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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 14, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, GANGSTERS, POLITICS, FATWAS, EDUCATION, FRACAS, CARTOONS, JEWS, PATENTS, FRUIT, BUSINESS, COMMIES, DRUGS, WATERGATE, MARRIAGE, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


GANGSTERS

1929 Members of Al Capone's gang killed rival gang members in the St. Valentine's Day massacre.

WAR!

1945 8th Air Force bombs Dresden.

2003 In a dramatic showdown, major powers rebuffed the United States in the U.N. Security Council and insisted on more time for weapons inspections in Iraq. Earlier, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Council his teams had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

TERRORISM

1975 Bomb explodes at annex of Amsterdam metro station.

1979 Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1985 Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut.

1998 Authorities officially declared Eric Rudolph a suspect in the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and offered a $100,000 reward.

2007 Challenged on the accuracy of U.S. intelligence, President Bush told a news conference there was no doubt the Iranian government was providing armor-piercing weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq, and he said he would fight any attempt by the Democratic-controlled Congress to cut off money for the war.

DISASTER

1989 Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million damages for Bhopol disaster.

FATWAS

1989 Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

WATERGATE

1971 Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House.

FRUIT

1889 1st trainload of fruit (oranges) leaves Los Angeles for the east.

COMMIES

1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin at USSR Communist Party Conference.

PATENTS

1803 Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington PA.

FRACAS

1779 James Cook British explorer, murdered by natives in fracas with Hawaiians.

JEWS

1349 2,000 Jews burned at the stake in Strasbourg France.

DRUGS

1959 $3.6 million heroin seizure in New York NY.

BUSINESS

1924 IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson.

EDUCATION

2001 The Kansas Board of Education reversed its 1999 ruling and restored evolution to the state's science curriculum.

MARRIAGE

1952 Comedian Joey Adams marries gossip columnist Cindy Heller.

1995 Roseanne weds bodyguard Ben Thomas.

MURDER

1943 Frieda Reiss French 11 month old baby, murdered in Auschwitz.

CARTOONS

1921 Skeezix of "Gasoline Alley" discovered on Wallets' doorstep.

POLITICS

1859 Oregon became the 33rd state in the United States.

1912 Arizona became the 48th state in the United States.

BORN

1894 comedian Jack Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan, Ill.

1913 Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters leader who disappeared in 1975.

BIRTHDAYS

TV personality Hugh Downs is 87. Actress-singer Florence Henderson is 74. Country singer Razzy Bailey is 69. Jazz musician Maceo Parker is 65. Movie director Alan Parker is 64. Journalist Carl Bernstein is 64. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) is 61. TV personality Pat O'Brien is 60. Magician Teller (Penn and Teller) is 60. Cajun singer-musician Michael Doucet is 57. Actor Ken Wahl is 51. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 49. Actress Meg Tilly is 48. Singer-producer Dwayne Wiggins is 47. Actor Enrico Colantoni is 45. Actor Zach Galligan is 44. Actor Valente Rodriguez is 44. Rock musician Ricky Wolking (The Nixons) is 42. Tennis player Manuela Maleeva is 41. Rock musician Kevin Baldes (Lit) is 36. Rock singer Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty) is 36. Actor Freddie Highmore is 16.

DEATH

1969 Vito Genovese US mafia chief, dies at 71.

1994 Gary "BB" Coleman blues vocal/guitarist/producer, dies at 47.

2003 Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was euthanized because of incurable lung cancer.

February 14, the 45th day of 2008. There are 321 days left in the year. Today is Valentine's Day.

image: unbsj
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 7, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, TRIAL, RATIONING, IKE, WOMEN, SCIENCE, EXECUTION, QUACKS, POLITICS, BARE KNUCKLES, CLIMATE, CARTOONS, PREDICTIONS, MOVIES, JEWS, FLAVORS, MUSLIMS, SURGERY, NANNY STATE, UNREST, SHOCK JOCKS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH



1964 The Beatles began their first American tour as they arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

WAR!

1861 The general council of the Choctaw Indian nation adopted a resolution declaring allegiance with the South "in the event a permanent dissolution of the American Union takes place."

1862 Federal fleet attack on Roanoke Island NC.

1864 Federal troops occupy Jacksonville FL.

2003 President Bush courted the leaders of France and China in an uphill struggle to win U.N. backing for war with Iraq.

2007 U.S. officials confirmed a new security operation was under way in Baghdad; U.S. armor rushed through streets, and Iraqi armored personnel carriers guarded bridges and major intersections. A Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was shot down by insurgents in Anbar, killing all seven people on board.

TERRORISM

1969 Al-Fatah-leader Yasser Arafat becomes president of PLO.

2003 The government raised its terror threat level to "high risk" orange, warning of a growing possibility that the al-Qaida network would launch an attack against the United States to coincide with Muslim holy days.

2003 Colombian guerillas bombed the exclusive El Nogal social club in Bogota, killing 36 people and injuring 160 others.


DISASTER

1812 8.2 earthquake shakes New Madrid MO; this is the last of Midwest quakes (see 12/16).

1904 A fire began in Baltimore that raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in 80 blocks.

1962 Gas explosion in Luisanthal coal mine Voelklingen Germany kills 298.

FLAVORS

1964 Baskin-Robbins introduces Beatle Nut ice cream.

RATIONING

1943 the government announced the start of shoe rationing, limiting consumers to buying three pairs per person for the remainder of the year.

QUACKS

1979 Josef Mengele concentration camp doctor, drowns.

WEDDINGS

1993 Pebbles Flintstone & Bamm Bamm Rubble wed.

SURGERY

1965 George Harrison of the Beatles, has his tonsils removed.

BUBBLE BOY

1984 David (born without immunity system) at 12, touches mom for 1st time.

SPORTS

1985 Marshall University's Bruce Morris scores a basket from 92'5¼".

UNREST

1990 Karachi police kill 22 anti-nationalistic demonstrators.

EXECUTIONS

1920 Alexander Koltsjak Admiral/leader Russian counter-revolutionary, executed.

SHOCK JOCKS

1994 Howard Stern stops a would-be jumper on the George Washington Bridge.

POLITICS

1839 Henry Clay declares in Senate "I had rather be right than president".

1905 Oklahoma admitted to statehood.

BARE KNUCKLES

1882 Last bare knuckle champion John L Sullivan KOs Paddy Ryan in Mississippi.

PREDICTIONS

1945 General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

NANNY STATE

1976 FCC raids & shuts down pirate radio station WCPR (Brooklyn NY).

JEWS

1947 Arabs & Jews reject British proposal to split Palestine.

MUSLIMS

1964 Cassius Clay becomes a Muslim & adopts the name Muhammad Ali.


TRIAL

1857 A French court acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel "Madame Bovary."

CLIMATE

1891 Great Blizzard of 1891 begins.

COMMIES

1950 Senator Joe McCarthy finds communists in US Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

IKE

1948 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff; he was succeeded by General Omar Bradley.

WOMEN

1983 Elizabeth H. Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

SCIENCE

1984 Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart went on the first untethered space walk.

CARTOONS

1936 Felix the Cat, Cartoon Character, by Van Beuren from Otto Messmer.

MOVIES

1940 Walt Disney's 2nd feature-length movie, "Pinocchio", premieres (New York NY).

1974 Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" opens in movie theaters.

BORN

1478 Sir Thomas More lawyer/lord chancellor of England/saint (Utopia).

1804 John Deere pioneer manufacturer of agricultural implements.

1812 Author Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.

1817 Frederick Douglass Maryland, 1st high ranking black in US government.

1885 Sinclair Lewis novelist/social critic (Main Street, Nobel 1930).

1908 Clarence Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe Oakland CA, swimmer (Olympics-gold-1932)/actor (Tarzan the Fearless, Flash Gordon).

BIRTHDAYS

Country singer Wilma Lee Cooper is 87. Author Gay Talese is 76. Actor Miguel Ferrer is 53. Reggae musician Brian Travers (UB40) is 49. Actor James Spader is 48. Country singer Garth Brooks is 46. Rock musician David Bryan (Bon Jovi) is 46. Actor-comedian Eddie Izzard is 46. Actor-comedian Chris Rock is 43. Actor Jason Gedrick is 41. Actor Ashton Kutcher is 30. Actress Tina Majorino is 23.

DEATH

1993 Arthur Ashe tennis star (Wimbledon 1975), dies of AIDS at 49.

1998 It was announced that Carl Wilson, a founding member of The Beach Boys, had died in Los Angeles from complications of lung cancer; he was 51.

2003 Tom Christerson, the longest-living recipient of a fully self-contained artificial heart, died at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., after 512 days on the AbioCor; he was 71.

February 7, the 38th day of 2008. There are 328 days left in the year. This is the Lunar New Year of the Rat.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: rhythms-riffs
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.