DBKP Today in Weird History: April 4 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, ASSASSINATION, FLAGS, WILE E. PELOSI, IMPEACHED, PC VICTIM, PATENTS, JEWS, REVENGE, 1984, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

ASSASSINATION

1968 The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death as he stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.; the killing sparked a wave of riots across the U.S. (James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to assassinating King, then spent the rest of his life claiming his innocence and attempting to withdraw his guilty plea; he died in prison in 1998.)

WAR!

1945 During World War II, U.S. troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from Japanese forces at the Machinato Line.

2003 U.S. forces seized Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad.

TERRORISM

2007 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the surprise release of 15 captive British sailors and marines.

DISASTER

1905 Earthquake in Kangra India, kills 370,000.

1933 US Dirigible Akron crashes off coast of New Jersey, 73 die.

1971 Marine clay under houses liquifies, 31 die (St-Jean-Vianney Québec).

1975 More than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crash-landed shortly after takeoff from Saigon.

1994 KLM Saab 340B crashes at Schiphol, 3 killed.

1998 Sixty-three people were killed in an explosion inside a Ukrainian coal mine.

PATENTS

1828 Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder (Amsterdam).

REVENGE

1975 Steve Miller is arrested for burning his girlfriend's clothes.

1984

1984 Winston Smith in Orwell's "1984" begins his secret diary.

JEWS

1920 Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem.

1949 Israel & Jordan sign armistice agreement.

WILE E. PELOSI

2007 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad despite White House objections.

FLAGS

1818 Congress decided the United States flag would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state.

PC VICTIM

2007 Radio host Don Imus made offensive on-air remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. (Despite a subsequent apology, Imus was fired by CBS Radio and cable network MSNBC; he was hired elsewhere by year's end.)

IMPEACHED!

1988 The Arizona Senate convicted Gov. Evan Mecham of two charges of official misconduct, and removed him from office. (Mecham was the first governor to be impeached and removed from office in nearly six decades.)

BORN

1821 Linus Yale US, portrait painter/inventor (Yale cylinder lock).

1908 Ernestine Gilbreth Carey author (Cheaper by the Dozen).

1915 Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield], guitarist (Hoochie Coochie Man).

BIRTHDAYS

Author-poet Maya Angelou is 80. Sen. Richard Lugar, R.-Ind., is 76. Recording executive Clive Davis is 76. Bandleader Hugh Masekela is 69. Author Kitty Kelley is 66. Actor Craig T. Nelson is 64. Actor Walter Charles is 63. Actress Caroline McWilliams is 63. Actress Christine Lahti is 58. Country singer Steve Gatlin (The Gatlin Brothers) is 57. Writer-producer David E. Kelley is 52. Actor Phil Morris is 49. Actress Lorraine Toussaint is 48. Actor Hugo Weaving is 48. Rock musician Craig Adams (The Cult) is 46. Actor David Cross is 44. Actor Robert Downey Jr. is 43. Actress Nancy McKeon is 42. Actor Barry Pepper is 38. Country singer Clay Davidson is 37. Rock singer Josh Todd (Buckcherry) is 37. Singer Jill Scott is 36. Rock musician Magnus Sveningsson (The Cardigans) is 36. Magician David Blaine is 35. Singer Kelly Price is 35. Rhythm-and-blues singer Andre Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 34. Actor James Roday is 32. Actress Natasha Lyonne is 29. Actress Jamie Lynn Spears is 17.

DEATH

1841 President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.

1979 Edgar Buchanan actor (Uncle Joe-Petticoat Junction), dies at 77.

1979 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto former Pakistani President, hanged in Pakistan at 51.

April 4, the 95th day of 2008. There are 271 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History
* DBKP Today in Weird History: April 4 2008
* Today in Weird History: April 4 2008


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Today in Weird History: March 28, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, NUKES, HOSTAGES, IMMIGRATION, SWAP, PATENTS, SUICIDE, TRIAL LAWYERS, JEWS, BAGGED, ZULUS, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


BAGGED

1939 Dutch hunter shoots English bombers down.

WAR!

1738 English parliament declares war on Spain (War of Jenkin's Ear).

2003 American-led forces in Iraq dropped thousand-pound bombs on Republican Guard units guarding the gates to Baghdad and battled for control of the strategic city of Nasiriyah. President Bush warned of "further sacrifice" ahead in the face of unexpectedly fierce fighting.

TERRORISM

1986 Extremist Sikhs kill 13 hindus in Ludhiana India.

2007 Iran aired a video of 15 captured British sailors and marines; the lone female captive, shown in a white tunic and a black head scarf, said the British boats had "trespassed." (The crew members were released April 4, 2007.)

DISASTER

1960 Scotch factory explodes burying 20 firefighters (Glasgow Scotland).

1970 1,086 die when 7.3 earthquake destroys 254 villages (Gediz Turkey).

TRIAL LAWYERS

1866 1st ambulance goes into service.

PATENTS

1797 Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patents a washing machine.

NUKES

1979 America's worst commercial nuclear accident occurred inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.

HOSTAGES

2007 In the Philippines, dozens of children were taken hostage on a bus by a day-care center owner armed with grenades and guns; the crisis ended peacefully 10 hours later with the hostage-taker's surrender.

SUICIDE

1941 Filling her pockets with stones, novelist and critic Virginia Woolf walked into a river near her home and died in Lewes, England.

IMMIGRATION

1898 The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen.

SWAP

1930 The names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara.

JEWS

1917 Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv & Jaffa by Turkish authorities.

ZULUS

1994 Armed Zulus demonstrate in Johannesburg, over 53 killed.

BIRTHDAYS

Former White House national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski is 80. Country musician Charlie McCoy is 67. Movie director Mike Newell is 66. Actress Conchata Ferrell is 65. Actor Ken Howard is 64. Actress Dianne Wiest is 60. Country singer Reba McEntire is 53. Olympic gold-medal gymnast Bart Conner is 50. Actress Tracey Needham is 41. Actor Max Perlich is 40. Movie director Brett Ratner is 39. Country singer Rodney Atkins is 39. Actor Vince Vaughn is 38. Rapper Mr. Cheeks (Lost Boyz) is 37. Actor Ken L. is 35. Rock musician Dave Keuning is 32. Actress Julia Stiles is 27.

DEATH

1953 Athlete Jim Thorpe died in Lomita, Calif.

1958 W.C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues," died in New York at age 84.

1969 Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, died in Washington at age 78.

March 28, the 88th day of 2008. There are 278 days left in the year.

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


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DBKP Today in Weird History: March 14, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, PATENTS, IMMIGRATION, LEVIATHAN, GUILTY, NOT GUILTY, SPIES, POLITICS, JEWS, TOP TEN, NICE GUYS, CLINTONS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

TOP TEN

1950 FBI's "10 Most Wanted Fugitives" program begins.

WAR!

1951 During the Korean War, United Nations forces recaptured Seoul.

TERRORISM

1991 a British court overturned the convictions of the "Birmingham Six," who had spent 16 years in prison for an Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered them released.

2007 The Pentagon released the transcript of a military hearing in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he "was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z."

DISASTER

1940 27 killed, 15 injured when truck full of migrant workers collides with a train outside McAllen TX.

1960 14 die in a train crash in Bakersfield CA.

1980 A Polish airliner crashed while making an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing all 87 people aboard, including 22 members of a U.S. amateur boxing team.

1997 Iranian military plane crashes, killing 80.

1998 An earthquake killed at least five people and left some 10,000 homeless in southeastern Iran.

NICE GUYS

1983 OPEC cut oil prices for 1st time in 23 years.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1968 CBS TV suspends Radio Free Europe free advertising because RFE doesn't make it clear it is sponsored by the CIA.

PATENTS

1794 Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America's cotton industry.

NOT GUILTY

2003 Actor Robert Blake was released from jail on $1.5 million bail, 11 months after he was arrested on charges of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. (Blake was later acquitted at trial.)

IMMIGRATION

1907 President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order designed to prevent Japanese laborers from immigrating to the United States as part of a "gentlemen's agreement" with Japan.

CLINTONS

1997 President Clinton trips & tears up his knee requiring surgery.

LEVIATHAN

1923 President Harding became the first chief executive to file an income tax return.

1971 The Rolling Stones leave England for France to escape taxes.

JEWS

1965 Israeli cabinet approves diplomatic relations with West Germany.

GUILTY

1964 A jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy.

POLITICS

1629 England granted a royal charter to Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1644 England grants patent for Providence Plantations (now Rhode Island).

SPIES

2003 Christopher Boyce, whose Cold War spying was immortalized on film in "The Falcon and the Snowman," was released from a halfway house in San Francisco after a quarter-century in prison.

BORN

1879 Albert Einstein Ulm Germany, (E=mc²/Theory of Relativity, Nobel 1921).

BIRTHDAYS

Former astronaut Frank Borman is 80. Singer Phil Phillips is 77. Actor Michael Caine is 75. Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 75. Former astronaut Eugene Cernan is 74. Actor Raymond J. Barry is 69. Movie director Wolfgang Petersen is 67. Country singer Michael Martin Murphey is 63. Rock musician Walt Parazaider (Chicago) is 63. Actor Steve Kanaly is 62. Comedian Billy Crystal is 60. Country singer Jann Browne is 54. Actor Adrian Zmed is 54. Prince Albert II, the ruler of Monaco, is 50. Actress Tamara Tunie is 49. Actress Penny Johnson Jerald is 47. Producer-director-writer Kevin Williamson is 43. Actor Gary Anthony Williams is 42. Actress Megan Follows is 40. Rock musician Michael Bland is 39. Country singer Kristian Bush is 38. Rock musician Derrick (Jimmie's Chicken Shack) is 36. Actor Jake Fogelnest is 29. Actor Chris Klein is 29. Actress Kate Maberly is 26. Singer-musician Taylor Hanson (Hanson) is 25. Actor Jamie Bell is 22.

DEATH

1883 German political philosopher Karl Marx died in London.

1932 George Eastman US industrialist (Kodak-camera), suicide at 77.

1961 Akiba Rubinstein Polish chess player (opening theorist), dies at 78.

March 14, the 74th day of 2008. There are 292 days left in the year.


compiled by Mondoreb
image: morning-calm
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Also atDeath by 1000 Papercuts.

DBKP's Today in Weird History: February 4, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, EXECUTIONS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH, POLITICS, PROGRESS, EDUCATION, JEWS, BOOMS, RELIGION, ASSASSINATION, PATENTS, SPORTS, RIOTS, DEPORTED, BANKRUPT, RECORDS, CHIMPS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1789 Electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States. They also elected John Adams as Vice-President. (However, the results of the balloting were not counted in the U.S. Senate until two months later).

WAR!

1783 Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America.

1861 Confederate constitutional convention meets for 1st time, Montgomery AL. Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi & South Carolina elect Jefferson Davis President of Confederacy.

1945 President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.

TERRORISM

1990 10 Israeli tourists murdered near Cairo.

1994 20 die in armed assault on mosque in Khartum Sudan.

DISASTERS

1783 Worst quake in 8 years kills some 50,000 (Calabria, Italy).

1797 Earthquake in Quito, Ecuador kills 40,000.

1966 All-Nippon Airways 727 crashes off Haneda Airport (Japan); kills 133.

1971 Government exhibit under construction collapses, kills 65 in Brazil.

1976 7.5 earthquake kills 22,778 in Guatemala & Honduras.

1977 Elevated train jumps track, crashes onto Chicago st (11 die, 200 hurt).

1997 73 Israelis die when army copters collide.

1998 More than 2,300 people were killed when an earthquake hit northeast Afghanistan with a magnitude of 5.9, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

RECORDS

1982 Indoor distance record for a paper airplane (47 meters) Tacoma WA.

1984 Frank Aquilera sets world frisbee distance record (168 meters) Las Vegas.

RIOTS

1971 National Guard mobilized to quell rioting in Wilmington NC.

CHIMPS

1974 Chimpanzee Nim Chimsky signs his 1st word, at 2½ months.

BOOMS

1964 FAA begins 6 month test of reactions to sonic booms over Oklahoma City OK.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

2003 A rare television interview with Saddam Hussein aired in which the Iraqi leader charged that U.S. claims of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in his country were a pretext to seize Iraq's oil fields.

EDUCATION

1849 University of Wisconsin begins in 1 room with 20 students.

BANKRUPT

1971 British car maker Rolls Royce declared itself bankrupt.

DEPORTED

1972 Senator Strom Thurmond suggests John Lennon be deported.

NAZIs

1938 Hitler seizes control of German army & puts Nazi in key posts.

RELIGION

1866 Mary Baker Eddy cures her injuries by opening a bible.

ASSASSINATION

1949 Failed assassination attempt on Shah of Persia.

JEWS

1855 Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela.

1959 Israel begins exporting copper ore.

1997 Secretary of State Madeline Albright announces she just discovered that her grandparents were Jewish.

SPORTS

1932 New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid.

1969 John Madden is named head coach of the NFL's Oakland Raiders.

PATENTS

1913 Louis Perlman patents demountable auto tire-carrying wheel rim.

PROGRESS

1824 J W Goodrich introduces rubber galoshes to the public.

1930 1st tieless, soundless, shockless streetcar tracks, New Orleans.

1957 1st electric portable typewriter placed on sale (Syracuse NY).

EXECUTIONS

1699 350 rebellious Streltsi executed in Moscow.

BORN

1902 Charles A Lindbergh Detroit MI, pilot (1st fly solo across Atlantic).

1904 MacKinlay Kantor Webster City IA, novelist (Andersonville).

1913 Woody Hayes [Wayne], college football coach (Ohio, 1968 coach of year).

BIRTHDAYS

Actor William Phipps is 86. Actor Conrad Bain is 85. Actor Gary Conway is 72. Movie director George A. Romero is 68. Rock musician John Steel (The Animals) is 67. Singer Florence LaRue (The Fifth Dimension) is 64. Former Vice President Dan Quayle is 61. Rock singer Alice Cooper is 60. Actor Michael Beck is 59. Actress Lisa Eichhorn is 56. Rock singer Tim Booth is 48. Rock musician Henry Bogdan is 47. Country singer Clint Black is 46. Country musician Dave Buchanan (Yankee Grey) is 42. Actress Gabrielle Anwar is 38. Singer David Garza is 37. Actor Michael Goorjian is 37. Rock musician Rick Burch (Jimmy Eat World) is 33. Singer Natalie Imbruglia is 33. Rapper Cam'ron is 32. Rock singer Gavin DeGraw is 31. Olympic gold medal gymnast-turned-singer Carly Patterson is 20.

DEATH

1957 Joseph Hardaway creator of Bugs Bunny, dies at 66.

1983 Karen Carpenter singer/drummer (Carpenters), dies of anorexia at 32.

1987 Pianist Liberace died at his Palm Springs, Calif., home at age 67.

1989 Kenneth "Jethro" Burns country singer (Homer & Jethro), dies at 69.

2003 Opera singer Jerome Hines died in New York at age 81.

2007 Singer-actress Barbara McNair died in Los Angeles at age 72.

February 4, the 35th day of 2008. There are 331 days left in the year.




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



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