DBKP Today in Weird History: April 7 2008

War, Terrorism, Disaster, TV, Trolleys, Ooops, Wimps, I GOT YOU, Rockets, Unhappy Birthday, Smells Like Suicide, Jews, Inventions, Big Oil, Ouch, Nanny State, Wow, Pro Wrestling, Born, Birthdays, Death

SMELLS LIKE SUICIDE

1994 Kurt Cobain grunge rocker (Nirvana), commits suicide by gun at 27.

WAR!

1862 Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

1945 During World War II, American planes intercepted and effectively destroyed a Japanese fleet that was headed to Okinawa on a suicide mission.

2003 U.S. troops in more than 100 U.S. armored vehicles rumbled through downtown Baghdad, seizing one of Saddam Hussein's opulent palaces and toppling a 40-foot statue of the Iraqi ruler.

TERRORISM

1980 Jimmy Carter breaks relations with Iran during hostage crisis.

DISASTER

1926 Forest fire burns 900 acres & kills 2 (San Luis Obispo CA).

1990 Fire kills 110 on a ferry in Norway, in an unrelated event, 30 die in a ferry flip over in Burma.

OUCH!

1926 Mussolini's Irish wife breaks his nose.

OOOPS!

1966 The U.S. Navy recovered a hydrogen bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.

UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY

1972 "Crazy" Joe Gallo mobster, killed at his 43rd birthday party.

WOW!

1981 Willem Klein mentally extracts 13th root of a 100-digit # in 29 seconds.

PRO WRESTLING

1986 Wrestlemania II at 3 locations, Hulk Hogan beats King Kong Bundy.

1991 Wrestlemania VII scheduled in Los Angeles CA, actually performed 03/24.

NANNY STATE

1933 Prohibition ends, Utah becomes 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment.

1959 Oklahoma ends prohibition, after 51 years.

1969 Supreme Court strikes down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.

WIMPS

1978 President Carter announced he was deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

INVENTIONS

1827 English chemist John Walker invents wooden matches.

BIG OIL

1902 Texas Oil Company (Texaco) forms.

ROCKETS

2007 A Russian rocket carrying American billionaire Charles Simonyi roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan, sending its three occupants on a trip to the international space station.

JEWS

1645 Michael Cardozo becomes 1st Jewish lawyer in Brazil.

1933 1st 2 Nazi anti-Jewish laws, bar Jews from legal & public service.

1994 Vatican acknowledges Holocaust (Nazi's killing Jews) for 1st time.

TV

1927 An audience in New York watched as the image as well as voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover were transmitted live from Washington in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

TROLLEYS

1957 Shortly after midnight, the last of New York's electric trolleys completed its final run from Queens to Manhattan.

I GOT YOU

1998 Mary Bono, the widow of entertainer-turned-politician Sonny Bono, won a special election to serve out the remainder of her husband's congressional term.

BORN

1860 W K Kellogg - the original corn flake.

BIRTHDAYS

Actor R.G. Armstrong is 91. Sitar player Ravi Shankar is 88. Actor James Garner is 80. Country singer Cal Smith is 76. Actor Wayne Rogers is 75. Media commentator Hodding Carter III is 73. Country singer Bobby Bare is 73. Rhythm-and-blues singer Charlie Thomas (The Drifters) is 71. Jazz musician Freddie Hubbard is 70. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is 70. Movie director Francis Ford Coppola is 69. TV personality David Frost is 69. Singer Patricia Bennett (The Chiffons) is 61. Singer John Oates is 59. Singer Janis Ian is 57. Country musician John Dittrich is 57. Actor Jackie Chan is 54. Football Hall-of-Famer Tony Dorsett is 54. Actor Russell Crowe is 44. Rhythm-and-blues singer Mark Kibble (Take 6) is 44. Actor Bill Bellamy is 43. Rock musician Dave "Yorkie" Palmer (Space) is 43. Former football player-turned-analyst Tiki Barber is 33. Actress Heather Burns is 33. Actor Conner Rayburn is 9.

DEATH

30 Jesus crucified by Roman troops in Jerusalem (scholars' estimate, according to astronomer Schaefer).

1891 P[hineas] T Barnum US circus promoter (Barnum & Bailey), dies at 80.

2007 "B.C." comic strip creator Johnny Hart died in Nineveh, N.Y., at age 76.

2007 Actor Barry Nelson died in Bucks County, Pa., at age 89.

April 7, the 98th day of 2008. There are 268 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: Guitars canada
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History
* DBKP Today in Weird History: April 7 2008
* Today in Weird History: April 7 2008


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DBKP Today in Weird History: March 16, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, ROCKETS, NAZIS, SCANDALS, ST. PANCAKE, SURE, BOBBIES, JEWS, ASSASSINATION, BYE, QUIET, NANNY STATE, WOMEN, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, DRAMA, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

ACADEMIES

1802 President Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

WAR!

1945 US defeats Japan at Iwo Jima.

1968 My Lai massacre occurs (Vietnam War); 450 die.

2003 Five years ago: Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein warned that if Iraq were attacked, it would take the war anywhere in the world "wherever there is sky, land or water." President Bush gave the United Nations one more day to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

TERRORISM

1977 US President Carter pleads for Palestinian homeland.

1978 Italian politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas, who later murdered him.

1984 William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by gunmen; he died in captivity.

1985 Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, was abducted in Beirut; he was released in December 1991.

1988 North-Ireland Protestant fires on Catholic funeral, 3 killed.

DISASTER

1941 Blizzard hits North Dakota & Minnesota killing 60.

1969 Viasa DC-9 crashes at Maracaibo's Grano de Oro airport, killing 155.

1991 7 members of Reba McIntire's band killed in a plane crash.

DRAMA

1994 Tonya Harding pleads guilty to felony attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

QUIET

1830 New York Stock Exchange slowest day ever (31 shares traded).

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1966 "Man From Uncle" star David McCallum receives huge welcome in London.

WOMEN

1876 Nelly Saunders & Rose Harland fight 1st female boxing match (New York).

BOBBIES

1830 London's re-organised police force (Scotland Yard) forms.

ROCKETS

1926 rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled rocket, in Auburn, Mass.

BYE

1861 Arizona Territory votes to leave the Union.

NAZIS

1935 Adolf Hitler decided to break the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany.

ST. PANCAKE

2003 Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American in Gaza to protest Israel operations, was killed when she was run over by a bulldozer while trying to block troops from demolishing a Palestinian home.

NANNY STATE

1871 1st fertilizer law enacted.

SCANDALS

1988 A federal grand jury indicted former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, fired White House aide Oliver North, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord and Secord's business partner, Albert Hakim, on charges related to the Iran-Contra affair. (Poindexter and North were later convicted, but had their convictions overturned; Secord and Hakim received probation after each pleaded guilty to a single count.)

ASSASSINATION

1978 Aldo Moro 5 times Prime Minister of Italy, assassinated by terrorists.

JEWS

1190 Jews of York England commit mass sucide rather than submit to baptism.

1998 In a long-awaited document that Jewish leaders immediately criticized, the Vatican expressed remorse for the cowardice of some Christians during the Holocaust, but defended the actions of Pope Pius XII.

SURE

2007 Former CIA operative Valerie Plame told a House committee that White House and State Department officials had "carelessly and recklessly" blown her cover in a politically motivated smear of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publicly disputing President Bush's assertion that Saddam Hussein was on the brink of acquiring a nuclear bomb.

BORN

1751 James Madison, fourth president of the United States, was born in Port Conway, Va.

1849 James E Smith became father at 100 with woman 64 years younger.

BIRTHDAYS

Comedian-director Jerry Lewis is 82. Movie director Bernardo Bertolucci is 67. Game show host Chuck Woolery is 67. Singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker is 66. Country singer Robin Williams is 61. Actor Erik Estrada is 59. Actor Victor Garber is 59. Actress Kate Nelligan is 57. Country singer Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel) is 57. Rock singer-musician Nancy Wilson (Heart) is 54. Golfer Hollis Stacy is 54. Actress Isabelle Huppert is 53. Actor Clifton Powell is 52. Rapper Flavor Flav (Public Enemy) is 49. Rock musician Jimmy DeGrasso is 45. Folk singer Patty Griffin is 44. Actress Lauren Graham is 41. Actor Alan Tudyk is 37. Actress Brooke Burns is 30. Rock musician Wolfgang Van Halen is 17.

DEATH

37 Roman emperor Tiberius died; he was succeeded by Caligula.

March 16, the 76th day of 2008. There are 290 days left in the year. Today is Palm Sunday.

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

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