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!

Almanac for January 31st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 31: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-31-Footloose-T6T519KBBH

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: The Feast of Great Typos
Artist Birthday: Zane Grey

Beatles Trivia

January 31
January 31, 1967: On Johnny Rotten’s 11th birthday, John Lennon is shopping at an antiques store in Sevenoaks in the English county of Kent. He finds and purchases a vintage circus poster, the text of which becomes the basis for the Beatles song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”

Bummer January 31st

January 31, 1915: During the World War I Battle of Bolimów, Germany deploys toxic chemicals in its attack on Russian troops. It’s Germany’s first large-scale use of chemical weapons, a strategy that will unfortunately become all too common in the Great War.

January 31, 1957: A Douglas DC-7B aircraft takes off from Santa Monica Airport on a test flight, accompanied by two U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jets. The role of the jets is to test the DC-7B’s radar capabilities. At 11:18 a.m. local time, one of the Scorpions collides with the DC-7B. The pilot of the Scorpion is killed in the crash; the radar operator ejects from the jet, and despite severe burns and a broken leg, survives. 

All four crew members aboard the DC-7B are killed when the craft crashes, partially into the grounds of Pacoima Congregational Church and partially into the grounds of Pacoima Junior High School, where a boys’ gym class is taking place outdoors. Three students are killed, and approximately 75 students are injured by falling debris. 

Among the witnesses of the mid-air collision is musician Ritchie Valens, 15 years old at the time. Valens himself will die in a plane crash two years and three days later. 

Almanac for January 30th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 30: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-30-In-a-Dark-Dark-House-R6R419KB8R

Artist Birthday: Christian Bale

Beatles Trivia

January 30, 1969: The Beatles perform a 42-minute concert on the roof of their Apple Corporation record company building in London, as documented in the concert film Let It Be. It will be their last public performance together.

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Romeo and Juliet

Bummer January 30th

January 30, 2006: 55-year-old playwright Wendy Wasserstein dies of lymphoma.

January 30, 2021: 34-year-old electronic musician Sophie Xeon dies from injuries suffered from an accidental fall from a roof in Athens, Greece, where Sophie had climbed to look at the full moon.

Almanac for January 29th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 29th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-29-The-Raven-M4M319KAUE

Bummer January 29th

January 29, 1916: During the Great War, Germany uses zeppelins to bomb Paris. The physical damage is minimal, but the aerial bombardment has the effect of psychologically terrorizing Parisians.

January 29, 1933: Poet Sara Teasdale overdoses on sleeping pills, an apparent suicide. She is 48 years old.

January 29, 1964: Actor Alan Ladd, age 50, dies at his home in bed from cerebral edema caused by an overdose of alcohol and prescription medications. His life had been difficult as you will see on July 3rd, November 2nd, and November 29th.

January 29, 2003: A dust explosion caused by highly flammable polyethylene dust at the West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, North Carolina, kills six people, injures 36 workers, and subsequently injures two firefighters who arrive to fight the fire caused by the explosion.

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Almanac for January 28th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 28th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-28-Pride-and-Prejudice-N4N319KARB

Bummer January 28th

January 28, 1856: Robert and Margaret (called Peggy) Garner and their four children, an enslaved family running for their freedom along the Underground Railroad, shelter at the home of free person of color Joseph Kite on the west side of Cincinnati, Ohio. U.S. Marshalls, required by the cruel Fugitive Slave Act to track down escaping enslaved persons, surround Mr. Kite’s home and demand the surrender of the Garner party. To their horror, Peggy has attempted to kill her two sons and two daughters rather than seeing them returned to slavery in Kentucky. She’s succeeded in killing her second-youngest child, her 2-year-old daughter Mary. She’d intended to kill her children and then herself; the other three children were wounded but survived. After a trial, the surviving Garners were forced back into enslavement. Peggy Garner’s story became the basis of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

January 28, 1960: African-American folklorist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston dies from heart disease after suffering a stroke.

January 28, 1986: A tragic cultural touchstone of my young life occurs when the space shuttle Challenger breaks apart shortly after launch. I’m eight years old and, I should note, not watching the live TV broadcast with my third grade class when it happens. We watched some of the coverage of the aftermath on a TV in the school gym after the school principal entered our classroom and told our teacher what had happened, to the best of my recollection.

January 28, 1993: Celina Shribbs becomes the second 2-year-old child to die of kidney failure from the Jack In the Box E. coli O157:H7 contamination incident. Celina didn’t eat the contaminated beef directly but contracted a secondhand infection from contact with another child.

Toni Morrison at Dorothy Surrenders: https://dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com/search/label/Toni%20Morrison

Almanac for January 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-27-Historical-Hotties-P5P119KAOE

The Casper (Wyoming) Daily Tribune, January 27, 1926

Artist birthday: Lewis Carroll

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Swan Lake

Bummer January 27th
January 27, 1967: Aspiring astronauts Roger B. Chaffee, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Edward H. White die when fire breaks out in their Apollo 1 space capsule as it sits on the launch pad. The high oxygen content of the air inside the capsule, plus an inefficient escape procedure, virtually guarantee they could not have survived the fire. 

Almanac for January 26th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 26th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-26-Hungry-Womans-Blues-O4O419KACM

Bummer January 26th

January 26, 1946: Two teenage sailors in the U.S. Navy, LeRoy Robert Bragg and Stanford Fluitt, die aboard the SS Frederick Galbraith of saltpeter poisoning after drinking saltpeter mixed with water as part of a tradition for a sailor’s first crossing of the Equator.

January 26, 1966: On Australia Day, the three children of the Beaumont family left their home in the Somerton Park suburb of Adelaide, Australia, and took a bus to Glenelg Beach, about three kilometers away. 9-year-old Jane, 7-year-old Arnna, and 4-year-old Grant didn’t return on the noon bus like their parents expected them to. Their father Jim drove to the beach to look for them. The baker at a local bakery reported selling them a meat pie and some pasties, allegedly for more money than the children were thought to have on them when they left, leading to speculation that a man at the beach had abducted the children, but they were never seen again.

January 26, 1972: JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 explodes mid-flight over the village of Srbská Kamenice, Czechia (then part of Czechoslovakia). Although no one is ever arrested for the crime, authorities suspect a Croatian separatist group smuggled a suitcase bomb aboard the plane. All 23 passengers and four crew members died in the explosion and subsequent crash. 

The fifth crew member, flight attendant Vesna Vulović, survived with a fractured skull, a fractured pelvis, broken legs, broken ribs, and broken vertebrae. Villager Bruno Honke, who had been a medic during World War II, discovered her unconscious body and rendered aid until rescuers arrived to take the flight attendant to the hospital. 22-year-old Vulović fell 33,330 feet from the plane to the ground, believed to be the longest fall a human being without a parachute has ever survived. Vulović lived for almost 45 more years after her fall.

January 26, 2001: Lacrosse coach Diane Whipple is mauled to death by two Presa Canario dogs being cared for by Whipple’s neighbors. The neighbors, married attorneys Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, cared for the dogs belonging to their client while their client, a member of a violent white supremacist gang, served time in prison. Knoller was attempting to control both dogs while carrying groceries when the dogs escaped from her control and attacked Whipple. 

Whipple dies of her injuries at San Francisco Memorial Hospital. Both dogs are euthanized. Knoller is convicted of second-degree murder. Noel is disbarred and convicted of manslaughter.

January 26, 2005: Juan Manuel Álvarez parks his Jeep on a railroad track north of Los Angeles, later testifying that he was intent on killing himself, but changed his mind at the last moment. The abandoned Jeep is struck by Metrolink commuter train #100, which jackknifes, striking two trains, one on either side of it. Eleven people are killed. Álvarez is ultimately sentenced to eleven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for their deaths.

January 26, 2010: Boa Sr, an approximately 65-year-old woman of the Bo people on her mother’s side and the Jeru people on her father’s side, dies. She was the last fluent native speaker of the Aka-Bo language of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, part of India.

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