Almanac for March 3rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 3rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-3-Harlow-Jean-Picture-of-a-Beauty-Queen-O5O01BFN6D

Artist Birthday: Tobias Forge

Bummer March 3rd

March 3, 1991: 25-year-old Rodney King is pulled over by the Los Angeles Police Department on suspicion of drunk driving and for speeding in a residential area. Although witnesses say King did not appear to resist arrest, King was struck with a Taser weapon and then beaten by four of the police officers present at his traffic stop. King’s multiple injuries included broken teeth, a fractured skull, a broken ankle, and kidney damage.

The beating was captured by an amateur video camera by George Holliday. Holliday takes the footage to local TV station KTLA. The four officers were charged with assault and excessive force. When the jury acquitted the officers on April 29, 1992, rioting broke out in Los Angeles. The six days of rioting killed 63 people before the California National Guard, U.S. Army, and U.S. Marines intervened to end the social chaos. 

The U.S. Department of Justice later found two of the officers guilty of violating King’s civil rights and sentenced them to prison. The other two were acquitted. King sued the City of Los Angeles. A civil court awarded King $3.8 million in damages as well as $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees. 

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Almanac for March 2nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 2nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-2-P5P41BFMMW

Today's Observance: Purim (begins at sundown) 
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: The Sound of Music

• Intermountain Jewish News (Denver, CO), February 11, 1926

Artist Birthday: Lou Reed

Bummer March 2nd 

March 2, 1978: Two thieves steal the coffin containing the body of actor Charlie Chaplin, which was interred in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. They hope to gain $600,000 in ransom, but Chaplin’s widow Oona (the daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill) refused to pay. The two men, auto mechanisms from Poland and Bulgaria, were instead forced to show police the corn field in which they’d reburied the coffin. Chaplin’s family took the precaution of burying the coffin in concrete when it was returned to the cemetery. The English actor had died at age 88 on December 25, 1977.

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March 2, 1982: Science fiction author Philip K. Dick is taken off life support. He has suffered two strokes, with brain death following the second stroke. 

March 2, 1999: Singer Dusty Springfield dies of recurrent breast cancer. She’s 59 years old. 

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Almanac for March 1st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 1st: https://ko-fi.com/Post/March-1st-G2G11BFHPY

The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser, February 7, 1926

Artist Birthday #1: Kesha
Kesha at Dorothy Surrenders

Artist Birthday #2: Jensen Ackles

Bummer March 1st

March 1, 1846: 49-year-old newspaper editor John Hampden Pleasants dies of his wounds after being shot in a duel with Thomas Ritchie, editor of the rival newspaper in their shared home of Richmond, Virginia. The two agreed to a duel after Pleasants took offense to Ritchie calling him an "abolitionist." Now, both men were abolitionists; they both favored ending chattel slavery in the United States. However, at that time in the South, "abolitionist" was considered an insult, and the two disagreed, often quite fiercely, on the timetable of when complete abolition of slavery should be accomplished.

March 1, 1932: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famed aviator, is abducted from his nursery in the home of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Hopewell, New Jersey. The toddler’s body is found on May 12, 1932. 

A German-American, Richard Bruno Hauptmann, is tried, convicted, and executed for the crime, but questions about his factual guilt remain. His widow maintained his innocence until her death in 1994.

March 1, 1962: American Airlines Flight 1 crashes shortly after takeoff from what is now John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 87 passengers and 9 crew members died in the crash. Linda McCartney’s mother Louise Eastman is among the dead, as is 1952 Olympics sailing gold medalist Emelyn Whiton. Also aboard the plane were 15 paintings by Abstract Expressionist Arshile Gorky. 

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Almanac for February 28th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 28th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-28-C1C41BFHIY

Bummer February 28th

February 28, 1909: Actor Irene Muza (a stage name) dies when her hairdresser accidentally sets her on fire. According to a Perth, Australia, newspaper account published March 30, 1909, “Before taking part in a charitable performance on Tuesday she sent for her hairdresser to come and dress her hair. The hairdresser had applied a petrol lotion, when a few drops of it fell upon the kitchen stove. The stuff, ignited in an instant, and the flames caught the actress's hair and her dressing-gown and the clothing of the hairdresser. [...] In a moment she was a mass of flame.' A friend who was in an adjoining room tried to save her by tearing away the burning gown, but before this could be accomplished she had sustained terrible injuries. She was conveyed to the hospital, where she expired. Her hairdresser, who was also badly injured, lies in a precarious condition.”

February 28, 1916: The Turn of the Screw author Henry James dies of pneumonia.

February 28, 1958: Twenty-six students and their bus driver drown following a bus crash near Prestonsburg, Kentucky. The bus strikes a wrecker truck, slides down an embankment, and goes into the Big Sandy River. 

February 28, 2001: The InterCity 225 high speed train from Newcastle to London collides with a Land Rover that has fallen onto the track near Great Heck, England. The high speed passenger train derails onto the track of a freight train. The engineers of both trains are killed, as are eight other people. The collision also injures 82 people. The driver of the Land Rover was able to exit his vehicle after his accident and called the local authorities after his vehicle rolled down an embankment onto the train tracks.

February 28, 2015: Charmayne Maxwell, a member of the R&B group Brownstone, bleeds to death after falling backwards, shattering the wine glass she has been holding, and cutting her neck on the broken glass.

Almanac for February 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-27-O4O51BFHHI 

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Bummer February 27th

February 27, 1938: A storm over the Pacific Ocean moves inland over California, beginning a series of floods that kills approximately 114 people between late February and early March. More than 5,500 homes and businesses are destroyed and hundreds more are damaged. 

February 27, 1968: 25-year-old R&B singer Franklin “Frankie” Lymon dies of a heroin overdose.

Almanac for February 26th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 26th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-26-O5O7J0SFJ

Artist Birthday: Johnny Cash

Beatles Trivia

February 26
Sunday, February 26, 1995, South Bend: I went to the Morris Performing Arts Center and saw 1964: The Tribute, a Beatles tribute band. I recognized three people in the audience: a pair of sisters who went to the same grade school as me, and Mr. Thomas Gerencher.

February 26, 1997: At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, The Beatles won a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Grammy for “Free As a Bird.” Other winners included Tony Bennett, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Goddess Nut

Bummer February 26th

February 26, 1972: A coal slurry impound dam bursts in Logan County, West Virginia, sending 132 million gallons of coal-contaminated water into the Buffalo Creek Valley, where 16 coal mining towns housed a total of about 5,000 residents. An estimated 125 people were killed, more than a thousand were injured, and over 4,000 residents were left homeless. 

February 26, 2013: 19 tourists are killed in Luxor, Egypt, where balloons are often used to view the Nile River, when their hot air balloon crashes. A leak in the fuel system causes a fire on board. Seven of those who died had jumped from the balloon. Two men from the United Kingdom initially survive the accident, but one of them dies at the hospital five hours later. 

February 26, 1993: A terrorist bomb explodes in the underground parking garage under the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring hundreds more.

February 26, 1994: Comedian Bill Hicks dies of pancreatic cancer at age 32. 

February 26, 2015: Australian author Jessica Ainscough, age 29, dies of a rare cancer, epithelioid sarcoma. In 2008, her doctors suggested amputating her affected left arm at the shoulder, which would have given her a greater than 50% chance of surviving for ten years or more. Ainscough chose to treat her cancer with alternative therapies rather than having the amputation. She used the alternative treatments for six years, only returning to conventional medical treatments near the end of her life when she developed a tumor that bled continuously for ten months.

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on February 26th, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

resilience and not giving up
strength and getting stronger
allowing myself to be so many things
I love my family
I love the things that I love
staying true to myself
respecting myself
respecting other people
I listen
I am thoughtful
putting myself first, but never losing sight of other people

Almanac for February 25th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 25th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-25-Welcome-to-The-Jungle-K3K4J0SDL

Artist Birthday: W. Somerset Maugham
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Anthony Burgess

Bummer February 25th

February 25, 1899: Edwin Sewell, age 31, becomes the first motor vehicle driver in Great Britain to be killed in a roadway accident when his Daimler automobile strikes a brick wall. His passenger dies in the hospital on February 28th.

February 25, 1983: Playwright Tennessee Williams dies of an apparently accidental overdose of the barbiturate medication Seconal.

Almanac for February 24th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 24th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-24-G2G3J0KAQ

Artist Birthday: Wilhelm Grimm

Bummer February 24th

February 24, 1809: London’s Drury Lane Theatre burns down. No one is injured, but the loss of the building is a financial disaster for its owner, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

February 24, 2004: Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen is stabbed to death at his home in Kloten. His killer is Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect whose wife and two daughters both died when BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 collided in mid-air with a DHL cargo plane on July 1, 2002. Nielsen was the sole air traffic controller on duty when the collision occurred. 

Kaloyev is originally sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter by a Swiss court, but later has his sentence reduced to less then four years since he experienced diminished mental capacity at the time of the stabbing due to his grief and trauma. Kaloyev is considered something of a folk hero in his hometown of Ufa, where many other parents of the deceased child passengers from Flight 2937 live.

February 24, 2010: Animal trainer Dawn Brancheau is pulled underwater and drowned by an orca during an animal show at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.

February 24, 2012: 14-year-old Gabriela Yukari Nichimura dies at a nearby hospital after falling 20 meters (about 66 feet) from her seat on the La Tour Eiffel drop-tower ride at Hopi Hari amusement park in São Paulo, Brazil. The ride has no seat belts, but the chairs have locks; Nichimura’s lock opened while the ride was in operation, causing her to fall.

Almanac for February 23rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 23rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-23-D1D2IZEN1

Bummer February 23rd

February 23, 2000: Singer Ofra Haza dies of AIDS-related pneumonia in Ramat Gan, Israel. She’s believed to have contracted the virus when she needed a blood transfusion following a pregnancy loss.

Almanac for February 22nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 22nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-22-George-Washington-N4N1IY87Y

• The Chapel Hill Weekly (N.C.), February 19, 1926

Artist Birthday: Atsuko Yamano of Shonen Knife

Bummer February 22nd

February 22, 1976: 32-year-old Florence Ballard, an original member of The Supremes, dies in a Detroit hospital of a blood clot in a coronary artery. She’d entered the hospital the previous day with numbness in her fingers and toes.

February 22, 1984: David Vetter, the subject of Paul Simon’s song “The Boy in the Bubble,” dies of Burkitt lymphoma at age 12. Vetter was born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a condition that makes common illnesses unusually severe. He had to live in a specialized sterile environment until he could receive a bone marrow transplant. Vetter did receive a successful transplant in 1984, but unfortunately it did not prevent his cancer.

February 22, 1987: Pop artist Andy Warhol dies of a heart condition while in the hospital recovering from gall bladder surgery. He has never fully recovered from being shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

Almanac for February 21st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 21st: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-21-Feralia-P5P31B6UFT

Bummer February 21st

February 21, 1868: Italian painter Giuseppe Abbati dies of rabies after being bitten by his rabid pet dog.

February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated by a member of the Nation of Islam, an organization he had left. 

February 21, 1974: Ontarian hockey legend Tim Horton, intoxicated, loses control of his De Tomaso Pantera near St. Catharines, Ontario. The sports car crosses the highway median and flips several times, throwing Horton from the vehicle. He is pronounced dead at the hospital in St. Catharines. Horton is not wearing a seatbelt and a half-empty vodka bottle is found in the wreckage.

February 21, 2022: The 28-year-old father-to-be and his 27-year-old brother are killed by an improvised exploding device they’re attempting to build as part of the planning of an unborn baby’s gender reveal party in Liberty, New York State.

Almanac for February 20th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-20-Sic-Transit-Gloria-Mundi-P5P51B6UDC

Beatles Trivia

February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs. 

Bummer February 20th

February 20, 1894: A cook named Henrietta Jackson is suffocated by chlorine gas routed into a Cornell University dining hall, an intended prank by students who’d been trying to disrupt a banquet for first-year students.

February 20, 1945: U.S. Navy sailor Jack P. Jarosz dies of electrocution when a hazing ritual designed to give him a mild electrical shock malfunctions.

February 20, 1993: Riley Detwiler, a 17-month-old child, dies of kidney failure caused by infection with E. coli O157:H7. He contracts the infection from another child at his daycare center; both of the other child’s parents work at Jack In the Box, the fast food restaurant whose contaminated beef had already killed three children in December 1992 and January 1993. The parents of the second child didn’t disclose to daycare workers that their child was experiencing bloody diarrhea, fearing that they wouldn’t be able to get child care if the workers knew their toddler was ill.

February 20, 2003: One hundred patrons of the Station night club in West Warwick, Rhode Island, are killed when a pyrotechnics display during a rock concert causes the venue to catch fire. Guitarist Ty Longley is among those who lose their lives.

On the same day in Corbin, Kentucky, a dust explosion at the CTA Acoustics plant kills seven workers. Dust from a resin used in automotive mats ignited from the heat of an industrial oven.

February 20, 2014: Camera assistant Sarah Jones is struck and killed by a train while filming a scene for Midnight Rider: The Gregg Allman Story. The movie is left unfinished and never released.

Almanac for February 19th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 19th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-19-Queenie-Z8Z41AZGDD

Bummer February 19th

February 19, 1942: U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signs on order for the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps. Many of the adults and families forced to live in the so-called “relocation camps” had to forfeit their homes, businesses, and property. The camps did not have adequate heating and cooling, food, or plumbing. Detainees weren’t released until 1945.

February 19, 1945: Phi Beta Pi pledge Robert Perry dies of burns one day after a fraternity hazing ritual at Saint Louis University. Perry’s classmates coat Perry’s naked body in carbon black and collodion (a nitrocellulose, ether, and alcohol gel used in early photography and stage makeup) and shock him with electrical currents. A short circuit causes the highly flammable collodion to catch on fire, severely burning Perry.

February 19, 1972: Trumpeter Lee Morgan is performing with his band at Slugs' Saloon, a jazz club in New York City. In between sets, he gets into an argument with his wife Helen and she shoots him. An ambulance is called, but has trouble reaching Morgan due to snowy weather conditions. Morgan bleeds to death.

February 19, 1994: Gloria Cecilia Ramirez, a 31-year-old woman with end-stage cervical cancer, arrives at the emergency room of a hospital in Riverside, California, suffering from heart palpitations and difficulty breathing. Sadly, Ramirez passes away from kidney failure caused by her disease. Strangely, 23 members of the medical team who treat Ramirez during her final visit themselves came down with symptoms of an undiagnosed illness or illnesses.

Upon arrival, Ramirez was noted to have an “oily” sheen to her skin. When a nurse draws blood from Ramirez’s arm, a medical resident notices particles the color of a manila envelope appear to be floating in the blood. Others notice a fruity, garlicky, and/or ammonia-type odor around Ramirez. At this point, the nurse fainted and had to be removed from the examination room. The medical resident then reported feeling nauseated, left the room, and subsequently fainted in a nearby hallway. A third health care worker, a respiratory therapist, also fainted.

The medical resident had the most severe effects following this incident: hepatitis, necrosis (bone death) in her knee, and a breathing problem that required her to be hospitalized for two months. Others suffered muscle spasms or shortness of breath. Explanations of what could possibly have caused these symptoms range from mass psychogenic illness (real physical illness caused by psychological factors) to Ramirez’s use of an unapproved substance as a painkiller. Ramirez’s family denies that she used any kind of unusual painkiller.

February 19, 2013: The body of Canadian student and tourist Elisa Lam is discovered in the water tower atop the Stay on Main hotel in Los Angeles, California. Lam is believed to have entered the tank of her own volition and accidentally drowned, possibly while experiencing the effects of withdrawal from her psychiatric medications.

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Almanac for February 18th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 18th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-18-Birthday-of-Three-Amazing-Women-Artis-B0B21AZFBT

Today's Observance: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot links:

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/982040492/Ash-Wednesday

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/ash-wednesday-25

Spotify: 

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Bloody Mary

Beatles Trivia

February 18, 1933: Yoko Ono is born.

“I saw nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.” - Yoko Ono

February 18, 1971: For her 38th birthday, John Lennon Ono gifts his wife a snow-white Steinway piano.

Bummer February 18th

February 18, 1718: French-born English writer Peter Anthony Motteux dies of apparent autoerotic asphyxiation inside a brothel, although the circumstances of his death were considered suspicious at the time. This may be the oldest recorded case of autoerotic asphyxiation.

February 18, 1967: J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who witnessed the detonation of the world’s first nuclear weapon near Socorro, New Mexico, dies of throat cancer. He has undergone surgery and chemotherapy, neither of which has been successful.

February 18, 2001: On the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhart’s car makes contact with Sterling Marlin’s car. Earnhart loses control, contacting Ken Schrader’s car while trying to right himself. After crossing in front of Schrader’s vehicle, Earnhart’s car collided head-on with the retaining wall at approximately 160 miles per hour.

Although attempts were made to revive him at the hospital, Earnhart died upon impact. He suffered massive blunt force trauma injuries, including a basilar skull fracture. Basilar skull fractures aren’t necessarily fatal, but they are very often fatal in severe cases. 

February 18, 2010: 53-year-old Andrew Joseph Stack III, a software engineering consultant, deliberately flies his Piper PA-28 Cherokee light aircraft into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, killing himself and IRS manager Vernon Hunter. Stack, who had filed for bankruptcy and was under investigation by the IRS for failing to report income, wrote in a suicide note that he wanted to extract his “pound of flesh” from the IRS.

Almanac for February 17th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 17th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-17-Michael-Jordan-S6S71AOSGI

Today's Observance: Mardi Gras/Lunar New Year. Happy year of the Fire Horse!

Bummer February 17th

February 17, 1600: The Roman Catholic Church burns philosopher Giordano Bruno at the stake for heresy for his insistence that each star is the sun of its own galaxy and that the Earth is not the center of the universe, which has no center.

February 17, 1673: French playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who wrote under the pen name Molière, suffers a tuberculosis-induced pulmonary embolism while performing in his own play The Invalid. He finished out the show, but was carried immediately home afterward, where he died.

February 17, 2003: At the E2 Night Club in Chicago, Illinois, a fight breaks out, and a security guard uses pepper spray in the attempt to break up the fight. A stampede to exit the club follows, and 21 people are killed in the crowd crush.

February 17, 2010: Three Tesla Motors employees are killed when their Cessna 310 aircraft crashes into a residential neighborhood in East Palo Alto, California. They had taken off from Palo Alto Airport and were headed for the Tesla design studio in Hawthorne, California. Foggy weather is thought to have been a factor.

***

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Almanac for February 16

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 16th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-16-Happy-Anniversary-Mom-and-Dad-B0B41AOK5C

Today's Observance: President's Day

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Geordi La Forge (who will be born on this day in 2335)

Bummer February 16th

February 16, 1962: Floods in West Germany kill 315 people and leave approximately 60,000 people homeless.

February 16, 1990: 31-year-old artist Keith Haring dies of complications of AIDS.

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February 16, 2020: Voice actor Jason Davis dies at the age of 35 from an accidental fentanyl overdose.

Out today:

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Almanac for February 15th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 15th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-15-Lupercalia-M4M71AOJIF

Today's Observance: Lupercalia
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Lupercalia

Bummer February 15th 

February 15, 1933: Anarchist Guiseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt as Roosevelt delivers a speech in Miami. Armed with a revolver and standing on a folding chair, Zangara misses Roosevelt and shoots Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago. Cermak tells Roosevelt, “I’m glad it was me instead of you” and dies in the hospital 19 days later. Zangara is tried, convicted, and executed by electric chair.

May the memory of Anton Cermak be a blessing. Photo by Stephen Hogan from Chicago, United States. Creative Commons licensing. This is Stephen's Chicago crime scene blog.

February 15, 1965: Nat King Cole, age 45, dies of lung cancer.

February 15, 1998: 89-year-old war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, struggling with ovarian and liver cancer and failing eyesight, chooses to end her own life by swallowing cyanide.

February 15, 2014: 42-year-old Pentecostal pastor Jamie Coots, who had been featured in tv programs for his handling of poisonous snakes during religious services, dies after being bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake during services in Middlesboro, Kentucky. Although paramedics arrived in time to treat him, Coots’s family refused the treatment, saying that it was against his religion.

Almanac for February 14th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 14th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-14-Valentine-I2I61AOJG5

The Milwaukee Leader, February 14, 1926

Today's Observance: Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day at Once Upon a Screen blog

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Bummer February 14th

February 14, 1779: Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of Hawaii, stabs Captain James Cook to death while Cook attempts to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu and hold him for ransom. In the ensuing struggle, an unrecorded number of Hawaiians and four of Cook’s men are also killed.

February 14, 1929: In what becomes known as the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, Al Capone’s gangsters line up seven members of Bugs Moran’s rival gang and machine gun them to death. Police arrive in time to find one survivor, Frank Gusenberg, suffering from 14 bullet wounds. They ask Gusenberg to name his killer, but Gusenberg refuses before he succumbs to his injuries.

February 14, 1981: A fire at the Stardust Disco in Dublin, Ireland, kills 48 people.

February 14, 1988: A fire that begins in the newspaper room of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad destroys an estimated 300,000 books.

February 14, 1989: Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issues a pronouncement urging faithful Muslims to assassinate Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s magical realist novel The Satanic Verses depicts a fictional version of the Prophet Mohammad as a character, which the Ayatollah considers blasphemous.

February 14, 1994: Southeast Missouri State University student Michael Davis dies of bleeding on the brain after a brutal beating that served as an initiation ritual for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Almanac for February 13th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 13th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-13-To-morrow-is-Saint-Valentines-day-S6S01AOJBZ

Friday the 13th at Aurora's Gin Joint blog: https://aurorasginjoint.com/2017/01/13/friday-foto-follies-superstitions/

Bummer February 13th

February 13, 1925: On or around this date, cave explorer Floyd Collins dies of exposure after becoming trapped in a narrow cave passage with a 26-pound rock crushing one of his legs. He has entered the cave system in Kentucky, now part of Mammoth Cave National Park, on January 30th. Collins’ brother discovers him trapped in the narrow passage on January 31st. Despite rescue attempts, when rescuers reach Collins on February 16th, he appears to have been dead for one or more days. Collins is 37 years old.

San Antonio (Texas) Light, November 13, 1925
Vernon Dalhart

February 13, 1931: German-American circus acrobat Lillian Leitzel falls to the ground while performing at Valencia Music Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark. The metal brace holding the rigging attached to her harness has snapped and broken away. Leitzel will die of her injuries two days later. 

February 13, 1945: U.S. and U.K. forces drop incendiary bombs on Dresden, Germany, causing fires with the intention of destroying munitions factories in that city. A second round of bombs is dropped in the early hours of February 14th, calculated to hamper the efforts of rescuers on the scene of the first round of bombings and fires. It’s estimated that between 22,000 and 25,000 Germans are killed, almost all of them civilians.

February 13, 1964: 22-year-old Ken Hubbs, who plays second base for the Chicago Cubs in the ‘63 season, is afraid of flying. To help himself get over his fear, he takes flying lessons and earns his pilot’s license in January 1964. The following month, the private plane he’s piloting near Provo, Utah, crashes, killing Hubbs.

***

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Almanac for February 12th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 12th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-12-Lincoln-and-Darwin-Share-a-Birthdate-N4N31AOJ8G

Beatles Trivia

February 12, 1964: The Beatles perform a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Charles Darwin's birthday

Bummer February 12th

February 12, 1976: Rebel Without a Cause actor Sal Mineo is stabbed to death by an assailant who doesn’t know who he is and chooses him at random in an attempted robbery. The assailant is sentenced to 57 years in prison for the fatal stabbing and for a string of burglaries.

February 12, 1980: Two days after 34-year-old Patricia Frazier of Texas saw a CBS network TV broadcast of the movie The Exorcist, Frazier kills her 4-year-old daughter Khunji and cuts out her heart. According to Dr. Leon Morris, a psychologist who spoke with Frazier after the crime, Frazier believed Khunji was possessed by demons and trying to harm her (Patricia). A jury of her peers finds Patricia Frazier not guilty by reason of insanity.

Almanac for February 11th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 11th: 
https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-11-Over-the-River-and-Through-the-Woods-K3K21AOJ5M

Today's Observance: St. Gobnait's Day

I took this photo at the Nyack (NY) public library in October 2024.

Bummer February 11th

February 11, 1963: Poet Sylvia Plath, who struggles with clinical depression, dies by suicide, inhaling gas by placing her head inside an unlit gas stove. She is 30 years old.

February 11, 1989: George O’Hanlon, the voice actor portraying George Jetson, is recording his lines for Jetsons: The Movie. Just after finishing, he complains of a headache. He is taken to the hospital, where he dies of a stroke.

February 11, 2006: Then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney goes on a quail hunting trip near Corpus Christi, Texas. Failing to observe some safety rules, Cheney accidentally shoots his acquaintance Harry Milner Whittington in the face, neck, and chest with birdshot pellets. The pellets cause a collapsed lung and trigger a minor heart attack; Whittington is cared for in Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital’s intensive care unit. 

After being released from the hospital, Whittington issues a public statement saying that he knew hunting was an inherently risky activity, that he assumed the responsibility for that risk, and that he felt badly for the vice president. Cheney did not publicly apologize to Whittington for the shooting. Whittington passed away from an unrelated accident in 2023.

February 11, 2012: 48-year-old singer/actress Whitney Houston is found unresponsive in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hilton hotel. Paramedics attempted CPR but are unable to revive her. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office attributes her death to atherosclerotic heart disease, cocaine use, and drowning. 

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on February 11, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

friends that feel like family
birthdays
new necklace
enjoying good food
white chocolate brownies

sunlight!
blankets
reading before bed
country music
earl grey tea
loving my friends
latte art
pink
people watching in happy places
looking forward to little things

Almanac for February 10th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 10th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-10-Eira-M4M81AOJ3C

Bummer February 10th

February 10, 1897: Opera singer Armand Castelmary has a heart attack and dies on stage while performing at the New York Metropolitan Opera. At first the audience thinks his dramatic collapse is part of the show.

February 10, 1956: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student Thomas Clark drowns after falling through the ice into a reservoir while taking part in a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity hazing ritual.

February 10, 2005: Playwright Arthur Miller dies of bladder cancer.

Almanac for February 9th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for Feb. 9th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-9-Mary-Star-of-the-Sea-R6R41AOIZY

Washington, D.C. Evening Star, February 1, 1926

Beatles Trivia
February 9, 1964: The Beatles play five songs on The Ed Sullivan Show. 

Bummer February 9th

February 9, 1963: In a racially-charged incident captured in song by Bob Dylan, 51-year-old Hattie Carroll is working as a bar server at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore. The hotel is hosting an event called the Spinster’s Ball. One of the guests, Billy Zantzinger, who is white, is excessively drunk and physically and verbally abusing both his wife Jane and the African-American wait staff at the event.

Zantziger hurls racial slurs and other verbal abuse at Carroll, then strikes her in the neck/upper shoulder region with his cane. Carroll immediate begins feeling numbness in her arm, and her co-workers notice her speech is slurred. She’s taken to the hospital, where Carroll dies of a brain hemorrhage. Zantziger is convicted of manslaughter for Carroll’s death, but his sentence is a paltry six months in prison and a $500 fine, plus a fine of $125 for assaulting the other wait staff.

February 9, 1965: U.S. intervention in Vietnam begins in earnest when the U.S. sends the first ground troops to South Vietnam. An estimated 4 million Vietnamese citizens, most of them civilians, will be killed by the time the U.S. withdraws troops in 1973.

***

And now, for something completely different, here are some new links for the "Love At First Sight" ebook:

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/love-at-first-sight/id6758872010
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/love-at-first-sight-84?sId=ff907486-8542-402d-a66d-93544485aecd&ssId=XQW2cjPzTGGhwO7oeSiKZ
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1961887
Tolino: https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1078180444
Vivlio: https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9798233740732_9798233740732_10020/love-at-first-sight

Almanac for February 8th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 8th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-8-James-Dean-W7W41AOIWJ

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all who celebrate USA American football!
This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4kjvM95

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: James Dean

Bummer February 8th

February 8, 1968: In what becomes known as the Orangeburg Massacre, the South Carolina state highway patrol opens fire on African-American college students protesting the segregation of a local bowling alley. Three young men are killed and more than 20 people are injured, including a pregnant woman who is beaten and suffers a miscarriage. The nine troopers who participated in the beatings and shooting were acquitted of all charges; one protestor serves seven months in prison for “rioting.”

February 8, 2007: 39-year-old model and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith dies of multiple prescription drug intoxication complicated by multiple infections. The Hollywood, Florida, hotel in which Smith is found unresponsive contains multiple prescription bottles, all prescribed by the same doctor, but none of which are prescribed to Smith. She appears to have been taking over-the-counter cold medicine to counter the effects of skin and intestinal infections, which she may have gotten from giving herself improperly sterilized injections of a diet drug. The cold medicine may have amplified the sedative effects of the prescription drugs she used to help her sleep.

Sadly, Smith’s daughter Dannielynn is only five months old at the time of her mother’s death.

Anna Nicole Smith featured in advertising for H&M stores. Public domain.

Anna Nicole Smith at Dorothy Surrenders: https://dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-weekend-crush_09.html

Out now! Read St. James' Day (Pagan Spirits #3) here:

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/st-james-day/id6445005544

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/st-james-day-pagan-spirits-3-erin-o-riordan/4f332dba51fb20ba?ean=9798215439876&next=t&digital=t

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/book/613027583/St-James-Day-Pagan-Spirits-3

Fable: https://fable.co/book/x-9798215439876

Kobo (Rakuten): https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/st-james-day

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1250919

Tolino: https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1067302221

Vivlio: https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9798215439876_9798215439876_10020/st-james-day

Almanac for February 7th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 7th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-7-The-Key-West-Diaries-E1E319Z9UC

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4k6qwW5

Artist Birthday: Charles Dickens

Bummer February 7th

February 7, 1497: On Shrove Tuesday in Florence, followers of the monk Girolamo Savonarola burn art, books, their cosmetics, fancy clothes, playing cards, and other cultural objects they associate with sin in the so-called Bonfire of the Vanities. Sadly, irreplaceable ancient art and manuscripts were lost to this religiously-fueled war on anything that represented luxury. 

Ironically, Savonarola will later be excommunicated and convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. As punishment, he is hanged and his body burned in the same plaza where the Bonfire of the Vanities occurred. It will be forbidden for any Christian to possess copies of Savonarola’s writings. 

February 7, 1904: A fire in Baltimore destroys more than 1,500 buildings, costing $150 million in damage in 1904 dollars and leaving 35,000 unemployed. Fortunately, no one is reported to have died from the fire.

February 7, 2008: A dust explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, injures 36 people and kills 14.