Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-27-Z8Z61282UV

Artist Birthday: Theodore Dreiser

January 24, 1926. From the East St. Louis Daily Journal by Gerald Miller

Bummer August 27

August 27, 1883: Mount Krakatau (Anglicized as Krakatoa), which had begun to erupt on the 20th of May, intensifies in seismic activity with an eruption that destroys more than two-thirds of its island. The eruption is one of the loudest sounds ever heard by human ears, with the explosion being heard 4,800 miles away from the Indonesian site of the volcano. Pyroclastic flows, ash expelled into the atmosphere, and resulting tsunamis are estimated to have killed more than 36,400 people. Only the 1815 Mount Tambora explosion is thought to have been deadlier.

August 27, 1971: Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong suffers a heart attack while playing the piano during a televised concert performed as a tribute to her late husband Louis Armstrong. She dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She had been working on her autobiography in the months before her death; sadly, the manuscript has been lost.

August 27, 1990: Blues-rock musician Stevie Ray Vaughan takes a helicopter to get from Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Michigan. The helicopter crashes into a ski hill shortly after takeoff, killing Vaughan, pilot Jeff Brown, tour manager Colin Smythe, agent Bobby Brooks, and bodyguard Nigel Browne.

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Here's the video I uploaded on August 27, 2025:

Almanac for July 11

Almanac for July 11: https://ko-fi.com/Post/July-11-Seven-and-Jerry-W7W01HQCVL

Bummer July 11

July 11, 1906: Pregnant, 20-year-old Grace Brown, a worker in the Gillette Skirt Factory, is intentionally drowned and murdered by her boyfriend Chester Gillette, nephew of the factory owner. Gillette is subsequently executed in the electric chair.

The murder inspires Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, which in turn inspires the 1951 film A Place In the Sun. The character based on Brown is played by Shelley Winters.

July 11, 1937: George Gershwin, age 38, dies of a brain tumor.

But if you don't want George Gershwin to die, you can listen to this fictional audiobook in which he doesn't.