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Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Almanac for October 7th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 7th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-7-The-Giving-Tree-H2H0142DY2

https://ala.org/bbooks

October 5, 1925: 


Artist Birthday: Tim Minchin
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: "We Are the Champions"

Bummer October 7th

October 7, 1849: In Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe dies. 


October 7, 1914: Julian Carlton, having murdered seven people and drunk hydrochloric acid in an attempt to commit suicide, starves to death due to the injures to his esophagus caused by the acid. He has been receiving medical attention the whole time he is in police custody.

October 7, 1957: Santa Barbara College student Max Caulk drowns during a Delta Tau Delta fraternity hazing ritual in which his fraternity brothers threw him off a pier.

October 7, 1992: The last fluent speaker of the Ubykh language, Tevfik Esenç, dies at the age of 88. The Ubykh people are a subset of the Circassian people, who were the victims of ethnic cleansing by the Russians in the 18th and 19th centuries.


What was Diane Meyer grateful for on October 7, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

smoked salmon and dipping bagels in cream cheese
bought a new antique fork that says bloom!
growth mindset
looking forward to the future
sand
long walks
cold air
country roads
long books
plum muffin
barbecue ribs! risotto! green beans!
girls loving themselves! -- working on it always
roasted vegetables

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Almanac for October 6th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 6: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-6-Swedish-Nightengale-X8X2141YBO

https://ala.org/bbooks


Bummer October 6th

October 6, 2017: Travis Maldonado, an employee of Greater Wynewood Exotic Animal Park run by Joe Exotic (Joseph Schreibvogel, who became well-known through the Netflix documentary Tiger King) is known to point guns at other employees of the park. According to Maldonado, the gun is a Luger, which will not fire without a magazine. To prove this point to one of Joe Exotic’s associates, Maldonado places the gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Despite not having a magazine in it, the gun does fire, killing Maldonado. Maldonado is 23 years old.

Photo (c)2007 Derek and Julie Ramsey (Ram-Man) edit by Chris_huh., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

October 6, 2018: Seventeen people board a limousine, headed for a birthday celebration at a brewery near Cooperstown, New York State. Unknown to the passengers, the limo driver should have had his license suspended but hasn’t due to a clerical error. The limo itself had been observed by patrons who’d previously rented it to be in a state of disrepair, with an unusually loud engine.

The limousine, speeding, failed to make a stop at an intersection with a stop sign. It continued on into a parking lot, where it struck a parked car, struck two pedestrians, and came to rest in a gully. The driver, all 17 passengers, and the two pedestrians were killed.

Monday, October 5, 2026

Almanac for October 5th




Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 5th: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-5-Mr-Toads-Wild-Ride-W7W0140YQR

Bookshop.org affiliate link


Bummer October 5th

October 5, 1995: 50-year-old voice actor Linda Gary, who provided an impressive number of cartoon characters with their voices in American animation of the ‘70s and ‘80s, dies of brain cancer.

October 5, 2001: Robert Stevens, a photographer for the tabloid newspaper Sun in Boca Raton, Florida, dies of pulmonary anthrax. His death is the first in a series of anthrax terror attacks that killed Stevens and four other people and sickened 17 others. 

Microbiologist Bruce Ivins is the lead suspect in the FBI investigation into the anthrax attacks. He dies by suicide before he can be arrested and charged.




October 5, 2003: Environmentalists Timothy Treadwell (nicknamed “Grizzly Man”) and Amie Huguenard are attacked, killed, and partially eaten by a brown bear while camping and setting up film equipment in Katmai National Park, Alaska. 

Their video camera, apparently with the lens cap on (or otherwise unable to capture any light), recorded six minutes of audio of the attack. Film director Werner Herzog, who made the documentary Grizzly Man about the attack, listened to the audio, but deemed it too horrifying to use in the documentary. 

Sunday, October 4, 2026

Almanac for October 4th



Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 4: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-4-Mutts-W7W2140XWR


Bummer October 4th

October 4, 1951: Henrietta Lacks passes away from complications of cervical cancer. She had been treated with radiation therapy at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. As a result of her cancer and/or the radiation, her organs failed. 

After her death and without her knowledge or consent, Lacks’ cancerous cells will be collected and used to start an “immortal” cell line that will be used in most of the major medical research of the 20th century.

October 4, 1969: Diane Linkletter, the youngest of the five children of Canadian-American early television pioneer Art Linkletter and his wife Lois Foerster, jumps out of the 6th floor kitchen window of her apartment in the Shoreham Towers in West Hollywood, dying by suicide. She’s 20 years old. 

Art Linkletter says in a public statement that he believed Diane was experiencing an LSD flashback at the time of her death, even though investigators found no drugs in her system.

October 4, 1970: Her road manager finds 27-year-old singer Janis Joplin dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. She has apparently died of a heroin overdose.

October 4, 1974: Poet Anne Sexton has lunch with poet Maxine Kumin.

Later that day, Sexton dies by suicide in her car, locked inside her garage, by carbon monoxide poisoning. She is 45 years old. Kumin, who died in 2014, is believed to be the last person to see Sexton alive.

October 4, 1989: Monty Python actor Graham Chapman dies at the age of 48 from what started as a malignant tumor on one of his tonsils. The cancer spread to his spine and became inoperable.

October 4, 1992: El Al Flight 1862, a cargo plane, crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer neighborhood. All four people on the plane and 39 people on the ground are killed. The cause of the crash is thought to have been metal fatigue caused by consistently overloading the aircraft. 

October 4, 2001: 25-year-old NASCAR driver Blaise Alexander Jr. dies of head injuries in a crash at the ARCA EasyCare 100 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. 

On Lap 63 of the 100, Alexander caught up to Kerry Earnhart (Dale Earnhart’s oldest son). The two cars made contact. Earnhart’s car flipped over onto its roof, but Earnhart was not significantly injured and was able to exit his car without assistance. Alexander’s car crashed head-on into a wall. He was pronounced dead by health care workers at the speedway’s infield care center.

Saturday, October 3, 2026

Almanac for October 3rd


Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 3rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-3-Black-Hawk-Down-U7U2140XLK

From the October 2, 1925 Milford (DE) Chronicle

Bummer October 3rd

October 3, 1849: On this election day, Edgar Allan Poe is given alcohol and marched from polling place to polling place in an illegal voting scam that was popular at the time. It may have contributed to his death four days later.

October 3, 1967: 55-year-old folk singer Woody Guthrie dies of complications of Huntington’s disease, a hereditary condition that is still incurable.

October 3, 1993: 18 members of the U.S. Special Forces and the Army Rangers are killed in a mission to capture one faction of warlords in the Somali Civil War. Two American Black Hawk helicopters are shot down. One American soldier is captured, and some of the bodies of the dead are dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, and desecrated.

October 3, 2003: During a stage show in Las Vegas, 59-year-old Roy Horn of the magician duo Siegfried and Roy is bitten, knocked down, and dragged offstage by 7-year-old white tiger Mantacore. Horn suffers spinal injuries and severe blood loss, contributing to a stroke either during or after the incident. His verbal and motor skills are permanently impaired. 

The tiger is not harmed after the incident and lives to be 17, dying after an illness in 2014.

Friday, October 2, 2026

Almanac for October 2nd


Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 2nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-2nd-Dracula-Y8Y413Q8QI

Read the book first: Verity by Colleen Hoover (affiliate link)

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: The Twilight Zone

Bummer October 2nd

October 2, 1985: Hollywood actor Rock Hudson dies of AIDS-related illness at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He is 59 years old.

October 2, 2017: Tom Petty dies at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, after being found unresponsive in his home. His death is caused by an overdose of multiple drugs, including fentanyl and prescription medications. He’d been recovering from a fractured hip. Petty is 66 years old.


October 2, 2018: Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, who resides in the U.S., is murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi’s writings were critical of the Saudi government, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is suspected of being involved in the assassination.

October 2, 2019: Guitarist Kim Shattuck, who played for groups including The Pixies, the Muffs, and The Pandoras, dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the age of 56.

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Almanac for October 1st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for October 1st: https://ko-fi.com/post/October-1st-H2H513Q86K

Bummer October 1st
Bummer October Reading List at Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/lists/bummer-october-reading-list

October 1, 1941: 52-year-old Aline Murray Kilmer, herself a poet and also the widow of Joyce Kilmer, a poet killed in World War One, dies following three years of an unknown, but excruciatingly painful, illness.


October 1, 1951: Journalist Pauline Pfeiffer dies at age 56 of acute shock. She had a rare pheochromocytoma tumor on one of her adrenal glands. It appears that when Pauline’s transgender daughter Gloria was arrested for using a women’s bathroom and Gloria’s father Ernest Hemingway called his ex-wife Pauline to tell her, the news of Gloria’s arrest caused Pauline’s adrenal tumor to produce the hormones that caused the fatal state of physical shock.