Abraham Michael Saperstein was the founder and earliest coach of the Harlem Globetrotters. Saperstein was a leading figure in black basketball and baseball in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s before those sports were racially integrated. Saperstein revolutionized the game of basketball and took the Globetrotters from an unknown team touring small farm towns in the Midwestern United States during the height of the Great Depression to a powerhouse that went on to beat the best team in the all-white National Basketball Association, he introduced the three-point shot, which went on to become a mainstay of modern basketball. Saperstein was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971 and, at 5 ft 3 in, is its shortest male member. In 1979, he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and 2005 was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Saperstein was born in the East End of London, England, to a Jewish family from Łomża, Poland, his family moved from London to Chicago in 1907.

They settled just north of the city's Jewish area called the “Poor Jews' quarter” because of the many struggling immigrants living there. Saperstein's father, an apprentice tailor in Poland, saw an ad for a tailor on Chicago's North Side in a predominantly German and Swedish neighborhood; the ad warned “No Jews allowed” so Louis changed his surname to the more German-sounding Schneider, German for "tailor". After buying the business from the owner several years Louis dropped the facade and changed the name of the store to Louis Saperstein's Tailor Shop. At age 10, Saperstein discovered a lifelong love of sports, playing basketball at the Wilson Avenue YMCA and second base for a parochial school team, though he attended the public Ravenswood Elementary School. At Lake View High School, he played nine different sports, including baseball, football and track. Saperstein dropped out to help support his family, he decided not to follow his father into tailoring. Instead, his dream was to pursue a career in sports, though he realized that his athletic abilities and height were not going to take him far.

Saperstein landed a position working for the Chicago Park District as a playground supervisor at Welles Park, on Chicago's North Side. There, after hours of watching kids play basketball, he decided to create his own team, the Chicago Reds; the Chicago Reds were a semi-pro lightweight basketball team, Saperstein played point guard. As player and coach of the Chicago Reds, Saperstein met Walter Thomas Ball, a legendary baseball player in the Negro leagues, who had a black baseball team he wanted to send on tour in Illinois and southern Wisconsin, he hired Saperstein as his booking agent. Saperstein went on to become booking agent for several basketball teams as well, until branching out in the late 1920s to form his own team with some of the members of the Savoy Big Five, he called the team the New York Harlem Globetrotters. Although Saperstein's team had nothing to do with Harlem, he chose the name to indicate that the players were black, as Harlem was the epicenter of African-American culture.

Many of the towns where the Globetrotters played in their first few years were all white, Saperstein didn't want other teams or spectators to be surprised that his team was black. The Globetrotters played their first game in Illinois; the team netted a grand total of $8, split evenly between the six members of the team, including Saperstein. Over the next several years, in the midst of the Great Depression, Saperstein served as the team's manager, booking agent, PR director, occasional substitute player; when a player was injured in a 1926 game, for example, Saperstein substituted into the game, prompting the Winona News to report: "Four clean-limbed young colored men and a squat bandy-legged chap of Jewish extraction... styled the Harlem Globetrotters, beat the Arcadia Military police...29 to 18.”During the early seasons, the Globetrotters needed to play every night just to make ends meet, because the team netted less than $50 a night. Accommodations on the road were sparse and hotels wouldn't allow blacks.

On one occasion, when the players couldn't find a hotel in Des Moines, they snuck up the fire escape and slept in Saperstein's room. Saperstein was relentless in booking games. From early on, the Globetrotters blended basketball with ball-handling wizardry, but they were extremely talented basketball players, winning most of their games. In 1940, the Globetrotters beat the New York Renaissance. An bigger achievement came a few years in the 1948 Globetrotters-Lakers game, when the Globetrotters defeated the Minneapolis Lakers, the best team in the all-white NBA, a league, formed two years earlier; the star of the Lakers was six-foot-ten George Mikan, nicknamed “Mr. Basketball.” Despite the Lakers' significant height advantage and the team's billing as the best basketball team in the country, the underdog Globetrotters won the game 61-59, thanks to a dramatic long shot at the buzzer by Globetrotter Ermer Robinson. Afterward, in the locker room, the players hoisted Saperstein triumphantly on their shoulders.

The Globetrotters-Lakers game had taken place amid a sharp racial divide in sports. Many fans and team owners believed that black athletes weren't coachable or smart enough to l

Between July 5 and July 7, 2017, four young men were reported missing in Bucks County, United States. All were subsequently found murdered; the victims were Dean A. Finocchiaro, age 19. Meo, age 21; the murders are suspected to have been carried out by Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Michael Kratz, both age 20 at the times of the murder. The four victims were murdered in three separate incidents, each after DiNardo arranged to sell them marijuana; the disappearances began on July 2017, with Patrick being the first of the men to vanish. Two days on July 7, Meo and Sturgis were reported missing; each of the four men was reported to be murdered the same day. Jimi Taro Patrick, a rising sophomore majoring in business at Loyola University Maryland, was last seen around 6:00 PM on July 5 in Newtown, Pennsylvania, he failed to show up for work the next day. Patrick met DiNardo that night to buy four pounds of marijuana. Dean A. Finocchiaro was last seen around 6:30 PM on July 7 being picked up by an unidentified person DiNardo or Kratz.

His remains were found on July 12, 2017 in a common grave on a Solebury Township farm, along with the remains of Mark Sturgis and Thomas Meo. Finocchiaro's body was the first to be identified. Finocchiaro and DiNardo had a good relationship, with DiNardo saying; as with Patrick, Finocchiaro had agreed to buy marijuana from DiNardo. This was the first murder, his body was placed in a metal oil tank, converted to a pork roaster. Mark R. Sturgis went to meet his friend Thomas C. Meo at around 6:00 PM on July 7. Both men worked for Sturgis' father's construction company; the two did not show up for work and calls to their cellphones went directly to voice mail. DiNardo met with Meo at a church to sell Meo marijuana. Meo and Sturgis were both shot; when he ran out of ammunition, DiNardo drove over the still-alive Meo with a backhoe placed both bodies in a metal tank that held Finocchiaro's body. DiNardo attempted unsuccessfully to burn the bodies using gasoline, he used the backhoe to bury the tank containing the three bodies.

DiNardo, a drug dealer, confessed to killing the four men. The only motive disclosed by investigators was that DiNardo said he wanted to set the victims up when they came to the farm to buy marijuana. On the afternoon of July 8, authorities tracked Finocchiaro's cell phone to a 90-acre farm in the Solebury Township owned by DiNardo's parents and Sandra DiNardo, who own a cement and construction company. While being investigated for the four July 2017 Pennsylvania murders, DiNardo claimed to be responsible for at least two other killings in the previous five years in Philadelphia. Investigators have yet to verify these claims. Second cousins Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Michael Kratz, both age 20, were charged in the murders. On July 10, DiNardo was arrested for an unrelated weapons charge, he was not allowed to own a firearm due to his schizophrenia. Despite 30 run-ins with local police, DiNardo, the son of a wealthy businessman, had for unexplained reasons never been convicted of a crime. DiNardo was released after his father posted 10% of the $1 million bail.

On July 12, DiNardo was arrested and charged for stealing and attempting to sell a car that belonged to Thomas Meo for $500. Suspicion was raised by the fact that Meo left his insulin in the car, something his family said would have been unusual for him to do, his bail was set at $5 million. The next day, DiNardo confessed to the murder of the four men. In exchange for his confession, prosecutors stated; the day after his confession, DiNardo was charged with four counts of criminal homicide, conspiracy to commit criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, 12 other charges. On July 14, Sean Michael Kratz was charged with three counts of criminal homicide, conspiracy to commit criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, two other charges. Unlike DiNardo, Kratz had a criminal history of burglary, criminal trespassing, receiving stolen property, criminal mischief. On May 16, 2018, DiNardo pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences. On July 31, 2018, the newspaper outlet philly.com reported Kratz denied his chance at a plea deal and that his trial is expected to begin in 2019.

On November 15, 2019, Kratz was convicted of first- and second-degree murder in the death of Dean Finocchiaro and voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Tom Meo and Mark Sturgis and was sentenced to life in prison. Crime in Pennsylvania List of people who disappeared Criminal Complaint: Cosmo DiNardo Criminal Complaint: Sean Michael Kratz

Symphony Number One is a chamber orchestra devoted to new music based in Baltimore, Maryland. SNO performs concerts each year in musical venues in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, at Morgan State University, across the city. Jordan Randall Smith is current music director. Symphony Number One was founded in 2015 by Jordan Randall Smith, Nicholas Bentz, Sean Meyers, all of whom were graduate and undergraduate students at the Peabody Institute. Symphony Number One is a chamber orchestra devoted to performing works by emerging composers. A non-profit performing arts organization, SNO maintains close relationships with the other independent classical music organizations of Baltimore, is a part of Maryland's classical arts space. With its focus on contemporary music, SNO can be classified as a contemporary classical ensemble; the orchestra's president is Dr. Janan Ben Goldberg is SNO's Composer-in-Residence; the orchestra's current concertmaster is Nikita Borisevich. Founder Jordan Randall Smith and co-founder Nicholas Bentz are current members of the collective.

The other co-founder was Saxophonist Sean Meyers. The three put together the inaugural concert in May 2015 at the Baltimore War Memorial. In 2017, SNO appointed Brian Tracey as Executive Director. SNO was invited to perform at the inaugural Light City festival on April 2016 in Baltimore. In September 2016, Symphony Number One began its second season with compositions by Strauss and Steve Reich. SNO was named a "Category Buster" by Baltimore Magazine in their 2016 "Best of Baltimore" issue. In addition, SNO was featured in I Care if You Listen's Mixtape #20. Symphony Number One emphasizes inclusionary policies in orchestra membership, audience access, selection of featured composers. SNO is a two-time recipient of grants by Women's Philharmonic Advocacy for multiple commissions of female composers. SNO is the 2019 winner of The American Prize in Orchestral Performance. Symphony Number One’s cornerstone project is the commissioning of new works. SNO has commissioned several works from American and international composers, which include: Kirsten Broberg: In Search of Imagery James Lee III: Chamber Symphony: Awakened to Eternal Realities Carolyn Chen: Animalcules Nicholas Bentz: Approaching Eternity Natalie Draper: Timelapse Variations Martha Horst: Straussian Landscapes Andrew Posner: The Promised Burning Jonathan Russell: Light Cathedral Nicole Murphy: Water Mirrors Andrew Boss: Saxophone Concerto, written for saxophonist Sean Meyers Mark Fromm: Symphony No. 1 John Adams Son of Chamber SymphonyPierre Boulez Dérive 2Anton Bruckner Symphony No.

7Antonín Dvořák Serenade No. 2Charles Ives Symphony No. 3Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 4 Das Lied von der ErdeWolfgang Amadeus Mozart Concerto for Flute and OrchestraArnold Schoenberg Chamber Symphony No. 1Richard Strauss Sonatine No. 2Igor Stravinsky L'Histoire du soldat Dan Deacon "When I was done Dying"Lady Gaga Poker FaceLeonard Cohen HallelujahMartina Lynch "Dear Media"Radiohead Pyramid Song Jordan Randall Smith SNO is a flexible collective of thirty artist-entrepreneurs, including instrumentalists, vocalists and sound and production designers. The musicians serve as the executive and operational leadership. SNO performs in Maryland. SNO offers small tours concerts called "SNO on the Road." In February 2016, members Sean Meyers and Elizabeth G. Hill used the series to present saxophone and piano recitals in which the piano reduction of the Andrew Boss Saxophone Concerto was premiered, their second album–Emergence–was released, the sheet music for the concerto went on sale. More Symphony Number One performed at TEDxMidAtlantic 2017 in Washington, D.

C. SNO offers several programs to engage with a variety of audiences in Baltimore as well as to work with composers internationally. In May 2016, Melissa Lander presented SNO's first significant chamber music concert under the umbrella of "Beethoven's Kitchen." The series focuses both on combining food and drink. SNO holds an annual Call for Scores competition; the winning composers are commissioned to write new works for Symphony Number One. In its third call for scores, Symphony Number One added a number of additional prizes, including the "Maryland Prize," recognizing a Maryland composer's achievements. Howard County native Karena Ingram was the winner. WYPR's Midday: Performance broadcast across the State of Maryland. Hosted by Tom Hall. Maryland Public Television's Artworks: Performance broadcast across the State of Maryland. Hosted by Rhea Feikin; the Baltimore Sun's Roughly Speaking: Performance broadcast live from the lobby of The Baltimore Sun. Hosted by Dan Rodricks. KALW's Music from Other Minds: Radio broadcast featuring SNO's third album, More.

Hosted by Danny Clay. SNO emphasizes recordings as an integral component of its program. In addition to releasing live performances of individual compositions, SNO records albums on its own custom label, SNOtone. 2017: Approaching: Martha Horst: Straussian Landscapes. 2016: More: Natalie Draper: Timelapse Variations. 2016: Emergence: Andrew Boss: Concerto for Saxophone and Small Chamber Orchestra, feat. Sean Meyers – alto saxophone. 2015: Symphony Number One: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, feat. Raoul Cho, Jordan Thomas