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 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: 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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP Today in History: January 15, 2008

WAR!, DISASTERS, QUEENS, ICE CREAM, FREEDOM, RECORDS, GEEZERS, EDUCATION, POLITICS, LANDMARKS, MURDERS, SPORTS, SERIAL KILLERS, SCANDAL, FINANCE, SUPREME COURT, EXECUTIONS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, POPES, KINGS, RIOTS, PRO WRESTLING, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH and MORE


1870 Donkey 1st used as symbol of Democratic Party, in Harper's Weekly

WAR!

1865 Fort Fisher, NC falls to Union troops

1940 German U-Boot torpedoes Dutch trade ship Arendskerk (Eagle's Church)
1942 FDR asks commissioner to continue baseball during WWII
1942 Cubs, drop plans to install lights at Wrigley due to WWII
1943 Japanese driven off Guadalcanal
1944 European Advisory Commission decides to divide Germany
1944 General Eisenhower arrives in England
1944 Vught Concentration Camp puts 74 women in 1 cell, 10 die
1945 Red Army frees Crakow-Plaszow concentration camp
1949 Mao's Red army conquers Ten-tsin
1955 USSR ends state of war with German Federal Republic
1973, President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations.

DISASTER

1919 2 million gallons of molasses "Tidal wave" Boston MA, drowning 21

1934 8.4 earthquake in India/Nepal, 10,700 die

1951 "Cloud of Death" rolls down Mount Lamington, New Guinea kills 3-5,000

1993 7.5 earthquake strikes northern Japan, 2 die

ICE CREAM

1935 300 Dutch ice cream salesmen protest against Italian competition

QUEENS

1559 England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1994 Queen Elizabeth falls off her horse & breaks her left wrist

FREEDOM

1777 the people of New Connecticut declared their independence. (The tiny republic later became the state of Vermont.)

GEEZERS

1998 NASA announces John Glenn, 76, may fly in space again

EDUCATION

1844, the University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.

POLITICS

1942, Jawaharlal Nehru was named to succeed Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's Congress Party.

RECORDS

1983 Thom Syles keeps a life saver intact in his mouth for over 7 hours

LANDMARKS

1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.

MURDERS

1947 The mutilated remains of Elizabeth Short, the 22-year-old aspiring actress now known as the "Black Dahlia," were found in a vacant Los Angeles lot.

SPORTS

1934 Babe Ruth signs a 1934 contract for $35,000 ($17,000 cut)

1967 The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, retroactively known as Super Bowl I.

SERIAL KILLERS

1978 Two students at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, were murdered in their sorority house. (Ted Bundy was later convicted of the crime, and executed.)

SCANDAL

1992 Cleaning woman finds intimate photos of Sarah Ferguson with US man

1998 Henry Cisneros' ex-mistress, Linda Medlar Jones, pleaded to misleading federal authorities investigating the former U.S. housing secretary's payment of alleged hush money to her. (Jones served nearly 18 months in prison; she was later pardoned by President Clinton.) Labor Secretary Alexis Herman denied allegations that she had sold her influence in the White House. (Herman was cleared in 2000 by Independent Counsel Ralph I. Lancaster.)

FINANCE

2003 White House budget director Mitchell Daniels predicted federal deficits would balloon to the $200- to $300 billion range over the next two years.

SUPREME COURT

1951 Supreme Court rule "clear & present danger" of incitement to riot is not protected speech & can be a cause for arrest

2003 Mickey Mouse and The Walt Disney Co. scored a big victory as the Supreme Court upheld longer copyright protections for cartoon characters, songs, books and other creations worth billions of dollars.

EXECUTIONS

2008 The Iraqi government hanged two of Saddam Hussein's henchmen, including a half-brother (Barzan Ibrahim) who was accidentally decapitated by the noose.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1973 Gene Shalit joins the Today Show panel

1974 "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC

1977 Coneheads debut on "Saturday Night Live"

1981 "Hill Street Blues" premieres on NBC-TV

1988 Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder makes remarks about black athletes

1993 Soap opera "Santa Barbara" final show on NBC TV

POPES

708 Sisinnius begins his reign as Catholic Pope (dies 20 days later)

KINGS

1535 Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church

RIOTS

1754 Riot at burial of doelist Daniel Raap in Amsterdam

FASHION

1797 1st top hat worn (John Etherington of London)

PROGRESS

1831 1st US-built locomotive to pull a passenger train makes 1st run; Mr & Mrs Pierson of Charleston SC make 1st US railroad honeymoon trip

1863 1st US newspaper printed on wood-pulp paper, Boston Morning Journal

1936 1st all-glass windowless structure in US completed, Toledo, Ohio

SCIENCE

1833 HMS Beagle anchors at Goeree Tierra del Fuego

PATENTS

1861 Steam elevator patented by Elisha Otis

1907 3-element vacuum tube patented by Dr Lee de Forest

INVENTIONS

1907 Gold dental inlays 1st described by William Taggart, who invented them

JEWS

1943 1st transport of Jews from Amsterdam to concentration camp Vught

1973 Pope Paul VI has an audience with Golda Meir at Vatican

1988 Arab uprising in Israel begins

RATIONING

1945 Every Amsterdammer gets 3 kg sugar beets

CIVIL RIGHTS

1950 4,000 attend National Emergency Civil Rights Conference in Washington DC

MUSIC

1961 Supremes signed with Motown Records

1965 Rock group The Who releases 1st album "I Can't Explain"

LABOR

1964 Teamsters negotiate 1st national labor contract

WATERGATE

1973 4 Watergate burglars plead guilty in federal court

1974 Expert panel reports 18½-m gap in Watergate tape, 5 separate erasures

ASSASSINATION

1976 Sara Jane Moore sentenced to life for attempting to shoot President Ford

PRO WRESTLING

1989 Big John Studd wins WWF's 1st Royal Rumble

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Margaret O'Brien is 71. Singer Don Van Vliet (aka "Captain Beefheart") is 67. Actress Andrea Martin is 61. Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 51. Actor James Nesbitt is 43. Singer Lisa Lisa (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) is 41. Actor Chad Lowe is 40. Actress Regina King is 37. Actor Eddie Cahill is 30. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 27.

DEATH

1998 Amos "Junior" Wells blues harpist, dies at 63

January 15, the 15th day of 2008. There are 351 days remaining in the year.


compiled by Mondoreb
[image: publicdomainclipart]
Sources:
*Today in History
* Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.