Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Three boys were out playing in the woods near Dishman when they found a man asleep against a tree. 

“Dancing and whooping about nearby, they sought to awaken him,” but without success. Finally, one particularly brave boy crept up with a twig and tickled the sleeper’s nose.

The man wasn’t asleep. He was dead.

They ran home and summoned authorities, who determined that the man had committed suicide several weeks earlier.

From the sports beat: A Sunday feature story breathlessly informed the public about a new and strange sport in Spokane: soccer.

Spokane even had its own nascent soccer league, although as the story pointed out, the chief qualification for being a soccer player was a birthplace in “England, Scotland or Wales.” One Spokane league official formerly played for Queen’s Park in Glasgow.

An illustration helpfully provided this tip about the difference between soccer and football: “Don’t try to carry the ball unless you want a combination Celtic-Saxon riot on your hands.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1944: In occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that had killed 32 German soldiers.