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.

New links!

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-little-book-of-satanic-prayers-erin-oriordan/1149346126?ean=2940202178993

Everand/Scribd: https://www.everand.com/audiobook/990587984/The-Little-Book-of-Satanic-Prayers

Kobo/Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/little-book-of-satanic-prayers-the?sId=a3046462-4bef-4573-a279-ab8a1eb9a62c&ssId=BjQSKSGhIeiFYULl7tqB4&cPos=1

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.

***

And now, for something completely different, an affiliate link to a Gumroad creative product you may enjoy: The Abduction audiobook

If my words are not being censored by the Trump Regime, you may find my books here on Gumroad. https://creativista668.gumroad.com/

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.

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

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

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ZAIPJG

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.

Almanac for February 6th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 6th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-6-Zsa-Zsa-F1F319Z8VW

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NMn5Ig

New short ebook "Love at First Sight" out now at Smashwords! 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1961887

Bummer February 6th

February 6, 1993: 49-year-old tennis player Arthur Ashe dies of AIDS-related pneumonia.

February 6, 1998: Austrian “Rock Me Amadeus” rocker Falco (Johann Hölzel) dies in a traffic accident while on vacation in the Dominican Republic. He is 40 years old.

Almanac for February 5th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for Feb. 5th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-5-Burroughs-T6T119Z8GN

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45H6wDE

Bummer February 5th

February 5, 1885: King Leopold II of Belgium declares Congo to be his personal possession, establishing the Congo Free State. This will prove disastrous for the Congolese people as Leopold tries to extract wealth from their nation by turning them, essentially, into serfs on the land. With the invention of vulcanized rubber and increasing demand for rubber for automobile tires, the Congolese people are subjected to horrific work conditions and abuses on rubber plantations.

February 5, 2004: At least 21 people, undocumented immigrants from China, drown in Lancashire, England, when the tide comes into Moracambe Bay while they're harvesting cockles in the sand flats. The immigrants all work for a Chinese gang boss who pays them a minuscule amount for their labor. This gang boss and two of his associates are tried and convicted of manslaughter, violating immigration law, and related crimes.

February 5, 2008: A series of tornados in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee kills 57 people.

Almanac for February 4th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 4th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-4-The-Last-of-the-Mohicans-K3K319Z7J0

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Z6Pr2k

Bummer February 4th

February 4, 1912: Parachute pioneer Franz Reichelt jumps from the Eiffel Tower to test a parachute suit he’s designed. The suit fails and Reichelt falls to his death in front of a crowd of people who thought they were going to watch the suit being tested on a dummy.

February 4, 1983: Singer-songwriter-drummer Karen Carpenter, half of the brother and sister duo Carpenters, dies of a heart attack while suffering from an eating disorder. She is 32 years old.

Carpenter in 1972. Public domain.

February 4, 1984: Patrick Nagel, a renowned illustrator whose style combined Art Deco inspiration with pop art, dies at age 38. He participates in a 15-minute aerobics sprint as part of a fundraiser for the American Heart Association, then succumbs to a heart attack due to a congenital heart condition that had gone undetected until his sudden death.

February 4, 1987: 67-year-old piano virtuoso Władziu Valentino “Lee” Liberace dies of AIDS-related cytomegalovirus pneumonia at his home in Palm Springs, California, after receiving the sacrament of last rites from a Catholic priest.

February 4, 2018: Indianapolis Colts football player Edwin Jackson is the passenger in a ride-sharing car driven by Jeffrey Monroe. Jackson asks Monroe to pull over by the side of Interstate 70 in Indianapolis. As the two stand by the shoulder of the road, they are struck and killed by a pickup truck driven by Manuel Orrego-Savala, a citizen of Guatemala who is in the United States illegally. Orrego-Savala pleads guilty to “operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or more, causing death.”

Almanac for February 3rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 3rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-3-The-Day-the-Music-Died-V7V419Z732

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45CvEeL

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: The Day the Music Died

Bummer February 3rd

February 3, 1959: “The Day the Music Died,” when early rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were all killed in a plane crash outside Clear Lake, Iowa. The musicians had performed at Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom and were on their way to their next show in Minnesota. This accident is remembered in poetic form through the Don McLean song “American Pie,” recorded on May 26, 1971. 

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https://erinoriordan.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-i-spent-my-sunday-capote.html

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Almanac for February 2nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 2nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-2-The-Groundhogs-Candlemas-Day-U7U619KBFX

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4q2AJnN

Today's Observance: Groundhog Day, Candlemas
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Groundhog Day, the movie

Bummer February 2nd

February 2, 2014: Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman dies of an apparently accidental overdose of prescription medicine and heroin.

February 2, 2005: California State University, Chico, student Matthew Carrington dies of water intoxication after taking part in a Chi Tau local fraternity hazing ritual in which he’s encouraged to drink excessive water while exercising.

February 2, 2022: A pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, holds a burning of books he deems “demonic.” According to his loosely-organized, conspiratorial beliefs, a book counted as “demonic” if it was “anything tied to the Masonic Lodge.” It’s unclear whether these actions were influenced more by religious fanaticism or by mental illness.

Albino groundhog. Exhibit in the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, Marlboro, Vermont, USA. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.

Almanac for February 1st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 1st: 

https://ko-fi.com/post/February-1st-One-Flew-Over-the-Cuckoos-Nest-M4M019KBDT

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4t4MRaE

Today's Observance: St. Brigid's Day/Imbolc
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Imbolc

Beatles Trivia
February 1, 1964: The #1 single in the U.S. is The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Bummer February 1st

February 1, 1891: Newspaper publisher Ignacio Martínez is assassinated by two men in Laredo, Texas, because they disagree with his newspaper’s criticism of Mexican president Porfirio Díaz.

February 1, 1974: The 25-story Joelma Building in São Paulo, Brazil, catches fire when an air conditioner malfunctions. An estimated 180 people lose their lives.

February 1, 1988: Heather Michele O'Rourke, the 12-year-old actress who starred in the Poltergeist horror movies, dies of septic shock due to stenosis of the intestine, which causes her to go into cardiac arrest. The previous day she’d been suffering from flu-like symptoms when she suddenly collapsed, prompting her parents to take her to the emergency room, where the narrowing of her intestine was discovered.

February 1, 2001: The Los Angeles funicular railway known as Angels Flight is built in 1915, discontinued in 1969, and restored in 1996. Using the original two cars, named Olivet and Sinai, the funicular has known maintenance issues in 2001, including a non-working emergency brake on the Sinai. As a result, the Sinai malfunctions while approaching the station at the top of the hill, descending back down the track and colliding with the Olivet. Seven people are injured; 83-year-old Leon Praport is killed.

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on February 1, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

chicken noodle soup
calling dad
dancing in the kitchen
lunch with friends
good things happen!

waking up happy
muffins
the sun will come out soon!