DBKP Today in Weird History: March 20, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, ESCAPES, BEATLES, WOW, CLINTONS, HANGED, RESCUED, MUPPETS, PATENTS, JEWS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, CLUELESSLY IMPOTENT, GODLESS, DICTATORS, MURDER, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

WAR!

1942 General MacArthur vows, "I shall return".

2003 A subdued Saddam Hussein appeared on state-run television after the initial U.S. air strike on Baghdad, accusing the United States of a "shameful crime" and urging his people to "draw your sword" against the invaders. American combat units rumbled across the desert into Iraq from the south and U.S. and British forces bombed limited targets in Baghdad. The start of war in Iraq triggered one of the heaviest days of anti-government protesting in years, leading to thousands of arrests across the United States and prompting pro-war counter-demonstrations.

TERRORISM

1993 IRA-bomb kills 3 year old in Warrington England.

1995 In Tokyo, 12 people were killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin were leaked on five separate subway trains by Aum Shinrikyo cult members.

DISASTER

1760 Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings.

1972 19 mountain climbers killed on Japan's Mount Fuji during an avalanche.

1998 A tornado in rural northeast Georgia killed at least 13 people and injured 100.

WOW!

1988 8-year-old DeAndra Anrig found herself airborne when the string of her kite was snagged by an airplane flying over Shoreline Park in Mountain View, Calif. (DeAndra was lifted 10 feet off the ground and carried some 100 feet until she let go; she was not seriously hurt.)

MUPPETS

??? Big Bird muppet was born today on in an unknown year.(Sesame Street)

DICTATORS

1992 Manuel Noriega's (Panama) wife Felicidad arrested for stealing buttons from dresses.

PRO WRESTLING

1994 Wrestlemania X at Madison Square Garden New York, Bret "The Hitman" Hart pins Yokozuna to win WWF championship.

PATENTS

1885 John Matzeliger of Suriname patents shoe lacing machine.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1954 1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania).

MURDER

1996 Erik & Lyle Menendez found guilty of killing their parents.

ESCAPES

1815 Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris after escaping his exile on Elba, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.

CLINTONS

1998 President Clinton's lawyer, appearing before a federal court in Little Rock, Ark., declared that Paula Jones' evidence of sexual harassment was "garbage" unworthy of a trial.

CLUELESSLY IMPOTENT

1980 US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran.

JEWS

1939 7,000 Jews flee German occupied Memel Lithuania.

BEATLES

1969 John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.

HANGED

2007 Saddam Hussein's former deputy, Taha Yassin Ramadan, was hanged in Baghdad, the fourth man to be executed in the killings of 148 Shiites.

GODLESS

1984 Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools.

RESCUED

2007 Rescuers found Michael Auberry, a 12-year-old Boy Scout, who was dehydrated and disoriented after four days in the wooded mountains of North Carolina.

BORN

1902 Edgar Buchanan Humansville MO, actor (Uncle Joe-Petticoat Junction).

1906 Ozzie Nelson Jersey City NJ, actor (Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet).

1908 American broadcasting pioneer Frank Stanton, the president of CBS for 26 years, was born in Muskegon, Mich.

BIRTHDAYS

Producer-director-comedian Carl Reiner is 86. Actor Hal Linden is 77. Singer Jerry Reed is 71. Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is 69. Country singer Don Edwards is 69. TV producer Paul Junger Witt is 65. Country singer-musician Ranger Doug (Riders in the Sky) is 62. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr is 60. Blues singer-musician Marcia Ball is 59. Actor William Hurt is 58. Rock musician Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) is 58. Rock musician Jimmie Vaughan is 57. Country musician Jimmy Seales (Shenandoah) is 54. Movie director Spike Lee is 51. Actress Theresa Russell is 51. Actress Vanessa Bell Calloway is 51. Actress Holly Hunter is 50. Rock musician Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) is 47. Actress-model Kathy Ireland is 45. Actor David Thewlis is 45. Rock musician Adrian Oxaal (James) is 43. Actress Liza Snyder is 40. Actor Michael Rapaport is 38. Actor Alexander Chaplin is 37. Rock singer Chester Bennington (Linkin Park) is 32. Actor Michael Genadry is 30. Actress Bianca Lawson is 29.

DEATH

1727 Sir Issac Newton English physicist/astronomer, dies in London at 84.

1991 Conor Clapton Eric Clapton's son, falls out of 53rd floor window at 4.

March 20, the 80th day of 2008. There are 286 days left in the year. Spring's arrival: 1:48 a.m. Eastern time.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: granitegrok
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History


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DBKP Today in Weird History: February 16, 2008

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, PIRATES, SOCIETIES, TOMBS, DICTATORS, 911, RAMPAGE, DEMONSTRATIONS, DEMOCRATS, SPORTS, ELECTROCUTED, EXECUTED, SNEEZE, JEWS, CHECKS, WOMEN, CLUBS, DOORS, PATENTS, LEVIATHAN, NAZIS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, DEATH PENALTY, SWIM, BEATLES, TRAFFIC, RADICALS, BLIMPS, BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH


WAR!

1862 during the Civil War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tenn. (Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant.")

1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery.

1945 American troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines during World War II.

TERRORISM

1992 Abbas Musawi leader of Hezbollah, assassinated.

2007 An Italian judge indicted 25 suspected CIA agents and a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel in the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. (The proceedings have been suspended pending a ruling on the Italian government's request to throw out the indictments.)

DISASTER

1994 6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200.

1996 11 people were killed in a fiery collision between an Amtrak passenger train and a Maryland commuter train in Silver Spring, Md.

1998 A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R trying to land in fog near Taipei, Taiwan, crashed, killing all 196 people on board and six people on the ground.

SNEEZE

600 Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying "God bless You" is the correct response to a sneeze.

WOMEN

1838 Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions.

TRAFFIC

1980 Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France.

BLIMPS

1992 Former silver Goodyear blimps are now painted yellow & blue.

CLUBS

1905 1st US Esperanto club organizes in Boston.

NAZIS

1943 Sign on Munich facade "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" done by "White Rose" student group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22.

PATENTS

1932 1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree.

1937 DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers.

PIRATES!

1804 Lt. Stephen Decatur led a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates.

DOORS

1909 1st subway car with side doors goes into service (New York NY).

BEATLES

1968 Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon & wives fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

JEWS

1349 Jews are expelled from Burgsdorf Switzerland.

1917 1st synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid.

SWIM

1963 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US)

CHECKS

1659 1st known check (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey).

LEVIATHAN

1938 US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized.

DEATH PENALTY

1956 Britain abolishes the death penalty.

RADICALS

1989 Jane Fonda & Tom Hayden separate after 16 years of marriage.

DEMONSTRATION

2003 More than 100,000 people demonstrated in the streets of San Francisco to protest a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1948 1st newsreel telecast, "20th Century Fox-Movietone News" shown on NBC.

1950 Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS.

EXECUTED

1979 Nematullah Nassiri Iran General/head of Savak, executed.

DEMOCRATS

2007 The Democratic-controlled House issued a symbolic rejection of President Bush's decision to deploy more troops to Iraq, approving the nonbinding resolution by a vote of 246-182.

SOCIETIES

1868 The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was organized in New York City.

TOMBS

1923 The burial chamber of King Tutankhamen's recently unearthed tomb was unsealed in Egypt by English archaeologist Howard Carter.

DICTATORS

1959 Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

ELECTROCUTED

1936 Tommy Ward South African cricket wicket keeper (23 Tests), electrocuted.

911

1968 the nation's first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Ala.

RAMPAGE

1988, Seven people were shot to death during an office rampage in Sunnyvale, Calif., by a man who was obsessed with a co-worker. (The gunman, Richard Farley, is under sentence of death.)

SPORTS

2003 Michael Waltrip raced past leader Jimmie Johnson to win the rain-shortened Daytona 500 for the second time in three years.

BORN

1903 Edgar Bergen Chicago IL, ventriloquist (Charlie McCarthy).

1906 Vera Menchik Moscow, 1st official women's world chess champion (1927).

BIRTHDAYS

Singer Patty Andrews is 90. Kim Jong Il, the president of North Korea, is 66. Actor Jeremy Bulloch is 62. Actor Pete Postlethwaite is 62. Actor William Katt is 57. Actor LeVar Burton is 51. Actor-rapper Ice-T is 50. Actress Lisa Loring is 50. Tennis Hall of Fame player John McEnroe is 49. Rock musician Andy Taylor is 47. Rock musician Dave Lombardo (Slayer) is 43. Rock musician Taylor Hawkins (Foofighters) is 36. Singer Sam Salter is 30. Rapper Lupe Fiasco is 26. Actor Mike Weinberg is 15.

DEATH

1977 Janani Luwum, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, and two other men were killed in what Ugandan authorities said was an automobile accident.

2003 Eleanor "Sis" Daley, the matriarch of Chicago's Daley political clan, died at age 95.

February 16, the 47th day of 2008. There are 319 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: clangrant
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History



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