Almanac for January 26th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for January 26th: https://ko-fi.com/post/January-26-Hungry-Womans-Blues-O4O419KACM

Bummer January 26th

January 26, 1946: Two teenage sailors in the U.S. Navy, LeRoy Robert Bragg and Stanford Fluitt, die aboard the SS Frederick Galbraith of saltpeter poisoning after drinking saltpeter mixed with water as part of a tradition for a sailor’s first crossing of the Equator.

January 26, 1966: On Australia Day, the three children of the Beaumont family left their home in the Somerton Park suburb of Adelaide, Australia, and took a bus to Glenelg Beach, about three kilometers away. 9-year-old Jane, 7-year-old Arnna, and 4-year-old Grant didn’t return on the noon bus like their parents expected them to. Their father Jim drove to the beach to look for them. The baker at a local bakery reported selling them a meat pie and some pasties, allegedly for more money than the children were thought to have on them when they left, leading to speculation that a man at the beach had abducted the children, but they were never seen again.

January 26, 1972: JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 explodes mid-flight over the village of Srbská Kamenice, Czechia (then part of Czechoslovakia). Although no one is ever arrested for the crime, authorities suspect a Croatian separatist group smuggled a suitcase bomb aboard the plane. All 23 passengers and four crew members died in the explosion and subsequent crash. 

The fifth crew member, flight attendant Vesna Vulović, survived with a fractured skull, a fractured pelvis, broken legs, broken ribs, and broken vertebrae. Villager Bruno Honke, who had been a medic during World War II, discovered her unconscious body and rendered aid until rescuers arrived to take the flight attendant to the hospital. 22-year-old Vulović fell 33,330 feet from the plane to the ground, believed to be the longest fall a human being without a parachute has ever survived. Vulović lived for almost 45 more years after her fall.

January 26, 2001: Lacrosse coach Diane Whipple is mauled to death by two Presa Canario dogs being cared for by Whipple’s neighbors. The neighbors, married attorneys Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, cared for the dogs belonging to their client while their client, a member of a violent white supremacist gang, served time in prison. Knoller was attempting to control both dogs while carrying groceries when the dogs escaped from her control and attacked Whipple. 

Whipple dies of her injuries at San Francisco Memorial Hospital. Both dogs are euthanized. Knoller is convicted of second-degree murder. Noel is disbarred and convicted of manslaughter.

January 26, 2005: Juan Manuel Álvarez parks his Jeep on a railroad track north of Los Angeles, later testifying that he was intent on killing himself, but changed his mind at the last moment. The abandoned Jeep is struck by Metrolink commuter train #100, which jackknifes, striking two trains, one on either side of it. Eleven people are killed. Álvarez is ultimately sentenced to eleven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for their deaths.

January 26, 2010: Boa Sr, an approximately 65-year-old woman of the Bo people on her mother’s side and the Jeru people on her father’s side, dies. She was the last fluent native speaker of the Aka-Bo language of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, part of India.

***

And now, for something completely different, an affiliate link to a Gumroad creative product you may enjoy: To Sway a Soul

If my words are not being censored by the Trump Regime, you may find my books here on Gumroad. https://creativista668.gumroad.com/