DBKP Today in Weird History: February 29, 2008

WAR, DISASTER, REPORTS, QUICK-THINKING, MOVIES, VAVOOM, MUSIC, QUITTING, SCIENCE, RATINGS, POLITICS, KILLERS, UNUSUAL, BURNED, KINK, SPORTS, WHAT, RECORDS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

QUICK-THINKING

1504 Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew.

You might be interested in reading: Leap Day: Facts, Figures, Birthdays and Famous Events

WAR!

1856 Hostilities in Russo-Turkish War cease.

1944 US troops land on Los Negros, Admirality Islands.

DISASTER

1960 Earthquake kills 1/3 of Agadir Morocco population (12,000) in 15 seconds.

1996 A Peruvian commercial jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all 123 people on board.

UNUSUAL

1904 Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberdorft Sr near Hamburg, Germany; had a Christian name for every letter in the alphabet, shortened it to Mr Wolfe Plus 585 Sr.

VAVOOM!

1960, the first Playboy Club, featuring waitresses clad in "bunny" outfits, opened in Chicago.

KINK

1784 Marquis de Sade transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille.

RECORDS

1964 Frank Rugani sets badminton shuttlecock distance record, 24.3 meters.

WHAT?

1988 NYC Mayor Koch calls Reagan a "WIMP" in the war on drugs.

POLITICS

1956 Islamic Republic established in Pakistan.

2000 George W. Bush won Republican presidential primaries in Virginia, Washington state and North Dakota, defeating John McCain; Vice President Al Gore crushed fellow Democrat Bill Bradley in Washington state.

SPORTS

1964 North Carolina high school basketball teams play to 56-54 score in 13 overtime.

KILLERS

1996 Daniel Green was convicted in Lumberton, North Carolina, of murdering James R. Jordan, the father of basketball star Michael Jordan, during a 1993 roadside holdup. (Green and an accomplice, Larry Martin Demery, were sentenced to life in prison.)

2000 Six-year-old Kayla Rolland was fatally shot by a fellow first-grader at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Michigan.

REPORTS

1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move "toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."

BURNED

1528 Patrick Hamilton Scottish protestant martyr, burned at stake.

MOVIES

1940 "Gone with the Wind" won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of 1939.

2000 "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" won a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, including best picture; Sean Penn took the best-actor prize for "Mystic River" and Charlize Theron won best actress for "Monster."

SCIENCE

1968 the discovery of the first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell in Cambridge, England.

MUSIC

1968 at the Grammy Awards, the 5th Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" won record of the year for 1967, while album of the year honors went to The Beatles for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

QUITTING

1984 Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced he was stepping down after more than 15 combined years in power.

2000 Facing rebellion, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and left for exile in the Central African Republic.

RATINGS

1996 About 30 television and entertainment industry executives met with President Clinton at the White House, where they promised to devise a TV ratings system.

BORN

1908 The artist known as Balthus was born in Paris.

1936 Henri "Rocket" Richard NHL center (Montréal Canadiens).

1944 Dennis Farina Chicago IL, actor (Mike Torello-Crime Story).

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Michele Morgan is 88. Actor James Mitchell is 88. Actor Joss Ackland is 80. Actor Alex Rocco is 72. Former space shuttle astronaut Jack Lousma is 72. Actor Dennis Farina is 64. Actress Phyllis Frelich is 64. Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. is 36. Rapper Ja Rule is 32.

DEATH

1992 Johnny Mack British actor (Time Lord-Dr Who), dies at 70.

2000 Playwright Jerome Lawrence died in Malibu, California, at age 88.

February 29th, the 60th day of 2008. There are 306 days left in the year. This is Leap Day.

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

* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in Weird History: January 31, 2008

WAR!, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, BIRDS, WITCHES, TAPE, HAH!, REVOLT, MONKEYS, FINANCE, MUSIC, EXECUTIONS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, SMOKING, JEWS, PROGRESS, NANNY STATE, INVENTIONS, DEPRESSION, SUICIDE, SCIENCE, POLITICS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


1958 the United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.

WAR!

1861 State of Louisiana takes over US Mint at New Orleans.

1863 1st black Civil War regiment, SC Volunteers, mustered into US army

1865 Gen. Robert E. Lee was named General-in-Chief of all the Confederate armies.

1917 during World War I, Germany served notice it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.

1944 during World War II, U.S. forces began a successful invasion of Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

2003 President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met at the White House; Bush said he would welcome a second U.N. resolution on Iraq but only if it led to the prompt disarming of Saddam Hussein. Pushing for a new resolution, Blair called confronting Iraq "a test of the international community."

TERRORISM

2007 Nine blinking electronic devices planted around Boston threw a scare into the city in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for a late-night cable cartoon.

DISASTERS

1906 Strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake, Colombia, 8.6 Richter.

1953 "Princess Victoria" capsized off Stanraer Scotland; 133 die.

1953 Hurricane-like winds flood Netherlands drowning nearly 2,000.

1988 Barge sinks near Anacortes WA, spills 70,000 gallons of oil.

2000 an Alaska Airlines jet plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 people aboard.

BIRDS

1871 Millions of birds fly over western San Francisco, darken the sky.

WITCHES

1675 Cornelia/Dina Olfaarts found not guilty of witchcraft.

TAPE

1928 Scotch tape 1st marketed by 3-M Company.

HAH!

1933 Hitler promises parliamentary democracy.

REVOLT

1696 Revolt of undertakers after funeral reforms (Amsterdam).

MONKEYS

1961 Ham is 1st primate in space (158 miles) aboard Mercury/Redstone 2.

FINANCE

1994 Dow Jones hits a record 3,978.36.

MUSIC

1955 RCA demonstrates 1st music synthesizer.

1976 "Love Rollercoaster" by Ohio Players hits #1.

EXECUTIONS

1606 Guy Fawkes, convicted of treason for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.

1945 Private Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1958 "Jackpot Bowling" premieres on NBC with Leo Durocher as host.

SMOKING

1964 US report "Smoking & Health" connects smoking to lung cancer.

JEWS

1961 David Ben-Gurion resigns as premier of Israel.

1978 Israel turns 3 military outposts in West Bank into civilian settlements.

PROGRESS

1905 1st auto to exceed 100 mph (161 kph), A G MacDonald, Daytona Beach.

1948 Magnetic tape recorder developed by Wireway.

NANNY STATE

1970 Grateful Dead members busted on LSD charges.

2007 President Bush, visiting Wall Street, delivered his "State of the Economy" speech in which he took aim at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives.

INVENTIONS

1851 Gail Borden announces invention of evaporated milk.

DEPRESSION

1934 President Franklin Roosevelt devalued the dollar in relation to gold.

SUICIDE

1954 Edwin H Armstrong US radio inventor (FM), commits suicide at 63.

SCIENCE

1958 James van Allen discovers radiation belt.

1971 astronauts Alan Shepard Jr., Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.

1998 Astronaut David Wolf returned to Earth aboard space shuttle Endeavour after four months on the Russian space station Mir.

POLITICS

2007 Delaware Sen. Joe Biden formally launched his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

BORN

1734 Robert Morris merchant (signed Declaration of Independence).

1797 composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria.

1872 Zane Grey American West novelist (Riders of the Purple Sage, Spirit of the Border).

1903 Tallulah Bankhead Huntsville AL, actress (Lifeboat, Die Die Darling).

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Carol Channing is 87. Actress Jean Simmons is 79. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Ernie Banks is 77. Composer Philip Glass is 71. Actor Stuart Margolin is 68. Former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is 67. Blues singer-musician Charlie Musselwhite is 64. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan is 61. Singer-musician KC (KC and the Sunshine Band) is 57. Rock singer Johnny Rotten is 52. Actress Kelly Lynch is 49. Actor Anthony LaPaglia is 49. Singer-musician Lloyd Cole is 47. Actor John Dye is 45. Rock musician Jeff Hanneman (Slayer) is 44. Rock musician Al Jaworski (Jesus Jones) is 42. Actress Minnie Driver is 38. Actress Portia de Rossi is 35. Actress Kerry Washington is 31. Singer Justin Timberlake is 27.

DEATH

1974 Samuel Goldwyn Polish/English/US film magnate (MGM), dies at 91.

2006 Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, at age 78.

2007 Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins died in Austin, Texas, at age 62.

January 31, the 31st day of 2008. There are 335 days left in the year.

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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP's Today in History: January 20, 2008

TERRORISM, WAR!, DISASTERS, LONGSHOTS, MUSIC, SURVIVORS, CHURCH, GIFTS, SUPREME COURT, DEALS, POLITICS, OOPS!, BOYCOTTS, SCIENCE, MEDIA, JEWS, FINANCE, SPORTS, CLINTONS, ASSASSINATIONS, HOLIDAYS, MURDER, TARZAN, TUNNELS, LAWSUITS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH



TERRORISM

1981 Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.

1987 Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon.

WAR!

1783 Hostilities cease in Revolutionary War.

1944 RAF drops 2300 ton bombs on Berlin.

1991 US Patriot missiles begins shooting down Iraqi missiles.

2003 Secretary of State Colin Powell, faced with stiff resistance and calls to go slow, bluntly told the Security Council that the U.N. "must not shrink" from its responsibility to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

2007 Twenty-five U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, including 12 in a helicopter crash in Baghdad and five in a sophisticated sneak attack in Karbala.

DISASTERS

1982 7 miners killed in an explosion in Craynor KY.

1985 Cold front strikes US, at least 40 die (-27ºF (-33ºC) in Chicago).

LONGSHOTS

2007 Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback began a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination (he withdrew last October).

MUSIC

1964 "Meet The Beatles" album released in US

1965 The Byrds record "Mr Tambourine Man"

SURVIVORS

1989 Reagan becomes 1st President elected in a "0" year, since 1840, to leave office alive.

CHURCH

1788 Pioneer African Baptist church organizes in Savannah GA.

GIFTS

1949 J Edgar Hoover gives Shirley Temple a tear gas fountain pen.

SUPREME COURT

1801 Secretary of State John Marshall was nominated by President Adams to be chief justice of the United States (he was sworn in on Feb. 4, 1801).

DEALS

1841 the island of Hong Kong was ceded by China to Great Britain. (It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.)

1887 the U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.

POLITICS

1937 President Franklin Roosevelt became the first chief executive to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 instead of March 4.

1945 President Roosevelt was sworn into office for an unprecedented fourth term.

1969 Richard M Nixon inaugurated as President.

1981 Ronald Reagan inaugurated as President.

1989 Bush inaugurated as 41st President & Quayle becomes 44th Vice President.

OOPS!

1862 General Felix Zollicoffer killed after mistakenly riding into union lines.

BOYCOTTS

1980 President Jimmy Carter announces US boycott of Olympics in Moscow.

SCIENCE

1997 Comet Hale-Bopp crosses Mars' orbit.

MEDIA

1929 1st feature talking motion picture taken outdoors, "In Old Arizona".

1930 1st radio broadcast of "Lone Ranger" (WXYZ-Detroit).

1965 The Beatles appear on Shindig (ABC-TV).

JEWS

1939 Hitler proclaims to German parliament to exterminate all European Jews.

1942 Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating Jews.

1965 Generalissimo Francisco Franco meets with Jewish representatives to discuss legitimizing Jewish communities in Spain.

FINANCE

1995 Russian ruble drops to 3,947 per dollar (record).

SPORTS

1892 1st basketball game played (Massachusetts).

1980 Super Bowl XIV Pittsburgh Steelers beat Los Angeles Rams, 31-19 in Pasadena; Super Bowl MVP Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh, Quarterback.

CLINTONS

1993 Bill Clinton inaugurated as 42nd President.

2007 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., launched her campaign for the White House, saying in a videotaped messsage on her Web site: "I'm in, and I'm in to win."

ASSASSINATIONS

1948 Mahatma Gandhi India's pacifist, assassinated.

HOLIDAYS

1986, the United States observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

MURDER

1959 Carl Switzer actor (Alfalfa-Our Gang), shot to death at 31.

TUNNELS

1986 Britain and France announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel.

TARZAN

1984 Peter John [Johnny] Weissmuller actor (Tarzan, Jungle Jim), dies after a series of strokes in Acapulco at 79

LAWSUITS

1998 A jury was selected in Amarillo, Texas, to hear a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by Texas cattlemen against talk show host Oprah Winfrey over comments made on her program concerning beef safety. (Winfrey won the case.)

BORN

1889 Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter Mooringsport LA, blues 12 string guitarist (Rock Island Line).

1920 DeForest Kelley Atlanta GA, actor (Dr McCoy-Star Trek).

BIRTHDAYS

Country singer Slim Whitman is 84. Actress Patricia Neal is 82. Comedian Arte Johnson is 79. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin is 78. Actress Dorothy Provine is 71. Singer Eric Stewart is 63. Movie director David Lynch is 62. Actor Daniel Benzali is 58. Rock musician Paul Stanley (KISS) is 56. Rock musician Ian Hill (Judas Priest) is 56. Comedian Bill Maher is 52. Actor Lorenzo Lamas is 50. Actor James Denton ("Desperate Housewives") is 45. Rock musician Greg K. (The Offspring) is 43. Country singer John Michael Montgomery is 43. Actor Rainn Wilson ("The Office) is 42. Actress Stacey Dash is 41. TV personality Melissa Rivers is 40. Singer Xavier is 40. Singer Edwin McCain is 38. Actor Skeet Ulrich is 38. Rap musician ?uestlove (The Roots) is 37. Rock musician Rob Bourdon (Linkin Park) is 29. Actor Evan Peters is 21.

DEATH

1936 Britain's King George V died; he was succeeded by Edward VIII.

2003 Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld died in New York at age 99.

2003 Pollster Burns W. "Bud" Roper died on Cape Cod, Mass., at age 77.

January 20, the 20th day of 2008. There are 346 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
[images: wikipedia]
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History




Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in History: January 17, 2008

WAR!, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, CLINTONS, DIPLOMACY, ABDICATION, JEWS, SPORTS, SOLD, PATENTS, COMICS, CIVIL RIGHTS, MUSIC, PROGRESS, LINES, WITCHES, WHEW!, EXECUTIONS, DIVORCE, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, BUREAUCRACY, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

On Jan. 17, 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II. Shown above, US and Soviets meet at Elbe River.

WAR!

1943 Tin Can Drive Day

2003 On the 12th anniversary of the Gulf War, a defiant Saddam Hussein called on his people to rise up and defend the nation against a new U.S.-led attack.

TERRORISM

1979 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees Iran. Iran completely in hands of the forces of the Islamic Republic.

DISASTERS

1718 Avalanche destroys every building in Leukerbad, Switzerland; kills 53

1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 72 people.

1995, more than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.

CLINTONS

1998 President Bill Clinton gave a deposition in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against him; during the nearly six hours of sworn testimony, Clinton denied having had a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

1998 President Clinton faces sexual harassment charges from Paula Jones.

DIPLOMACY

1946 United Nations Security Council holds its 1st meeting.

ABDICATION

1893, Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic.

SPORTS

1997 NBA suspends Dennis Rodman indefinitely/$25,000 for kicking cameraman

SOLD

1917, the United States paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.

PATENTS

1861 Flush toilet (with separate water tank and a pull chain) patented by Mr Thomas Crapper.

1905 Punchboards patented by Charles Brewer & C G Scannell, Chicago IL

JEWS

1945 Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation

1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, arrested in Hungary and disappeared while in Soviet custody.

COMICS

1929 Popeye makes 1st appearance, in comic strip "Thimble Theatre".

CIVIL RIGHTS

1966 Martin Luther King Jr opens campaign in Chicago.



MUSIC

1969 Debut album of Led Zeppelin released in US.

PROGRESS

1955 Submarine USS Nautilus begins 1st nuclear-powered test voyage

LINES

1961, in his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."

WITCHES

1775 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests, Kalisk, Poland

WHEW!

1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashed on the Spanish coast. (Three of the bombs were quickly recovered, but the fourth wasn't recovered until April.)

EXECUTIONS

1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

DIVORCE

1997, a court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1954 Jacques Cousteau's 1st network telecast airs on "Omnibus" (CBS)

BUREAUCRACY

2003 Tom Ridge sailed through Senate confirmation hearings on his way to becoming the nation's first Homeland Security Department chief.

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Betty White is 86. Singer-actress Eartha Kitt is 81. Actor James Earl Jones is 77. Talk show host Maury Povich is 69. Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is 66. Rhythm-and-blues singer William Hart (The Delfonics) is 63. Rock musician Mick Taylor is 60. Rhythm-and-blues singer Sheila Hutchinson (The Emotions) is 55. Singer Steve Earle is 53. Singer Paul Young is 52. Actor-comedian Steve Harvey is 51. Singer Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) is 49. Actor-comedian Jim Carrey is 46. Actor Joshua Malina is 42. Singer Shabba Ranks is 42. Actor Naveen Andrews is 39. Rapper Kid Rock is 37. Actor Freddy Rodriguez is 33. Actress Zooey Deschanel is 28. Singer Ray J is 27. Country singer Amanda Wilkinson is 26.

DEATH

1893 Rutherford B Hayes 19th US President (1877-81), dies in Fremont OH at 70.

1998 Emil Sitka actor (3 Stooges shorts), dies of stroke at 82.

2003 Actor Richard Crenna died in Los Angeles at age 76.

2003 Gertrude Janeway, the last known widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died in Blaine, Tenn., at age 93 (she had married John Janeway in 1927 when he was 81 and she was barely 18).

2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning satirist Art Buchwald died in Washington, D.C., at age 81.

January 17, the 17th day of 2008. There are 349 days left in the year.


compiled by Mondoreb
[images: mtmestas;mp3.com]
Source:
* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.