Let's talk about the World Series. The Chicago cubs won it all with a 4-3 win rate over the Cleveland Indians. It was an incredible, nail-biting game, and as a Cubs fan, I am understandably very excited about this, as are all the other Cubs fans out there. But it's not just that my team won the big game. This is way bigger than that, because this victory constituted the breaking of a curse. You all remember the Curse of the Bambino which cursed the Boston Red Sox from 1918-2004? Well ours is worse. That curse was a measly 86 years. The Cubs' curse began in 1945 (the Curse of the Billy Goat) after the team failed to win the World Series. Now, that's only 71 years, but you have to take into account that they hadn't won since 1908 before that. That's a 108 year winning drought. Cubs fans have been born, lived their entire lives, and died without ever having experienced what I got to experience the other night. So this was a big deal. To highlight this fact for people who don't know or maybe don't really care about sports, I've compiled a list of things that have happened between the last Cubs World Series victory and now.
1) Messiah College (1909)
2) 16 U.S. presidents were elected
3) Haley's comet passed by twice (1910 and 1986). That only happens every 75-76 years.
4) Lonesome George (1910-2012) George was the last of the Pinta Island Tortoises, and lived to be 102 years old
5) Titanic (1911)
6) 4 new states joined the Union--Alaska (1959), Hawaii (1959), Arizona (1912), and New Mexico (1912)
7) World War I (1914-1918)
8) Women's Suffrage (1920) yay equality!
9) Prohibition began and ended (1920-1933)
10) Television was invented (1927) And then color television
11) Movies with sound (1927) And color
12) Great Depression (1929)
13) Snow White--First full length animated feature film (1938)
14) World War II (1939-1945)
15) Rock 'n Roll (1940s-1950s)
16) Microwave was invented (1946)
17) Cold War (1947-1991)
18) McDonald's (1948)
19) Korean War (1950-1953)
20) Polio Vaccine (1953)
21) Civil Right's Movement (1954-1968) equalityyyy!!!
22) Vietnam War (1954-1975)
23) Disco (1960s-1970s)
24) JFK Assassination (1963)
25) Beatles arrive in the U.S. (1964)
26) Man went to the moon (1969) One giant leap for mankind...but not for the Cubs
27) Watergate (1972)
28) Cell Phones (1973)
29) VHS (1976)
30) CDs (1982)
31) 3D Printing (1986)
32) Flip Phones (1989)
33) The internet (1991)
34) Friends (1994-2004) I'll be there for you...
35) DVDs (1995)
36) mp3 (1997)
37) 7 Harry Potter books and 8 Harry Potter movies (1997-2011)
38) Columbine (1999)
39) 9/11 (2001)
40) Iraq War (2003-2011)
41) Facebook (2004)
42) Youtube (2005)
43) Hurricane Katrina (2005)
44) iPhone (2007)
45) First African American President (2008)
46) Death of Osama bin Laden (2011)
47) Mayan Calendar End (2012) We survived
48) Marriage Equality (2015)
49) Hamilton the Musical (2016) Just you wait
50) Brexit (2016)
And that brings us to now, the glorious month of November, 2016 in which the Chicago Cubs have finally overcome their curse. So if you see any overly-excited Cubs fans around, now you'll know why.
