Almanac for March 18th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 18th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-18-Sense-and-Sensibility-and-Sea-Monsters-R6R8JJI8A

Bummer March 18th

March 18, 1937: The accidental ignition of natural gas used for heating causes the New London elementary school in New London, Texas, to explode. Approximately 300 teachers and students are killed. An equal number suffer non-fatal injuries.

March 18, 1996: Fire breaks out inside the Ozone Disco club in Quezon City, Philippines, which is filled to over-capacity with many young people celebrating the end of the school year. 95 people are injured and 162 people die. The emergency exit is blocked by the newly-built building next door to the club. 

March 18, 2009: Actor Natasha Richardson dies of injuries she has sustained in a fall while taking a beginner ski lesson in Quebec. She is 45 years old.

March 18, 2018: The first human being to be killed by a self-driving car, Elaine Herzberg, is struck by a self-driving car with a human safety monitor sitting in the passenger seat. Herzberg had been walking her bicycle across the street when the car struck her. The safety monitor was charged with negligent homicide since she was not looking at the road until seconds before the collision and did not have her hands near the steering wheel ready to take control. 

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Almanac for March 17th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 17th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/March-17-St-Patricks-Day-P5P51C8INM

Today's Observance: St. Patrick's Day

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Harps
Vintage St. Paddy's Day at Aurora's Gin Joint blog: https://aurorasginjoint.com/2017/03/17/friday-foto-follies-vintage-st-paddys-day/

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Bummer March 17th

March 17, 1997: Musician Jermaine Stewart, who had a top 10 pop hit in the U.S. with “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off,” dies at the age of 39 from AIDS-related liver cancer.

March 17, 2010: Musician Alex Chilton dies of a heart attack. He has been feeling unwell for about two weeks, but decides not to seek medical attention since he doesn’t have health insurance. He’s 59 years old. 

March 17, 2018: 38-year-old aerialist Yann Arnaud falls to his death while performing in a Cirque de Soleil show. His approximately 20-foot fall is witnessed by the audience.

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Almanac for March 16th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 16th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-16-Men-Without-Hats-U7U5JJ95F

Bummer March 16th

March 16, 1926: 66-year-old Henry Kraft of Milwaukee dies of his injuries after being crushed by the elevator he had been oiling. 

March 16, 1970: Mary Ann Ganser, one of the original members of the girl group The Shangri-Las, dies of a drug overdose at the age of 22.

March 16, 2009: Nicholas Hughes, the 46-year-old son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, dies by suicide. According to his sister Frieda, Hughes struggled with depression. Frieda was two years old and Nicholas one year old when their mother died by suicide. 

March 16, 1926 Washington (D.C.) Evening Star

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Almanac for March 15th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 15th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-15-Beware-the-Ides-of-March-A0A2JIAMG

Today's Observance: The Ides of March

Bummer March 15th

March 15, 1937: H.P. Lovecraft dies of cancer of the small intestine at age 46.

March 15, 1982: A man from Scotland becomes obsessed with American actress Theresa Saldana after seeing her in Raging Bull. He calls the actress’s mother to obtain Saldana’s personal address, posing as a casting agent. After doing so he arrives at the actress’s home in West Hollywood and attacks her with a hunting knife, stabbing her in the chest and puncturing her lung. Saldana survives the attack and becomes an advocate for other crime victims.

March 15, 1999: 25-year-old Charemon Jonovich, who is dating actor Robert Pastorelli (the two have a daughter together), dies of a gunshot wound to the head at the actor’s home in Hollywood. Pastorelli is questioned and testifies that while he and Jonovich were arguing, she pulled a gun from her handbag and shot herself. 

At the time of Pastorelli’s death of a morphine overdose in 2004, Jonovich’s death was classified as a homicide and investigators were planning to re-interview him about the circumstances of her shooting. It remains unclear whether she died by suicide, manslaughter, or accident.

On the same day, Ferris State University (Michigan) student Stephen Petz dies of alcohol intoxication after a Knights of College Leadership fraternity event in which Petz consumes 27 shots of alcoholic drinks.

Almanac for March 14th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 14th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-14-Pi-Day-3-14-M4M5JHOIZ

Today's Observance: Pi Day (3.14)

Bummer March 14th

March 14, 1977: Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, age 59, dies of breast cancer complicated by hypertension. Earlier in her life, Hamer had been forcibly sterilized without her knowledge or consent as part of a racist eugenics movement.

March 14, 1989: University of Texas at Austin student Mark James Kilroy, age 21, is kidnapped from Tamaulipas, Mexico, where he had gone for spring break. His abductors, led by Adolfo Constanzo and Sara Aldrete, belonged to an occult group that believed human sacrifice would grant them protection against law enforcement pursuing them for their drug trafficking activities. Kilroy is tortured for hours before being killed with a machete. 

His body is recovered along with the remains of 14 other young men who were similarly victims of human sacrifice. Although widely reported in the U.S. media as a “Satanic” murder, the group was not self-identified with the Christian conception of Satan, but rather a combination of a criminal gang with loose associations to folk religions of the Americas, including Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Caribbean religion familiar to Constanzo through his Cuban heritage.

March 14, 1991: Composer Howard Ashman, age 40, dies of complication of AIDS. He had been working on the music for the Disney animated movie The Little Mermaid and did not live to see the completed version of the film.

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Almanac for March 13th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 13th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-13-N4N1JGF6H

Beatles Trivia
March 13, 1965: “Eight Days A Week” by The Beatles hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Bummer March 13th

March 13, 2020: 26-year-old emergency room technician Breonna Taylor is killed by police in her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Seven police officers in plain clothes with what’s known as a “no-knock warrant” for a man wanted in connection with a drug case burst into Taylor’s home. Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker, apparently mistaking the officers for home invaders, fired a warning shot at them. The shot slightly wounded one of the officers, who returned 32 rounds of bullets in return, striking Taylor five times. 

What was Diane Meyer grateful for on March 13, 2024?

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I trust the universe
but most importantly I trust myself
trying something new
taking photos
painting
small actions
coloring pages
bonfire and s'mores
things will work out

Almanac for March 12th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 12th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-12-Hey-Jack-Kerouac-X8X4JF8B4

Bummer March 12th

March 12, 1928: The St. Francis Dam (approximately 10 miles from modern Santa Clarita, California) catastrophically fails at 11:57 p.m., flooding Los Angeles County’s San Francisquito Canyon. The arch-gravity dam, a new type of design at the time, failed so completely that very little of it was left standing after the flood wave emptied it of its water content. The 120-foot-high flood wave travels 18 miles an hour until it merges with the Santa Clara riverbed, flooding it. The flooded Santa Clara River Valley washes away the town of Castaic Junction. Ultimately it flows into the Pacific Ocean.

More than 450 people are estimated to have been killed in this disaster. Many bodies were never recovered, as they were washed out to sea.

March 12, 1993: 257 people die and about 1,400 people are injured by a series of coordinated bombings in Mumbai, India. 

March 12, 2003: State University of New York at Plattsburgh student Walter Dean Jennings dies of water intoxication after being encouraged to drink pitcher after pitcher of water as part of a Psi Epsilon Chi fraternity hazing. 

March 12, 2015: Author Terry Pratchett dies of Alzheimer’s disease.