Almanac for February 26th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 26th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-26-O5O7J0SFJ

Artist Birthday: Johnny Cash

Beatles Trivia

February 26
Sunday, February 26, 1995, South Bend: I went to the Morris Performing Arts Center and saw 1964: The Tribute, a Beatles tribute band. I recognized three people in the audience: a pair of sisters who went to the same grade school as me, and Mr. Thomas Gerencher.

February 26, 1997: At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, The Beatles won a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Grammy for “Free As a Bird.” Other winners included Tony Bennett, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Goddess Nut

Bummer February 26th

February 26, 1972: A coal slurry impound dam bursts in Logan County, West Virginia, sending 132 million gallons of coal-contaminated water into the Buffalo Creek Valley, where 16 coal mining towns housed a total of about 5,000 residents. An estimated 125 people were killed, more than a thousand were injured, and over 4,000 residents were left homeless. 

February 26, 2013: 19 tourists are killed in Luxor, Egypt, where balloons are often used to view the Nile River, when their hot air balloon crashes. A leak in the fuel system causes a fire on board. Seven of those who died had jumped from the balloon. Two men from the United Kingdom initially survive the accident, but one of them dies at the hospital five hours later. 

February 26, 1993: A terrorist bomb explodes in the underground parking garage under the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring hundreds more.

February 26, 1994: Comedian Bill Hicks dies of pancreatic cancer at age 32. 

February 26, 2015: Australian author Jessica Ainscough, age 29, dies of a rare cancer, epithelioid sarcoma. In 2008, her doctors suggested amputating her affected left arm at the shoulder, which would have given her a greater than 50% chance of surviving for ten years or more. Ainscough chose to treat her cancer with alternative therapies rather than having the amputation. She used the alternative treatments for six years, only returning to conventional medical treatments near the end of her life when she developed a tumor that bled continuously for ten months.

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on February 26th, 2024?

https://bottlecap.press/products/ordinarygratitude

resilience and not giving up
strength and getting stronger
allowing myself to be so many things
I love my family
I love the things that I love
staying true to myself
respecting myself
respecting other people
I listen
I am thoughtful
putting myself first, but never losing sight of other people

Almanac for February 25th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 25th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-25-Welcome-to-The-Jungle-K3K4J0SDL

Artist Birthday: W. Somerset Maugham
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Anthony Burgess

Bummer February 25th

February 25, 1899: Edwin Sewell, age 31, becomes the first motor vehicle driver in Great Britain to be killed in a roadway accident when his Daimler automobile strikes a brick wall. His passenger dies in the hospital on February 28th.

February 25, 1983: Playwright Tennessee Williams dies of an apparently accidental overdose of the barbiturate medication Seconal.

Almanac for February 24th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 24th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-24-G2G3J0KAQ

Artist Birthday: Wilhelm Grimm

Bummer February 24th

February 24, 1809: London’s Drury Lane Theatre burns down. No one is injured, but the loss of the building is a financial disaster for its owner, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

February 24, 2004: Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen is stabbed to death at his home in Kloten. His killer is Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect whose wife and two daughters both died when BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 collided in mid-air with a DHL cargo plane on July 1, 2002. Nielsen was the sole air traffic controller on duty when the collision occurred. 

Kaloyev is originally sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter by a Swiss court, but later has his sentence reduced to less then four years since he experienced diminished mental capacity at the time of the stabbing due to his grief and trauma. Kaloyev is considered something of a folk hero in his hometown of Ufa, where many other parents of the deceased child passengers from Flight 2937 live.

February 24, 2010: Animal trainer Dawn Brancheau is pulled underwater and drowned by an orca during an animal show at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.

February 24, 2012: 14-year-old Gabriela Yukari Nichimura dies at a nearby hospital after falling 20 meters (about 66 feet) from her seat on the La Tour Eiffel drop-tower ride at Hopi Hari amusement park in São Paulo, Brazil. The ride has no seat belts, but the chairs have locks; Nichimura’s lock opened while the ride was in operation, causing her to fall.

Almanac for February 23rd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 23rd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-23-D1D2IZEN1

Bummer February 23rd

February 23, 2000: Singer Ofra Haza dies of AIDS-related pneumonia in Ramat Gan, Israel. She’s believed to have contracted the virus when she needed a blood transfusion following a pregnancy loss.

Almanac for February 22nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 22nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-22-George-Washington-N4N1IY87Y

• The Chapel Hill Weekly (N.C.), February 19, 1926

Artist Birthday: Atsuko Yamano of Shonen Knife

Bummer February 22nd

February 22, 1976: 32-year-old Florence Ballard, an original member of The Supremes, dies in a Detroit hospital of a blood clot in a coronary artery. She’d entered the hospital the previous day with numbness in her fingers and toes.

February 22, 1984: David Vetter, the subject of Paul Simon’s song “The Boy in the Bubble,” dies of Burkitt lymphoma at age 12. Vetter was born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a condition that makes common illnesses unusually severe. He had to live in a specialized sterile environment until he could receive a bone marrow transplant. Vetter did receive a successful transplant in 1984, but unfortunately it did not prevent his cancer.

February 22, 1987: Pop artist Andy Warhol dies of a heart condition while in the hospital recovering from gall bladder surgery. He has never fully recovered from being shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

Almanac for February 21st

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 21st: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-21-Feralia-P5P31B6UFT

Bummer February 21st

February 21, 1868: Italian painter Giuseppe Abbati dies of rabies after being bitten by his rabid pet dog.

February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated by a member of the Nation of Islam, an organization he had left. 

February 21, 1974: Ontarian hockey legend Tim Horton, intoxicated, loses control of his De Tomaso Pantera near St. Catharines, Ontario. The sports car crosses the highway median and flips several times, throwing Horton from the vehicle. He is pronounced dead at the hospital in St. Catharines. Horton is not wearing a seatbelt and a half-empty vodka bottle is found in the wreckage.

February 21, 2022: The 28-year-old father-to-be and his 27-year-old brother are killed by an improvised exploding device they’re attempting to build as part of the planning of an unborn baby’s gender reveal party in Liberty, New York State.

Almanac for February 20th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-20-Sic-Transit-Gloria-Mundi-P5P51B6UDC

Beatles Trivia

February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs. 

Bummer February 20th

February 20, 1894: A cook named Henrietta Jackson is suffocated by chlorine gas routed into a Cornell University dining hall, an intended prank by students who’d been trying to disrupt a banquet for first-year students.

February 20, 1945: U.S. Navy sailor Jack P. Jarosz dies of electrocution when a hazing ritual designed to give him a mild electrical shock malfunctions.

February 20, 1993: Riley Detwiler, a 17-month-old child, dies of kidney failure caused by infection with E. coli O157:H7. He contracts the infection from another child at his daycare center; both of the other child’s parents work at Jack In the Box, the fast food restaurant whose contaminated beef had already killed three children in December 1992 and January 1993. The parents of the second child didn’t disclose to daycare workers that their child was experiencing bloody diarrhea, fearing that they wouldn’t be able to get child care if the workers knew their toddler was ill.

February 20, 2003: One hundred patrons of the Station night club in West Warwick, Rhode Island, are killed when a pyrotechnics display during a rock concert causes the venue to catch fire. Guitarist Ty Longley is among those who lose their lives.

On the same day in Corbin, Kentucky, a dust explosion at the CTA Acoustics plant kills seven workers. Dust from a resin used in automotive mats ignited from the heat of an industrial oven.

February 20, 2014: Camera assistant Sarah Jones is struck and killed by a train while filming a scene for Midnight Rider: The Gregg Allman Story. The movie is left unfinished and never released.