Friday, February 8, 2008

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 8, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, BEHEADING, EDUCATION, POLITICS, GROUPS, MOVIES, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, EXECUTION, STRONGMAN, ASSASSINATION, SUICIDE, PROGRESS, CLOSE CALLS, PATENTS, PAPERS, NANNY STATE, METEORS, WATERGATE, KIDNAPPED, WEDDINGS, SPORTS, MUSIC, HOAX, ANGER MANAGEMENT, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH




1968 Three college students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, S.C., during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley.

WAR!

1862 Battle of Roanoke Island NC, Federals gain control of Pamlico Sound.

1904 the Russo-Japanese War, a conflict over control of Manchuria and Korea, began as Japanese forces attacked Port Arthur.

1916 French cruiser "Admiral Charner" torpedoed off Syrian coast, kills 374.

2003 The chief U.N. arms inspectors arrived in Baghdad for a new round of crucial talks with Iraqi officials. In a jab at major U.S. allies, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a security conference in Munich that countries such as France and Germany that favored giving Iraq another chance to disarm were undermining what slim chance existed to avoid war.

TERRORISM

2007 Rival Palestinian leaders signed an agreement on a power-sharing government at Saudi-brokered talks in Mecca.

DISASTER

1905 Cyclone hit Tahiti & adjacent islands, killing some 10,000 people.

1923 Coal mine explosion at Dawson NM kills 120.

1931 Gas explosion; Fire in Fushun-coal mine, Manchuria kills 3,000.

1965 Eastern DC-7B crashes into Atlantic off Jones Beach NJ, kills 84.

1989 144 people were killed when an American-chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists slammed into a fog-covered mountain in the Azores.

1995 6.4 earthquake at Trujillo, Colombia (46+ killed).

HOAX!

1993 GM sues NBC, alleging that "Dateline NBC" program had rigged 2 car-truck crashes to show that 1973-87 GM pickups were prone to fires.

ANGER MANAGEMENT

1994 Jack Nicholson uses a golf club to attack a car.

PROGRESS

1883 Louis Waterman begins experiments to invent the fountain pen.

1933 1st flight of all-metal Boeing 247.

KIDNAPPED

1983 Champion thoroughbred Shergar kidnapped in Ireland; never found Lloyds of London pays $10.6 million insurance.

CLOSE CALL

1743 Comet C/1743 C1 approaches within 0.0390 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth.

METEORS

1969 Meteorite weighing over 1 ton falls in Chihuahua, México.

PATENTS

1802 Simon Willard patents banjo clock.

1898 John Ames Sherman patents 1st envelope folding & gumming machine (Massachusetts).

MUSIC

1992 "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred peaks at #1.

NANNY STATE

1960 Congress opens hearings looking into payola.

PRO WRESTLING

1971 Pedro Morales beats Ivan Koloff in New York, to become WWF wrestling champion.

WEDDINGS

1975 1800 Unification church couples' wed in Korea in mass ceremony.

SPORTS

1986 5' 7" Spud Webb of Atlanta Hawks wins NBA Slam Dunk Competition.

BEHEADING

1587 Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

WATERGATE

1973 Senate names 7 members to investigate Watergate scandal.

ADVICE

1942 Congress advises FDR that, Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort.

CLIMATE

1989 5 cm of snow falls in outskirts of Los Angeles.

PAPERS

1918 "Stars & Stripes", weekly US armed forces newspaper, 1st published.

EDUCATION

1693 A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

POLITICS

1837 The Senate selected the vice president of the United States, choosing Richard Mentor Johnson after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

GROUPS

1910 The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

ASSASSINATION

1963 Abdul Karim Kassem PM of Iraq (58-63), assassinated in Baghdad at 48.

MOVIES

1915 D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking as well as controversial silent movie epic about the Civil War, "The Birth of a Nation," premiered in Los Angeles.

SUICIDE

1990 Del Shannon Coopersville MI, rock vocalist (Runaway), shoots self at 55.

EXECUTION

1924 The first execution by gas in the United States took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City as Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of murder, was put to death.

1932 Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll mobster, killed by Dutch Schultz gang.

2007 A federal judge in Fargo, N.D., sentenced Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to death for the slaying of college student Dru Sjodin.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1978 The deliberations of the Senate were broadcast on radio for the first time as members opened debate on the Panama Canal treaties.

1990 "60 Minutes" commentator Andy Rooney suspended by CBS for racial remarks attributed to him by a gay magazine.

STRONGMAN

2003 Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched in support of 9,000 oil workers fired for leading a two-month strike against President Hugo Chavez.

BORN

1820 William Tecumseh Sherman Major General (Union Army), dies in 1891 (War is hell).

1918 John Intoxication resistance fighter.

1920 Lana Turner Wallace ID, actress (Survivors, Falcon Crest).

1931 James Dean Marion IN, stage/film actor (Giant, Rebel Without a Cause).

BIRTHDAYS

Composer-conductor John Williams is 76. Actor Jack Larson is 75. Former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel is 68. Actor Nick Nolte is 67. Comedian Robert Klein is 66. Actor-rock musician Creed Bratton is 65. Country singer Dan Seals is 60. Singer Ron Tyson is 60. Actress Brooke Adams is 59. Actress Mary Steenburgen is 55. Author John Grisham is 53. Rock singer Vince Neil (Motley Crue) is 47. Rock singer-musician Sammy LLanas (The BoDeans) is 47. Actor Gary Coleman is 40. Actress Mary McCormack is 39. Actor Seth Green is 34. Actor Josh Morrow is 34. Rock musician Phoenix (Linkin Park) is 31. Actor Ryan Pinkston is 20. Actress Karle Warren ("Judging Amy") is 16.

DEATH

1725 Peter the Great Tsar of Russia dies at 52.

2007 Model, actress and tabloid sensation Anna Nicole Smith died in Florida at age 39 of an accidental drug overdose.

February 8, the 39th day of 2008. There are 327 days left in the year.

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

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