Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
March 5, 1963: The Beatles record “From Me to You” at Abbey Road.
Sunday, March 5, 1995, South Bend: Having read The Plague, I turned to a library book titled The Worst Rock and Roll Records Ever Made: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell [ISBN 0806512318 9780806512310].
Here’s a list of some of the songs and bands Guterman and O’Donnell love to hate: 1. “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie 2. “Eve of Destruction” 3. “American Pie” 4. The Doors 5. Mick Jagger’s brother Chris 6. The U2 album The Unforgettable Fire (which includes “Pride (In the Name of Love);” see April 4) 7. Ringo Starr’s albums Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave 8. Really anything done by Ringo Starr and (especially) Paul McCartney after the Beatles 9. The 1981 live Rolling Stones album Still Life 10. Duran Duran
Bummer March 5th
March 5, 1963: Musicians Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins perish when their Piper PA-24 Comanche aircraft crashes in a forest in Tennessee during stormy weather. The pilot is also killed. Cline’s epitaph reads, “Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love.”
March 5, 1977: In an unfortunate accident at the South African Grand Prix, English driver Tom Pryce struck and killed 19-year-old race marshal Frederik "Frikkie" Jansen van Vuuren, whom he couldn’t have seen in time. Jansen van Vuuren had run across the track with a fire extinguisher to rescue Italian driver Renzo Zorzi. Zorzi was trapped in his burning car while trying to remove the oxygen pipe from his helmet.
The 40-pound fire extinguisher struck Pryce’s car and came through his windshield, striking Pryce in the head, forcing his helmet upward at a sharp angle, causing severe head and neck injuries that killed him instantly. Pryce’s car struck Jacques-Henri Laffite’s car and both vehicles struck the barrier and came to a stop.
Zorzi was not injured. The eventual winner of the 1977 South African Grand Prix was Austrian driver Niki Lauda, who had almost burned to death in the 1976 German Grand Prix.
March 5, 1982: Albanian-American comedian John Belushi dies of a drug overdose.
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March 4, 1874: Stage actor Ada Clare dies of rabies at the age of 39 after being bitten by a rabid dog in her theatrical agent’s office.
March 4, 1908: An elementary school in Collinwood, Ohio, catches fire for an undetermined reason. The school’s masonry exterior and almost entirely wooden interior without fire breaks cause the entire building to act like a chimney. Two teachers, one rescuer, and 172 students–almost half of the students in the building--are killed.
March 4, 2019: 52-year-old actor Luke Perry dies from complications of two ischemic strokes at a hospital in Burbank, California.
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March 3, 1991: 25-year-old Rodney King is pulled over by the Los Angeles Police Department on suspicion of drunk driving and for speeding in a residential area. Although witnesses say King did not appear to resist arrest, King was struck with a Taser weapon and then beaten by four of the police officers present at his traffic stop. King’s multiple injuries included broken teeth, a fractured skull, a broken ankle, and kidney damage.
The beating was captured by an amateur video camera by George Holliday. Holliday takes the footage to local TV station KTLA. The four officers were charged with assault and excessive force. When the jury acquitted the officers on April 29, 1992, rioting broke out in Los Angeles. The six days of rioting killed 63 people before the California National Guard, U.S. Army, and U.S. Marines intervened to end the social chaos.
The U.S. Department of Justice later found two of the officers guilty of violating King’s civil rights and sentenced them to prison. The other two were acquitted. King sued the City of Los Angeles. A civil court awarded King $3.8 million in damages as well as $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees.
New links for Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, the audiobook:
March 2, 1978: Two thieves steal the coffin containing the body of actor Charlie Chaplin, which was interred in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. They hope to gain $600,000 in ransom, but Chaplin’s widow Oona (the daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill) refused to pay. The two men, auto mechanisms from Poland and Bulgaria, were instead forced to show police the corn field in which they’d reburied the coffin. Chaplin’s family took the precaution of burying the coffin in concrete when it was returned to the cemetery. The English actor had died at age 88 on December 25, 1977.
March 2, 1982: Science fiction author Philip K. Dick is taken off life support. He has suffered two strokes, with brain death following the second stroke.
March 2, 1999: Singer Dusty Springfield dies of recurrent breast cancer. She’s 59 years old.
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March 1, 1846: 49-year-old newspaper editor John Hampden Pleasants dies of his wounds after being shot in a duel with Thomas Ritchie, editor of the rival newspaper in their shared home of Richmond, Virginia. The two agreed to a duel after Pleasants took offense to Ritchie calling him an "abolitionist." Now, both men were abolitionists; they both favored ending chattel slavery in the United States. However, at that time in the South, "abolitionist" was considered an insult, and the two disagreed, often quite fiercely, on the timetable of when complete abolition of slavery should be accomplished.
March 1, 1932: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famed aviator, is abducted from his nursery in the home of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Hopewell, New Jersey. The toddler’s body is found on May 12, 1932.
A German-American, Richard Bruno Hauptmann, is tried, convicted, and executed for the crime, but questions about his factual guilt remain. His widow maintained his innocence until her death in 1994.
March 1, 1962: American Airlines Flight 1 crashes shortly after takeoff from what is now John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 87 passengers and 9 crew members died in the crash. Linda McCartney’s mother Louise Eastman is among the dead, as is 1952 Olympics sailing gold medalist Emelyn Whiton. Also aboard the plane were 15 paintings by Abstract Expressionist Arshile Gorky.
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February 28, 1909: Actor Irene Muza (a stage name) dies when her hairdresser accidentally sets her on fire. According to a Perth, Australia, newspaper account published March 30, 1909, “Before taking part in a charitable performance on Tuesday she sent for her hairdresser to come and dress her hair. The hairdresser had applied a petrol lotion, when a few drops of it fell upon the kitchen stove. The stuff, ignited in an instant, and the flames caught the actress's hair and her dressing-gown and the clothing of the hairdresser. [...] In a moment she was a mass of flame.' A friend who was in an adjoining room tried to save her by tearing away the burning gown, but before this could be accomplished she had sustained terrible injuries. She was conveyed to the hospital, where she expired. Her hairdresser, who was also badly injured, lies in a precarious condition.”
February 28, 1958: Twenty-six students and their bus driver drown following a bus crash near Prestonsburg, Kentucky. The bus strikes a wrecker truck, slides down an embankment, and goes into the Big Sandy River.
February 28, 2001: The InterCity 225 high speed train from Newcastle to London collides with a Land Rover that has fallen onto the track near Great Heck, England. The high speed passenger train derails onto the track of a freight train. The engineers of both trains are killed, as are eight other people. The collision also injures 82 people. The driver of the Land Rover was able to exit his vehicle after his accident and called the local authorities after his vehicle rolled down an embankment onto the train tracks.
February 28, 2015: Charmayne Maxwell, a member of the R&B group Brownstone, bleeds to death after falling backwards, shattering the wine glass she has been holding, and cutting her neck on the broken glass.
February 27, 1938: A storm over the Pacific Ocean moves inland over California, beginning a series of floods that kills approximately 114 people between late February and early March. More than 5,500 homes and businesses are destroyed and hundreds more are damaged.
February 27, 1968: 25-year-old R&B singer Franklin “Frankie” Lymon dies of a heroin overdose.
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