Today in History

Today in History: August 11

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Duke Paoa Kahanamoku

"The Father of Modern Surfing"

Duke Kahanamoku swims in Los Angeles in preparation for a comeback at the Olympics
Duke Kahanamoku Swims,
1932.
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection
Prints and Photographs Division

When Duke Kahanamoku broke the world record in the 100-yard free-style swim by 4.6 seconds in Honolulu Harbor on August 11, 1911, the Hawaiian Amateur Athletic Union telegraphed the news to Union headquarters. Officials in New York were incredulous and reportedly replied, "What are you using for stop watches? Alarm clocks?!"

Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku went on to become a three-time Olympic gold medal winner in swimming, and the father of modern surfing. Born August 24, 1890, Duke Kahanamoku was a blend of the old Hawaiian culture and the new: he spoke Hawiian, ate poi, and spent much of each day in the water; he also competed internationally and acted in Hollywood.

Kahanamoku swam using his unique combination of an Australian crawl stroke with a flutter kick to add speed. He also rode a sixteen-foot 114-pound surfboard, a longboard modeled on those of the ancient Hawaiian kings, and paddled an outrigger canoe. His love of the water, combined with his great physical strength, set the stage for his becoming a world-class athlete.

[A] beach [in] Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
A Beach in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii,
E. J. Kraus, photographer,
February 1936.
American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936

Kahanamoku participated in four Olympics and won three gold medals in water sports. His first gold was for the 100-meter free-style swim at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics where he also won a silver medal in the 200-meter relay event. Although the 1916 Olympics were not held because of World War I, Kahanamoku broke his own record at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics to win gold in both the 100-meter sprint and as a member of the U.S.'s 800-meter free-style relay team. At the 1924 Paris Olympics, he brought home a silver medal in the 100-meter free-style (his brother, Sam Kahanamoku, won the bronze while Johnny Weismuller captured the gold). Kahanamoku also won a bronze in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a member of the U.S. water polo team.

Along with others, Duke Kahanamoku revived the ancient Polynesian sport of he`e nalu or wave sliding, known today as surfing. Although Thomas Edison filmed Hawaiian surfers in 1898, surfing was a dying art when men like George Freeth, Alexander Hume Ford, and Duke Kahanamoku brought it back to life. Kahanamoku served as an unofficial ambassador for the sport and taught eager surfers from Malibu, California to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and on around the world.

"…Instinctively I got to my feet when the pitch, slant and speed seemed right. Left foot forward, knees slightly bent, I rode the board down the precipitous slope…"

Duke Kahanamoku

In the mid 1930s, Duke Kahanamoku was elected as Sheriff of the City and County of Honolulu, an office he held for thirteen terms before being appointed the city's official greeter. In the latter role he was a good will ambassador for surfing and Hawai'i. When Duke Paoa Kahanamoku died in January 1968, thousand's of mourners lined Waikiki beach near the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where, after an English and Hawaiian-language ceremony, fourteen canoes paddled single file out to scatter his ashes at sea.

Hu! Kai ko`o loa.
Well up, long raging surf.

The Rock: Alcatraz Prison

Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay
Military Prison,
Alcatraz Island in
San Francisco Bay, California,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer,
between 1920 and 1950.
Washington as it Was, 1923-1959

On August 11, 1934, a group of federal prisoners classified as "most dangerous" arrived at Alcatraz Island, a twenty-two-acre rock outcropping one-and-one-half miles offshore in San Francisco Bay.

For the next twenty-nine years, the federal prison system incarcerated high-security prisoners at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Alcatraz's most notorious inmates included Chicago mobster Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Stroud, memorialized in the 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was an uninhabited seabird haven at the time of Juan Manuel de Ayala's 1775 exploration. He named it Isla de los Alcatraces (Isle of the Pelicans). The United States acquired it in 1854, and from 1868 to 1934 Alcatraz was used to house military prisoners. Among those imprisoned there during this period were Indian scouts formerly employed by the federal government in the territory of Arizona who had run afoul of the government. At the turn of the century, American soldiers who had defected from the U.S. army to join forces with the Filipino struggle for independence from the United States were sent to Alcatraz.

Very few convicts ever escaped Alcatraz, and it is unknown whether any ever survived the bracing water and treacherous currents of San Francisco Bay. Legends about the severity of incarceration at "The Rock" have made the prison's name synonymous with arduous labor. As early as 1939, a Connecticut clockmaker recorded in the interview, "Mr. Coburn," in American Life Histories, 1936-1940, described the tough working conditions at the local clock shop by calling the shop an "Alcatraz."

The prison was abandoned in 1963 because of the expense entailed in supplying the island. Alcatraz became an important symbol in the resurgent American Indian movement of the 1960s, when a group of Sioux Indians claimed ownership of the island based on an 1868 treaty granting Indians the right to claim any unoccupied government land. Native Americans occupied the island until federal marshals forced them to leave in 1971.

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