DBKP Today in Weird History: February 16, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, PIRATES, SOCIETIES, TOMBS, DICTATORS, 911, RAMPAGE, DEMONSTRATIONS, DEMOCRATS, SPORTS, ELECTROCUTED, EXECUTED, SNEEZE, JEWS, CHECKS, WOMEN, CLUBS, DOORS, PATENTS, LEVIATHAN, NAZIS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, DEATH PENALTY, SWIM, BEATLES, TRAFFIC, RADICALS, BLIMPS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


WAR!

1862 during the Civil War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tenn. (Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant.")

1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery.

1945 American troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines during World War II.

TERRORISM

1992 Abbas Musawi leader of Hezbollah, assassinated.

2007 An Italian judge indicted 25 suspected CIA agents and a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel in the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. (The proceedings have been suspended pending a ruling on the Italian government's request to throw out the indictments.)

DISASTER

1994 6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200.

1996 11 people were killed in a fiery collision between an Amtrak passenger train and a Maryland commuter train in Silver Spring, Md.

1998 A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R trying to land in fog near Taipei, Taiwan, crashed, killing all 196 people on board and six people on the ground.

SNEEZE

600 Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying "God bless You" is the correct response to a sneeze.

WOMEN

1838 Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions.

TRAFFIC

1980 Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France.

BLIMPS

1992 Former silver Goodyear blimps are now painted yellow & blue.

CLUBS

1905 1st US Esperanto club organizes in Boston.

NAZIS

1943 Sign on Munich facade "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" done by "White Rose" student group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22.

PATENTS

1932 1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree.

1937 DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers.

PIRATES!

1804 Lt. Stephen Decatur led a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates.

DOORS

1909 1st subway car with side doors goes into service (New York NY).

BEATLES

1968 Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon & wives fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

JEWS

1349 Jews are expelled from Burgsdorf Switzerland.

1917 1st synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid.

SWIM

1963 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US)

CHECKS

1659 1st known check (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey).

LEVIATHAN

1938 US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized.

DEATH PENALTY

1956 Britain abolishes the death penalty.

RADICALS

1989 Jane Fonda & Tom Hayden separate after 16 years of marriage.

DEMONSTRATION

2003 More than 100,000 people demonstrated in the streets of San Francisco to protest a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1948 1st newsreel telecast, "20th Century Fox-Movietone News" shown on NBC.

1950 Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS.

EXECUTED

1979 Nematullah Nassiri Iran General/head of Savak, executed.

DEMOCRATS

2007 The Democratic-controlled House issued a symbolic rejection of President Bush's decision to deploy more troops to Iraq, approving the nonbinding resolution by a vote of 246-182.

SOCIETIES

1868 The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was organized in New York City.

TOMBS

1923 The burial chamber of King Tutankhamen's recently unearthed tomb was unsealed in Egypt by English archaeologist Howard Carter.

DICTATORS

1959 Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

ELECTROCUTED

1936 Tommy Ward South African cricket wicket keeper (23 Tests), electrocuted.

911

1968 the nation's first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Ala.

RAMPAGE

1988, Seven people were shot to death during an office rampage in Sunnyvale, Calif., by a man who was obsessed with a co-worker. (The gunman, Richard Farley, is under sentence of death.)

SPORTS

2003 Michael Waltrip raced past leader Jimmie Johnson to win the rain-shortened Daytona 500 for the second time in three years.

BORN

1903 Edgar Bergen Chicago IL, ventriloquist (Charlie McCarthy).

1906 Vera Menchik Moscow, 1st official women's world chess champion (1927).

BIRTHDAYS

Singer Patty Andrews is 90. Kim Jong Il, the president of North Korea, is 66. Actor Jeremy Bulloch is 62. Actor Pete Postlethwaite is 62. Actor William Katt is 57. Actor LeVar Burton is 51. Actor-rapper Ice-T is 50. Actress Lisa Loring is 50. Tennis Hall of Fame player John McEnroe is 49. Rock musician Andy Taylor is 47. Rock musician Dave Lombardo (Slayer) is 43. Rock musician Taylor Hawkins (Foofighters) is 36. Singer Sam Salter is 30. Rapper Lupe Fiasco is 26. Actor Mike Weinberg is 15.

DEATH

1977 Janani Luwum, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, and two other men were killed in what Ugandan authorities said was an automobile accident.

2003 Eleanor "Sis" Daley, the matriarch of Chicago's Daley political clan, died at age 95.

February 16, the 47th day of 2008. There are 319 days left in the year.

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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 1, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, CLINTONS, OOPS, SHIPWRECK, MOUNTIES, EXPOSED, SERIAL KILLERS, PIRATES, FEDERAL PEN, PATENTS, PEDOPHILES, MUSIC, HOMOS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, NGOs, UNIONS, HOLLYWOOD, JEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS, POLITICS, ASSASSINATION, LABOR, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH



WAR!

1968 during the Vietnam War, South Vietnam's police chief executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News.

1861 Texas voted to secede from the Union.

1865 General Sherman's march through South Carolina begins.

1943 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling Norwegian premier.

2007 The departing top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that improving security in Baghdad would take fewer than half as many extra troops as President Bush had chosen to commit.

TERRORISM

1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini received a tumultuous welcome in Tehran as he ended nearly 15 years of exile.

2007 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched anniversary celebrations for Iran's Islamic Revolution with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's controversial nuclear program.

DISASTERS

1814 Volcano Mayon on Luzon Philippines erupts killing 1,200.

1953 Flooding in Netherlands, kills 1,835.

1967 Severe brush fires in Tasmania destroy $11 million & 60 lives.

1970 Stalled commuter train rammed by express in Argentina, 139 die.

1977 Heavy blizzard in New England claims 100 lives.

1991 34 people were killed when a USAir jetliner crashed atop a commuter plane on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

1991 Afghanistan/Pakistan hit by earthquake, 1,200 die.

2003 At least 50 people were killed in a Zimbabwe train collision.

2003 The space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing all seven of its crew members: Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; Michael Anderson; Kalpana Chawla; David Brown; Laurel Clark; and Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space.

CLINTONS

1998 In a round of Sunday talk show appearances, Monica Lewinsky's attorney, William Ginsburg, predicted that the controversy over whether the former White House intern had had an affair with President Bill Clinton would "go away" and that the president would survive unscathed.

OOPS!

1966 Nicholas Piantanida sets balloon flight record & dies in descent.

SHIPWRECK

1709 British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a desert island (Fernandez Island) for 5 years, his story is the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe".

MOUNTIES

1920 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence.

EXPOSED

1969 Jim Morrison arrested for exposing himself in concert.

SERIAL KILLERS

1974 Lynda Ann Healy 1st Bundy murder victim, abducted in Seattle.

PIRATES!

1662 Dutch garrison on Formosa surrenders for Chinese pirates.

FEDERAL PEN

1906 1st federal penitentiary building completed, Leavenworth KS.

PATENTS

1793 Patent granted Ralph Hodgson, New York, for oiled silk & linen.

PEDOPHILE

1978 Director Roman Polanski skips bail & fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.

MUSIC

1949 RCA releases 1st single record ever (45 rpm).

HOMOS

1975 Otis Francis Tabler is 1st open homosexual to get security clearance to work for the Defense Department.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1953 "General Electric Theater" premieres on CBS TV; Reagan later hosts.

NGOs

1946 Norwegian statesman Trygve Lie was chosen to be the first secretary-general of the United Nations.

UNIONS

1958 The United Arab Republic, a union of Egypt and Syria, was established. (The union ended in 1961.)

HOLLYWOOD

1887 Harvey Wilcox of Kansas subdivides 120 acres he owned in Southern California & starts selling it off as a real estate development (Hollywood).

JEWS

1860 1st rabbi to open House of Representatives, Morris Raphall of New York NY.

1948 Palestine Post building in Jerusalem bombed.

CIVIL RIGHTS

1865 JS Rock, 1st black lawyer to practice in Supreme Court, admitted to bar.

1871 Jefferson Long of Georgia is 1st black to make an official speech in House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates).

1960 Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they had been refused service.

1965 Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators arrested in Selma AL.

POLITICS

1968 Richard M. Nixon announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

ASSASSINATIONS

1908 Carlos I King of Portugal (1889-1908), assassinated by mob at 44.

LABOR

1867 Bricklayers start working 8-hour days.


BORN

1901 Clark Gable Cadiz OH, actor (Gone With the Wind).

BIRTHDAYS

Actor Stuart Whitman is 80. Singer Don Everly is 71. Actor Garrett Morris is 71. Singer Ray Sawyer (Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show) is 71. Actor Sherman Hemsley is 70. Bluegrass singer Del McCoury is 69. Jazz musician Joe Sample is 69. Comedian Terry Jones is 66. Actor-writer-producer Bill Mumy is 54. Rock musician Mike Campbell (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 54. Rock singer Exene Cervenka is 52. Princess Stephanie of Monaco is 43. Country musician Dwayne Dupuy (Ricochet) is 43. Actress Sherilyn Fenn is 43. Lisa Marie Presley is 40. Comedian and actor Pauly Shore is 40. Actor Brian Krause is 39. Jazz musician Joshua Redman is 39. Rock musician Patrick Wilson (Weezer) is 39. Actor Michael C. Hall is 37. Rock musician Ron Welty is 37. Rapper Big Boi (Outkast) is 33. Country singer Julie Roberts is 29. Actor Jarrett Lennon is 26.

DEATH

1650 Rene Descartes philosopher "I think therefore I am", stops thinking.

1851 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley novelist (Frankenstein), dies at 53.

1966 Buster Keaton [Joseph Francis], US comic (General), dies at 69.

1988 Heather O'Rourke "Poltergeist" star dies of intestinal ailment at 12.

2003 Former Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng died in Modesto, Calif., at age 84.

2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti died in Monaco at age 95.

February 1, the 32nd day of 2008. There are 334 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: moorestevie
Source:
* Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.