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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If my words are not being censored by the Trump Regime, you may find my books here on Gumroad. https://creativista668.gumroad.com/

Almanac for January 25th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 25th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-25-Burns-Supper-X8X2199WHE

January 25, 1926

Today's Observation: Burns Night (in honor of Robert Burns)

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Virginia Woolf

Bummer January 25th

January 25, 1960: Actor Diana Barrymore, aunt of actor Drew Barrymore, dies at the age of 38. Her death is initially thought to have been caused by an accidental drug overdose, but no evidence of drug overdose is found during her autopsy. The cause of her death remains undetermined.

Drew Barrymore at the Lucky You film premiere on May 1, 2007. Public domain.

January 25, 1979: Robert Nicholas Williams, working at Ford Motor Company Flat Rock Casting Plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, becomes the first human being known to have been killed by a robot. The 5-story robot, called the Parts Retrieval System, is either retrieving parts incorrectly or not quickly enough. Therefore, Williams attempts to either fix the machine or at least get a closer look. Williams climbs to the third story of the robot and is struck from behind by one of the one-ton transfer vehicles used to move the robotic arms. The vehicle crushes him, killing him instantly.

January 25, 1980: University of South Carolina student Lurie "Barry" Ballou chokes to death on his own vomit after a night of heavy drinking as part of a Sigma Nu fraternity hazing ritual. At the time of death, Ballou’s blood-alcohol level was 0.46. Impairment begins at a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, and anything above 0.40 can cause fatal respiratory failure.

January 25, 2006: Bailiffs arrive to repossess the bedsit flat occupied by Joyce Carol Vincent in Wood Green, North London. Vincent owes £2,400 in back rent. Authorities are shocked to discover Vincent’s mostly skeletal, decomposed body lying on her back next to Christmas presents that Vincent had apparently wrapped but never delivered. Food in her refrigerator has expiration dates from 2003, and although the TV is still on and the heat is working, it appears that Vincent had died in December 2003 of natural causes and her body has lain undiscovered until that January day.

With no sign of foul play, her cause of death is suspected to be either an asthma attack or complications from a peptic ulcer, both of which she’s documented to have suffered from. Vincent had a sister, but apparently had distanced herself from her family and they didn’t try to contact her during the more than two years that her body lay undiscovered in her flat.

Almanac for January 24th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 24th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-24-Wharton-G2G619775E

Happy birthday, Edith Wharton.

Bummer January 24th

January 24, 1925: 28-year-old Swedish ice hockey player Ejnar Olsson, who competed in the 1924 Olympics, drowns when an unusually warm Swedish winter causes him to fall through the ice into the lake on which he’s playing hockey.

January 24, 1939: The worst earthquake in the history of Chile strikes at approximately 11:30 p.m., devastating the regional capital city of Chillán. The 8.3 surface wave magnitude earthquake kills an estimated 28,000 people. In addition to the collapse of about half of the buildings in Chillán and almost all the buildings in the city of Concepción, the massive earthquake causes numerous fires and renders the local water supply undrinkable. 

Almanac for January 23rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 23rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-23-Django-G2G519772Y

Bummer January 23rd

January 23, 1943: Algonquin Round Table wit Alexander Woollcott, who regularly performed on the radio, appeared in a panel discussion about Adolph Hitler on CBS Radio. Listeners notice he is uncharacteristically quiet during the discussion. In fact, Woollcott is having a heart attack. He writes “I am sick” on a pad to paper to let the other participants know he needs medical attention. He dies in the hospital a few hours later.

January 23, 1978: 31-year-old Terry Kath, a founding member of the musical group Chicago, places a gun he believes is unloaded to his head and pulls the trigger. The gun has a round in the chamber, killing Kath instantly.

January 23, 1989: Spanish artist Salvador Dalí dies of cardiac arrest. He is 84 and suffering from heart failure.

January 23, 2008: A Pennsylvania woman dies in the hospital after suffering electrical shock in her home; she and her husband had been using homemade nipple clamps, allegedly as a sexual stimulant. Her husband, who had a prior conviction for domestic violence, was charged with involuntarily manslaughter for his role. He was convicted in May 2009 and sentenced to 20-40 years in prison. Jurors seemed to be skeptical of the man’s claim that the electrical shock was part of the couple’s sexual activity and tended toward the theory that it was, instead, torture.

Almanac for January 22nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 22nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-22-Oh-The-Places-Youll-Go-C0C7197708

And then I made a fan edit with Ghost's "Kiss the Go Goat" as the soundtrack. And then I made another, better one that looks like the goats are at the goat disco.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR FLASHING LIGHTS/IMAGES:

Artist birthday: George Gordon, Lord Byron

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Sir Francis Bacon

Bummer January 22nd

January 22, 1915: More than 600 people die in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a trains derails and plunges into a canyon. The 20 cars of the train are filled with soldiers who had fought for General Victoriano Huerta. When Huerta’s army was overthrown by Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa, the revolutionaries ordered Huerta’s troops to be deported from Guadalajara to Colima. The train derails on its way to Colima in one of North America’s worst railroad disasters.

January 22, 1987: R. Budd Dwyer, the treasurer of the state of Pennsylvania, knows he is soon to be arrested on corruption charges, of which he claims to be innocent. At a televised press conference, he passes out a 20-page statement to the reporters in his office. He then pulls out a handgun, places it in his own mouth, and dies by suicide. His death is captured by the traumatized reporters and, as of 2022, could readily be accessed to watch online. 

This event is the inspiration behind the Filter song "Hey Man, Nice Shot."

Filter lead singer Richard Patrick is the brother of actor Robert Patrick, who was in Terminator 2. 

January 22, 1993: Two-year-old Brenda Nole dies of kidney failure in a Seattle hospital after eating food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a species of bacteria that creates a toxin that causes hemolytic-uremic syndrome in humans. Hers is the second of four eventual deaths of children traceable to contaminated hamburger meat from the Jack In the Box fast food chain. More than 730 people become sick from eating the same contaminated beef.

January 22, 2008: Actor Heath Ledger dies from an apparently accidental overdose of prescription anti-anxiety and painkiller medications. He’s 28 years old and leaves behind a 2-year-old daughter, Matilda Rose. 

Almanac for January 21st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 21: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-21-Baby-Spice-M4M41976XR

Artist Birthday: Emma Bunton

Beatles Trivia

January 21
Friday, January 21, 1966: George Harrison and Pattie Boyd get married.

This is an affiliate link.

Bummer January 21st

January 21, 1793: Convicted of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI is executed by guillotine. 

January 21, 1984: American R&B singer Jackie Wilson dies of complications of pneumonia at age 49. He has been semi-comatose since collapsing on stage while performing in New Jersey on September 29, 1975.

January 21, 2023: A 30-year-old man in Kansas was shot by his own gun as it sat in the rear seat of his pickup truck after the man’s dog stepped on the firearm and inadvertently pulled the trigger.

Almanac for January 20th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-20-Inaugural-Z8Z11976V2

Today's Observance: St. Sebastian's Day

Bummer January 20th

January 20, 1985: Czech-Canadian stunt performer Karel Souček dies from the injuries he sustained in a failed stunt the previous day. Souček, sealed inside a barrel, attempted to drop 180 feet into a tank of water inside the Houston Astrodome. The barrel is released prematurely, spins, and hits the rim of the tank. Souček is cut free of the barrel but is severely injured and dies in the hospital.

January 20, 2020: Former NBA player Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, basketball coach Christina Mauser, pilot Ara Zobayan, and five others are killed when their helicopter crashes in poor weather in Calabasas, California.