2026 Leavenworth Regional, Day Seven: Sunday, April 19

What’s My Name?

This Day in History - April 19 Birthdays

The five self-describing historical figures below were all born on April 19. Can you name them and place their birth years in chronological order? (Hint: the five people are in alphabetical order by surname.) Answers below.

• “After scoring 118 goals in 280 games at Birmingham City in the 1970s, I became the first player to change teams for a transfer fee of more than one million pounds when I moved to Nottingham Forest in 1979. I was loaned to a team in Detroit for the summer before and after the big transfer and in the North American League I scored 36 goals in 33 games. Beacuse of the timing of the transfer, Forest were not allowed to play me in 1978-79 European Cup matches until the final, where I scored the only goal of the match on a diving header that was replayed on TV shows forever. After that, injuries hampered my game and I played in the 1982 World Cup but retired soon after and became a manager until 2003.”
• “I was the Playboy Playmate of the Month in February 1955, and was featured in most of the February issues for the next decade, as my acting career took off. Movie roles and Broadway plays were mine for the asking because of the publicity I constantly generated as Hollywood’s smartest “dumb blonde.” To the surprise of most who found out, I spoke five languages, played several musical instruments, was college educated, and became one of the biggest stars of the 1950s.”
• “Of the four of us in the early-1960s comedy revue Beyond The Fringe, I was the one at the piano, or, in one of our most famous sketches, the auditioning actor with only one leg. Later in the 1960s I did more comedy work for British television in the same style, and then in the late 1970s I moved to Los Angeles and acted in a few films, Foul Play, 10, Arthur, and Micki & Maude. I was diagnosed with a terminal brain disorder in 1999 and passed away in 2002.”
• “I, along with my hand-picked team of incorruptible “untouchable” agents, brought down Al Capone when he was taking advantage of the Volstead Act and making millions illegally. Then things got tougher for me and I was less successful in other posts and in political runs. I hoped my book of memoirs would support my last days but I died before it came out. I hear it did pretty well.”
• “I was a star defender, a safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL for twelve years, the Defensive Player of the Year in 2010 and twice a Super Bowl Champion. Now I am in commercials for Head & Shoulders shampoo. Probably has something to do with my Polynesian surname and my waist-length black hair!”

In 2025, there were 757½ tables to this point at the fall regional in Whistler.
In October 2023 here, there were 414½ tables to this point.
In April 2022 here, there were 404 tables to this point.
For full details, check out the Table Counts page!

Bridge clubs and tournaments throughout the ACBL are struggling with returning to live play, so comparing this tournament’s attendance to one before the pandemic is not really fair. We'll hope to get around 60% of the 2018 attendance, making the target number 571 tables this time — but perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised!

(The clues are above).

• Eliot Ness (1903 - 1957) was the lead organizer of The Untouchables, the group of operatives who took down Al Capone during Prohibition.
• Jayne Mansfield (1933 - 1967) was the surprisingly-smart blonde bombshell of the 1950s and 1960s.
• Dudley Moore (1935 - 2002) was the smaller guy at the piano in Beyond The Fringe, where he played the one-legged actor auditioning for the role of Tarzan.
• Trevor Francis (1954 - 2023) was a British footballer, a striker; in 1979 he was the first player to be moved to a new team for a transfer fee of more than one million pounds.
• Troy Polamalu (born 1981) is the two-time Super Bowl champion for the Pittsburgh Steelers whose hair could not be contained inside his helmet, and who now is seen in commercials for Head & Shooulders shampoo.

A quick plug for a new(ish) source of District 19 info: the e-newsletter Bridge Northwest, a monthly round-up of District Nineteen results, events, and news that can appear in your e-mail box monthly. Check it out here and subscribe if you are not getting it sent to your inbox already!

• Penticton Regional, June 15 - 21, 2026, at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre in Penticton BC info)
  
  
• Midnight Sun Regional, June 23 - 26, 2026 at the Anchorage Bridge Center in Anchorage AK (info)
  
  
• Puget Sound Regional, August 17 - 23, 2026 at the Lynnwood Event Center in Lynnwood WA, north of Seattle (info)
  
  
• Tri-Cities Regional, October 26 - November 1, 2026, at the Red Lion Hotel in Kennewick WA (info)
  
  
• Victoria Regional, March 29 - April 4, 2027, at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney BC, north of Victoria and a short drive from the ferry terminal (info)
  
  
• Grand National Teams District Final, Championship Flight and Flight B (0-3000), May 16-17 at the Engineers’ Hall in Burnaby BC, just east of Vancouver, alongside the Spring Sectional. (The 0-6000 Flight A and 0-750 NLM Flight C were held in Leavenworth.)
• North American Pairs Club Qualifying, at local participating clubs in June, July and August 2026; fall 2026 District Final dates and location to be announced.
  
  
• Silver Star Sectional, April 23 - 25 (Thursday - Saturday) at All Saints Anglican Church in Vernon BC (info)
• Daffodil Sectional, April 24 - 26 at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Tacoma WA (info)
• Qualicum Beach Sectional, May 1 - 3 at Qualicum Beach Civic Centre in Qualicum Beach BC, north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island (info)
• Tri-Cities Sectional, May 1 - 3 at Knights of Columbus Hall in Richland WA (info)
• South Okanagan Sectional, May 14 - 16 (Thursday - Saturday) at Summerland Arena in Summerland BC, between Kelowna and Penticton (info)
• Vancouver Spring Sectional, May 16 - 18 (Saturday - Monday) at Engineers’ Hall in Burnaby BC, east of Vancouver (info)
• KO Sectional, May 22 - 25 (Friday - Monday) at Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, WA, north of Seattle (info)
• Spokane Summer Sectional, June 12 - 14 at Southside Community Center in Spokane WA (info)

Let's not forget the Summer NABC in Minneapolis MN, July 8 - 19, 2026, the Fall NABC in San Diego CA, November 26 - December 6, 2026, and the Spring NABC in St. Louis MO, March 10 - 21, 2027. Players, take a moment to visit the table with tournament flyers and take a few for your local club; this remains the best way to spread the word and build attendance.

We’ve listed the next batch of District 19 Regionals, and Sectional tournaments up until the end of June 2026 that had flyers posted online when I prepared the tournament pages. (Several in the period covered are scheduled and listed on the ACBL Tournament page, but do not appear here, since they do not yet have a flyer listed here: ALERT to tournament organizers, please remember to send your event schedule or tournament flyer to tournaments@acbl.org as soon as it is set, or whenever it is revised, so they can add or adjust the data to the ACBL tournament database. This essential first move gets your flyer checked for ambiguities and the flyer will be posted online at tournaments.acbl.org. When the tournament data is added by ACBL staff, your event schedule will appear online with full details — so players need not click the flyer link to see the details, directors will be assigned, and deal sets will be automatically generated for the tournament.)

The German sub-headline at the top of the page, Danke Fürs Spielen, Fahr Vorsichtig und Verlier Dich Nicht! translates to Thanks for playing, drive safely and don’t get lost!   Back to top.