a song by American rock band Harvey Danger from their 1997 debut album, Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? It was released as the band's debut single in April 1998 and was met with critical and commercial success, peaking at number 38 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart, number three on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and number nine on the Canadian RPM Alternative 30. A music video was produced to promote the single.
The 2000 Major League Baseball season ended with the New York Yankees defeating the New York Mets in five games, for their third consecutive World Series title.
The 1949 season was the 49th season in the history of the Cleveland Indians. The club entered the season as the defending World Champions. On March 5, 1949, Indians minority owner Bob Hope donned a Cleveland Indians uniform and posed with manager Lou Boudreau and vice president Hank Greenberg as the World Series champions opened spring training camp in Tucson, Arizona.
Endurance art is a kind of performance art involving some form of hardship, such as pain, solitude or exhaustion. Performances that focus on the passage of long periods of time are also known as durational art or durational performances.
Lost World Caverns, located just outside Lewisburg, West Virginia, is an underground natural series of caverns. In November 1973, the caverns were registered as a National Natural Landmark as they "feature terraced pedestal-like stalagmites, flowstone, curtains, rimstone, domepits, and waterfalls."
Nikolas Wallenda is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feats, and is best known as the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls. Wallenda walked 1,800 feet (550 m) on a steel cable over Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, his longest walk, on March 4, 2020.
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic South Pole.
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
Morgan White was an American radio disc jockey and actor.
The Henry Chisholm was a wooden freighter that sank off the shore of Isle Royale in Lake Superior in 1898 and the remains are still on the lake bottom. The wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Middle Georgia Raceway was a raceway located in Byron, Georgia. Nine NASCAR Grand National Series races were held at the track between 1966 and 1971. Richard Petty won four races, Bobby Allison won three, and David Pearson and Bobby Isaac each earned one victory.
Aloysius Anthony Kelly, popularly known as Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, was a pole sitter who achieved fame in the 1920s and 1930s, sitting for days at a time on elevated perches throughout the United States.
A stylite or pillar-saint is a type of Christian ascetic who lives on pillars, preaching, fasting and praying. Stylites believe that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls. Stylites were common in the early days of the Byzantine Empire. The first known stylite was Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed a pillar in Syria in 423 and remained there until his death 36 years later.
A human endurance contest is an event in which people complete mentally or physically grueling tasks for an extended period of time. The contests are exploitative entertainment events which began during the Great Depression in the 1920s-1930s as a means to earn income. Examples include dance marathon or walk-a-thons, pole sitting, marathon swimming, ice sitting, burial artists and other forms of early endurance art.