DBKP Today in Weird History: February 17, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, BURNED, POLITICS, PROGRESS, CHINA CARD, CHESS, HANGED, VEGETABLES, JIHAD, TOILETS, NANNY STATE, CARTOONS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, JEWS, MUSIC, FINANCE, ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE, KILLERS, HUSTLER, CLINTONS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

click on image to read Newsweek's "The Cooling World"

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1933 1st issue of "Newsweek" magazine published.

WAR!

1864 The Confederate submarine Hunley, equipped with an explosive at the end of a protruding spar, rammed and sank the Union's ship Housatonic off the coast of Charleston, S.C.

1865 Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and Union forces moved in. (It's not clear which side set the blaze.)

1915 Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WWI, is mortally wounded.

1979 China invades Vietnam.

2003 European Union leaders declared their solidarity with the United States, warning Saddam Hussein that Iraq faced one "last chance" to disarm peacefully but calling war a last resort.

2007 Senate Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate President Bush's deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq.

2007 Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington was sentenced to eight years in military prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing of an Iraqi civilian.

TERRORISM

1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad.

1988 US Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins kidnapped by Lebanese terrorists & later killed.

1993 Alfredo de Leon leader (Philippines Red Scorpio Gang), killed.

1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax.

DISASTER

1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch Bingham UT, 40 die.

1950 31 die in a train crash in Rockville Center, New York.

1957 Fire in Warreton MO, kills 72.

1962 Storm in Hamburg, kills 265.

1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt.

1993 Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die.

2003 Twenty-one people were killed in a stampede at the crowded E2 nightclub in Chicago.

HANGED

1688 Reverend James Renwick hanged in Scotland for being a Presbyterian.

VEGETABLES

1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden Chester, England.

TOILETS

1883 A Ashwell patents free-toilet in London.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE

1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole".

MUSIC

1962 Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin".

HUSTLER

1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sex abused his daughter.

CARTOONS

1933 Blondie Boopadoop marries Dagwood Bumstead; Dagwood's father promptly disinherits him.

1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears.

JIHAD

1568 Holy Roman Emperor agrees to pay annual tribute to Sultan for peace.

CLINTONS

1998 President Clinton, preparing Americans for possible air strikes against Iraq, said military force is never the first answer "but sometimes it's the only answer."

KILLERS

1970 Jeffrey McDonald slices up his wife & daughter.

1995 Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the Long Island Railroad in New York.

1998 Diane Zamora, 20, Naval Academy cadet convicted of capital murder.

FINANCE

1981 Chrysler Corp reports largest corporate losses in US history.

NANNY STATE

1913 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon).

BURNED

1600 Italian philospher, alchemist, and Copernican theory advocate Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy by the Inquisition.

JEWS

1943 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.

1949 Chaim Weizman elected 1st President of Israel.

1969 Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister.

2007 Former French Cabinet minister Maurice Papon, convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War II, died near Paris at age 96.

POLITICS

1801 The electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was broken by the House of Representatives who elected Jefferson president.

CHINA CARD

1972 President Richard Nixon left on his trip to China.

PROGRESS

1817 Baltimore became the first U.S. city lit by gas.

CHESS

1996 Chess champion Garry Kasparov beat the IBM computer, Deep Blue, winning the six-game match.

BORN

1817 Frederick Douglass famous African-American.

1844 A. Montgomery Ward founded mail-order business (Montgomery Ward).

1854 Friedrich A Krupp German arms manufacturer.

1908 sportscaster Walter Lanier "Red" Barber was born in Columbus, Miss.

BIRTHDAYS

Bandleader Orrin Tucker is 97. Actor Hal Holbrook is 83. Mystery writer Ruth Rendell is 78. Singer Bobby Lewis is 75. Comedian Dame Edna (AKA Barry Humphries) is 74. Country singer-songwriter Johnny Bush is 73. Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown is 72. Actress Mary Ann Mobley is 69. Actress Brenda Fricker is 63. Actress Rene Russo is 54. Actor Richard Karn is 52. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips is 46. Basketball player Michael Jordan is 45. Actor-comedian Larry, the Cable Guy is 45. TV personality Rene Syler is 45. Movie director Michael Bay is 44. Singer Chante Moore is 41. Rock musician Timothy J. Mahoney (311) is 38. Actor Dominic Purcell is 38. Actress Denise Richards is 37. Rock singer-musician Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) is 36. Actor Jerry O'Connell is 34. Country singer Bryan White is 34. Actress Kelly Carlson is 32. Actor Jason Ritter is 28. TV personality Paris Hilton is 27. Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is 27.

DEATH

1908 Geronimo Apache chief, dies at about 79.

1982 Theolonious S Monk US, jazz pianist/composer (Blue Monk), dies at 64.

1990 Keith Haring US graffiti-artist, dies at 31.

February 17, the 48th day of 2008. There are 318 days left in the year.

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



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

MI Residents Warned: Toilet Water Geysers

"Mommy, It's Just like Old Faithful!"



Everyone's own personal problems are the ones that matter most.

To a lot of people, it's stretching the paycheck out until the next one gets cashed.

To soldiers in Iraq, it's doing their duty while trying to stay alive.

To the good people of Frankenmuth, Michigan, it's geysers of water shooting out of their toilets. From the AP:

Maintenance of city sewer lines is causing quick bursts of water to splash out of residents' toilets. The problem has affected about 20 of Frankenmuth's 1,200 households.

"It's just real strange," City Manager Charles Graham told The Saginaw News for a story Friday.

The story quoted Graham as saying that the maintenance work usually causes only "mild gurgling".

But in some homes, water has burst onto walls and floors in the city 70 miles north of Detroit.

Department of Public Works crews use a spray nozzle to boost the water pressure in sewer pipes each year to flush out the pipes.

The city previously had placed notices in a local newspaper to alert residents about the work. But because of the recent splashing, the city decided to post notices on residents' doors urging them to take precautions.

The maintenance still is under way and usually takes about a week.

The story goes on to say that the city is not sure when this year's work will end--because Public Works employees are busy plowing snow and salting roads.

So, this is an amusing story on an early Saturday afternoon in February.

Unless you happen to near particular bathrooms in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

by Mondoreb
idea & image: RidesAPaleHorse
Source: Residents warned of splashing toilets



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

DBKP's Today in Weird History: February 2, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, EXHIBITS, TOILETS, POOL, RECORDS, TOYS, MEATS, SNACKS, STUNTS, NAZIs, GANGSTERS, STING, CLIMATE, CITIES, HOAX, SPORTS, ETHYL, JEWS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, ASTROLOGY, CIVIL RIGHTS, INVENTIONS, PATENTS, EXECUTION, OVERDOSE, FIRE, LIES, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH



Today is Groundhog Day.

WAR!

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, was signed.

1943 The remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered in a major victory for the Soviets in World War II.

1944 4th US marine division conquerors Roi, Marshall Islands.

1944 Allied troops 1st set foot on Japanese territory.

TERRORISM

1968 Springer Publishers in West Berlin, bombed.

DISASTERS

1897 fire destroyed the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg. (A new statehouse was dedicated on the same site nine years later.)

1998 Philippine DC-9 crashes apparently killing all 104 on board.

2003 The search continued for pieces of the space shuttle Columbia, a day after the spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry over Texas, killing all seven astronauts.

2003 A hotel fire in northeastern China killed some three dozen people.

2003 An explosion destroyed a bank building in Lagos, Nigeria, killing at least 46 people.

2007 Tornadoes killed 21 people in central Florida.

EXHIBITS

1802 1st leopard exhibited in US, Boston (admission 25¢).

TOILETS

1852 1st British public men's toilet opens (Fleet St London).

POOL

1960 Michale Eufemia sinks 625 balls in pool match without a miss.

RECORDS

1926 3 men dance the Charleston for 22½ hours.

TOYS

1964 GI Joe, debuts as a popular American boy's toy.

MEAT

1880 SS Strathleven arrives in London with 1st Australian frozen mutton.

SNACKS

1993 Frito Lay pays court ordered $2,500,000 to Tom Waits for using his song, "Step Right Up".

STUNTS

1912 Frederick R Law, parachutes from Statue of Liberty (stunt for Pathe).

NAZIs

1933 2 days after becoming chancellor, Adolf Hitler dissolves Parliament.

GANGSTERS

1932 Al Capone sent to prison (Atlanta GA).

STINGS

1980 FBI releases details of Abscam, a sting operation that targeted 31 elected & public officials for bribes for political favors.

CLIMATE

1989 0ºF (-18ºC) or below in 15 US states.

CITIES

1536 The Argentine city of Buenos Aires was founded by Pedro de Mendoza of Spain.

1653 New Amsterdam — now New York City — was incorporated.

HOAX

1870 The "Cardiff Giant," supposedly the petrified remains of a human discovered in Cardiff, N.Y., was revealed to be nothing more than carved gypsum.

2007 A grim report from the world's leading climate scientists and government officials said that global warming was so severe, it would "continue for centuries" and that humans were to blame.

SPORTS

1876 The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was formed in New York.

ETHYL

1923 Ethyl gasoline 1st marketed, Dayton OH.

JEWS

1957 UN adopts a resolution calling for Israeli troops to leave Egypt.

ASTROLOGY

1962 8 of 9 planets align for 1st time in 400 years.

CIVIL RIGHTS

1948 President Harry Truman sent to Congress a 10-point civil rights program calling for measures against lynching, poll taxes and job discrimination.

INVENTIONS

1869 James Oliver invents the removable tempered steel plow blade.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1942 Los Angeles Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans.

1950 1st broadcast of "What's My Line" on CBS-TV.

1988 In a speech the broadcast television networks declined to carry live, President Reagan pressed his case for aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.

EXECUTION

1945 Karl F Goerdeler mayor (Leipzig)/"July 20th plot", hanged at 60.

OVERDOSE

1979 Sid Vicious [John Simon Ritchie], bassist (Sex Pistols), dies of a heroin overdose at 31

FIRE

1829 Madman Jonathan Martin sets York Cathedral afire, does £60,000 damage.

PATENTS

1892 Bottle cap with cork seal patented by William Painter (Baltimore).

LIES

1935 Lie detector 1st used in court (Portage WI).

BORN

1754 Charles-Maurice duke of Talleyrand-Périgord French bishop/premier (1815).

1861 Mehmed VI Vahideddin last sultan of Ottoman Empire (1918-22).

1882 Irish poet and novelist James Joyce was born near Dublin.

1895 George S Halas [Papa Bear], end/coach (Bears), co-founder NFL.

1905 Ayn Rand writer (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead).

2338 Data android character on Star Trek Next Generation.

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Elaine Stritch is 83. Actor Robert Mandan is 76. Comedian Tom Smothers is 71. Rock singer-guitarist Graham Nash is 66. Actor Bo Hopkins is 66. Television executive Barry Diller is 66. Country singer Howard Bellamy (The Bellamy Brothers) is 62. Actress Farrah Fawcett is 61. Actor Jack McGee is 59. Actor Brent Spiner is 59. Rock musician Ross Valory (Journey) is 59. Model Christie Brinkley is 54. Actor Michael Talbott is 53. Actress Kim Zimmer is 53. Rock musician Robert DeLeo (Army of Anyone and Stone Temple Pilots) is 42. Rock musician Ben Mize (Counting Crows) is 37. Rapper T-Mo is 36. Actress Lori Beth Denberg is 32. Singer Shakira is 31.

DEATH

1969 Boris Karloff [Pratt], British actor (Frankenstein), dies at 81.

1996 dancer, actor and choreographer Gene Kelly died at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home; he was 83.

February 2, the 33rd day of 2008. There are 333 days left in the year. This is Groundhog Day.

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



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