IN: Elmer Kenneth Strong (April 21, 1906 - October 5, 1979) was an American football halfback and fullback who also played minor league baseball. Considered one of the greatest all-around players in the early decades of the game, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1957 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967 and was named to the NFL 1930s All-Decade Team. A native of West Haven, Connecticut, Strong played college baseball and football for the NYU Violets. In football, he led the country in scoring with 162 points in 1928, gained over 3,000 yards from scrimmage, and was a consensus first-team selection on the 1928 College Football All-America Team.

In 1933, Strong signed with the New York Giants. The 1932 Giants had compiled a 4-6-2 record, but the 1933 Giants, with Strong at fullback and Harry Newman at quarterback, improved to 11-3 and advanced to the 1933 NFL Championship Game. Strong led the NFL with 64 points in 1933; his points were scored on three rushing touchdowns, two receiving touchdowns, a touchdown on an interception return, five field goals, and 13 extra points. On November 26, 1933, he became the first known player in NFL history to score on a fair catch kick. The 30-yard kick was made at the Polo Grounds in a win against the Green Bay Packers. After the 1933 season, Strong received first-team All-Pro honors from the United Press, Collyer's Eye, and the Green Bay Press-Gazette.  In 1934, Strong again played in every game for the Giants as a fullback. He rushed for 431 yards and scored 56 points (six rushing touchdowns, four field goals, and eight extra points) in the regular season. His greatest fame derives from his role in the Giants' comeback victory over the Chicago Bears in the 1934 NFL Championship Game; Strong scored 17 points for the Giants on a 38-yard field goal, two fourth-quarter touchdowns on runs of 42 and 8 yards, and two extra points. Strong received first-team All-Pro honors in 1934 from the NFL and others.  In 1935, Strong helped lead the Giants to their third consecutive NFL Championship Game. In a 10-7 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was only able to play a few minutes due to injury, but he still managed to score all of the Giants' points on a 24-yard touchdown run and a 24-yard field goal. Slowed by injury in 1935, he was described as "a celebrated invalid" who "hobbled" from the bench to kick a field goal for the Giants in a 3-0 victory over the Bears on November 17. In the 1935 NFL Championship Game, a 26-7 loss to the Detroit Lions, Strong scored all of the Giants' points on a long touchdown catch and run and the extra point.

What were some of his other accomplishments?

OUT: On November 26, 1933, he became the first known player in NFL history to score on a fair catch kick.


IN: Bhagat Singh, a Sandhu Jat, was born in 1907 to Kishan Singh and Vidyavati at Chak No. 105 GB, Banga village, Jaranwala Tehsil in the Lyallpur district of the Punjab Province of British India. His birth coincided with the release of his father and two uncles, Ajit Singh and Swaran Singh, from jail. His family members were Sikhs; some had been active in Indian Independence movements, others had served in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army.

In 1928, the British government set up the Simon Commission to report on the political situation in India. Some Indian political parties boycotted the Commission because there were no Indians in its membership, and there were protests across the country. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a march in protest against it. Police attempts to disperse the large crowd resulted in violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge (use batons against) the protesters and personally assaulted Rai, who was injured. Rai died of a heart attack on 17 November 1928. Doctors thought that his death might have been hastened by the injuries he had received. When the matter was raised in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the British Government denied any role in Rai's death.  Bhagat was a prominent member of the HRA and was probably responsible, in large part, for its change of name to HSRA in 1928. The HSRA vowed to avenge Rai's death. Singh conspired with revolutionaries like Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, and Chandrashekhar Azad to kill Scott. However, in a case of mistaken identity, the plotters shot John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, as he was leaving the District Police Headquarters in Lahore on 17 December 1928.  Contemporary reaction to the killing differs substantially from the adulation that later surfaced. The Naujawan Bharat Sabha, which had organised the Lahore protest march along with the HSRA, found that attendance at its subsequent public meetings dropped sharply. Politicians, activists, and newspapers, including The People, which Rai had founded in 1925, stressed that non-co-operation was preferable to violence. The murder was condemned as a retrograde action by Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress leader, but Jawaharlal Nehru later wrote that:  Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. He became a symbol, the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumerable songs grew about him and the popularity that the man achieved was something amazing.

How did Lala die?

OUT:
Rai died of a heart attack