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Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Almanac for August 5th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 5th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-5th-M4M0106Y3M

Happy 1st anniversary to this audiobook, The Glass Dog by L. Frank Baum.

Artist Birthday: Yungblud


20th Century Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bummer August 5th

August 5, 1955: Hours after performing a song and dance number for The Jimmy Durante Show, 46-year-old Portuguese-Brazilian samba performer Carmen Miranda dies of a heart attack. Friends find her collapsed in the hall between her bedroom and the bathroom, clutching a mirror. Miranda, who struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, apparently expired on her way to remove her makeup for the night.

August 5, 1981: In a sign of his administration’s hostility to workers’ rights causes, U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan fires more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who are on strike for more pay, a shorter work week, and safer workplace conditions. Technically it had been illegal for U.S. federal employees to strike since 1947, but Reagan is the first president to actually invoke the 1947 law.

August 5, 2005: Lee Seung Seop has been playing the online game Starcraft at an internet café in Taegu, South Korea, since August 3 when he slumps in his chair and falls to the floor. He dies of dehydration and exhaustion a few hours later in Taegu Fatima Hospital, having forgotten to eat, drink, and sleep for over 48 hours.

August 5, 2022: Actor Anne Heche ingests cocaine and fentanyl, gets into a car, and is involved in three vehicle accidents. She first strikes a garage with her car, causing minor damage, and leaves the scene of the accident. She then strikes another car; the driver of the second car is not injured. In the third, high-speed crash, Heche drives her car through the wall of a house, sparking a fire. 

Heche is trapped inside the vehicle for over 40 minutes while firefighters try to put out the house fire, which renders the home uninhabitable. Heche suffers severe burns and smoke inhalation, requiring her to be hospitalized and medically ventilated. She will be declared brain dead on August 11th and taken off life support on August 14th. 

Monday, March 30, 2026

Almanac for March 30th

Erin O'Riordan's almanac for March 30th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-30-Van-Gogh-Z8Z81CNLUV

Beatles Trivia

March 30, 1967: The Beatles photograph the album cover photo of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Artists Jann Haworth and Peter Blake have designed the image, which portrays the group in colorful pseudo-military uniforms, surrounded by wax sculptures of themselves and numerous cardboard cutouts of famous people. Among those depicted by the cutouts are Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, Stephen Crane, Bob Dylan, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Carl Jung, Marilyn Monroe, Edgar Allan Poe, Dylan Thomas, H.G. Wells, Mae West, and Oscar Wilde.

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Vincent Van Gogh

Bummer March 30th

March 30, 1968: Former Disney child actor Bobby Driscoll, who appeared in Song of the South and Treasure Island, is found dead in an abandoned apartment in the East Village of New York City. He is 31 years old. He has died of heart failure related to his use of heroin. 

March 30, 1981: In an assassination attempt, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot by an assailant who also wounds Press Secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a Washington, D.C. police officer in the attack. Brady is severely injured, and when he dies in 2014, his death is classed as a homicide since it is directly related to his injuries. Police officer Thomas Delahanty suffers nerve damage that ends his career. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, shot in the liver, diaphragm, and lung, makes a full recovery. 

Reagan’s extremely low blood pressure when he reaches the hospital indicates he almost certainly would have died, had he not been rushed into emergency surgery so promptly. Special Agent Jerry Parr most likely saved Reagan’s life by ordering Reagan’s driver to take the president to George Washington University Hospital.

Through April 1st, 2026, get 15% off any book on this Bookshop.org list with code BSO15.

This is an affiliate link: https://amzn.to/419YTme

Sunday, August 31, 2025

We Didn't Start the Fire, Part 7: Firestarters, the Final Verse

"We Didn't Start the Fire," Part I
Part II: British Beatlemania 
Part III: Julie S. Howlin
Part IV: Firestarters Podcast
Part V: Firestarters Podcast Continued
Part VI: Firestarters Podcast Continued Some More

[Verse 5]

Birth control, 

Ho Chi Minh

Richard Nixon back again

Moonshot, 

Woodstock

Watergate, 

punk rock

Begin, 

Reagan, 

Palestine

Terror on the airline

Ayatollahs in Iran

Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune

Sally Ride

Heavy metal suicide

Foreign debts, 

homeless vets

AIDS, 

crack, 


Bernie Goetz


Hypodermics on the shores


China's under martial law

Rock and Roller cola wars
I can't take it anymore...