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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP's Today in Weird History: January 21, 2008

KILLERS, WAR!, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, BEHEADING, SEWERS, NANNY STATE, INSANE, NUDITY, PATENTS, CENSUS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, SUBWAYS, SOCIETIES, CLINTON, CIVIL RIGHTS, GOLD, SILVER, FINANCE, DEPORTED, CLIMATE, PARDONS, SPIES, JEWS, STRONGMEN, SUBS, VACCINES, POPES, PROGRESS, SPORTS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH



KILLERS

On Jan. 21, 1958, Charles Starkweather, 19, killed the mother, stepfather and half-sister of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, at her family's home in Lincoln, Neb. (Starkweather, who had also killed a gas station attendant the previous November, and Fugate went on a road trip which resulted in seven more slayings. Starkweather was executed in 1959; Fugate, who maintained she had been Starkweather's hostage, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life; she was paroled in 1976.)

WAR!

1941 Australia & Britain attack Tobruk Libya.

1942 Japanese air raid on Rabaul New Britain.

1942 Tito's partisans occupy Foca.

1943 Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad.

1943 Soviet forces reconquer Worosjilowsk.

1944 447 German bombers attack London.

1944 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg.

1945 British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma.

1968, the Battle of Khe Sahn began during the Vietnam War as North Vietnamese forces attacked a U.S. Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later.

DISASTERS

1821 Paramaribo Suriname catches fire, 4 die.

1960 Rock falls traps 437 at Coalbrook South Africa, 417 die of methane poisoning.

2003 A powerful earthquake shook west-central Mexico, killing 28 people and leaving 10,000 homeless.

1968, an American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed in Greenland, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive material.

TERRORISM

1985 Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java.

2003 A gunman ambushed two U.S. defense workers in Kuwait, killing one and wounding another.

2003 Colombian rebels kidnapped an American photographer and a British reporter, the first time foreign journalists were abducted in Colombia's four-decade-long civil war. (Scott Dalton and Ruth Morris were freed after 11 days in captivity.)

BEHEADED

1793 Louis XVI French king (1774-93), condemned for treason, beheaded by revolutionaries at 38.

SEWERS

1880 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains, Memphis TN

NANNY STATE

1908, New York City's Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance prohibiting women from smoking in public. (However, the measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. two weeks later).

NUDITY

1986 100 participate in Nude Olympics race in 38ºF (3ºC), Indiana.



INSANE

1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane for chopping off spouse's penis.

PATENTS

1853 Envelope-folding machine patented by Russell Hawes, Worcester MA

CENSUS

2003 The Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1949 1st inaugural parade televised (Harry Truman).

1971 "Alias Smith & Jones" premieres on ABC TV.

1973 Leslie Nielsen appears on M*A*S*H in "Ringbanger".

SUBWAY

1981 Bernhard Goetz is assaulted for 1st time on a New York subway train.

SOCIETIES

1915, the first Kiwanis Club was founded, in Detroit.

1935 The Wilderness Society is founded.

CLINTONS

1998 President Bill Clinton angrily denied reports he had had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and then tried to get her to lie about it.

CIVIL RIGHTS

1827 Freedom Journal, 1st Black paper, begins publishing.

GOLD

1974 Gold hits record $161.31 an ounce in London.

1979 Price of gold increases to record $875 troy ounce.

1980 Gold hits record $850 an ounce.

SILVER

1974 Silver hits record $3.97 an ounce in London.

DEPORTED

1830 Portsmouth (Ohio) blacks forcibly deported.

CLIMATE

1962 Snow falls in San Francisco.

PARDONS

1977 President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

SPIES

1950, former State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who always proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.)

JEWS

1941 1st anti-Jewish measures in Bulgaria.

STRONGMEN

2007 Venzuelan President Hugo Chavez told U.S. officials to "Go to hell, gringos!" and called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "missy" on his weekly radio and TV show, lashing out at Washington for what he called unacceptable meddling in his country's affairs.

FINANCE

1994 Dow Jones passes 3900 (record 3,914.20).

SUBS

1954, the first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn. (However, the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year later).

VACCINES

1799 Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination is introduced.

POPES

1998 Pope John Paul II began a historic pilgrimage to Cuba.

PROGRESS

1976, the supersonic Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France.

SPORTS

1979 Super Bowl XIII Pittsburgh Steelers beat Dallas Cowboys, 35-31 in Miami; Super Bowl MVP Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh, Quarterback.

1990 John McEnroe becomes the 1st ever expelled from the Australian Open for throwing a tantrum & swearing at an official.

2007 Lovie Smith became the first black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans Saints 39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis Colts took the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.

BORN

1924 Benny Hill Southampton England, comedian (Benny Hill Show)

1933 William Wrigley III chewing gum mogul (Wrigleys)

1939 Wolfman Jack [Bob Smith], Brooklyn NY, DJ (Midnight Special)

BIRTHDAY

Actor Paul Scofield is 86. Actress Ann Wedgeworth is 73. Blues singer-musician Snooks Eaglin is 72. Golfer Jack Nicklaus is 68. Opera singer Placido Domingo is 67. Singer Richie Havens is 67. Singer Mac Davis is 66. Actress Jill Eikenberry is 61. Country musician Jim Ibbotson (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is 61. Singer-songwriter Billy Ocean is 58. Actor Robby Benson is 52. Actress Geena Davis is 52. Basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon is 45. Actress Charlotte Ross is 40. Actor John Ducey is 39. Actress Karina Lombard is 39. Rapper Levirt (B-Rock and the Bizz) is 38. Rock musician Mark Trojanowski (Sister Hazel) is 38. Rock DJ Chris Kilmore (Incubus) is 35. Singer Emma Bunton (Spice Girls) is 32. Rhythm-and-blues singer Nokio (Dru Hill) is 29. Actress Izabella Miko is 27.

DEATH

1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.

1950 George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] author (Animal Farm, 1984), dies from tuberculosis in London at 46.

1991 Howard "Red" Grange football's galloping ghost, dies at 87

1997 Colonel Tom Parker manager (Elvis Presley), dies at 87

1998 Actor Jack Lord of "Hawaii Five-O" fame died in Honolulu at age 77.

January 21, the 21st day of 2008. There are 345 days left in the year. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

< style="font-weight: bold;">compiled by Mondoreb
[image: biographychannel; pacpubserver]
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.