This Day & History ...

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Aug 26 1903
The St. Petersburg newspaper Znamya ("Banner") serializes a set of articles revealing the dual menace of the Freemasons and international Jewry. The series is just the first incarnation of what is later called the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
Aug 26 1980
Hotel workers discover a 1,000-pound time bomb at Harveys Resort & Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Attached to the device is a ransom note, demanding that $3 million be delivered to a remote location by helicopter. After the delivery goes bad, bomb squad personnel are left to defuse the gadget by robot. The resulting blast blows a five-story hole in the structure and causes $12 million in damage.
Aug 26 1987
A rampaging elephant in Bangkok, Thailand, destroys a radio center and kills two people.



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yesterday
IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Aug 28 1968

U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Gordon Mein is shot to death after guerrillas force his car off the road in Guatemala City. It is the first assassination of a U.S. Ambassador in the line of duty.

Aug 28 1988

Three Italian fighter jets from the precision flight team Frecce Tricolori collide while attempting their "Pierced Heart" stunt during an air show at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. The wreckage of one plane tumbles into the crowd and explodes, killing 40 spectators and seriously injuring hundreds more. The death toll reaches 69 two months later.

Aug 28 1995

Calvin Klein withdraws an ad campaign after drawing wide criticism for mimicking the look and feel of child pornography. Although all the underwear models were legal adults, they appeared to be adolescents photographed in a sleazy motel room.

 

[RIDER]

TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Aug 29 1904

David Hyrum Smith, son of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, dies in an insane asylum after 27 years of lunacy. His father in 1844 had predicted that his unborn son would be named David and that he would be "President and King of Israel". At least he got the name right.

Aug 29 1966

The Beatles hold their final concert at Candlestick Park.

Aug 29 1993

Brazilian police, upset over the killing of four of their own, roam the streets of Rio de Janiero and slaughter 21 street people at random. This incident comes several weeks after police had killed five boys in a similar fashion.

Aug 29 1994

The Orange County Register breaks the story that China has been harvesting organs from executed prisoners prior to their executions. What's more, executions are scheduled according to organ transplant priorities.

Aug 29 1996

Dick Morris, the top political adviser to President Bill Clinton and also a married man, resigns abruptly after the Star reveals his long-term relationship with a Washington prostitute. Morris had divulged secret White House information to Sherry Rowlands, even allowing the hooker to secretly listen in on some of his telephone conversations with the President.

Aug 29 1996

California becomes the first state in the nation to require the surgical or chemical castration of persons who have committed two or more sexual assaults on minors.

 

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TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Aug 30 1859

At the University of Göttingen, PhD candidate Albert Niemann isolates the alkaloid C17H21NO4 from leaves of the plant Erythroxylum coca. Niemann names his white, powdery discovery "cocaine" and observes firsthand its peculiarly strong anesthetic effect: "it benumbs the nerves of the tongue, depriving it of feeling and taste."

Aug 30 1974

153 passengers are killed and 60 injured when a Belgrade - Dortmund express train jumps the tracks pulling into Zagreb terminal at full speed. It is Yugoslavia's worst rail disaster.

 

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TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Aug 31 1422

Henry V dies of dysentery!

Aug 31 1888

Jack the Ripper kills his first known victim, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, slitting her throat from ear to ear.

Aug 31 1919

The American Communist Party is established, providing entertainment for Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover for decades.

Aug 31 1997

Lady Diana, and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, killed in car crash inside a Paris tunnel. The driver was drunk and they were going very, very fast.

Aug 31 1999

A video game machine explodes at an underground Moscow arcade, injuring perhaps thirty people and killing several others.

 

[RIDER]

TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Sep 2 1666

A kitchen fire breaks out in Thomas Farynor's bakery on Pudding Lane, unleashing four days of destruction. 436 acres in the city are converted to ash, including 13,200 homes. 200,000 residents are rendered homeless by what comes to be known as the Great Fire of London.

Sep 2 1898

The 25,800 men of the Anglo-Egyptian Nile Expeditionary Force prevails over 52,000 Mahdists near Omdurman, Sudan. During the five-hour battle, 11,000 Mahdists are killed, 16,000 wounded, and 5,000 captured as prisoners of war. Meanwhile, the British force suffers only 48 deaths.

Sep 2 1945

On the shelter deck of the USS Missouri in Yokohama harbor, 11 representatives of Emperor Hirohito sign the Instrument of Surrender.

Sep 2 1993

Gay porn star Tom Farrell is killed by a hit-and-run driver while urinating late at night by the side of a road.

 

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[SIZE=+2]ODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 4 1976
George W Bush is arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent. He pays the $150 fine and has his driving privileges suspended for a month. Years later, during Bush's 2000 campaign for President, a WPXT-TV reporter from Portland, Maine uncovers the arrest record just one week prior to election day. It is also revealed that Bush's V.P. candidate, Dick Cheney, had arrests for drunken driving in 1962 and 1963.
Sep 4 1991
25 workers are killed when a fire breaks out at the Imperial Foods food processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Most of the victims -- predominantly single mothers -- die of smoke inhalation. The facility's rear exit had been padlocked by management to deter employee pilferage. The Imperial plant had never once in its 11-year history been inspected by the state. The owner, Emmet Roe, later receives 19 years in prison for the 25 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Sep 4 1993
3'11" actor Herve Villechaize puts a pistol to his chest and commits suicide in his North Hollywood, California home.
Sep 4 2000
During a campaign stop in Naperville, Illinois, Presidential candidate George W Bush turns to running mate Dick Cheney and says, "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." Cheney responds, "Oh yeah, he is, big-time." Unbeknownst to the men, their comments are transmitted clearly to the television news feed. Rather than offer a mea culpa to Clymer, Bush later issues this non-apology: "I regret that a private comment I made to the vice-presidential candidate made it onto the public airwaves. I regret everybody heard what I said."

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 6 1901
While shaking hands at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, President William McKinley is shot twice in the abdomen at point-blank range with a .32 caliber revolver. He dies a week later. The assassin, an anarchist by the name of Leon Frank Czolgosz, actually is a lone gunman (for once).
Sep 6 1951
During a drinking party in Mexico City, author William S. Burroughs instructs his wife Joan to balance a glass of gin on her head. He then takes careful aim with his new .38 pistol, and unintentionally blows her brains out in front of their friends. The Mexican authorities later charge Burroughs with criminal imprudence.
Sep 6 1966
Parliamentary messenger Demetrios Tsafendas assassinates Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, by sticking a knife in his chest on the floor of the South African legislature. The apartheid system had been Verwoerd's brainchild.
Sep 6 1986
In Istanbul, two Arab terrorists step inside the Neve Shalom synagogue on Buyuk Hendek Street during Sabbath services. They unload into the worshippers with submachine guns and grenades, killing 22 and wounding six. The incident is later attributed to Abu Nidal's terror organization.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 11 1973
With the blessing of Henry Kissinger and the CIA, general Augusto Pinochet stages a violent coup in Chile, overthrowing the government of Salvador Allende, the country's democratically-elected but nonetheless Marxist president.
Sep 11 1978
Janet Parker, a medical photographer, is the final victim of smallpox. It is likely she contracted the disease at Birmingham University's medical lab, an accident while working on an unrelated project.
Sep 11 1987
Upset over delays due to live coverage of a pro tennis match, television anchorman Dan Rather walks off the set of the CBS Evening News. When the sports program ends unexpectedly, Rather is nowhere to be found. The network feed goes dark for six whole minutes before Dan can be persuaded to return.
Sep 11 1987
Actor Lorne Greene, star of television's Bonanza and Battlestar Galactica, dies of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California. Greene, whose credits also include 1986's Vasectomy: A Delicate Matter, was 504 in dog years.
Sep 11 1991
Boxer Mike Tyson is arrested for raping Desiree Washington in an Indianapolis hotel room. After his conviction and three years spent behind bars, Tyson continues to maintain his innocence, telling one reporter: "I just hate her guts... I really wish I did now... now I really do want to rape her."
Sep 11 2001
The single largest terrorist attack in history occurs when four commercial jetliners are hijacked, two of which slam into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Another plane is crashed into the Pentagon. 2,915 people are killed in the attacks, coordinated by Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden. The civilized world is horrified; especially after seeing footage of Palestinians celebrating in the streets.

[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=-2]THE MONEY SHOT[/SIZE][/FONT]
For the first time in U.S. history, all flights are grounded throughout the country. All major government facilities are evacuated as well as many local facilities. The federal government uses this sneak attack as a pretext to crack down on civil liberties, in the form of the USA PATRIOT Act and similar efforts, which continue to this day.
[We told you so.]

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 12 1878
The magnificent phallic symbol Cleopatra's Needle is erected in London on the bank of the Thames. It doesn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra. The obelisk has a twin in New York's Central Park, also named Cleopatra's Needle. It has nothing to do with Cleopatra, either.
Sep 12 1966
NBC television premieres The Monkees, a sitcom about four guys in a rock band. When the show becomes a hit, the fictional Monkees somehow release a string of albums, even though three of the actors can't even play their instruments.
Sep 12 1970
After releasing most of their captives, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine blows up three hijacked passenger jets in the Jordanian desert. The 40 remaining Israeli hostages are taken to secret locations in Amman, Jordan.
Sep 12 1977
The body of Steven Biko is discovered on the floor of a jail cell in Pretoria. The South African civil rights activist had been beaten and tortured six days earlier, during an interrogation in Port Elizabeth. Police officials claim that Biko probably suffered the fatal injuries when he "fell out of bed."
Sep 12 1992

Anthony Perkins, star of the Hitchcock classic Psycho, dies of AIDS in his Hollywood hills home. His extraordinary versatility as an actor is captured in the films Psycho II, Psycho III, and Psycho IV: The New Beginning.
Sep 12 1994
After a night of boozing and smoking crack, Frank Corder steals a Cessna P150 and crashes it into the south lawn of the White House. The wreckage tumbles over a tree and a hedge before coming to rest against the West Wing of the Executive Mansion. Corder's flamboyant suicide attack never actually imperiled President Clinton's life, since the First Family was sleeping elsewhere at the time.

 

[RIDER]

TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY

we live in a slightly mad world

Sep 14 1927

Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan is killed in Nice, France when her long silk scarf gets tangled in the rear wheel of the convertible she's riding in. Her neck is broken and an artery severed. Some accounts have her thrown against the pavement and dragged for 100 feet. The freak accident occurs in full view of a number of friends.

Sep 14 1956

Surgeons Walter Freeman and Egas Moniz perform America's first prefrontal lobotomy on a depressed, 63-year-old Kansas woman in Washington, D.C. They successfully create a lethargic dullard, and the duo hails the result for years to come as a medical triumph, despite the fact that two of their next twenty lobotomy subjects end as fatalities.

Sep 14 1982

Grace Kelly, American-born princess of Monaco, dies after a high speed car crash the previous day. She and daughter Princess Stephanie were badly injured when their British Rover 3500 plunged into a ravine, tumbling 45 feet. In the official version of events, Grace suffered a mild stroke while driving; however, rumors persist that 17-year-old Princess Stephanie was actually behind the wheel.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 25 1980

On the NBC talk show Tomorrow, SNL alumnus Chevy Chase calls actor Cary Grant a "homo." Grant sues, but rumors of his homosexuality follow him for years. The one thing known for certain: Grant is the first person to use the word "gay" in its modern context on film: In Bringing Up Baby, while in a pink fluffy silk rope he exclaimed "I've just gone gay all of a sudden!" Look at the portrait -- judge for yourself.
Sep 25 1980
After spending the whole day drinking, Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham dies from alcohol poisoning. His corpse is discovered having choked on its own vomit.
Sep 25 1988

President Carter's brother Billy dies of pancreatic cancer. The "First Brother" distinguished himself by whoring out to the Libyan government, and marketing "Billy Beer" -- considered one of the most abominable pilsner-style lagers ever to hit the American market.
Sep 25 1991
Doogie Howser loses his virginity on ABC television.
Sep 25 1997
In exchange for dropping the forcible sodomy charge against him, former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery. Albert's rape trial brought to light embarrassing allegations that he wears women's underwear, and asked women to procure men for group sex. The sheep issue was never raised. His defense accepted the plea bargain after the judge ruled he would admit information that Albert was involved in a sex fight resulting in the loss of his magnificent toupee.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Sep 27
Feast of the Finding of the True Cross.
Sep 27 1854
The wooden steamship Arctic sinks in foggy weather after colliding with the iron bow of the Vesta. When Captain Luce orders women and children into the lifeboats, the crewmen rebel and take the boats for themselves. Of 435 on board, only 85 survive -- and none of them women or children. It is the first major ocean liner disaster in the Atlantic.
Sep 27 1934

Wilford Brimley's birthday!
Sep 27 1959
Typhoon Vera, otherwise known as the Isewan Typhoon, kills 4,464 people on the Japanese island of Honshu and injures 40,000 more. 1.5 million are made homeless.
Sep 27 1964
The Warren Commission Report is finally released, definitively proving once and for all that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, without anyone's help. Case closed.
Sep 27 1967
Seventeen people are killed in Tijuana, most of them children, when the neurotoxic insecticide methyl parathion is accidentally mixed into bread. Over three hundred others required medical treatment.
Sep 27 1996
The Taliban takes Kabul.
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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 4 1969
A despondent Diane Linkletter jumps out the kitchen window of her tenth-story apartment in West Hollywood, California. Even before an autopsy can be performed, television personality Art Linkletter blames his daughter's death on a bad LSD trip. Even though the toxicology report disputes Art's assertion, the LSD story persists.
Oct 4 1970
Janis Joplin accidentally overdoses on an unusually-pure dose of heroin at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles.
Oct 4 1976
Earl Butz, President Ford's Secretary of Agriculture, is forced to resign after newspapers print a comment he made regarding race relations: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit."
Oct 4 1978
Tammy Wynette is kidnapped at gunpoint in a Nashville shopping center. The masked gunman drives the country music star 80 miles away, releasing her only after inflicting a savage beating. The assailant is never caught.
Oct 4 1986

Network news anchorman Dan Rather is mugged in New York City. The attacker, one William Tager, shouts the question "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" during the beating. While the "frequency" refers to the wavelength of the transmissions that CBS was beaming into Tager's head, history is still unclear on exactly who "Kenneth" is or why R.E.M. would record a song about it.
Oct 4 1989
Secretariat, 1973 triple crown winner and one of the greatest athletes of all time, is euthanized in Paris, Kentucky. He was 19.


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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 5 1858
An arsonist sets fire to New York City's iron and glass Crystal Palace. America's most prestigious museum is reduced to 1,200 tons of molten slag, causing $2 million in damage and destroying thousands of priceless artworks belonging to the American Institute.
Oct 5 1864
60,000 are killed when a tropical cyclone hits Calcutta. On the same day, a 200-foot tsunami kills thousands in Kamaishi, Japan.
Oct 5 1942
German engineer Herman Graebe witnesses a Nazi mass execution in the Ukraine. After the war, he writes a famous and terrifying testimony.
Oct 5 1990

After a ten-day trial, a jury acquits the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center of obscenity charges resulting from an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. So, bullwhips up the ass are now officially A-OK.
Oct 5 1994
Predicting that the world would soon end in an environmental disaster, homeopath Luc Jouret and 52 others belonging to his Order of the Solar Temple commit mass suicide near Cheiry, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada.
Oct 5 1996
Less than a year after Thomas Hamilton gunned down a teacher and 16 preschoolers in Dunblane, Scotland, British authorities ban the sale of Slaughter in the Playground, a CD-ROM game based on hunting and killing children on a school playground.
Oct 5 1999
In a move reminiscent of both Nazi crimes committed against Gypsies and the postwar construction of the Berlin Wall, the town of Usti nad Labem in the Czech Republic begins construction of a barrier to separate a portion of its Gypsy population away from more respectable folks.




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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 6 1014
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria dies after an army of 15,000 of his men is returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home. For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars.
Oct 6 1536
The man to translate the Holy Bible into English, William Tyndale, is strangled and burnt at the stake in Brussels, Belgium. Translations of the Bible into vernacular had been long suppressed, but oddly most of the work in the KJV's New Testament is Tyndale's.
Oct 6 1815
Mayfield, New York resident Barent Becker is hanged for serving his wife Ann a dish of stewed tomatoes and arsenic.
Oct 6 1976
During a televised debate, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Ford loses the election. [He and Dan Quayle should do lunch.]
Oct 6 1977

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr., Los Angeles' infamous "Hillside Stranglers," rape and murder their first victim, 21-year-old waitress Elissa Kastin. They dump her naked corpse on Chevy Chase Drive.
Oct 6 1980
John Lydon, of band PiL and formerly the Sex Pistols, arrested for disorderly conduct in a Dublin bar.
Oct 6 1981
During a commemoration of the Yom Kippur War, armed gunmen leap from a truck and begin shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Along with Sadat, the assassins kill eight others.
Oct 6 1997
Six boys watch as a female classmate is held down and raped in a locker room at Paramount High School in Boligee, Alabama. In all, about twelve boys are present at the incident; only six are ever charged.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 7 1900
Heinrich Himmler is born in Munich.
Oct 7 1964
Walter W. Jenkins, chief White House aide and longtime friend of President Lyndon B. Johnson, is arrested for disorderly conduct two blocks from the White House. Jenkins was discovered in a YMCA pay toilet with another man. Ultimately, Jenkins is forced to resign, so as not to jeopardize Johnson's re-election campaign. Jenkins stated that during his arrest, his mind had been "befuddled by fatigue, alcohol, physical illness, and lack of food."
Oct 7 1985
Off the coast of Italy, four Palestinian terrorists hijack the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and toss overboard crippled American tourist Leon Klinghoffer.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 8 1871

Mrs O'Leary's cow starts the Chicago Fire, killing 250 and destroying 17,000 buildings. Bad cow.
Oct 8 1950
Two United States F-80 fighters strafe the Soviet airfield at Sukhaya Rechka, in the vicinity of Vladivostok. The attack, due to a navigational error, prompts no response from the Soviet Union and the U.S. offers to pay compensation.
Oct 8 1957
Jerry Lee Lewis records "Great Balls of Fire". It is uncertain exactly to what he was referring.
Oct 8 1966
Lysergic Acid (LSD) is enrolled on the list of controlled substances.
Oct 8 1981
A package from the Unabomber detonates at the University of Utah; there are no injuries.
Oct 8 1993
Ted Danson appears in blackface at a Friars Club roast. His offensive comments amuse Whoopi Goldberg but the incident becomes a great embarrassment.

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 9 1919
The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, but only because key Chicago White Sox ballplayers agreed to throw the series for $100,000 in bribes.
Oct 9 1951
RKO Pictures asks Marilyn Monroe to wear panties while working.
Oct 9 1967

After being debriefed by CIA field agent Felix Rodriguez, Che Guevara is executed in a schoolhouse in La Higuera, Bolivia. Guevara had been captured by the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion, which was specifically trained by U.S. Army Special Forces to catch him.
Oct 9 1987
24 boats equipped with Lowrance X-16 sonar units detect a "large object" at a depth of 606 feet beneath Loch Ness.
Oct 9 1989
Three aliens and their UFO visit Voronezh, USSR, acccording to the TASS news agency.
Oct 9 1989
The Hebrew edition of Penthouse magazine is released. Kosher pornography!
Oct 9 1995
A 12-car Amtrak train derails near Hyder, Arizona. Letters claiming responsibility are found, signed by the "Sons of the Gestapo."

 

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[SIZE=+2]TODAY IN ROTTEN HISTORY [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] we live in a slightly mad world [/SIZE]
Oct 17 1961
Between 50 and 200 unarmed Algerian muslims are massacred by Paris police during an FLN demonstration. Dozens more are murdered in the courtyard of the main police headquarters. At the time, the De Gaulle government was unstable and trying to hold onto its African colonies, thus the massacre was not widely reported.
Oct 17 1967

The controversial play Hair, full of dancing naked people, unshaved armpits, and body odor, opens at the 299-seat Anspacher Theater on Broadway. (Hair is that play with all the fricking "Age of Aquarius" shit.)
Oct 17 1984
The New York Times runs an article entitled "CIA Primer Tells Nicaraguan Rebels How to Kill." The story describes the secret manual Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare which the CIA furnished to the Contras in Nicaragua. The booklet instructed how to kidnap and assassinate civil officials, such as judges and police.
Oct 17 1989
The Loma Prieta earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 67 and causing billions in property damage. The 6.9 magnitude temblor manages to collapse a long section of the double-decker I-880 freeway, smushing motorists between the two layers. Part of the Bay Bridge also collapses. Worst of all, the quake postpones the third World Series game.