DBKP Today in Weird History: February 5, 2008

Kidnappings, Inventions, War, Television, Periodicals, Births, Deaths, Terrorism, Lost Bets, Government, The Clintons, Convicted Racist Murderers, Space Frontier


1974 - Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)


Government

1783 - Sweden recognizes U.S. independence.
1900 - The United States and Great Britain sign the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, giving the United States the right to build a canal in Nicaragua but not to fortify it.
1904 - American occupation of Cuba ends
1917 - Congress passed the Immigration Act, which restricted Asian immigration, over President Wilson's veto.
1937 - FDR proposed increasing the number of Supreme Court justices—"packing" the court.
1969 - US population reaches 200 million
1972 - US airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers & baggage
1981 - President Reagan, in a nationwide address, said the United States was in "the worst economic mess since the Great Depression" and called for sweeping spending and tax cuts.
1992 - The House of Representatives authorized an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign conspired with Iran to delay release of the American hostages. (The task force investigating the "October Surprise" allegations later said it found no credible evidence of such a conspiracy.)

"Mad" King George III

1811 - After George III was declared insane, the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent of England, and later George IV.

1788 - London’s finest, known as Bobbies, were named after Robert Peel, who was born on this day in Lancashire, England.

Television

1969 - For one of the few times in television history, a scheduled series (usually 13 or 26 weeks of shows) turned into a one-night wonder. ABC-TV premiered Turn On, hosted by Tim Conway, a show similar to NBC’s Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. TV critics called the show, “offbeat and distasteful.” It never aired again.



1967 - "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" premieres on CBS (later ABC, NBC)



THE CLINTONS

1996 - A judge ordered President Clinton to testify in the Whitewater trial.

CONVICTED RACIST MURDERERS

1994 - Byron De La Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Medgar Evers, 30 years after the crime in Jackson, Mississippi.

TERRORISM

2001 - Four disciples of Osama bin Laden went on trial in New York in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. (The four were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

BIG BUSINESS

1901 - Pierpont Morgan forms US Steel

PERIODICALS

1846 - The Oregon Spectator became the first newspaper published in American territory west of the Rocky Mountains.
1922 - The Reader's Digest begins publication in New York.

SPACE FRONTIER

1971 - The US Apollo 14 (Shepard and Mitchell onboard) lands on the Moon

PRIZES

1988 - Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

COMMUNISM

1918 - The Soviets proclaim separation of church and state.

WAR

1864 - Federal forces occupy Jackson, Miss.
1865 - The three-day Battle of Hatcher's Run, Va., begins.
1973 - Funeral for LC William Nolde, last US soldier killed in Vietnam War
1981 - A military jury in North Carolina convicted Marine Pfc. Robert Garwood of collaborating with the enemy while a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

INVENTIONS

1850 - Gail Borden of Brooklyn, NY, was issued a U.S. patent his process that baked a combination of extracts from meat with flour to produce a meat biscuit capable of long term storage No. 7,066). This gave a convenient method that a preserved meat-based product could be carried by the military, seamen and other travelers. Because it could be reconstituted with hot water as a soup, the patent title was "Preparation of Portable Soup-Bread."



1861 - Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati, OH patented the moving picture peep show machine.

1861 - A U.S. patent was issued for the kinematoscope - a photographic attempt to show motion - to Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia as an "improvement in exhibiting stereoscopic pictures of moving objects.

1870 - An animated photographic picture projection before a theater audience was presented by Henry R. Heyl using his Phasmatrope. This was a converted projecting lantern in front of which rotated a disc with 16 openings near the edge, each carrying a photographic plate. The series of plates showed dancers, who appeared to move as the rotating disc showed successive positions. The pictures were a continuous loop that did not change.

1884 - Black American inventor Willis Johnson of Cincinnati, Ohio, was issued a U.S. patent for an "Egg Beater" (No. 292,821). It was designed so that eggs, batter and similar ingredients used by bakers or confectioners could be mixed intimately efficiently.

1899 - Thomas A. Edison was issued a U.S. patent for a "Phonograph Recorder and Reproducer" (No. 397,280).

1901 - A loop-the-loop centrifugal railway was patented by Edwin Prescott of Arlington, Mass. (No. 667,455) which he had installed at Coney Island in 1900 where it was known as Boynton's Centrifugal Railway. It had a 75-ft incline and a 20-ft-wide loop.

1922 - William Larned's steel-framed tennis racquet gets its first test.

1929 - The first U.S. patent for starting blocks, titled "Foot Support," was issued to George T. Bresnahan of Iowa City, Iowa (No.1,701,026). He described his invention as "what might be termed a starting block" to be used on a running track or field.

BETS

1991 - Howard Stern kisses NY Giant Leonard Marshall's ass over bet, Stern lost claiming the Giants would lose the Superbowl

BIRTHS

1723 - John Witherspoon, clergyman signed Declaration of Independence
1837 - Dwight Lyman Moody, US evangelist (Moody Institute in Chicago)
1840 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, inventor (automatic single-barrel rifle)
1840 - Scotsman John Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic tire
1848 - Outlaw Belle Starr
1900 - Adlai E Stevenson, (Gov-D-Ill), intellectual, politician, and presidental candidate (D) (1952, 1956)
1906 - Actor John Carradine
1934 - Henry Aaron (Baseball Hall of Famer: Milwaukee & Atlanta Braves: home run champ: eclipsed Babe Ruth's record of 714; baseball executive: Atlanta Braves)
1942 - Roger Staubach (football: Dallas Cowboys QB: Super Bowl V, VI, X, XII, XIII; Heisman Trophy Winner: Navy [1963])
1943 - Craig Morton (football: Dallas Cowboys QB: Super Bowl V, VI; Denver Broncos: Super Bowl XII)
1947 - Darrell Waltrip (auto racer: Daytona 500 winner [1989])

Deaths

1973 - L C William Nolde, last US soldier killed in Vietnam, funeral
U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman died in Paris at age 76.


Image - Patty Hearst
Image - King George III
Image - Smothers Brothers
Image - Peep Show
Source - Today in Science
Source - Infoplease
Source - tnl
Source - Today in History



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Today in History: December 15, 2007

Politics, War!, Terrorism, Civil Rights, Culture, Death Penalty, Science, Death, Birthdays

POLITICS

On Dec. 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights went into effect following ratification by Virginia.

TERRORISM

In 1979, the deposed Shah of Iran left the United States for Panama, the same day the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Iran should release all its American hostages.

WAR!

In 1944, during World War II, American forces invaded Mindoro Island in the Philippines.

In 2006, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld bid farewell to the Pentagon in a splashy sendoff featuring lavish praise from President Bush.

DEATH PENALTY

In 1961, former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli court.

In 2006, Gov. Jeb Bush suspended Florida executions two days after the prolonged death of a condemned inmate because the needles had been wrongly inserted.

In 2006, in San Francisco, a federal judge declared California's lethal-injection procedure unconstitutional.

CIVIL RIGHTS

In 1997, over Republican objections, President Clinton appointed Bill Lann Lee acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

SCIENCE

In 1965, two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6A and Gemini 7, maneuvered to within 10 feet of each other while in orbit.


CULTURE

In 1938, groundbreaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial took place in Washington, D.C.

In 1939, the motion picture "Gone With the Wind" had its world premiere in Atlanta.

DEATH

In 1890, Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, S.D., during a confrontation with Indian police.

In 1944, a single-engine plane carrying bandleader Glenn Miller, who was a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces, disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris.

In 1966, movie producer Walt Disney died in Los Angeles at age 65.

BIRTHDAYS

Today's Birthdays: Country singer Ernest Ashworth is 79. Actor-comedian Tim Conway is 74. Singer Cindy Birdsong (The Supremes) is 68. Rock musician Dave Clark (The Dave Clark Five) is 65. Rock musician Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) is 61. Actor Don Johnson is 58. Movie director Julie Taymor is 55. Movie director Alex Cox is 53. Actor Justin Ross is 53. Rock musician Paul Simonon (The Clash) is 52. Country singer Doug Phelps (Brother Phelps; Kentucky Headhunters) is 47. Movie director Reginald Hudlin is 46. Actress Helen Slater is 44. Actress Molly Price is 42. "Crowd-hyper" Kito Trawick (Ghostown DJs) is 30. Actor Adam Brody is 28. Actor George O. Gore II is 26.

Dec. 15, the 349th day of 2007. There are 16 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
[image:
Source: Today in History: December 15, 2007



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Today in History: December 14, 2007

DEATHS, POLITICS, WAR!, TERRORISM, SCIENCE, BIRTHDAYS

DEATHS

On Dec. 14, 1799, the first president of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67.

In 1861, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, died in London.

In 2006, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun died in New York at age 83.

In 2006, actor Mike Evans, who'd played Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," died in Twentynine Palms, Calif., at age 57.

In 2006, a British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a 1997 Paris car crash were a "tragic accident" and that allegations of murder were unfounded.

POLITICS

In 1819, Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.

WAR!

In 1939, the Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations. (The Soviet Union, with Nazi Germany had attacked Poland.)

In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized in its 1967 war with Syria and other Arab countries.

In 1995, presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris.

TERRORISM

In 1975, six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.

In 2002, Jordanian police announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.

In 2002, Iran's new president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States — a nation reviled by his predecessors as "The Great Satan."

SCIENCE

In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his group became the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott.

In 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world.

In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish U.N. headquarters in New York.

In 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.

BIRTHDAYS

Jazz musician Clark Terry is 87. Former "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt is 85. Actor-playwright George Furth is 75. Actor Hal Williams is 69. Actress Patty Duke is 61. Pop singer Joyce Vincent-Wilson (Tony Orlando and Dawn) is 61. Entertainment executive Michael Ovitz is 61. Actress Dee Wallace is 59. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ronnie McNeir (The Four Tops) is 58. Rock musician Cliff Williams (AC/DC) is 58. Rock singer-musician Mike Scott (The Waterboys) is 49. Singer-musician Peter "Spider" Stacy (The Pogues) is 49. Actress Cynthia Gibb is 44. Actress Natascha McElhone is 38. Rhythm-and-blues singer Brian Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 32. Actress KaDee Strickland is 32. Actress Tammy Blanchard is 31. Actress Sophie Monk is 28.

Dec. 14, the 348th day of 2007. There are 17 days left in the year.


compiled by Mondoreb
[image:cystallinks]
Source: Today in History: December 14 2007



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Student's Death Likely Caused by "Super Bug": Another MRSA Victim

[photo:healthline]
by Mondoreb & Little Baby Ginn

Is MRSA officially something that Americans should put on their list of worries? News of a child dying in Brooklyn from the "Super Bug" is sure to put school boards across the country on alert.

More from CNN:

A middle school student from Brooklyn died Thursday, probably from the staph infection MRSA, according to the New York City Health Department.

The student was in seventh grade at IS-211 in Canarsie.

"The infection was the probable cause," the Heath Department said in a statement. "We have no reason to believe that other children or school employees are at increased risk of staph infection."

At least six students on Long Island have recently been diagnosed with MRSA, according to The Associated Press.

MRSA is short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and is responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS, according to new data.

More schoolchildren in the area have the disease. More from the NY Post:

Such infections gained attention following the death this month of a Virginia high school senior who was diagnosed with it. The city Health Department has proposed mandatory reporting of the illness so it can track the number of cases.

At least six students on Long Island have recently been diagnosed with M-R-S-A.

Although MRSA can be defeated by keeping the hands clean with soap and water, people are worried. The "Super Bug" story started out a few weeks ago with reports of the number of patients dying in the United Kingdom. The story has since spread to the USA as more have become aware of it. It's a story that doesn't appear to be going away soon.




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