Almanac for October 21st

Excuse me, the Spokane Woman of October 21, 1926? What kind of faces are we calling "Character Masks?" Folks, the 1920s were hella racist.

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 21st: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-21-Carrie-Fisher-W7W514YDF0

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Bummer October 21st

October 21, 1966: “[On this date] a massive coal-tip slid down a mountainside and engulfed the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing 144 persons, mostly school children. In response to an appeal the following week in a national newspaper, an English psychiatrist, J. Barker, obtained a large number of reports from respondents who felt they may have received paranormal information concerning this tragedy. After all claims were carefully checked out, thirty-five cases remained which Dr. Barker considered worthy of confidence. In twenty-four cases, the respondents had related the information to someone else before the landslide occurred. Dreams figures in twenty-five of these accounts. In one, the dreamer saw, spelled out in large, brilliant letters, the word ABERFAN, In another, a telephone operator from Brighton talked helplessly to a child, who walked toward her, followed by a billowing cloud of black dust or smoke.” 

- Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. Van de Castle

October 21, 1969: Jack Kerouac dies of internal abdominal hemorrhage caused by his heavy alcohol use. He is 47 years old.

October 21, 2021: Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins is accidentally shot and killed by actor Alec Baldwin on the film set where the two are working. The Pietta .45 Colt revolver Baldwin was using as a prop shouldn’t have been loaded with live ammunition. 

Almanac for October 20th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-20-Rimbaud-A0A314YCC0

Bummer October 20th

October 20, 1728: The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 begins and burns through October 23rd. It destroys nearly a third of the city’s buildings, leaving approximately 20% of Copenhagen’s population homeless. The University of Copenhagen library loses approximately 35,000 texts.

October 20, 1977: Cassie Gaines, her brother Steve Gaines, Ronnie Van Zant, road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and pilots William Gray and Walter McCreary die when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered plane runs out of fuel and crashes in the woods outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. Drummer Artimus Pyle, guitarist Gary Rossington, and keyboardist Billy Powell all survive with serious injuries.

October 20, 1990: Stunt performer Brian Jewell, portraying a hanged man at a New Jersey “haunted hayride” attraction, accidentally hangs himself in earnest.

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 19th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 19th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-19-Z8Z014YAK3

Bummer October 19th

October 19, 1950: Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, age 58, dies after apparently suffering a heart attack and falling down the stairs of her home. 

October 19, 1977: A small fire breaks out aboard the charter plane used by members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. No one is hurt, but the fire makes Cassie Gaines hesitant to board the plane the next day.

Almanac for October 18th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 18th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-18-B0B114VTQK

Bummer October 18th

October 18, 1984: 26-year-old actor Jon-Erik Hexum dies six days after an accident on the set of a TV show called Cover-Up. He accidentally shoots himself in the head with a gun filled with blanks, and the wadding of one of the blanks severely injures him.

October 18, 2015: Death metal bass player Frank Watkins, who played in the bands Obituary and Gorgoroth, dies at age 47 of cancer.

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 17th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 17th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-17-Black-Poetry-Day-K3K614SOG5

National Library of Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bummer October 17th

October 17, 1586: Sir Philip Sidney dies of an infection from a thigh wound he’d suffered at the Battle of Zutphen that September, when Sidney loaned his armor to a soldier who’d forgotten his own. Sidney is 32 years old.

October 17, 1814: Eight people die as a result of the a 22-foot-tall vat of fermenting porter bursting and causing a chain reaction of bursting beer barrels in London. Victims either drowned in the resulting flood or died of sudden, acute alcohol poisoning from inhaling the vapors.

October 17, 1873: Cornell University student Mortimer N. Leggett dies during a Kappa Alpha Society hazing ritual that involved walking in the woods blindfolded. Leggett and three others fell into a gorge; the others survived.

October 17, 1955: Wealthy race car driver/playboy Joel Thorne is flying a private plane in North Hollywood, California, when he flies into an apartment building, killing himself and three residents of the building. The youngest victim is two months old.

Almanac for October 16th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 16th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-16-Hedwigs-Day-E1E7FQAKV

Today's Observance: St. Hedwig's Day
Artist Birthday: Nico
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Oscar Wilde

Bummer October 16th

October 16, 1793: Queen Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne of France is executed by guillotine during the French Revolution.

October 16, 1991: A 35-year-old man drove his pickup truck through the window of a restaurant called Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. From inside the truck, he begins firing one Glock 17 pistol and one Ruger P89 pistol at the approximately 150 people eating lunch inside the restaurant. He then exited the truck, shouted a misogynistic rant about his distrust of women, and began selectively shooting people. 

When police arrived, the man engaged in a firefight with them. He was shot by police three times, stated that he would not surrender, and then killed himself by shooting himself in the head. The rampage killed 23 people and wounded 27 others.

Almanac for October 15th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 15th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-15-Little-Nemo-in-Slumberland-I2I414R0PX

Bummer October 15th

October 15, 1917: Dutch exotic dancer Margaretha Zelle, who performs under the stage name Mata Hari (a Malay expression for “the sun”), is executed by a French firing squad, having been accused of spying for Germany in the Great War. Modern biographers believe she was innocent of spying and was scapegoated.

October 15, 2020: 26-year-old South African adult film star and aspiring social media influencer Karissa Rajpaul dies following a cosmetic procedure in Encino, Los Angeles, California. The mother and daughter who performed the “butt lift” procedure, which involved injected silicone into the buttocks, had no formal medical training in this procedure. 

In 2025, both women were convicted of involuntary manslaughter, sentenced to 3-4 years in prison, and then released when it was determined their time had been served.

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