Almanac for September 19th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for Sept. 19th: https://ko-fi.com/post/September-19th-Y8Y1Z4UC0

One year ago, I published Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters by H. Addington Bruce.

Bummer September 19th

September 19, 1692: Massachusetts Bay Colonist Giles Corey, having been accused of witchcraft but refusing to plead either guilty or not guilty in court, is subjected to a form of torture in which his body is crushed with increasingly heavy stone weights in an attempt to force him to plead. Corey refuses and is crushed to death, with his last words reportedly being, “More weight!”

September 19, 1881: U.S. President James Garfield dies of septic infection. He had been shot by his assassin, Charles Guiteau, on July 2, 1881.

September 19, 1902: One hundred fifteen members of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, are killed in a stampede after one of them called out “Fight!” and this was misheard as “Fire!”

September 19, 1913: Purdue University student Francis Obenchain dies of a broken neck after taking part in a large-scale fight between first- and second-year students intended as a class hazing ritual.

September 19, 1973: Singer-songwriter Gram Parsons dies of an accidental overdose of alcohol and morphine at the age of 26. He dies peacefully in his sleep inside a room at the Joshua Tree Inn in California. 

His stepfather Bob Parsons insists the singer’s body be flown to New Orleans for burial, but friends of Gram Parsons steal the body from Los Angeles International Airport and attempt to carry out what they insisted were Parsons’s final wishes, to be created in Joshua Tree National Monument (now Joshua Tree National Park). They pour gasoline into the coffin and light it with a match, causing a tremendous fireball, and are charged a fine of $750. What remains of Parsons’s body is buried in Louisiana.

Almanac for June 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for June 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/June-27-Emma-Goldman-E1E81HQ7JE

French Republican Calendar Day Name (9 Messidor): Absinthe

Koroven, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Artist Birthday: H. Addington Bruce

Bummer June 27th

June 27, 2015: Colorful corn starch thrown into the air as an amusement at Formosa Fun Coast water park in Bali, New Taipei City, Taiwan, ignites, causing a fire. Performers on a stage throw the dust at guests who are dancing in a drained swimming pool. The dust ignites in a fire ball low to the ground, resulting in burns to many guests’ legs and lower torsos. More than 500 people are injured, 200 of them critically, and 15 people die.

Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters Audiobook Out Now

Who, or what, were the Devils of Loudun? 

Did Queen Elizabeth the First's friend and advisor John Dee know a man who talked to angels in their sacred language? 

Could Germany's so-called Seeress of Prevorst really find objects that had been hidden by the dead? 

These questions are explored, along with eight additional stories of history's celebrated (supposed) ghosts and what the author calls "human enigmas," in Historical Ghosts and Ghost Hunters.

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/920685344/Historic-Ghosts-and-Ghost-Hunters

Kobo/Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/historic-ghosts-and-ghost-hunters-14

Or stream on Spotify.

Henry (H.) Addington Bruce (1874-1959) was a newspaper journalist whose career began in his native Toronto. He moved to the United States, where he worked for the American Press Association. His primary areas of interest were the psychology of the day and alleged psychical phenomena. A trustee of the American Society of Psychical Research, he tended to be skeptical of poltergeist claims but was open-minded on the questions of telepathy and other powers of the human mind.