Sunday, February 17, 2008

DBKP Today in Weird History: February 18, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, REBELS, SCIENCE, TRIALS, CLINTONS, DEATH BY WINE, QUAKERS, BEHEADED, ENLIGHTENED, POLITICS, DRY, PATENTS, FLYING COWS, PROGRESS, CLASSIC, OCTOPUS, CLIMATE CHANGE, MARRIAGE, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


CLASSIC

1885 Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" published.

WAR!

1865 Evacuation of Charleston SC; Sherman's troops burn the city.

2003 Declaring that America's security should not be dictated by protesters, President Bush said he would not be swayed from compelling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm.

TERRORISM

1969 PLO-attack El-Al plane in Zurich Switzerland.

2003 An arson attack on two South Korean subway trains in the city of Daegu claimed 198 lives. (The arsonist was sentenced to life in prison.)

2007 A pair of bombs on a train headed from India to Pakistan killed 68 people.

2007 Twin car bombs blew up in a mostly Shiite area of Baghdad, killed at least 62 people.

DISASTER

1828 More than 100 vessels destroyed in a storm, Gibraltar.

1947 24 die in a train crash in Gallitzin PA.

1965 27 copper miners die in avalanche, Granduc Mountain British Columbia.

2007 A military helicopter crashed in southeastern Afghanistan, killing eight U.S. service members; 14 survived with injuries.

DEATH BY WINE

1478 Duke of Clarence forced drowning in a wine barrel.

FLYING COWS

1930 First cow milked in an airplane. Olly the Cow flown & milked, milk sealed in paper containers & parachuted over St. Louis MO.

PROGRESS

1953 Premiere of 1st 3-D feature film-"Bwana Devil" (New York NY).

OCTOPUS

1973 54-kg octopus measuring 7 meter across captured in Hood Canal, Washington.

CLIMATE CHANGE

1979 Snow falls in the Sahara Desert.

MARRIAGE

1995 Pamela Anderson (Baywatch) & Tommy Lee (Motley Crüe) wed.

ENLIGHTENED

1787 Austrian emperor Jozef II bans children under 8 from labor.

PATENTS

1901 H Cecil Booth patented a dust removing suction cleaner.

DRY

1896 Cave of Winds at Niagara Falls goes almost dry for 1st time in 50 years.

BEHEADED

1587 Mary Stuart Queen of Scots (1560-87), beheaded at 44.

CLINTONS

1998 President Clinton's foreign policy team encountered jeers during a town meeting at The Ohio State University while trying to defend the administration's threat to bomb Iraq into compliance with U.N. weapons edicts.

QUAKERS

1688 Quakers conduct 1st formal protest of slavery in Germantown PA.

POLITICS

1841 1st continuous filibuster in US Senate began, lasting until March 11.

TRIALS

1970 the "Chicago Seven" defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968. (Those convictions were later reversed).

SCIENCE

1930 photographic evidence of Pluto (now designated a "dwarf planet") was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.

1977 the space shuttle Enterprise, sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its maiden "flight" above the Mojave Desert.

REBELS

1861 Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.

BORN

1516 Mary I Tudor [Bloody Mary] Greenwich, (1553-58), 1st reigning queen of Great Britain.

1859 Sholem Aleichem [Solomon Rabinowitz], author (Fiddler on the Roof).

1890 Boris L Pasternak Russian poet/writer (Dr Zhivago).

1892 Wendell Wilkie Presidential candidate (R-1940)/author (One World).

1895 George "The Gipper" Gipp Notre Dame football star.

1920 Jack Palance [Walter Palanuik], Lattimer PA, actor (City Slickers).

BIRTHDAYS

Former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown is 86. Actor George Kennedy is 83. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., is 81. Author Toni Morrison is 77. Movie director Milos Forman is 76. Singer Yoko Ono is 75. Singer/songwriter Bobby Hart is 69. Singer Irma Thomas is 67. Singer Herman Santiago (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers) is 67. Singer Dennis DeYoung is 61. Actress Sinead Cusack is 60. Producer-director-writer John Hughes is 58. Actress Cybill Shepherd is 58. Singer Juice Newton is 56. Singer Randy Crawford is 56. Rock musician Robbie Bachman is 55. Rock musician Larry Rust (Iron Butterfly) is 55. Actor John Travolta is 54. Game show host Vanna White is 51. Actress Greta Scacchi is 48. Actor Matt Dillon is 44. Rapper Dr. Dre is 43. Actress Molly Ringwald is 40. Actress Sarah Brown is 33. Singer-musician Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek) is 31. Actor Tyrone Burton is 29. Actor Shane Lyons is 20.

DEATH

1546 Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.

1564 artist Michelangelo died in Rome.

1967 American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer died in Princeton, N.J., at age 62.

1990 Hulk fictional character in "Death of Incredible Hulk" on NBC, dies.

1998 Sportscaster Harry Caray died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 83.

2001 NASCAR driver/"The Intimidator", dies in crash during Daytona 500 at 49.

2003 Country singer Johnny PayCheck died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 64.

February 18, the 49th day of 2008. There are 317 days left in the year. This is Presidents Day.

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

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