Almanac for July 3rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for July 3rd: https://ko-fi.com/Post/July-3-Danville-F2F11HQB6I

July 3, 1926 review of Edith Wharton's Here and Beyond, Milwaukee Leader

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Back to the Future
Artist Birthday: Patrick Wilson

Bummer July 3rd

July 3, 1918: As a 4-year-old child, actor Alan Ladd accidentally burns down his family’s home in Arkansas while playing with matches.

July 3, 1969: 27-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, heavily intoxicated, is found dead in his swimming pool, the apparent victim of an accidental drowning.

July 3, 1971: 27-year-old Doors lead singer/songwriter Jim Morrison is found dead, apparently having mixed alcohol with his asthma medication after being advised by his doctor not to do so. Morrison was severely alcoholic and was also known to have had severe asthma since childhood.

July 3, 1988: Mistaking the commercial aircraft for a hostile military plane, the USS Vincennes missile cruiser shoots down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians. Sixty-six of the passengers were children. Although the U.S. eventually pays Iran a monetary settlement, the U.S. never admits fault or apologizes.

July 3, 1999: Musician/artist Mark Sandman, perhaps best known as a member of the band Morphine, collapses while playing a Morphine show in Palestrina, Lazio, Italy. He is pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The 46-year-old’s fatal heart attack is thought to have been triggered, in part, by the extreme heat of the day.

Almanac for July 2nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for July 2nd: https://ko-fi.com/Post/July-2nd-She-Bop-I2I81HQ80Q

Well, at least they're union-made. From the July 2, 1926 Newark [Ohio] Leader.

Bummer July 2nd

July 2, 1881: U.S. President James Garfield is shot twice by Charles Guiteau, who believed Arthur owed him a political appointment. Garfield will only die of infections stemming from his wounds after a long, agonizing convalescence. 

July 2, 1937: The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca receives the last-known transmission from Amelia Earhart as the pilot and her navigator attempt to fly around the world. The transmission is unsuccessful and neither Earhart nor her plane can be found again.

July 2, 1951: 67-year-old Mary Reeser is found in her apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida, the apparent victim of a fire. The physical evidence of the fire and of Reeser’s body are highly unusual. The body has been almost entirely reduced to ashes aside from one foot, still wearing a slipper, Reeser’s skull, and the bones of her spine. Objects made of the plastic located some distance from Mrs. Reeser’s body were melted out of shape, but nothing else in the apartment appeared to have burned. This case is sometimes cited as evidence of spontaneous human combustion, although Reeser was known to smoke cigarettes.

July 2, 1961: Ernest Hemingway dies by suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. 

July 2, 2005: As a family rode home from a wedding in a limousine, a 24-year-old man with a blood alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit hit the limo head on going over 70 miles per hour. The collision forced the engine of the limo practically on top of the driver, killing him instantly. 

All four adults and 5-year-old Grace, riding in the limo, were injured; Grace’s 7-year-old sister Katie was decapitated by her own seatbelt as a result of the accident. Katie’s mother Jennifer emerges from the vehicle carrying Katie’s head, which she will hold onto for about half an hour, in a state of shock and unwilling to let go of her daughter. Jennifer’s uncle, a police lieutenant who has coincidentally been called to the accident scene, finally convinces Jennifer to let go of Katie’s remains and allow herself to be taken to the hospital.

Almanac for July 1st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for July 1st: https://ko-fi.com/Post/1st-of-July-L3L11HQ7XO

Artist Birthday: Andre Braugher
French Republican Calendar Day Name (13 Messidor): Clove

Beatles Trivia

July 1, 1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s collaborative art exhibit You Are Here (To Yoko from John Lennon, With Love) opens in London.

Bummer July 1st

July 1, 1955: Actor Isabel Bonner collapses and dies of a cerebral hemorrhage while performing in the play The Shrike, written by her husband, in Los Angeles.

July 1, 1976: 23-year-old West German woman Anneliese Michel dies of malnutrition at her home. Over the last year of her life, Michel has been cared for by her parents and priests from the Roman Catholic Church, who performed rites of exorcism under the belief that Michel was possessed by demons. Michel had previously been diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy and major depressive disorder, but was not being seen by health care professionals at the time of her death. Her parents and several members of the Catholic Church are tried and convicted for negligent homicide.

July 1, 1996: Model/actor Margaux Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, is found dead inside her home in Santa Monica, California. She has died by suicide after overdosing on the barbiturate medication Luminal.

July 1, 2002: 71 people die when passenger jet BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and a DHL Cargo ship collide in midair near the border between Germany and Switzerland. The Russian passenger jet carried nine crew members and 60 passengers, many of whom were gifted children on a UNESCO cultural exchange trip to Barcelona. The DHL cargo flight carried two crew members. 

The crew of the Russian jet received contradictory instructions from TCAS automated guidance system and from Swiss air traffic control. At the time, Russian pilots didn’t have a clear set of instructions on whether TCAS should override verbal commands from air traffic control or vice versa. (Now, pilots are told to prioritize TCAS, which gathers more data at a quicker rate than a human being on the ground.) Air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, who was the only person on duty at that time and therefore had to monitor two air traffic control work stations at the same time, set the Russian jet on a course that caused it to directly collide with the cargo plane.

Margaux Hemingway in 1976. Publicity photo, unknown author, public domain.

Almanac for June 30th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 30th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-30-Gone-With-the-Wind-N4N41HQ7U1

Bummer June 30th

June 30, 1882: Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James Garfield, is executed by hanging.

June 30, 1995: 45-year-old jazz singer and Broadway actress Phyllis Hyman dies in the hospital after having been found unresponsive in her home. She has overdosed on prescription barbiturate medication and alcohol. 

Almanac for June 29th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 29th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-29-The-Feast-of-Saints-Peter-and-Paul-R5R01HQ7QE

Bummer June 29th

June 29, 1950: Ring Lardner (Jr.) reports to prison to begin his 1-year sentence for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He’ll serve nine months. 

June 29, 1967: 34-year-old American model/actress Jayne Mansfield is killed when the car she is riding in collides with the back of a tractor-trailer. Her 20-year-driver Ronnie Harrison and her attorney Sam Brody are also killed. Manfield’s three children, Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska Hargitay, all of whom are riding in the back of the car, suffer only minor injuries.

June 29, 1971: Cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov die aboard their Soyuz 11 space capsule when their cabin depressurizes. As of 2025, they remain the only three human beings ever to have died in space.

June 29, 1978: Hogan’s Heroes actor Bob Crane is found dead in his apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, by a dinner theater co-worker when he fails to show up for a meeting. Crane is 49 years old.

Unknown to the public, for whom Crane was considered uncontroversial, Crane had a habit of videotaping consensual sexual encounters with women. His friend and partner in these escapades, Sony video equipment salesman John Henry Carpenter, is considered one of the primary suspects in Crane’s bludgeoning death. The weapon used to bludgeon Crane is believed to have been a camera tripod, although this has never been conclusively proven. Carpenter was tried and acquitted of the crime in 1992; he died in 1998.

June 29, 2013: 31-year-old aerialist Sarah "Sasoun" Guyard-Guillot dies of blunt force trauma after a fall while performing in the Cirque du Soleil show Kà in Las Vegas, Nevada. As she is being lifted to a catwalk, approximately 94 feet in the air, Guyard-Guillot’s harness comes free of its safety wire and she drops into a pit. Guyard-Guillot is pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.

Almanac for June 28th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 28th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-28-The-Eve-of-the-Feast-of-Saints-Peter-and-W7W41HQ7MV

Achille Beltrame, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bummer June 28th

June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie Maria Josephine Albina Gräfin Chotek von Chotkow und Wognin are assassinated in Sarajevo (then part of Austria-Hungary, now in Bosnia and Herzegovina) by Gavrilo Princip. 

June 28, 2018: A gunman attacks the offices of Annapolis, Maryland, newspaper The Capital. The assailant became enraged at the newspaper after it published a story about his arrest for harassing an acquaintance through social media. Reporter Wendi Winters, sports reporter John McNamara, columnist Gerald Fischman, editor Rob Hiaasen, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith are killed. 

Almanac for June 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-27-Emma-Goldman-E1E81HQ7JE

French Republican Calendar Day Name (9 Messidor): Absinthe

Koroven, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Artist Birthday: H. Addington Bruce

Bummer June 27th

June 27, 2015: Colorful corn starch thrown into the air as an amusement at Formosa Fun Coast water park in Bali, New Taipei City, Taiwan, ignites, causing a fire. Performers on a stage throw the dust at guests who are dancing in a drained swimming pool. The dust ignites in a fire ball low to the ground, resulting in burns to many guests’ legs and lower torsos. More than 500 people are injured, 200 of them critically, and 15 people die.