Almanac for September 10

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for September 10th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-10-M4M012SOBL

Artist Birthday: Siobhan Fahey

Bummer September 10th

September 10, 1509: An earthquake and tsunami centered near what was then Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) kill an estimated 10,000 people.

September 10, 1920: 25-year-old silent film actress Olive Thomas dies of kidney failure five days after ingesting her husband’s topical syphilis treatment, which is not intended to be taken orally. The exact circumstances of her death are unknown, but it has been speculated that Thomas couldn’t sleep, went into the hotel bathroom to take a sleeping pill, and accidentally mistook the mercury-containing medicine for the sleep pills.

September 10, 1935: U.S. Senator and demagogue Huey Long dies of internal bleeding while recovering from emergency abdominal surgery after being shot by the son-in-law of a political rival. The shooting occurred at the Louisiana state capitol building on September 8th.

September 10, 1971: Sardinian-American actress Pier Angeli dies of an apparently accidental barbiturate overdose. She is 39.

Dell Publishing Company, Inc. Modern Screen, Pages 1056, Issue 1957., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

September 10, 1977: Murderer Hamida Djandoubi is executed by guillotine at Baumettes Prison in Marseille, France. He is the last person in the Western industrialized world to have been lawfully executed by beheading. France outlaws the death penalty in 1981. 

September 10, 1985: Tokyo’s Sankai Juku Dance Company performs The Dance of Birth and Death while harnessed to ropes on the side of the Mutual Life insurance building in Pioneer Square in Seattle. 31-year-old dancer Yoshiuki Takada falls five stories to his death when his rope breaks.

Almanac for September 9th

Almanac for September 9th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-9-Galvanism-D1D012SN6Q

Beatles Trivia
September 9, 1971: John Lennon releases the single “Imagine” in the U.S. 

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Luigi Galvani

Bummer September 9th

September 9, 1898: French poet and literary critic Stéphane Mallarmé dies suddenly while suffering from what had been a relatively mild case of tonsillitis. While being examined by his doctor, Mallarmé has a coughing fit so severe he dies of asphyxia. He is 56 years old.

September 9, 1901: Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec dies at age 36 from complications of alcoholism and syphilis. Toulouse-Lautrec was born with several congenital conditions and walked with a cane, which was said to be hollow and filled with liquor at all times. One of his favorite drinks was a combination of cognac and absinthe known as an Earthquake Cocktail.

September 9, 1949: Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 blows up mid-flight from Montreal to Baie-Comeau  due to a dynamite time bomb. All 19 passengers and four members of the flight crew are killed. 

The culprits are three individuals who hope to collect life insurance on their relatives aboard the plane. The female conspirator, Marguerite Pitre, is the last woman to be executed in Canada before Canada abolishes the death penalty.

September 9, 1971: The Attica (New York state) prison uprising begins when inmates demand better living conditions. The 5-day standoff will result in the deaths of 33 prisoners and 10 prison guards.

September 9, 1990: The Sri Lankan army massacres Tamil civilians, including infants, in three villages in the  Batticaloa District. The victims are rounded up, then attacked with swords, knives, and burning tires. A single survivor, 21-year-old Kanthasamy Krishnakumar, is wounded but manages to escape. No action has even been taken against the perpetrators.

September 9, 2002: University of California Los Angeles student Kenitha Saafir, who couldn’t swim, is ordered to swim by members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority as part of a hazing ritual. When Saafir appears to be in distress, Kristin High jumps into the water to try to save her. Both women drown.

Almanac for September 8

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for September 8th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-8-International-Literacy-Day-E1E812SM6D

French Republican Calendar day name (22 Fructidor): Noisette (hazelnut)

Bummer September 8

September 8, 1965: Cleveland-born actress/dancer Dorothy Dandridge, the first Black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, dies at the age of 42, either from an accidental overdose of the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine or a fat embolism that broke free and entered her bloodstream due to a fractured bone in her foot, an injury she’d sustained in a fall a few days before.

September 8, 1985: Cuban-American ecofeminist installation artist Ana Mendieta falls from the window of her apartment on the 34th floor of a building in Greenwich Village. Mendieta’s husband, sculptor Carl Andre, insists that her death was accident. Andre was acquitted of any legal responsibility in Mendieta’s death, but witnesses heard them arguing just prior to her fall from the window, and Andre had scratches on his face. Andre’s exhibitions are frequently protested by Mendieta’s fellow feminist artists.

September 8, 2016: 59-year-old performer The Lady Chablis, who’s featured prominently in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt and played herself in the 1997 film based on it, dies of pneumonia at Candler Hospital in Savannah, Georgia.

September 8, 2017: Kenneka Jenkins, age 19, attends a party at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare hotel. The next day her body is found inside a latched freezer belonging to the hotel’s kitchen; she appears to have frozen to death after entering the freezer for an unknown reason. 

Footage from the hotel’s cameras show her wandering the halls with a small injury on one foot. Authorities speculate her unusual behavior may have resulted from the combination of alcohol and a migraine medication, possibly not prescribed to Jenkins (sources vary), found in her system; this combination may have also hastened the effects of hypothermia.

Almanac for September 7th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for September 7th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-7-Z8Z612SF86

Today's Observance: Labor Day (U.S.)

"Mac Miller on the set of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, rehearsing his song that HuffPost said 'totally destroys Donald Trump'" on March 9, 2016. Public domain.

Bummer September 7th

September 7, 1936: The last-known Thylacinus cynocephalus, the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, dies in a zoo in Tasmania.

September 7, 2010: Actor Glenn Shadix, known for playing Otho in Tim Burton’s film Beetlejuice and providing the voice of the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas, uses a wheelchair while recovering from surgery to repair a broken ankle. While using the chair in the kitchen of his condominium, Shadix suffers a fall, strikes his head, and dies at age 58 from blunt force trauma.

September 7, 2018: Rapper Mac Miller, aged 26, dies of an overdose of alcohol, cocaine, and fentanyl.

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Almanac for September 6

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for September 6th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-6-ArtBeat-D1D612SF0X

Bummer September 6th

September 6, 1901: Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies eight days later.

September 6, 1926:

September 6, 1951: Joan Vollmer is shot and killed in an American-owned bar in Mexico City by her husband, William S. Burroughs. Both were intoxicated. Vollmer is alleged to have placed a glass on top of her head, and Burroughs was supposedly trying to shoot the glass off her head with a pistol. Instead he shot Vollmer in the head and killed her instantly.

This is portrayed in the film Beat (2000). Vollmer is played by Courtney Love and Burroughs by Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland. 

Almanac for September 5

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for Sept. 5th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-5th-Freddie-T6T312SDNJ

The Sept. 5, 1926 Washington (D.C.) Evening Star

Bummer September 5th

September 5, 1970: German race car driver Jochen Rindt is killed when his Lotus 72 crashes during practice for the Italian Grand Prix. As Rindt goes to brake, the car's right front inboard brake shaft fails, propelling him into the guard rail. The improperly installed guard rail gives way, and the Lotus crashes head-on into a stanchion. Rindt’s 5-point seatbelt, with only four of the five restraints engaged, allows his body to slip forward. As he does, the belt slits his throat. Rindt dies on the way to the hospital. 

Jochan Rindt. This is an image from the Nationaal Archief, the Dutch National Archives, and Spaarnestad Photo, donated in the context of a partnership program.

September 5, 1983: Canadian stunt performer Ken Carter is killed when the rocket car he’s using to jump over an Ontario pond overshoots the landing ramp, flips, and lands on its roof. 

Almanac for September 4th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-4-Richard-Wright-F1F112P4WX

Bummer September 4th

September 4, 2006: Wildlife expert, zookeeper, and filmmaker Steve Irwin is filming a dive in shallow water near the Great Barrier Reef. He is struck in the chest by a stingray’s tale. The barb of the tale pierces his heart, killing him. He's 44 years old.

September 4, 2014: Comedian Joan Rivers dies of complications from a minor surgical procedure days after she stopped breathing during the surgery. She's 81 years old. Rivers' only child, her daughter Melissa, sues her mother's doctors for medical malpractice; they settle out of court with the doctors admitting responsibility for Rivers' death.