Almanac for February 15th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 15th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/February-15-Lupercalia-M4M71AOJIF

Today's Observance: Lupercalia
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Lupercalia

Bummer February 15th 

February 15, 1933: Anarchist Guiseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt as Roosevelt delivers a speech in Miami. Armed with a revolver and standing on a folding chair, Zangara misses Roosevelt and shoots Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago. Cermak tells Roosevelt, “I’m glad it was me instead of you” and dies in the hospital 19 days later. Zangara is tried, convicted, and executed by electric chair.

May the memory of Anton Cermak be a blessing. Photo by Stephen Hogan from Chicago, United States. Creative Commons licensing. This is Stephen's Chicago crime scene blog.

February 15, 1965: Nat King Cole, age 45, dies of lung cancer.

February 15, 1998: 89-year-old war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, struggling with ovarian and liver cancer and failing eyesight, chooses to end her own life by swallowing cyanide.

February 15, 2014: 42-year-old Pentecostal pastor Jamie Coots, who had been featured in tv programs for his handling of poisonous snakes during religious services, dies after being bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake during services in Middlesboro, Kentucky. Although paramedics arrived in time to treat him, Coots’s family refused the treatment, saying that it was against his religion.