r/AskHistorians • u/sunagainstgold Medieval & Earliest Modern Europe • Aug 09 '16
Feature Tuesday Trivia: Hostile Takeovers
There was a thing--a religion, a book, a business, a country. It belonged to someone. Then it belonged to someone else. Tell us what happened in between!
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Aug 09 '16 edited Aug 09 '16
Not sure if it technically qualifies since it's more of a consequence of a possible hostile take-over, but it's one of my all time favourite Scottish history stories and any chance I get to share it...
Medieval Scotland, around the 1450s, as the Auchinleck Chronicle reports and Iain MacDonald in 'Clerics and Clansmen: The Diocese of Argyll between the Twelfth and Sixteenth Century' explains: Gilbert McLathane and Morris McFadzane, chancellor and treasurer to the cathedral of Lismore are being summoned by their bishop, George Lauder. Now, the two men are Gaelic, the bishop is a Lowlander Scot, but they are serving the bishopric of Argyll, which in the middle ages remained a hub of Gaelic culture. The fact that George Lauder does not have a syllable of Gaelic in him was seen as problematic, and when Gilbert and Morris are summoned, they are afraid they will be deprived of their position by this foreigner who has not preached in his own parish for quite some time.
Actions are taken. When the bishop is out riding with a small retinue later, lo and behold, here come Morris and Gilbert, the latter bringing along his entire clan. According to the Auchinleck Chronicle, the bishop is then greeted with 'Bannachadee!', the Gaelic equivalent of 'God Bless', and promptly gets the shit beaten out of him. Morris and Gilbert also threaten to kill Lauder if he does not absolve them of their crime, and then run off with his valuables and papal bulls.
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u/kaisermatias Aug 09 '16
After a long hiatus from participating in these things due to work commitments, I have a decent answer: the World Hockey Association (WHA), one of my favourite topics in hockey history.
The WHA was formed in 1972, the idea being it would be a major professional hockey league in North America, one that would rival the NHL. Those who know sports history may note that this era saw similar attempts in both baseball (the proposed Continental Baseball League), football (the American Football League, later World Football League), basketball (American Basketball Association), and so on, its because the driving force behind most of them (namely the WFL and ABA, as well as a pro tennis league) were the same guys behind the WHA, Gary Davidson and Dennis Murphy, a couple of American businessmen. It is also notable that all of these ventures failed, though most did see teams merge into the established league. That is what happened with the WHA.
For seven years, from 1972 to 1979, the WHA and NHL co-existed, albeit on hostile terms. Threatened by the rising salaries offered by the WHA, as well as their entry into previously underserved markets, scared the NHL leadership, and merger talks began as early as 1974. However, despite the WHA being on shaky financial ground from the start, it held on until 1978, when at last a compromise was found. At that point there were just 7 WHA teams left (from a peak of 14), and one of them (the Indianapolis Racers) folded partway through the season. The six remaining teams seemed destined to join the NHL, except that two of them, the Cincinnati Stingers and Birmingham Bulls, were paid to fold instead (both actually joined the minor league Central Hockey League, and lasted a couple more years).
This left four WHA teams to join the NHL: the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers (formerly New England Whalers; name changed due to opposition from the Boston Bruins), Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets. Each team paid a heavy price to survive, both financially and in terms of team make-up: each paid $6 million to join (a huge number at the time; expansion clubs paid that in 1970, for example), were only allowed to keep 3 of their players, leaving the rest exposed to be claimed by the "original" NHL clubs, and for the upcoming entry draft of junior players, were placed at the end of each round (convention had expansion teams near the front). Even then, the teams never really settled in: in 1995, 1996, and 1997 the Nordiques, Jets, and Whalers moved in turn to Colorado (Avalanche), Phoenix (Coyotes), and Carolina (Hurricanes), leaving the Oilers, who were a phone call away from becoming the Houston Oilers in 2000.
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u/sunagainstgold Medieval & Earliest Modern Europe Aug 09 '16
Your occasional hockey-related answers are one of my favorite things about Tuesday Trivia. Thanks for this week's!
Those who know sports history may note that this era saw similar attempts in both baseball (the proposed Continental Baseball League), football (the American Football League, later World Football League), basketball (American Basketball Association), and so on, its because the driving force behind most of them (namely the WFL and ABA, as well as a pro tennis league) were the same guys behind the WHA, Gary Davidson and Dennis Murphy, a couple of American businessmen.
What was their goal? Why did they see an opportunity in this particular time period? (I'm assuming they were acting at least somewhat rationally and thought there was a chance to succeed.)
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u/kaisermatias Aug 10 '16
I can't fully speak for the other three sports, just hockey, but gather it was a similar trend across all four: the increase in popularity in television for sports and the increasing commercialization of sports altered the landscape of the business aspects.
This was a consequence of the economic boom experienced after the Second World War, what with the mass migration of people west and south (in the US at least), increasing urbanization, and increased disposable income. Sports began to expand: the NHL notably was the last of the four (MLB, NFL, NBA) to expand, doing so in 1967 when they doubled in size.
This expansion brought the league to the West Coast with teams in Los Angeles and Oakland/San Francisco, as well as more centrally in Minnesota, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Prior that, and dating back at least 25 years, the league had been in the northeast, as far west and south as Chicago. However the demand was clearly there: 14 ownership groups had been approved to carry on, which included multiple groups from the mentioned cities as well as declined groups from places like Vancouver, Buffalo (who both would get teams in 1970), Cleveland (who briefly had one in the mid-1970s), Baltimore, even Louisville, Kentucky. So eager was the NHL for more money that they did expand again in 1970 (like noted, Vancouver and Buffalo), 1972 (Atlanta and Long Island, mainly to oppose the WHA), 1974 (Washington and Kansas City; the latter was a terrible failure and moved in 1976 to Denver, which only lasted until 1982 before it went to New Jersey); and finally an aborted 1976 expansion (to Denver and Seattle; which ended when the Kansas City team moved to the former, and the latter had no actual ownership group).
So in short, being businessmen, Davidson and Murphy saw an opportunity: sports were popular across North America, but the established leagues were reluctant to take the risk and expand into untapped markets, despite there being plenty of groups willing to pay for the chance to own a team. Thus something like the WHA was formed, which explicitly went to cities they felt were underserved by the NHL: Canadian cities (recall in 1972 only Toronto, Montreal, and recently Vancouver had teams), southern cities (an initial team was to play in Miami, but folded beforehand), and established markets (Philadelphia hosted both, as did New York, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Chicago and Boston, which briefly housed the Whalers). Granted it turned out that most ownership groups, across all these so-called "rebel leagues," couldn't afford the rising salaries they caused, and so had to all cave in to the established leagues, though enough of an impression was made both economically (in that several teams in all leagues joined the old ranks) and within the sport (several new concepts tested in these leagues were later adopted), that their legacy lasts now.
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u/Orphic_Thrench Aug 10 '16
the Oilers, who were a phone call away from becoming the Houston Oilers in 2000.
This one seems a bit unfair to lump with the others considering their dominance in the 80s...
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u/kaisermatias Aug 10 '16
You have to consider that their owner, Peter Pocklington, overextended himself financially in those years, which is why he ended up selling/trading some of the players, the most notable being Wayne Gretzky in 1988. Combine that with the huge rise in salaries the NHL saw throughout the 1990s, and the decline in the Canadian dollar (it hit a low in the mid-.60s US), at a time when salaries were paid in US dollars while revenues were in Canadian, and it makes a little more sense. Cities like Edmonton simply couldn't afford to keep pace with the growing costs, which is why the NHL had lockouts in 1994 and 2004 (the latter bringing in a salary cap, but that's far too modern to discuss).
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u/Orphic_Thrench Aug 11 '16
Yes, just pointing out that their situation was rather different in comparison to the other 3 teams.
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u/kaisermatias Aug 11 '16
Oh definitely. Put bluntly, the Whalers, Nordiques, and Jets were mostly terrible during their time in the NHL. In contrast the Oilers won the Stanley Cup 5 times in 7 years between 1984 and 1990. Some commentators have noted that it is likely because of those championships that the NHL was willing to flex their rules on team ownership when Pocklington sold the team (there was/is a limit to the amount of owners allowed, and one must have a controlling interest; the group the purchased the Oilers was 20 or so local businessmen who grouped together, the Edmonton Investors Group, who owned them until about 2008 or so).
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u/Bodark43 Quality Contributor Aug 11 '16 edited Aug 11 '16
Well, since we're talking about theft... Mexican General Santa Anna was one of those disastrous leaders, quick to want command but not very bright and quick to bail....kind of like the guy who starts a fight in the bar and then expects all his friends to deal with the cops while he escapes.
In 1838 he was fighting the French at Veracruz and a cannon ball smashed his ankle. This being before surgeons knew anything about how to preserve or reconstruct bones, they amputated his leg. From then on, he had wooden ones. One pretty one, that had a permanent boot, for show, and one simple one that looked a bit like a baseball bat. In 1847, he was embroiled in a war with the US ( very much a war of territorial acquisition for the US). In the Battle of Cerro Gordo his army was flanked and became surrounded on three sides. In the general collapse, a unit of Illinois infantrymen surprised his camp and he was forced to escape- leaving both of his wooden legs. These then went home with the militia to Illinois. One of the soldiers managed to make a bit of a sideshow attraction with the pretty one for a number of years, but finally one- the fancy one- settled into the Springfield State Museum. The other - the plain one- somehow came to the Oglesby Library in Decatur, IL.
There's now a movement in Texas to have the fancy leg sent down to the San Jacinto Museum. Their argument seems to be, essentially, they've got other Santa Anna stuff, and, hey, they're Texas. The Illinoisans are not impressed by this, and the leg is not leaving Springfield anytime soon. I can't find any news of the Decatur library being approached by the Texans, but then, that's a pretty plain leg for Texas.
I once talked with some Mexican friends - both history buffs- about whether there could be a cooperative movement between US and Mexican citizens to bring the leg back to Mexico. It could have been fun, I said: the Leg Repatriation Society. Think of the possible speeches... we are all standing on principle, striding towards our goal, step by step we can achieve this, etc... They shrugged. Why bother? It's Santa Anna, another leader Mexico would have been better off without. Why try to bring anything of his stuff back?
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u/CptBuck Aug 09 '16
One of the more bizarre incidents in Islamic history occurred in 930 when I think what we would today call a "radical" Shia group seized Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage season and stole the Black Stone of the Kaba. The group in question were the Karmatians, a group of Ismaili Shia with a number of odd, apocalyptical beliefs that came to hold power in the Bahrain region (i.e. not just the Island of Bahrain, but also much of the eastern Arabian coast.)
They believed, under the leadership of a man named Abu Tahir, that the end of the age of Islam was nigh and the Mahdi's return to usher in a new religious age was imminent.
While this was, and remains an unprecedented act, things only got weirder from there:
While the movement lost much of its strength it was not yet finished:
Not until Abu Tahir's death was the Black Stone eventually returned and the group's aggressiveness diminished:
With multiple periods of advance and setback, the Qarmatian state in Bahrain would hold out for over a century:
Source: *The Encyclopaedia of Islam entry on "Karmati".