IN: Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret (nee Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jesse de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th Century due to religious persecution. De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans.

At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.  On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone -- race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie -- which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.  The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.

When did Lee de Forest work on Arc radiotelephone development ?

OUT: On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone


IN: James Alvin Palmer (born October 15, 1945) is a retired American right-handed pitcher who played all of his 19 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Baltimore Orioles (1965-67, 1969-84) and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. Palmer was the winning pitcher in 186 games in the 1970s, the most wins in that decade by any MLB pitcher. He also won at least twenty games in each of eight seasons and received three Cy Young Awards and four Gold Gloves during the decade. His 268 career victories are currently an Orioles record.

In 1991, Palmer attempted a comeback with the Orioles. Palmer said that he wanted to make sure that he had not retired too early. ESPN, which was trying to cut expenses, had asked him to take a pay cut and to sign a three-year contract. Palmer said he would sign a one-year contract for less pay, but ESPN refused. "I wouldn't be here today if the broadcasting climate had been more to my liking. That was really my prime motivation, the fact that I no longer had that obligation", Palmer said during spring training.  Covering Palmer's spring training workouts, Richard Hoffer of Sports Illustrated said that Palmer's comeback was not entirely about money. He wrote that "it is fair to suspect that a certain vanity is involved." Hoffer said that Palmer "has failed to excite either ridicule or astonishment. He's in fabulous condition, no question. But no matter whom he lines up with on the row of practice mounds, there is more pop in the gloves of catchers other than his."  While working out at the University of Miami during his comeback attempt, Palmer was approached by Miami assistant coach Lazaro Collazo. Collazo reportedly told him, "You'll never get into the Hall of Fame with those mechanics." "I'm already in the Hall of Fame", Palmer replied. To help Palmer's pitching motion, Collazo and Palmer completed unusual drills that involved Palmer placing a knee or foot on a chair as he tossed the ball.  After giving up five hits and two runs in two innings of a spring training game, he retired permanently. Palmer said that he tore his hamstring while warming up for the game, commenting, "I'm not saying I wouldn't like to continue, but I can't", he said. "I heard something pop in my leg yesterday. It wasn't a nice sound. I don't know what that means, but I think it's going to play havoc with my tennis game." He retired with a 268-152 win-loss record and a 2.86 ERA.

What records does Jim Palmer hold?

OUT: retired with a 268-152 win-loss record and a 2.86 ERA.


IN: Pyle was born to William Clyde Pyle and Maria Taylor near Dana, Indiana, on August 3, 1900. After attending local schools, he joined the United States Navy Reserve during World War I at age 17. He served three months of active duty until the war ended, then finished his enlistment in the reserves and was discharged with the rank of Petty Officer Third Class. After the war Pyle attended Indiana University, editing the Indiana Daily Student newspaper and traveling to the Orient with his fraternity brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

In 1926, Pyle, tired of working at a desk, quit his job. Over the following two years he and his wife traveled over 9,000 miles across the United States in a Ford roadster. In 1928 he returned to The Washington Daily News, and for the following four years served as the country's first and best-known aviation columnist. As Amelia Earhart later said, "Any aviator who didn't know Pyle was a nobody."  In 1932 Pyle once again became managing editor of The Washington Daily News. Two years later he took an extended vacation in California to recuperate from a severe bout of flu. Upon his return, to fill in for the paper's vacationing syndicated columnist Heywood Broun, he wrote a series of 11 columns about his stay in California and the people he had met there.  The series proved unexpectedly popular with both readers and colleagues. G.B. ("Deac") Parker, editor-in-chief of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, said he had found in Pyle's vacation articles "a Mark Twain quality that knocked my eye out." In 1935 Pyle once again resigned his position as managing editor to accept an offer from the Scripps-Howard Alliance to write his own national column. Traveling the highways and back roads of the country and the Americas, he wrote about the unusual places and people he met. Selected columns were later published posthumously in Home Country (1947).  Perpetually dissatisfied with his writing, Pyle suffered from bouts of deep depression. He continued his daily column until a few months after the United States entered World War II on December 8, 1941.

How did Pyle get into being a columnist

OUT:
In 1928 he returned to The Washington Daily News, and for the following four years served as the country's first and best-known aviation columnist.