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.
February 6, 1993: 49-year-old tennis player Arthur Ashe dies of AIDS-related pneumonia.
February 6, 1998: Austrian “Rock Me Amadeus” rocker Falco (Johann Hölzel) dies in a traffic accident while on vacation in the Dominican Republic. He is 40 years old.
February 5, 1885: King Leopold II of Belgium declares Congo to be his personal possession, establishing the Congo Free State. This will prove disastrous for the Congolese people as Leopold tries to extract wealth from their nation by turning them, essentially, into serfs on the land. With the invention of vulcanized rubber and increasing demand for rubber for automobile tires, the Congolese people are subjected to horrific work conditions and abuses on rubber plantations.
February 5, 2004: At least 21 people, undocumented immigrants from China, drown in Lancashire, England, when the tide comes into Moracambe Bay while they're harvesting cockles in the sand flats. The immigrants all work for a Chinese gang boss who pays them a minuscule amount for their labor. This gang boss and two of his associates are tried and convicted of manslaughter, violating immigration law, and related crimes.
February 5, 2008: A series of tornados in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee kills 57 people.
February 4, 1912: Parachute pioneer Franz Reichelt jumps from the Eiffel Tower to test a parachute suit he’s designed. The suit fails and Reichelt falls to his death in front of a crowd of people who thought they were going to watch the suit being tested on a dummy.
February 4, 1983: Singer-songwriter-drummer Karen Carpenter, half of the brother and sister duo Carpenters, dies of a heart attack while suffering from an eating disorder. She is 32 years old.
Carpenter in 1972. Public domain.
February 4, 1984: Patrick Nagel, a renowned illustrator whose style combined Art Deco inspiration with pop art, dies at age 38. He participates in a 15-minute aerobics sprint as part of a fundraiser for the American Heart Association, then succumbs to a heart attack due to a congenital heart condition that had gone undetected until his sudden death.
February 4, 1987: 67-year-old piano virtuoso Władziu Valentino “Lee” Liberace dies of AIDS-related cytomegalovirus pneumonia at his home in Palm Springs, California, after receiving the sacrament of last rites from a Catholic priest.
February 4, 2018: Indianapolis Colts football player Edwin Jackson is the passenger in a ride-sharing car driven by Jeffrey Monroe. Jackson asks Monroe to pull over by the side of Interstate 70 in Indianapolis. As the two stand by the shoulder of the road, they are struck and killed by a pickup truck driven by Manuel Orrego-Savala, a citizen of Guatemala who is in the United States illegally. Orrego-Savala pleads guilty to “operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or more, causing death.”
February 3, 1959: “The Day the Music Died,” when early rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were all killed in a plane crash outside Clear Lake, Iowa. The musicians had performed at Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom and were on their way to their next show in Minnesota. This accident is remembered in poetic form through the Don McLean song “American Pie,” recorded on May 26, 1971.
February 2, 2005: California State University, Chico, student Matthew Carrington dies of water intoxication after taking part in a Chi Tau local fraternity hazing ritual in which he’s encouraged to drink excessive water while exercising.
February 2, 2022: A pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, holds a burning of books he deems “demonic.” According to his loosely-organized, conspiratorial beliefs, a book counted as “demonic” if it was “anything tied to the Masonic Lodge.” It’s unclear whether these actions were influenced more by religious fanaticism or by mental illness.
Albino groundhog. Exhibit in the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, Marlboro, Vermont, USA. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.
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?
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.
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