Saturday, February 16, 2008

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 17, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, BURNED, POLITICS, PROGRESS, CHINA CARD, CHESS, HANGED, VEGETABLES, JIHAD, TOILETS, NANNY STATE, CARTOONS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, JEWS, MUSIC, FINANCE, ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE, KILLERS, HUSTLER, CLINTONS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


click on image to read Newsweek's "The Cooling World"

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1933 1st issue of "Newsweek" magazine published.

WAR!

1864 The Confederate submarine Hunley, equipped with an explosive at the end of a protruding spar, rammed and sank the Union's ship Housatonic off the coast of Charleston, S.C.

1865 Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and Union forces moved in. (It's not clear which side set the blaze.)

1915 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WWI, is mortally wounded.

1979 China invades Vietnam.

2003 European Union leaders declared their solidarity with the United States, warning Saddam Hussein that Iraq faced one "last chance" to disarm peacefully but calling war a last resort.

2007 Senate Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate President Bush's deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq.

2007 Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington was sentenced to eight years in military prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing of an Iraqi civilian.

TERRORISM

1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad.

1988 US Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins kidnapped by Lebanese terrorists & later killed.

1993 Alfredo de Leon leader (Philippines Red Scorpio Gang), killed.

1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax.

DISASTER

1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch Bingham UT, 40 die.

1950 31 die in a train crash in Rockville Center, New York.

1957 Fire in Warreton MO, kills 72.

1962 Storm in Hamburg, kills 265.

1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt.

1993 Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die.

2003 Twenty-one people were killed in a stampede at the crowded E2 nightclub in Chicago.

HANGED

1688 Reverend James Renwick hanged in Scotland for being a Presbyterian.

VEGETABLES

1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden Chester, England.

TOILETS

1883 A Ashwell patents free-toilet in London.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE

1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole".

MUSIC

1962 Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin".

HUSTLER

1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sex abused his daughter.

CARTOONS

1933 Blondie Boopadoop marries Dagwood Bumstead; Dagwood's father promptly disinherits him.

1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears.

JIHAD

1568 Holy Roman Emperor agrees to pay annual tribute to Sultan for peace.

CLINTONS

1998 President Clinton, preparing Americans for possible air strikes against Iraq, said military force is never the first answer "but sometimes it's the only answer."

KILLERS

1970 Jeffrey McDonald slices up his wife & daughter.

1995 Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the Long Island Railroad in New York.

1998 Diane Zamora, 20, Naval Academy cadet convicted of capital murder.

FINANCE

1981 Chrysler Corp reports largest corporate losses in US history.

NANNY STATE

1913 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon).

BURNED

1600 Italian philospher, alchemist, and Copernican theory advocate Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy by the Inquisition.

JEWS

1943 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.

1949 Chaim Weizman elected 1st President of Israel.

1969 Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister.

2007 Former French Cabinet minister Maurice Papon, convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War II, died near Paris at age 96.

POLITICS

1801 The electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was broken by the House of Representatives who elected Jefferson president.

CHINA CARD

1972 President Richard Nixon left on his trip to China.

PROGRESS

1817 Baltimore became the first U.S. city lit by gas.

CHESS

1996 Chess champion Garry Kasparov beat the IBM computer, Deep Blue, winning the six-game match.

BORN

1817 Frederick Douglass famous African-American.

1844 A. Montgomery Ward founded mail-order business (Montgomery Ward).

1854 Friedrich A Krupp German arms manufacturer.

1908 sportscaster Walter Lanier "Red" Barber was born in Columbus, Miss.

BIRTHDAYS

Bandleader Orrin Tucker is 97. Actor Hal Holbrook is 83. Mystery writer Ruth Rendell is 78. Singer Bobby Lewis is 75. Comedian Dame Edna (AKA Barry Humphries) is 74. Country singer-songwriter Johnny Bush is 73. Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown is 72. Actress Mary Ann Mobley is 69. Actress Brenda Fricker is 63. Actress Rene Russo is 54. Actor Richard Karn is 52. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips is 46. Basketball player Michael Jordan is 45. Actor-comedian Larry, the Cable Guy is 45. TV personality Rene Syler is 45. Movie director Michael Bay is 44. Singer Chante Moore is 41. Rock musician Timothy J. Mahoney (311) is 38. Actor Dominic Purcell is 38. Actress Denise Richards is 37. Rock singer-musician Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) is 36. Actor Jerry O'Connell is 34. Country singer Bryan White is 34. Actress Kelly Carlson is 32. Actor Jason Ritter is 28. TV personality Paris Hilton is 27. Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is 27.

DEATH

1908 Geronimo Apache chief, dies at about 79.

1982 Theolonious S Monk US, jazz pianist/composer (Blue Monk), dies at 64.

1990 Keith Haring US graffiti-artist, dies at 31.

February 17, the 48th day of 2008. There are 318 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: austrianeconomists
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History
* Today in History

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