Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
June 5, 1981: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issues its first report on a cluster of medical cases in what will soon become known as the AIDS epidemic. This report described an unusual cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in people who otherwise appeared to be healthy; this opportunistic infection had previously been seen only in people who were known to have compromised immune systems. The human immunodeficiency virus would be identified some time between 1984 and 1986.
In August 2022, I saw Jordan Peele's Nope and had the idea for a spin-off almanac of just the bad stuff. As a preview of my work in progress, I've been bringing you, the reader, posts about the most unpleasant historical happenings I come across, with a literary focus.
The following is additional material that's gone into the August entries since last year. In other words, there are some of the things I missed in last August's post.
August 1, 1994: An electrical fault sparks a fire at Norwich Central Library in Norwich, England, that destroys an estimated 100,000 books and historical papers.
August 1, 2018: 32-year-old Canadian model, artist, and actor Rick Genest, known as Zombie Boy for his numerous bone- and viscera-themed tattoos, dies from an accidental fall from an icy balcony where he has apparently gone to smoke a cigarette.
August 3, 1924: Author Joseph Conrad dies of a heart attack at age 66.
August 3, 1966: 40-year-old comedian Lenny Bruce is found dead of an apparently accidental morphine overdose.
August 4, 1875: Hans Christian Andersen dies, possibly suffering from liver cancer and never having recovered from injuries from falling out of his bed.
August 4, 1962: Marilyn Monroe dies, apparently by suicide, of an overdose of prescription sleeping medicine.
August 8, 1965: American author Shirley Jackson dies at age 48 of cardiac arrest, possibly brought on by her alcoholism and use of a variety of prescription medicines.
August 12, 2022: Indian-British author Salman Rushdie is stabbed ten times at an event in Chautauqua, New York, allegedly by a 24-year-old man from New Jersey. Rushdie suffers nerve damage to one arm, one eye, and his liver. The attacker was apparently motivated by a late Iranian religious leader’s description of Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as blasphemous since it depicted the prophet Muhammad as a fictional character.
Rushdie is an atheist. The attacker had not read The Satanic Verses.
August 16, 1949: Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell dies in the hospital of injuries she sustained on August 11th when she was struck by a speeding car with an intoxicated driver. The driver was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in jail.
August 18, 1992: On or around this date, 24-year-old adventurer Christopher McCandless dies of apparent starvation in the Alaskan wilderness. The story of his nomadic, short life is the basis of the book and film Into the Wild.
August 19, 1936: According to LitHub, “Federico García Lorca—the Spanish avant-garde poet, playwright, and ardent socialist—was shot and killed by Nationalist militia before being buried in an unmarked mass grave somewhere outside Granada, where he remains to this day.”
Lorca had predicted his manner of death in his 1929 poem “The Fable And Round of the Three Friends:”
“Then I realized I had been murdered.
They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches
August 23, 1981: East German comedic actor Rolf Herricht suffers a heart attack and dies while performing in Kiss Me Kate at Berlin’s Metropol theatre.
August 25, 1914: During World War I, German troops occupying Leuven, Belgium, set fire to the city and destroying almost half of it. 300 civilians die. Included in the burning and destruction is the library of the Catholic University of Leuven, which loses approximately 230,000 materials, including priceless medieval manuscripts.
August 25, 1992: The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina is destroyed by Serbian bombing during the Siege of Sarajevo.
