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.