Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 29th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-29-M4M412BMUB
Beatles Trivia
August 29, 1966: The Beatles play their last public performance together at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Bummer August 29th
August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina, having been upgraded from Tropical Storm Katrina the previous day, makes landfall in Southeast Louisiana, causing the mandatory evacuation of the city of New Orleans. An estimated 1,800 people die as a result of this storm.
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 26th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-26-Shes-a-Rebel-P5P51282OE
French Republican Calendar day name (9 Fructidor): Liquorice
Beatles Trivia
August 26, 1968: The Beatles release their single “Hey Jude” in the United States. The B-side track is “Revolution.” Between September and November 1968, it will be the #1 single in the U.S. for nine straight weeks.
Bummer August 26th
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 15th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-15-Dr-Sax-X8X811LC4I
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| East St. Louis (Illinois) Daily Journal, Oct. 18, 1925 |
Bummer August 15th
August 15, 1868: In what is believed to be a racist and anti-Semitic hate crime probably carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, a group of masked men break into a store belonging to a Jewish man, Samuel A. Bierfield. The men shoot and kill Bierfield and his Black store clerk, Laurence Bowman. No one is ever charged with the crime.
August 15, 1914: Julian Carlton, a servant who worked in the household of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, sets Wright’s Taliesin house in Spring Green, Wisconsin, on fire, then murders seven people inside the house with a hatchet. Wright is not inside the home at the time, but the victims include Wright’s lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney, her two children, gardener David Lindblom, worker Thomas Brunker, draftsman Emil Brodelle, and the son of another worker. Carlton will drink hydrochloric acid in a suicide attempt but, despite severely damaging his esophagus, will live another seven weeks.
August 15, 2021: 30-year-old Ellen Chung, her husband Jonathan Gerrish (age 45), their year-old daughter Aurelia (known as Miju), and the family’s Akita mix dog Oski embark on a day hike in California’s Sierra National Forest. Although they try to reach help via cell phone, service in the mountainous region is spotty. With the temperature reaching 107 to 109 degrees along some parts of the hiking trail, especially in those parts that receive full sunlight with no shade, all four succumb to hyperthermia and dehydration. Their bodies are found on August 17th.
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 10th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-10-M4M5112586
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Bummer August 10th
August 10, 1969: Leno LaBianca, who worked for a supermarket chain, and Rosemary LaBianca, who owned a dress shop, are murdered at their home by members of Charles Manson’s cult. The murderers write the words “Helter Skelter” on the LaBianca’s walls in blood. The words, from a Beatles song, refer to Manson’s delusional belief that Beatles lyrics are personal messages to him.
August 10, 1978: Three teenage girls, all members of the Ulrich family, are killed in an automobile accident while riding in a Ford Pinto. The state of Indiana charges the Ford Motor Company with homicide, claiming that the company was aware of manufacturing defects that made the vehicle more likely to cause death in the event of certain types of accidents. Ford is found not guilty.
August 10, 2018: 29-year-old Richard Russell steals a Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 aircraft from Seattle-Tacoma airport. Russell has no previous experience as a pilot. In communication with an air traffic controller, Russell states that he had no intention of landing the plane. He is killed when the aircraft crash-lands on Ketron Island. The crash site is near a residential cabin, but no one on the ground is hurt.
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for May 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/May-27-Happy-Birthday-Tit-Elingtin-J3J01G1FAY
Today's Observance: Tit Elingtin's birthday
Beatles Trivia
May 27, 1967: Tit Elingtin is born in Pontiac, Michigan, one day after the Beatles had released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (in the U.K.; its U.S. release date was June 2nd).
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Cilla Black
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| Singer Cilla Black in Amsterdam, Feb. 16, 1970. Public domain via Dutch National Archives |
Bummer May 27th
May 27, 1792: Two large earthquakes cause the Mayuyama dome of Mount Unzen to collapse. A landslide hit the city of Shimabara. When the mass of debris reached Ariake Bay, it triggered a tsunami that swept across the bay and hit Higo Province before rebounding and striking Shimabara again. The earthquakes, landslide, and tsunami are thought to have killed 15,000 people.
May 27, 1907: As San Francisco is still recovering from the great earthquake of the previous year, health officials identify patients suffering from bubonic plague. The outbreak, which also includes patients in nearby Oakland, will eventually kill 78 people.
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for May 13th: https://ko-fi.com/post/May-13-Is-There-Something-I-Should-Know-H2H31FO1XI
Beatles Trivia
May 13, 1970: The Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, premieres in New York.
Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Druid Day
Bummer May 13th
May 13, 1985: The Philadelphia Police Department destroys 61 homes via two explosive devices dropped from a police helicopter in an attempt to end a standoff with the MOVE compound. The members of MOVE were followers of a man who called himself John Africa and emphasized so-called natural living, resistance to police brutality, and animal rights.
The MOVE house was considered a nuisance to its neighbors. The Philadelphia PD obtained warrants for four MOVE members for various violations. Police evacuated the neighborhood around the MOVE house, then showed up in force to enforce the arrest warrants and evacuate the other residents of the house. A firefight ensued.
Of the seven adults and six children in the house, only one adult woman and one 13-year-old boy survived. The fire department allowed the unoccupied houses around the MOVE house to burn after the bombing.
May 13, 1988: American jazz musician Chet Baker dies of an apparently accidental fall from a window in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for April 11th: https://ko-fi.com/post/April-11-Doughnuts-Free-to-Ghosts-X8X61DG1ZB
Beatles Trivia
April 11, 1964: The Beatles have 14 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart hits, including “Can’t Buy Me Love” at #1 and “Twist & Shout” at #2.
Bummer April 11th
April 11, 1965: In what becomes known as the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, severe weather and six confirmed tornados kill 266 people in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.
***
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If my words are not being censored by the Trump Regime, you may find my books here on Gumroad. https://creativista668.gumroad.com/
Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for April 10th: https://ko-fi.com/post/April-10-Where-the-Wild-Things-Are-G2G41DG0PT
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Bummer April 10th
March 5, 1963: The Beatles record “From Me to You” at Abbey Road.
Sunday, March 5, 1995, South Bend: Having read The Plague, I turned to a library book titled The Worst Rock and Roll Records Ever Made: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell [ISBN 0806512318 9780806512310].
Here’s a list of some of the songs and bands Guterman and O’Donnell love to hate:
1. “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie
2. “Eve of Destruction”
3. “American Pie”
4. The Doors
5. Mick Jagger’s brother Chris
6. The U2 album The Unforgettable Fire (which includes “Pride (In the Name of Love);” see April 4)
7. Ringo Starr’s albums Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave
8. Really anything done by Ringo Starr and (especially) Paul McCartney after the Beatles
9. The 1981 live Rolling Stones album Still Life
10. Duran Duran
All of My eBooks Are Free on Smashwords, March 1-7, 2026
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Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for February 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/February-20-Sic-Transit-Gloria-Mundi-P5P51B6UDC
Beatles Trivia
February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs.
Bummer February 20th
As you'll surely recall from Part 1, I've had a tremendous amount to say about Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan. Same deal with the Beatles, so they get their own post.
Naturally, all four Beatles are on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Blog Posts:
September 1, 2022: Walden and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
May 1, 2023: Unfortunate (Mostly Literary) Happenings of Past Mays
December 1, 2023: Unfortunate (Mostly Literary) Happenings of Past Decembers
July 1, 2024: More Unfortunate Happenings of Past Julys
November 2, 2024: More Unfortunate Happenings of Past Novembers
December 11, 2024: My Top 100 Songs of 2024: Top 20
April 2, 2025: Bummer April
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| A 1964 photo of Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon in the Netherlands. Public domain. |
Almanac Entries:
January 9
January 9, 1968: Look Magazine publishes Richard Avedon’s photographs of The Beatles.
January 12
January 12, 1963: The Beatles release their second single, “Please Please Me,” which goes on to be their first #1 single in the U.K. My Baby Boomer parents are each 10 years old on this date.
January 19
January 19, 1971: During Charles Manson’s murder trial, Manson’s defense attorneys introduce the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter” into evidence. According to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, one of Manson’s delusion beliefs was that the song, written by Paul McCartney, referred to a coming race war. In reality, the lyrics refer to the literal meaning of a helter skelter, an English amusement ride consisting of a tower with a slide curling around it.
January 21
Friday, January 21, 1966: George Harrison and Pattie Boyd get married.
January 30
January 30, 1969: The Beatles perform a 42-minute concert on the roof of their Apple Corporation record company building in London, as documented in the concert film Let It Be. It will be their last public performance together.
January 31
January 31, 1967: On Johnny Rotten’s 11th birthday, John Lennon is shopping at an antiques store in Sevenoaks in the English county of Kent. He finds and purchases a vintage circus poster, the text of which becomes the basis for the Beatles song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”
February 1
February 1, 1964: The #1 single in the U.S. is The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
February 9
February 9, 1964: The Beatles play five songs on The Ed Sullivan Show.
February 12
February 12, 1964: The Beatles perform a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
February 18
February 18, 1933: Yoko Ono is born.
“I saw nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.” - Yoko Ono
February 18, 1971: For her 38th birthday, John Lennon Ono gifts his wife a snow-white Steinway piano.
February 20
February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs.
February 26
Sunday, February 26, 1995, South Bend: I went to the Morris Performing Arts Center and saw 1964: The Tribute, a Beatles tribute band. I recognized three people in the audience: a pair of sisters who went to the same grade school as me, and Mr. Thomas Gerencher.
February 26, 1997: At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, The Beatles won a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Grammy for “Free As a Bird.” Other winners included Tony Bennett, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Smashing Pumpkins.
February 29
February 29, 1968: At the 10th annual Grammy Awards, the Beatles win Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles are not in attendance in Los Angeles that evening, as they are in India learning at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, along with Mia Farrow, her sister Prudence, Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch, and Mike Love of The Beach Boys.
March 5
March 5, 1963: The Beatles record “From Me to You” at Abbey Road.
Sunday, March 5, 1995, South Bend: Having read The Plague, I turned to a library book titled The Worst Rock and Roll Records Ever Made: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell [ISBN 0806512318 9780806512310].
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| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1019658 |
Here’s a list of some of the songs and bands Guterman and O’Donnell love to hate:
1. “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie
2. “Eve of Destruction”
3. “American Pie”
4. The Doors
5. Mick Jagger’s brother Chris
6. The U2 album The Unforgettable Fire (which includes “Pride (In the Name of Love);” see April 4)
7. Ringo Starr’s albums Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave
8. Really anything done by Ringo Starr and (especially) Paul McCartney after the Beatles
9. The 1981 live Rolling Stones album Still Life
10. Duran Duran
March 11
March 11, 1997: Paul McCartney becomes Sir Paul McCartney when he is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
March 13
March 13, 1965: “Eight Days A Week” by The Beatles hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
March 20
March 20, 1969: As chronicled in “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in the then-British territory of Gibraltar, near Spain.
March 29
March 29, 1994, South Bend: I drove my neighbors Jay and Ryan to school this morning. We heard Aerosmith’s “Come Together” on the radio. They knew the Beatles original but had never heard the Aerosmith cover before.
March 30
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.
April 2
April 2, 1974: Barbra Streisand wins an Oscar for her song “The Way We Were,” beating out Paul McCartney’s James Bond theme “Live and Let Die.”
April 8
April 8, 1963: John and Cynthia Lennon’s son John Charles Julian Lennon is born in Liverpool, U.K.
April 9
April 9, 1965: The Beatles release “Ticket to Ride” as a single.
April 9, 1969: Bob Dylan releases his Nashville Skyline album, featuring Johnny Cash on “Girl From the North Country.” On the same day, Bruce McBroom photographs the Beatles in their second-to-last photo shoot as a group.
April 11
April 11, 1964: The Beatles have 14 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart hits, including “Can’t Buy Me Love” at #1 and “Twist & Shout” at #2.
April 14
April 14, 1963: The Beatles and the Rolling Stones meet for the first time. The Beatles are in Richmond, England, to film a TV appearance. The Rolling Stones are performing at a Richmond club; the two groups meet backstage.
April 16
April 16, 1971: Ringo Starr releases his single “It Don’t Come Easy.”
April 16, 1973: ABC broadcasts the tv special James Paul McCartney, on which McCartney debuts “Live and Let Die.”
April 19
April 19, 1998, South Bend: Mom, Stephanie, and I saw City of Angels at University Park Mall. I liked it because it was a celebration of why it’s good to be human. Afterward we went to Denny’s and had pie and coffee. Later, sitting in my room reading a People magazine with Tammy Wynette on the cover, I heard on the radio that Linda McCartney had died. She and Paul had been together for the past 30 years.
April 26
Sunday, April 26, 1998, St. Mary’s College: I spent most of the day writing papers and working on a Sculpture project. In the evening I saw the 200th Simpsons episode, “Trash of the Titans” (production code 5F09). Bart and Homer crashed a U2 concert; best guest voices ever. The episode was dedicated to another previous guest voice, Linda McCartney.
May 9
May 9, 1964: Louis Armstrong’s “Hello, Dolly” becomes the #1 song on the U.S. popular music charts, ending the Beatles’ 14-week streak of having the #1 single. Three Beatles songs (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “She Loves You”) contributed to the streak.
May 13
May 13, 1970: The Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, premieres in New York.
If you mention any of these authors, I might recall them from the lyrics of either:
"My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors," or
"Bitches In Bookshops," or its sequel,
In this handy alphabetical guide, I'll tell you which song rings a bell in my brain when these authors are mentioned. Bonus: I'll also mention if they're pictured on the cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Allende, Isabel: HB2
Angelou, Maya: HB2
Atwood, Margaret: MBLaBoA
Barthes, Roland: BiB
Beckett, Samuel: HB2
Borges, Jorge Luis: HB2
Bradbury, Ray: HB2
Bronte, Charlotte: BiB
Burroughs, William S.: BiB, MBLaBoA. Cover of Sgt. Pepper's
Burton, Pierre: MBLaBoA
Capote, Truman: HB2
Churchill, Caryl: HB2
Coelho, Paulo: HB2
Davies, Robertson: MBLaBoA
De Montaigne, Michel: BiB
Eugenides, Jeffrey: BiB
Foucault, Michel: BiB
Freud, Sigmund: HB2
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel: MBLaBoA
Gipson, Fred [author of Old Yeller]: HB2
Golding, William: BiB
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: HB2
hooks, bell: MBLaBoA
Jung, Carl: HB2. Cover of Sgt. Pepper's
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Kinella, W.P.: MBLaBoA
Lee, Harper: HB2
Lessing, Doris: MBLaBoA
Letts, Tracy: HB2
Malthus, Thomas Robert: HB2
Morrison, Toni: HB2
Murakami, Haruki: HB2
Nin, Anais: BiB
Ondaatje, Michael: MBLaBoA
Orwell, George: BiB, HB2
Palahniuk, Chuck: HB2
Plath, Sylvia: HB2
Poe, Edgar Allan: HB2. Cover of Sgt. Pepper's
Proust, Marcel: BiB
Puzo, Mario: MBLaBoA
Rand, Ayn: BiB
Rowling, J.K.: BiB
Rushdie, Salman: HB2
Sendak, Maurice: HB2
Seuss, Dr.: HB2
Shakespeare, William: BiB
Silverstein, Shel: HB2
Stein, R.L.: BiB
Tolstoy, Leo: BiB
Toole, John Kennedy: HB2
Twain, Mark: BiB
Zusak, Markus: HB2
For the full list of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, you may refer to this Wikipedia article.
P.S. Disaster Area podcaster Jennifer Matarese is currently raising funds for car repairs. If you can, please help her out.
19. "Folsom Prison Blues - Live at Folsom State Prison" Johnny Cash
18. "Gin House Blues" Nina Simone
17. "pocket poetry" Sara Diana
16. "Helter Skelter" The Beatles
15. "Cherub Rock" The Smashing Pumpkins
14. "Joke's On You" Charlotte Lawrence - this is on the soundtrack of the Birds of Prey movie and therefore somewhat Joker-related, and therefore included on my Folie à Deux playlist
13. "Want You Bad" Bite Me Bambi - ska cover of the Offspring song from the year 2000
12. "I Want a Little Sugar In My Bowl" Nina Simone
11. "1979" The Smashing Pumpkins - probably my 2nd favorite SP song, lyrics-wise. It genuinely captures, impressionistically, the feeling set of teen years fading into dawning adulthood
10. "Malibu" Hole
9. "Pink Pony Club" Chappell Roan
8. "Already Gone" Kelly Clarkson - I very specifically associate this song with fictional Vicky in "A Broken Man & the Dawn."
7. "Drunk In Love" The Dan Band - this tongue-in-cheek Beyoncé cover slotted nicely into the Destiel playlist
6. "Poet" Bastille - I know I've been listening to this writing-themed song at least since September, when I shared in this Linda Pastan post.
5. "Spider Pig" Hans Zimmer
4. "Cruel Summer" Taylor Swift. I came late to this song, but I was hung over from watching Good Omens season 2 and the line "Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes" pulled me in. (The Aziracrow of it all, yes, but also Gabriel and Beelzebub. I thought Gabe and Bub made a nice celestial couple.)
Taylor Swift really is a very talented lyricist. The more lyrics I learned, the more I liked this.
3. "Crazy For You" New Found Glory - Madonna Louise Ciccone was coming up in too many of my playlists, so I banished her and made a playlist exclusively of Madonna covers. This happens to work for Destiel playlist too
2. "Ava Adore" The Smashing Pumpkins - these are my favorite Billy Corgan lyrics; there’s a lovely symmetry to them. I love the guitar parts, and I love Ms. D’Arcy Elizabeth Wretzky’s bass part at the end.
Read last year's November post here.
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November 5, 1605: Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up the English Parliament, an act known as the Gunpowder Plot. The plot is foiled, Guy Fawkes is convicted and hanged, and burning an effigy of Fawkes becomes an English tradition.
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| In V for Vendetta, the character V wears a mask representing Guy Fawkes. |
November 7, 1908: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are killed in a shootout with police in Bolivia.
November 7, 1980: Actor Steve McQueen dies in his sleep following surgery in Juárez, Mexico. He’d been diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, which metastasized and caused large tumors in his neck, chest, and abdomen.
Between February and October 1980, McQueen had attempted to treat his disease with alternative therapy directed by William Donald Kelley, who called his quack treatment regimen “non-specific metabolic therapy.” In McQueen’s case, the treatments didn’t distract him from seeking conventional medicine; his doctors had already told him his cancer was inoperable and terminal. The quack “alternative medicine” did, however, cost him thousands of dollars while having no effect whatsoever on his disease. Kelley also falsely claimed in the media that his treatment of McQueen was successful, and this false claim may have cost other cancer patients their lives if they chose not to seek conventional treatment. Kelley, who died in 2005, did not have a license to practice medicine.
November 8, 2020: Beloved Canadian-American game show host Alex Trebek dies of pancreatic cancer.
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| Me and Alex Trebek in 2012 |
November 11, 1995: Kenule (Ken) Beeson Saro-Wiwa, who belonged to the Ogoni people of Nigeria, became a well-known playwright and environmental activist in response to the degraded environment of his native Ogoniland region caused by irresponsible petroleum waste disposal. He is assassinated by hanging under the false charge that he’d been involved in the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. Eight other activists are similarly falsely accused and executed by Nigeria’s military dictatorship.
November 14, 1928: Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, the inventor of radium dial paint used to make wristwatches that glow in the dark, dies of aplastic anemia caused by his exposure to radium. His death helps make the legal case for the so-called “radium girls,” workers in the watch factories who became sick and often died from the same exposure to radioactivity, who sued their employer for the unsafe conditions in the factories.
November 16, 1960: 59-year-old actor Clark Gable, who has had a heart attack on November 6th, seems to be recovering when he suffers a second, fatal heart attack.
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| Gable with costars Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift |
November 23, 1958: Despite valiant efforts to revive him, comedian Harry Einstein dies of a heart attack he has suffered during a Friars Club roast of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Einstein collapses onto fellow comedian Milton Berle. Berle asks the audience, “Is there a doctor in the house?” This is initially taken by the audience to be a joke. When it became clear that Einstein needs medical attention, two physicians in the audience try to treat him. He is pronounced dead in the early hours of the 23rd.
Comedian Bob Einstein is 16 years old when his father dies; his brother, who performs under the stage name Albert Brooks, is 11.
November 24, 1991: Freddie Mercury dies of complications of AIDS in London.
November 25, 1990: Race car driver William (Billy) John Vukovich III is killed during racing practice in Bakersfield, California when the throttle on his car got stuck and the vehicle crashed into a wall. Vukovich’s grandfather had been killed during the 1955 Indianapolis 500.
November 27, 2019: Taiwanese-Canadian actor and model Godfrey Gao (born Tsao Chih-hsiang), age 35, collapses while filming the reality show Chase Me. Gao is taken to a nearby hospital, where medical personnel attempted to resuscitate him, but is pronounced dead due to cardiac arrest a few hours after collapsing.
American audiences may remember Gao best from the movie adaptation of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
November 29, 2001: Musician George Harrison dies at age 58 of lung cancer that has spread to his brain in a Los Angeles home belonging to his friend and former bandmate Paul McCartney.
November 30, 1882: Actress Annie Von Behren is accidentally shot and killed during a performance of Clifton W. Tayleure's play Si Slocum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Von Behren’s co-star Frank Frayne is supposed to shoot an apple off Von Behren’s head. The gun misfires and the bullet strikes Von Behren just above the eye; she dies less than 15 minutes later.
November 30, 1923: Vaudeville and early film actress Martha Mansfield dies of severe burns in the hospital. The previous day she had been dressed in a Civil War-era costume on the set of the film The Warrens of Virginia when a crew member lit a cigarette, then carelessly tossed the match. The match ignited Mansfield’s costume, which was difficult to remove due to its hoop skirt and many layers. The film was finished and released after Mansfield’s death, but is now considered lost.
November 30, 1958: Welsh actor Gareth Jones, performing in a television play broadcast live, dies of a massive heart attack during a break in between two scenes in which his character was to appear. Jones’ character was scripted to die from a heart attack during the teleplay.
November 30, 2013: Beloved Fast and Furious actor Paul William Walker IV leaves a Santa Clarita, California charity event as the passenger in his Porsche Carrera GT. The driver, Roger Rodas, reaches speeds of up to 93 mph in a 45 mph zone. He apparently loses control of the vehicle. It crashes into a lamp post and two trees, catching fire and killing them both. Rodas was 38; Walker was 40.
Content warning for mentions of suicide.
December 2, 1984: Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, is so poorly maintained it causes the largest industrial disaster in history. The accidental release of methyl isocyanate causes the immediate suffocation deaths of more than 2,000 people, injuries in more than 50,000 people, and an additional gas-related death toll of perhaps another 8,000 people. Although the Indian government charged Union Carbide executives with homicide, the company claimed it was not under Indian jurisdiction and these officials did not appear in court to face these charges.
December 4, 1987: Children’s book author and illustrator Arnold Lobel dies of AIDS-related cardiac arrest. He is 54 years old.
December 5, 1931: Poet Vachel Lindsay dies by suicide after intentionally drinking a bottle of lye. His last words are reportedly, “They tried to get me; I got them first!”
December 6, 1949: Folk and blues musician Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, dies at age 61 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
December 7, 1941: A surprise attack on U.S. territory by the Japanese military at 8 a.m. on this Sunday morning kills 2,403 Americans (2,335 military personnel and 68 civilians) and wounds 1,143. The attack on the U.S. naval base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu was intended to incapacitate the Pacific Fleet of the American Navy, even though the U.S. was officially neutral in World War II at this time.
Among the wounded was my paternal grandfather Bill, 17 years old at the time. He was blown off his ship and knocked, unconscious, into the water, awakening in the base hospital with a shoulder injury. He recovered and was reassigned from pharmacist’s assistant to EMT so he could help care for the more seriously wounded sailors.
December 7, 2010: Kim Tinkham, age 36, dies of what was most likely metastatic breast cancer. Tinkham had appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008 to talk about the then-popular book The Secret. Tinkham claimed her Stage 3 breast cancer had been successfully treated with alternative medicine. The doctor who appeared with Tinkham on that show and backed up her claim, Robert Oldham Young, was arrested in 2014 and convicted in 2016 for theft and practicing medicine without a license.
Young’s claim was that cancers are caused by an imbalance of the body’s pH and that an “alkaline diet” can treat and prevent cancer. Little to no scientific research supports this claim.
December 8, 1980: John Lennon is murdered by handgun outside his apartment building in New York City.
December 9, 1977: In the NBA, the L.A. Lakers play the Houston Rockets. At the beginning of the second half of the game, Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Rocket Kevin Kunnert scuffle over a rebound. In the scuffle, Kunnert elbows Abdul-Jabbar’s teammate Kermit Washington. Washington punches Kunnert in the head.
Kunnert’s teammate Rudy Tomjanovich runs over, intending to help break up the fight. Washington takes a swing at Tomjanovich, striking him in just such a way that fractures his skull. Tomjanovich falls to the court, unconscious and bleeding, although he quickly recovers and, apparently due to a rush of adrenaline, walks around the court in a seemingly aggressive manner. Tomjanovich doesn’t know it yet, but in addition to a broken jaw and nose, he has a fracture near the base of his skull leaking cerebrospinal fluid. He has to be rushed to the emergency room and given emergency surgery, since this is a life-threatening skull fracture. Tomjanovich requires five months of physical recovery before he can play again.
December 9, 1995: American author Toni Cade Bambara dies of colorectal cancer at the age of 56.
December 10, 1816: The body of Harriet Westbrook Shelley, the estranged wife of Percy Shelley and the mother of his son and daughter, is discovered in the Serpentine River. She is pregnant and has apparently died by suicide. She is only 21 years old.
December 10, 1929: Poet, publisher, and World War I veteran Harry Crosby kills his mistress, Josephine Noyes Rotch, and himself inside a friend’s apartment. Crosby’s wife Caresse becomes worried about her husband’s whereabouts when he fails to show up for a dinner party with the poet Hart Crane. Crane will also die by suicide two years later.
December 11, 2021: Anne Rice dies at the age of 80 of complications from a stroke.
December 12, 1999: Satirical novelist Joseph Heller dies of a heart attack at the age of 76.
December 13, 2011: Gianluca Casseri, a far-right author, Germanic neo-Pagan, devotee of American fascist Ezra Pound, and historian of J.R.R. Tolkien goes on an anti-immigrant shooting spree in Piazza Dalmazia, Florence, Italy. He shoots five street vendors who are all immigrants from Senegal, wounding three and killing two. Casseri then kills himself.
December 14, 1920: George “The Gipper” Gipp, legendary Notre Dame football player, dies of strep throat and pneumonia in St. Joseph Hospital (then in South Bend, now located in Mishawaka). He is 25 years old.
George Gipp is buried in his native Michigan, but an often-told legend around the Notre Dame campus is that Gipp's ghost haunts the old theater building, Washington Hall. According to the legend, when Gipp missed curfew and got locked out of his dorm building, he would sleep outside Washington Hall.
December 14, 1995: 28-year-old professional skydiver Rob Harris dies while filming a Mountain Dew commercial. The commercial, a James Bond spoof in which a Bond-like figure snowboards out of an exploding plane, is aired featuring previous takes, but none of the footage from Harris’s final jump, contrary to urban legend. Harris’s fatal fall is triggered by tangled lines and a backup chute that fails to deploy in time.
December 16, 1913: Ambrose Bierce writes to his literary secretary, “I am going to Mexico with a pretty definite purpose which is not at present discloseable. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think that’s a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico–ah, that is euthanasia!” Neither Bierce’s literary secretary nor any of his other acquaintances ever hear from him again after this letter. He’s presumed to have died in Mexico, perhaps in an early example of “suicide by cop,” or in this case, suicide by revolutionary.
December 18, 1966: Tara Browne, the heir to the Guinness stout fortune, dies in the hospital one day after crashing his Lotus Elan sports car into a parked truck. Browne had been driving at over 100 miles per hour through London and sped through a red traffic light before crashing. Browne’s passenger, model Suki Potier, was not injured in the accident.
In popular cultural, Browne is remembered as the man who “blew his mind out in a car” in the Beatles song “A Day in the Life.” Browne and Paul McCartney and John Lennon were acquaintances.
December 18, 2015: A fire at Mzuzu University Library in Mzuzu, Malawi, destroys an estimated 45,000 pieces of media.
December 19, 1848: 30-year-old Emily Brontë dies of tuberculosis.
December 19, 1991: Musician Henry Rollins and roadie Dennis Cole return home from a Hole concert at the Whiskey a Go Go nightclub when they are held up by a pair of men with guns. The men demand money, and when they discover that Rollins and Cole only have $50 of cash between them, the men order Rollins to go inside the home (which Rollins and Cole share) to get more. Rollins escapes and calls the police. Cole is shot in the face by the robbers and dies. The assailants have never been identified or arrested.
December 21, 1940: Heavy-drinking author F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack, leaving his novel The Last Tycoon unfinished.
December 22, 1940: The day after F. Scott Fitzgerald dies, author Nathanael West runs a stop sign while driving home to Los Angeles from a trip to Mexico. He and his wife Eileen McKenney are both killed.
December 23, 1888: Vincent Van Gogh, suffering from a severe bout of depression, cuts off a piece of his own left ear with a razor.
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| Vincent van Gogh, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
December 24, 1851: A fire at the U.S. Library of Congress destroys 55,000 books, or approximately two-thirds of its collection at the time, including most of the books donated by Thomas Jefferson that made up the library’s original collection.
December 27, 1974: Ned Maddrell dies at the age of 97. He was the last fluent speaker of Manx, a Celtic language of the Isle of Man.
December 27, 2016: Actress and author Carrie Fisher dies during her fourth day in the intensive care unit of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She has suffered from respiratory failure while aboard a flight on December 23rd. Her exact cause of death could not be determined, but artery disease, sleep apnea, and use of cocaine and opiates are all thought to be contributing factors. Fisher is 60 years old.
December 29, 2003: Maria Sergina, the last fluent native speaker of the Akkala Sámi language, dies and the language goes extinct. Akkala Sámi was spoken by the indigenous Sámi people of the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
December 30, 1903: The Iroquois Theatre in Chicago hosts a performance of Mr. Blue Beard before an audience filled with women and children out making a day of after-Christmas shopping. A faulty arc light causes the background scenery to catch fire. A number of inadequate fire safety precautions, including too few exits, lead to a disastrous fire that kills more than 600 people.
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