Talk:Donald Byrne

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[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 07:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of death

We had May 6, 1976, which seems wrong. An anon corrected the date of death to April 8 which agrees with Jeremy Gaige's Chess Personalia. The page at Donald Byrne at ChessGames.com says May 8, as does Andrew Soltis in Harry Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess (1977). Presumably Soltis would know, but there are a fair number of typographical errors in Encyclopedia of Chess and I think Gaige has the reputation of being more accurate in general. Does anyone have a source that could settle this definitively? Quale (talk) 08:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The New York Times published an obit on Saturday, April 10, 1976, stating that the death was "Thursday", which would put it on April 8. That much info is in the one-paragraph preview that's available for free: [1]

The next month, Byrne's brother Robert stated in the Times that Donald died on April 8, 1976. Here again you can glean that much from the free preview of the article: [2]

The Robert Byrne reference came in an announcement of a memorial tribute for Donald Byrne to be held on May 15, which appeared in the paper of May 13, 1976. It's conceivable that the erroneous May 8 date arose because someone thought that the tribute would have been held promptly after Byrne's death, and that "April 8" in the Robert Byrne piece must therefore be a typo for "May 8". While that wouldn't be impossible, the publication of the obit the previous month clearly rules out any May date. JamesMLane t c 14:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good research. My guess is that "May" is a simple typo in Golombek when "April" was intended.Quale (talk) 15:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)