Almanac for June 14th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 14th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-14-E1E21GMIZ8

Bowman Gum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bummer June 14th

June 14, 1949: 19-year-old typist Ruth Ann Steinhagen shoots and almost kills Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus in one of the earliest recorded cases of what comes to be known as stalking. Steinhagen, a resident of Cicero, Illinois, has been obsessed with Waitkus since she sees him playing for the Chicago Cubs in 1946. She even leaves an empty plate at the dinner table for him when eating with her family. Steinhagen was seeing a psychiatrist, but this didn’t stop her from traveling to Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel, leaving a note with Waitkus’s roommate asking to meet, then shooting the baseball player with a .22 caliber rifle when he came to see her. She shot him in the chest, puncturing one of his lungs.

After shooting Waitkus, Steinhagen allegedly looked for a second bullet with which to shoot herself, but was unable to find one. Instead she called the police and told them, “I just shot a man,” allowing Waitkus to reach medical care before his injury killed him. He had to sit out the rest of the ‘49 baseball season, but returned in 1950. Eddie Waitkus developed a drinking problem and died in 1972 of esophageal cancer.

June 14, 1986: Three roller coaster riders are killed and a fourth is permanently disabled when their car derails on the Mindbender at Fantasyland (now Galaxyland) Amusement Park in West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada. 

June 14, 2017: The Grenfell Tower apartment building in London catches fire due to an electrical fault in a refrigerator on its fourth floor. Fire and smoke spread rapidly, trapped by the building’s exterior cladding and insulation, which act like a chimney. 70 people die in the 24-story tower before the fire can be extinguished and two more die in the hospital. 70 others are injured.

On the same day in the United States, six people are shot at a Congressional charity baseball game, including U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (a Republican), a Capitol Police officer, and a Congressional aide. The 66-year-old perpetrator is shot by police and dies of his injuries. All of those who are injured eventually recover fully, aside from physical and psychological scars.

Almanac for June 13th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 13th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-13-J3J01GMJ0X

Bummer June 13th

June 13, 2012: 26-year-old Indonesian singer Irma Bule performs in a village in West Java, using a live king cobra as a stage prop. The snake bites Bule. She continues performing, but collapses and dies from the venomous bite 45 minutes later.

Bule wasn’t a well-known performer. Like many other young, single mothers in Indonesia hoping for more lucrative musical careers, she performed for a small fee plus whatever tips she could get from the audience. Performers who incorporate snakes into their act are paid slightly more, but the snakes are generally non-venomous and often have their mouths taped shut. Bule’s mother believes Bule did not know the snake she was performing with was venomous.

Good luck to Brazil in today's FIFA World Cup match vs. Morocco! 
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Almanac for June 12

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 12th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-12-D1D21GMJ1Z

Bummer June 12th

June 12, 2015: Musician Dave Grohl falls from the stage, breaking his leg, while performing with the Foo Fighters in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Good luck to Canada (Group B) and the USA (Group D) in the FIFA World Cup!
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Almanac for June 11th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 11th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/June-11-E1E31GMJ32

Bummer June 11th

June 11, 1955: The 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race turns disastrous when Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz rear-ends Lance Macklin’s Austin-Healey. Macklin had swerved in front of Levegh to avoid hitting a third driver. The Mercedes-Benz leapfrogs over the Austin-Healey, flies over an earthen barrier, strikes the spectator area twice (breaking apart in the process), and comes to land on the barrier. In the process, Levegh is thrown from his car onto the track and killed instantly.

83 spectators are killed in the accident. An additional 120 people are injured. Levegh’s car burns for hours after the crash; its body is made with magnesium. Water poured on the car by rescue workers intensifies the magnesium fire. Among the injured are spectators burned by the magnesium sparks. 

June 11, 1979: Marion Morrison, who acted under the stage name John Wayne, dies of stomach cancer at the age of 72. 

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Almanac for June 10th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 10th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/June-10-F2F31GMJ3T

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Fanny Burney

Bummer June 10th

June 10, 1692: One person found guilty of witchcraft is executed by hanging in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

June 10, 1898: The last-known native speaker of the Dalmatian language, Tuone Udaina, dies. Udaina is killed in an explosion caused by road work. 

June 10, 1990: British Airways Flight 5390, flying between Birmingham, England, and Málaga, Spain, experiences explosive decompression when an improperly-installed front windowpane falls off the aircraft. The captain, 42-year-old Timothy Lancaster, is partially propelled outward, with his lap belt and crew members managing to prevent him from exiting the aircraft. Remarkably, Lancaster survives, and the aircraft makes an emergency landing without fatalities. Lancaster suffers cuts and bruises, frostbite, shock, and a broken right arm, and later develops PTSD from the incident.

June 10, 2016: 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie is shot as she signs autographs after a performance in Orlando, Florida, and will die the following day. The perpetrator also killed himself.

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on June 10th, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

Need some gratitude today!
good hot dogs
mom and dad
grocery shopping with dad
cooking
visiting Grandma
go outside tomorrow!
podcasts
kombucha
baking brownies for friends
birthday plans
things work out! don't catastrophize

Almanac for June 9th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 9th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/June-9-R5R51GMJ4M

Today's Observance: St. Columba's Day
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Jurassic Park 
Artist Birthday: Cole Porter

Bummer June 9th

June 9, 1865: Charles Dickens and his friend/perhaps lover Ellen Lawless Ternan are riding in a train on a voyage home from Paris. The train is near the village of Staplehurst, Kent, when it crosses a bridge. The engineer is unaware, until it's too late, that the bridge is closed for repairs and about 42 feet of track have been removed.

Dickens and Ternan, riding in the first-class car near the front of the train, are carried over the gap by the momentum of the engine. Their car lands on its side, but although they're shaken, they don’t have any serious injuries.

The center and rear cars of the train fall into the river below. Ten passengers are killed. Approximately 50 others are injured. Dickens helps render aid to the victims at the scene; some of them die in front of him. For the rest of his life he suffers flashbacks; in modern terms he could probably be said to suffer from PTSD.

June 9, 1930: Jack Lingle, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, is shot and killed by Leo Brothers, who worked as a bouncer at a club owned by Al Capone. Initially hailed as a martyr for freedom of the press, Lingle is later discovered to have connections to illegal gambling and liquor bootlegging.

Almanac for June 8th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 8th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/June-8-P5P21GMJ5L

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: John Everett Millais
Artist Birthday: Science fiction author Robert F. Young

Bummer June 8th

June 8, 1913: Emily Wilding Davison dies of her injuries, including a skull fracture, four days after being knocked down by Anmer, a horse owned by King George V of England, during the 1913 Derby at Epsom Downs. Davison attended the Derby to protest in favor of voting rights for English women, carrying the purple, white, and green flag used at the time by the women’s suffrage movement. She climbed around a guard rail and onto the track as Anmer passed by, traveling approximately 35 miles per hour. As she reached for the animal’s reins, the horse knocked her down. 

Since Davison hadn’t discussed her plans for the protest with anyone who knew her, her exact intentions are unclear. She may have been trying to attach the suffrage movement flag to Anmer’s bridle.

June 8, 1971: J.I. Rodale, an early advocate of sustainable and organic farming and founder of Rodale Press, appears as a guest on a pre-taped episode of The Dick Cavett Show. In his interview for the show, Rodale states that he’s never felt better and intends to live to be 100 years old. Unfortunately, he suffers a fatal heart attack at the age of 72 that evening, as he’s sitting in a chair on the Cavett Show set listening to another guest being interviewed. Rodale is pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital; the episode is never aired.

June 8, 1982: Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, who married rock ‘n roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis in 1971, is staying with a friend while in the process of divorcing Lewis. The two were scheduled to meet in divorce court on the 21st of June. Less than two weeks prior to the court date, Pate drowns in the friend’s swimming pool.

June 8, 1997: Chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn is taken off life support and dies from acute mercury poisoning. On August 14, 1996, she had been working with the highly toxic chemical dimethylmercury when several drops of the substance fell onto her latex glove-covered hand. The chemical permeated her glove and was absorbed by her skin; she began having neurological symptoms of heavy metal poisoning within three months.

June 8, 2018: Chef Anthony Bourdain, age 61, dies of suicide by hanging.