5 Things You May Not Have Known About Buffalo
The Patriots bounced back from a rough loss on Monday Night Football with their convincing win over Cincinnati on Sunday, beating the previously undefeated Bengals 43-17. Now, the Pats turn their attention to their Week 6 matchup with the Buffalo Bills, who, like the Patriots, are 3-2 and tied for first place in the AFC East.
Trailing 14-0 in Week 5, the Bills came back to tie the Detroit Lions before Dan Carpenter hit a 58-yard field goal to give the Bills a 17-14 win in Detroit. They now look to beat the Patriots, something they haven’t accomplished since 2011.
In honor of the Patriots’ visit to Ralph Wilson Stadium this Sunday, here are five facts about Buffalo that you may not have known.
William McKinley was Assassinated in Buffalo
On Sept. 6, 1901, President William McKinley (above, left) was attending the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, when he was approached by Leon Czolgosz, a 28-year-old who proceeded to shoot him twice in the chest. After surgery shortly thereafter, he was recovering in the hospital before he became ill on Sept. 12, dying two days later from a gangrene infection in the wound. Vice President Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in as president; he would go on to finish McKinley’s term and serve one term of his own. McKinley was one of two U.S. presidents assassinated in the 20th century, the other being John F. Kennedy, who was slain in 1963.
The Los Angeles Clippers Got Their Start in Buffalo
The Buffalo Braves were founded as an NBA team in 1970. The late Marvin Barnes (above, center), who was an All-American at Providence College, played for the Braves in the 1977-78 season. After eight years in Buffalo, the team moved to San Diego and became the Clippers, who, in 1984, relocated north to Los Angeles and became the Clippers we know today. In their eight seasons in Buffalo, the Braves made the playoffs four times and won only one series, in 1976 over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Another President, Millard Fillmore, Was a Buffalo Resident
The 13th President of the United States was selected by Zachary Taylor to be his running mate on the ticket of the Whig party for the 1848 presidential election. After the Taylor was elected – and then died in 1850 – the then-Vice President was sworn in as President to serve the rest of Taylor’s term. Fillmore was not nominated for the ’52 election, as the party chose Winfield Scott, who was defeated by Franklin Pierce as Fillmore completed his term in March 1853.
During the ’75 Stanley Cup Final, a Sabres Player Killed a Bat With His Stick
In Game 3 of the 1975 Stanley Cup Final, on top of the players vying for the Cup and the fans cheering for their Sabres, there was another creature that decided to hang out in the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium: a bat. As Sabres center Jim Lorentz saw the bat flying around during play, he swung his stick at the bat and killed it.
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The Flyers won the series in six games, claiming the Cup for the second straight season, while the Sabres are still searching for their first title to this day, having last made the Final in 1999.
Buffalo Native the 1st American Executed by Electric Chair
In 1889, Buffalo native William Kemmler was convicted of murdering his common-law wife Tillie Ziegler with a hatchet. The next year, in August 1890, Kemmler became the first man in US history to be executed via the electric chair. It took Kemmler eight minutes to die after the first charge of 1,000 volts. With lethal injections now the execution method of choice in the US, the electric chair remains as a secondary method in some states where the death penalty is allowed by law. The last state to rely solely upon the chair, Nebraska, gave up the practice in 2008.
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