This Day & History ...

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 10 1948[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk thrown from a window at his apartment in Prague under mysterious circumstances. His death was ruled "suicide" and later by the communists, to have "fallen accidentally while sitting in a yoga position on a window sill to combat insomnia". But most likely he was suffocated first, judging from the fact that he had lost control of his bowels. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1974[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Second Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army surrenders to Philippine authorities. He believed World War II was still underway and continued a 30 year guerrilla battle with other islanders. His final capitulation came when his senior officer, Maj. Taniguchi, ordered his surrender. Upon return to the Japanese homeland, Onoda was treated as a hero, but had difficulty coping with his "postwar" life. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1977[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Roman Polanski gives a thirteen-year old girl Quaaludes and has sex with her during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's home. He later flees the country to avoid statutory rape charges. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jeffrey Dahmer is convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior for urinating in front of several children. He was sentenced to one year's probation for the incident. Jeffrey would go on to kill eighteen young men in Milwaukee. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Highly insipid rock vocalist Andy Gibb dies of heart trouble at age 30. He put a lot of drugs into his body, primarily cocaine. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Tupac Shakur gets a 15-day jail sentence for assaulting director Allen Hughes. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 10 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, is stabbed in both eyes during an altercation with another inmate at Broadmoor Hospital. Peter is serving a sentence for killing 13 women. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 9 1170[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In Essex, a UFO is spotted over St. Ostwyth, manifesting itself as a "wonderfully large dragon ... borne up from the Earth through the air". The craft kindled the air and destroyed a house. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 9 1556[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]David Rizzio, the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, stabbed 56 times by a gaggle of Scottish nobles. Her husband Henry Lord Darnley had orchestrated the murder with Mary witnessing, hoping to precipitate a miscarriage. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 9 1967[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Josef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, walks into the U.S. Embassy at New Delhi and asks to defect. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 9 1989[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Photographer/homosexual Robert Mapplethorpe dead from AIDS. His bullwhip will be missed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 9 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jon Schmitz (straight) kills Scott Amedure (gay) three days after an appearance on the trashy Jenny Jones TV talk show, where Amedure admitted having a crush on Schmitz. Allegedly the two men had an affair that evening after the show, but the backlash from their rural community was going to be so severe that Schmitz panicked to defend his manlihood, filling his admirer with buckshot. Amedure's famly later sued the Jenny Jones show for $50M. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 9 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) killed in a drive-by outside the Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles. The murder has never been officially solved, though an ongoing feud with Death Row Records may have had something to do with it. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 8 1968[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A Soviet submarine sinks in the Pacific Ocean, killing all 97 crew members aboard. Later in the year a U.S. submarine secretly retrieves an encryption machine, codebooks, and nuclear warheads from the Soviet vessel. A further bold attempt is made in 1974 to bring up the entire submarine using the CIA ship Glomar Explorer, built by Howard Hughes. That mission supposedly fails, and is made public by the Los Angeles Times to the great embarrassment of the Agency. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 8 1973[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Paul McCartney is fined 100 UKP for growing marijuana at his farm on the Mull of Kintyre. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 8 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Chad Lamansky and Daniel Myers, a pair of teenagers in Davis County, Iowa, slip into an animal shelter at night and beat 16 cats to death with a baseball bat. A jury later determined that the cats had a value less than $30 each, ruling out the possibility of a felony conviction. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 8 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In Ladson, South Carolina, Daniel Rudolph -- brother of Olympic Games bombing and abortion clinic bombing suspect Eric Rudolph (a fugitive) -- videotapes himself severing his own hand with a power saw in order to "send a message to the FBI and the media". Mmmm, inbreeding? [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 8 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 8 2000[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Porn superstar Lolo Ferrari dies at age 30 in the French Riviera. Lolo is a French pioneer of plastic macromammary surgery, having achieved a bustline of 71 inches, a well known porn star and cocksucker. She is a resident of Cannes, her recent venture into music (with single "Air Bag Generator") created somewhat of a nonsensation. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 11 1669[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a series of premonitional earthquakes near Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe spectacularly erupts, destroying the Sicilian town of Nicolosi and killing 20,000 people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 11 1938[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Germany enters Austria in the "Anschluss", to annex it as part of Grossdeutchland. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 11 1958[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A B-47 bomber drops a nuclear bomb in the town of Mars Bluff in South Carolina. While it did not detonate a nuclear explosion, conventional explosives within the bomb left a 75 foot crater, destroying one house and damaging five others. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 11 1970[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Actress Suzanne Somers arrested (and strip searched!) for writing bad checks. She was not prosecuted. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 11 1990[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Vice President Dan Quayle sends a Secret Service agent proxy into a Chilean tourist shop to purchase a wooden male, anatomically correct "peekaboo" statuette. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 11 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The town of Cicero, IL agrees to donate $10,000 towards the printing of KKK literature to be mailed to its residents, in return for the Klan not holding a scheduled rally. [/FONT]

 

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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 14 1883[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Karl Marx dies of bronchitis in London. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 14 1932[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]George Eastman, the founder of Kodak Corporation, kills himself after a long illness. His suicide note states "To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?" [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 14 1945[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]"I am going to jump into my grave laughing because the knowledge that I have the deaths of millions of people on my conscience is a source of extraordinary satisfaction to me." Adolf Eichmann. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 14 1967[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nine German executives of the manufacturer of thalidomide, Grunethal, are charged with breaking their country's drug laws. Thalidomide, a sedative, caused over 12,000 babies in late 1950's Europe to be born with flippers instead of limbs. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 14 1968[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, near Skull Valley Utah. The gas killed 1600 sheep on the Goshute indian reservation and made hundreds more sick. Dugway is a test center for chemical and biological agents. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 14 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A tank illegally stored at the federal government's Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state explodes, causing the release of 30,000 gallons of plutonium into the environment. The government tried to cover up the incident, going so far as having the Department of Energy deny the release of any contamination. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 13 1881[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]An anarchist from the radical group People's Will throws a bomb which disrupts Czar Alexander II's motorcade. After he thanks God for his deliverance, the anarchist yells "It is too early to thank God" and throws a second bomb, causing injuries from which Alexander bleeds to death. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 13 1923[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Twenty-two persons killed in a poison rice episode, China. Five cooks are blamed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 13 1964[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At 3:15am, bar manager Catherine "Kitty" Genovese is raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, NY. None of her 38 neighbors who witness the 32-minute ordeal even bothers to call the cops. Later in court, several testify hearing her scream: "Oh my God! He stabbed me! Please help me! I'm dying!"[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 13 1996[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Salim and Ruksana Patel find the arabic word for Allah spelled in the seeds of an aubergine (a Persian eggplant variant) which they intended for a casserole at their home in Bolton, England. Their local mullah declares it a miracle. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 13 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Hassan Abdullah's wife accidentally severs her husband's penis while she was "dreaming about strangling him". Luckily for Abdullah doctors in Malaysia were able to successfully reattach his endangered manhood, but not so lucky is the fact that he sleeps with a woman who keeps a knife in bed and dreams about strangling her husband. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 13 2001[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]One-eyed, mom-hating serial killer/drifter Henry Lee Lucas dies. Lucas was a serial murderer known for making bogus confessions which prompted police across the country to try and clear hundreds of unsolved cases by dumping them on Henry. He later recanted, saying that his goal was to make the police look stupid. Physical evidence only linked Henry to two of the murders.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 12 1888[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The massive and unexpected Blizzard of 1888 strikes the East coast of the United States, paralyzing New York and many other cities and leaving at least 400 dead. Snowdrifts fifty feet high were reported, and New York received over 40 inches of snow. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 1928[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The two-year-old St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles fails catastrophically just before midnight, unleashing 52 million tons of water on the city of Santa Paula. 437 people are killed by the torrent, including 19 families with no survivors whatsoever. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 1945[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Anne Frank dies at Auschwitz. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 1964[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Malcolm X withdraws from the Nation of Islam after he finds out that Elijah Mohammad has been porking his secretaries. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 1980[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A Chicago jury finds John Wayne Gacy guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. The next day, he is sentenced to death; after years on death row, Gacy is finally executed in May 10, 1994. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A series of bomb explosions rock western India. The first kills 50 at the Bombay Stock Exchange, and many other explosions target theaters, offices, and shopping areas. It is suspected that the acts were intended to destabilize India's government. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 2000[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pope John Paul II asks God's forgiveness for the many wrongs committed by the Roman Catholic Church. The pardon he requested divided into seven categories of Church sin, including sins against the Jews, against native peoples of the world, the crimes of the Inquisition, and general crimes against humanity. This pardon was requested only for past sins, and apparently does not apply to the Church's many ongoing sins. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 12 2007[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Two weeks after the incident, it is revealed that Israel's Ambassador to El Salvador Tzuriel Rafael had been recalled after police discovered him in his backyard, drunk and naked save for bondage gear and a ball gag.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 19 1935[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Rioting breaks out in Harlem after rumors that a shoplifter was beaten or killed by police in the basement of Kress's department store, neither of which was actually true. But still an estimated 10,000 rioters cause $2M damage to whitey's businesses. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 19 1945[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Adolf Hitler orders all military and industrial facilities within the Third Reich destroyed. Albert Speer does everything he can to stop this from happening, in direct defiance of Hitler. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 19 1957[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Elvis Presley tours and then immediately agrees to purchase the 14 acre Graceland estate from Ruth Moore for $100,000. It is now his cemetery. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 19 1982[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, dies during the Diary of a Madman tour after the plane he is flying in buzzes the band's tour bus and clips the wing of the plane, crashing into a nearby farmhouse. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 19 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns his PTL ministry after it is revealed he nailed former church secretary Jessica Hahn. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 19 1990[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Andrew Wood, lead singer of influential but now mostly forgotten Seattle band "Mother Love Bone" dies of a smack overdose. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 18 1314[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake during the final purge of the Templars in France. Among the things de Molay admitted to the Inquisitor panel (though possibly coerced) were the obligation of Templars to deny Christ when they joined, and a sacrament that involved spitting on a crucifix. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 18 1965[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Rolling Stones are fined 5 UKP for urinating on a Stratford garage wall at the ABC, Romford. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 18 1970[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) is convicted on obscenity charges after he asks for an F, a U, a C, and one other letter at a concert in Massachusetts. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 18 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A significant percentage of the Soviet space program's scientists are killed when a Vostok rocket explodes on the launch pad. Fifty people die at the Plesetsk Space Center. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Mar 17 965[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pope Leo VIII dies of a stroke during sexual intercourse. Perhaps the best way for a man to die, but not a very appropriate choice for the Bishop of Rome. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 17 1942[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]John Wayne Gacy, part time clown, serial killer, and sodomizer of dozens of boys, is born in Chicago. His father was convinced Gacy was a "sissy", but friends and family didn't really suspect anything untoward was afoot until his 1968 arrest for coercing a teenage boy employee into committing multiple homosexual acts. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 17 1948[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is founded in San Bernardino, California by veterans of World War II who were former members of the Pissed Off Bastards. Hell's Angels has 100 chapters globally, with more than 1600 members. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 17 1966[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mar 17 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Six members of the International Olympic Committee are expelled for corruption, all from poor third world countries. They received bribes from Salt Lake City totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, a practice that had been going on for years. It should also be noted that the IOC Vice President at the time was named "Dick Pound". [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Rotten Store[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Now Available
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Dr. Sputnik's Society Pages[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]19-Mar-2009 · “A small private funeral” is planned for Natasha Richardson ... Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) suggests that American International Group executives should kill themselves ... Jessica Lange is injured in fall ... Kanye West and manager are charged in airport scuffle ... Stacy Keach is hospitalized for undisclosed reasons ... As Citigroup collected $45B in federal bailout bucks, CEO Vikram Pandit was paid almost $11M ... A million bucks each for top execs at Fannie Mae ... David Prowse is battling cancer ... Herbie Hancock joins Los Angeles Philharmonic ... Amy Winehouse pleads not guilty to assault ... Marc Ravalomanana resigns as President of Madagascar ... [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]18-Mar-2009 · Extent of Natasha Richardson's injuries remain unclear; some sources say she's brain dead ... Chuck Norris sues publisher over The Truth About Chuck Norris ... Family Guy wins lawsuit over "fair use" song parody ... Taylor Swift doesn't want you to picture her naked ... Harlan Ellison sues over 40-year-old Star Trek revenues ... MC Hammer is sued over unfinished book ... [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]17-Mar-2009 · Natasha Richardson is critically injured in ski accident ... Pope Benedict XVI says that distributing condoms "increases the problem" of AIDS ... Don Imus says prostate cancer is "no big deal"... President Obama orders Treasury officials to try to block American International Group latest $165M in executive bonuses ... Judge quashes arrest warrant for Lindsay Lohan ... Rhys Ifans calls for an end to prohibition ... Dan Savage is running for Mayor of Seattle ... Alan Moore talks about Watchmen, the dark side of Hollywood, and the morality of pornography ... MacGyver is getting revived as feature film ... Aussies convict man of kiddie porn for downloaded pictures of naked Simpsons ... [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Dr. Sputnik [/FONT]

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 9 1241[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mongols collect nine bags of ears after a battle with Henry, Duke of Poland, at Liegnitz. A feigned retreat separated the 500 Teutonic Knights from their infantry, and the Mongols slaughtered the entire infantry. Apparently you can fit 25,000 ears into nine bags. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 9 1940[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Norwegian national socialist Vidkun Quisling seizes the opportunity to declare himself the new prime minister of Norway, but the Germans replace him only five days later. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 9 1948[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jewish terror groups Irgun and Lehi massacre Arab villagers of Deir Yassin located on Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road. News of massacre creates panic among other Palestinians, who flee former mandatory Palestine at onset of first Arab-Israeli war. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 9 1992[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering by a federal court in Miami. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 8 1916[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Auto racer Bob Burman crashes and burns during a race in Corona, California. He dies and takes his mechanic Eric Scroeder and a track policeman with him. Burman was in the lead during most of the race but his Peugot broke a wheel sending his car crashing through a crowd barrier and into a pole and badly injuring 5 spectators.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 8 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Rev. Jimmy Swaggart resigns from his ministry when it is revealed that he has been consorting with a prostitute, Debra Murphree. She says he was a frequent client but only liked to watch her undress. Only a few months earlier, Swaggart had been giving Rev. Jim Bakker shit about Jessica Hahn.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 8 1991[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Retired horse jockey Willie Shoemaker loses control of his Ford Bronco; the resulting crash renders him paralyzed from the neck down. Shoemaker is later arrested for drunk driving, but no charges are ever filed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 8 1992[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat suffers only minor injuries after his airplane crashes into the Libyan desert. However, three others on board the craft are killed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 8 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Kurt Cobain's body is found 3 days after committing suicide with a shotgun. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 7 1948[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Twenty Buddhist monks in Shanghai are immolated as their monastery burns. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1970[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The X-rated movie Midnight Cowboy wins the Oscar for Best Picture. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Norwegian sea, with two nuclear reactors and two nuclear torpedoes aboard. 41 crew members die, and the submarine remains one mile below the surface of the ocean, with its nuclear weapons intact. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Courtney Love arrested on drug charges in Beverly Hills. What a surprise! [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Wendy O. Williams, former porn star and singer for the Plasmatics, kills herself with a gun near her Connecticut home. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pop singer George Michael is arrested by an undercover police officer after wanking in front him in a public toilet. One of our rotten.com staffers has checked out the restroom (at Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills) and reports that it continues to be "cruisy."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A bomb goes off in the "Valley of the Fallen" church, which is carved into a mountainside north of Madrid. The church houses the mortal remains of dictator Francisco Franco. The terrorist group GRAPO claims responsibility, and while there were no injuries, the damage was extensive. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 7 2155[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]First Contact between humans and the prominently-coiffured Centauri Alliance. (Babylon 5 timeline) [/FONT]
​

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 12 1945[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president ever elected to four terms of office, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, GA. The following day, Vice President Harry S. Truman assumes the post and is told for the first time about the Manhattan Project. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1960[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Eric Peugeot, 4-year-old son of the auto manufacturer, is kidnapped in Paris. The child is later freed after a $300,000 ransom is paid. Ultimately, the perpetrators are caught and sent to prison. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1961[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyevich Gargarin is the first man in space, aboard Vostok I. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]U.S. patent 4,736,866 is granted to Harvard University for a genetically-modified mouse, engineered to be particularly susceptible to carcinogens. The cancer-prone "Harvard Oncomouse" is the world's first patented creature, and perhaps also the most screwed.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]1960s counterculture icon Abbie Hoffman kills himself by overdosing on barbiturates. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1992[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]EuroDisney opens to the public, attracting a meager 50,000 visitors. Expectations had been about ten times as many. This underwhelming response by the European public will continue for more than a year. Finally, after 18 months of retooling, the resort is ultimately rechristened Disneyland Paris.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The US Tax Court rules that Indiana exotic dancer Chesty Love can claim a $2,088 tax credit for depreciation on her 56FF breast implants. The judge found that Love's surgical augmentation did in fact increase her income, also that she was unable to derive any personal benefit from them, as the oversized mammaries "contorted her body into a grotesque appearance." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]To celebrate David Letterman's 49th birthday, actress Drew Barrymore climbs atop the Late Night desk and flashes her bosomy protuberances at the man.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 12 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Hong Kong Eastern Express reports that China sanctions the consumption of aborted human fetuses as a "health benefit." One practitioner willing to admit a taste for this is Dr. Zou Qin of the Luo Hu Clinic, who boasts having consumed more than 100 meals of human veal -- stew and soup, mostly. [/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 18 1906[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., followed by a major aftershock three hours later. More than 3,000 people are killed from either collapsing structures or any of the 59 separate fires which burn over the next three days. In the downtown area, the U.S. Army is forced to dynamite whole city blocks in order to contain the flames, due to the lack of water pressure.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 18 1955[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nobel Prize recipient Albert Einstein dies in his hospital bed from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Seven hours later, his brain is plunked into a jar of formalin and taken away by the pathologist. It will remain missing for 23 years.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 18 1983[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]62 people are killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide bombing against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The attacker used a van packed with one ton of high explosives. Included among the dead is the CIA's entire Middle East bureau. The group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility, although the intelligence community believes it was actually the work of Hezbollah.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 18 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]American auto worker John Demjanjuk is convicted of crimes against humanity by an Israeli court. They determined that he was Treblinka's notorious "Ivan the Terrible." The court sentences him to hang one week later, but the conviction is later overturned when it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity. In 2002, a U.S. federal court later strips Demjanjuk of his citizenship after it rules that he did in fact work as a Nazi prison guard, although at Sobibor, Majdanek, and Flossenburg. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 17 1792[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Guillotine is tested at Bicetre Hospital in Paris, decapitating a sheep and a number of human cadavers. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1961[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro, 1,500 Cuban exiles make a series of amphibious landings at the Bay of Pigs. After it becomes painfully obvious in just a matter of hours that the forces were trained, equipped, and armed by the United States, President John F. Kennedy withholds necessary air cover. In three days of fighting, Cuba captures 1,197 of the rebels and kills approximately 200.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1965[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The FBI Laboratory in Washington reports their inability to make out the vocals on the hit single "Louie Louie." Thus, the Bureau is unable to determine whether the record constitutes obscene matter. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1969[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A Los Angeles jury convicts Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Sirhan receives a death sentence, but it is later reduced to life in prison. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1974[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Vinnie Taylor of Sha Na Na dies of a smack overdose. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1984[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]London police officer Yvonne Fletcher is shot dead and ten bystanders are wounded when a gunman in the Libyan Embassy opens fire on a crowd of protestors gathered outside. One week later, the British government cuts off all diplomatic relations and the Libyans are deported. The Libyan Government finally "accepts general responsibility for the behaviour of its diplomats inside its London Embassy at the time of the shooting" in July 1999, and pays an undisclosed sum to Fletcher's family.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 17 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a newspaper publishes photographs of Belgian paratroopers committing human rights violations during a 1993 UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Belgium's Defense Minister Jean-Pol Poncelet announces that the elite fighting unit may be disbanded. The photos depict one soldier urinating on a Somali corpse, and two men swinging a child over a campfire by the wrists and ankles. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 16 1943[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Chemist Albert Hofmann inadvertently experiences the world's first acid trip when a tiny quantity of lysergic acid diethylamide accidently seeps through the skin of his finger. After leaving work early, he went home and settled into "a not unpleasant intoxicated condition." Then he had solid two hours of visual hallucinations: "I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." It will be another three days before Hofmann gets up the courage to swallow 250 micrograms and ride his bicycle home. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 16 1947[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]552 people are killed in Texas City, TX when 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer aboard the S.S. Grandcamp suddenly explodes. The blast generates a 2,000-foot mushroom cloud and is heard 160 miles away, leading some witnesses to believe that they had just been hit by a Russian A-bomb. 3,000 people suffer injuries and perhaps 200 more are unaccounted for. One-third of Texas City is decimated, twenty blocks of the waterfront are obliterated, and windows more than ten miles away are shattered.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 16 1953[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]President Eisenhower addresses the nation concerning the relative priorities of "guns" versus "butter." In a fair fight, we'd have to bet on the guns. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 16 1966[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Alongside FBI officials, New York district attorney G. Gordon Liddy arrests Timothy Leary for possession of marijuana after raiding his Millbrook estate. The Supreme Court later rules this bust unconstitutional. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 16 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Marlon Brando's daughter Cheyenne hangs herself in Tahiti. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 16 2007[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At around 7 AM, Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung-Hui shoots dead two students in a neighboring dorm. Two hours later, he chains shut the doors of the engineering building and goes on a forty-minute killing spree, murdering 30 students and teachers and wounding several others before committing suicide. He had spent the interval fedexing a press kit to NBC News.[/FONT]
​

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 25 1599[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Oliver Cromwell -- who will later become the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland -- is born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 25 1792[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier is beheaded by the guillotine, making him its first victim. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 25 1974[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jim Morrison's widow Pamela dies of a heroin overdose. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 25 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (King Adrock) is sentenced to 200 hours of community service for battering a TV cameraman during the memorial service for actor River Phoenix. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 24 1928[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Supreme Court of Canada declares that though women are indeed legal "persons," they are nevertheless ineligible to serve in the Canadian Senate. The Court agreed that the term "person" applies equally to humans of both genders, but the British North America Act referred specifically to "fit and qualified persons" -- necessarily excluding unfit and unqualified people (aka females). [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1934[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The present incarnation of actress Shirley MacLaine is born. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1967[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov soon becomes the world's first space mission fatality after his Soyuz parachutes become entangled four miles above the Earth. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A mission to rescue 53 American hostages from Tehran fails; 8 US soldiers are killed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]An IRA bomb causes $1.5 billion of damage in central London when it destroys several square blocks. One person is killed and 40 injured. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Unabomber strikes, killing a timber industry lobbyist. Gilbert Murray is killed in his Sacramento office, opening mail addressed to the man he replaced. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 24 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A petri dish arrives in an 8x10 manila envelope at the Washington, D.C. offices of B'nai B'rith International. The dish, labeled "anthracks," drips a liquidy red gel which is later determined to contain a relatively harmless strain of Bacillus cereus. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Apr 23 33[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to Christian tradition, Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, after being crucified three days prior. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1940[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]198 negroes are killed when the Rhythm Night Club burns down in Natchez, Mississippi. According to one eyewitness: "Everyone was trying to get out and crushing each other as the fire was burning them. All were crying and yelling and after a while I could smell the burning meat. I hope I never see anything like it again." The fire is blamed on the decorative but highly-combustible Spanish moss. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1951[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Lenny Bruce is arrested in Miami Beach, Florida for fraudulently soliciting funds for a leper colony while dressed as a priest. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1969[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death for assassinating Robert Kennedy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1975[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Peter Ham of Badfinger suicides at age 27, by hanging himself. Another bandmate, Tom Evans, suicides later in 1983. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1983[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The West German magazine Stern announces a major historical find: the discovery of 60 volumes of personal diaries purported to have been handwritten by Adolf Hitler. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Apr 23 1985[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Coca-Cola Bottling Company announces that it has irrevocably changed the formula for its flagship beverage, unveiling "New Coke." The company stands firm on its decision until public pressure finally forces them to reintroduce the original drink, exactly 79 days later.[/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 2 1863[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson is accidentally shot three times by his own men. Jackson's left arm is amputated, and he dies eight days later from complications. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 2 1946[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Six prisoners attempt to escape the federal prison on Alcatraz island. They take over their cellblock but fail to gain access to the outside. One guard held hostage is executed by prisoners, and another dies in the attempt to retake the cellblock. The Battle of Alcatraz ends only after the deaths of three prisoners, and two others are subsequently executed at San Quentin. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 2 1957[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Senator Joseph McCarthy dies of hepatitis, brought about by unabated alcoholism. Two and a half years prior he had been censured by the Senate for his "inexcusable" and "reprehensible" conduct during his highly-publicized Communist witch-hunt. McCarthy eventually discovered that it was far more effective to have private industry oppress its workforce, rather than the government oppress its citizenry.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 2 1957[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mob figure Frank Costello is shot in the head by Vincent "the Chin" Gigante. Instead of killing him, the bullet circumnavigates between his skin and cranium, exiting through the original wound. Costello retires from the Mafia soon after. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 2 1972[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]World famous drag queen and longtime G-man J. Edgar Hoover dies in his sleep at the age of 77. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 2 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At 4:45 a.m., L.A. County Sheriff's deputies pull over a car in West Hollywood driven by comedian/actor Eddie Murphy. In the passenger seat is one Atisone Seiuli, a 20-year-old pre-op transsexual prostitute. Murphy informs the officers that he was just trying to be a "good samaritan" and give his she-male acquaintance a ride home. Seiuli is taken into custody for an outstanding prostitution warrant, but the officers allow Murphy to leave without any further ado. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 1 1776[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Adam Weishaupt founds the Bavarian Illuminati, the secret society which controls your mind as part of its plot to overthrow organized religion and control the global economy. If you don't believe it, ask yourself what novus ordo seclorum is doing on your dollar bill. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1863[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Confederate Congress decrees that captured Negro soldiers from the Union Army are to be summarily put to death, on the grounds that they have already "incited servile insurrection." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1889[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The first of May is designated "International Workers Day," in commemoration of Chicago's Haymarket riots of 1886. The new holiday is actually an appropriation of the banned Beltane (Day of Fire), or May Day, traditionally celebrated by encircling a phallic maypole with delectable fertile virgins. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1942[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The 215th and final hanging occurs at California's San Quentin maximum security prison. Subsequent executions utilize the facility's gas chamber, and ultimately, inmate's choice of that or lethal injection. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1945[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Joseph Göbbels and his wife Magda tell their six children they are about to receive inoculation shots, but the injections actually contain poison. The parents then exit the Fuhrerbunker, where an SS man shoots them both in the back of the head. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1960[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Soviet Union fires a SAM-2 surface-to-air missile at the U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers. The aircraft crashes inside Russian territory, near Sverdlosk. For whatever reason, Powers opts not to swallow his suicide pill and is taken into custody.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]During a May Day rally, Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa and his retinue of bodyguards are blown to bits by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Sportscaster Frank Gifford is caught on video having sex with TWA flight attendant Suzen Johnson at the New York Regency Hotel. On the tape, Johnson is heard moaning: "Oh, God that's so good. Oh my, you're so big. I knew you would be -- I just knew you would be." A tabloid paid Johnson $75,000 to fornicate with Gifford, and she later goes on to pose nude in Playboy for a six-figure check. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 1 2003[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Commander in Chief George W. Bush rides shotgun aboard a Navy S-3B Viking jet, before landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, marking the first time a president has boarded an aircraft carrier by plane. Underneath a large "Mission Accomplished" banner, he announces that major combat operations in Iraq have ended.[/FONT]
​

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 9 1950[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]L. Ron Hubbard publishes the first edition of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This follows on the heels of a feature article in the pulp sci-fi magazine Astounding Science Fiction. A book review in the The New Republic describes the work as "a bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long-acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology." The subsequent movement goes on to become one of the scariest, most powerful pseudo-religious cults in modern history. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 9 1978[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The body of former Italian premier Aldo Moro is discovered in the back seat of a Renault. He had been kidnapped 54 days prior by the Red Brigades, who demanded the release of their incarcerated comrades. When Italian authorities refused to give in, Moro's captors killed him. Above is a photo of the hostage holding a newspaper announcing his own death. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 9 1979[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Northwestern University graduate student John Harris opens a cigar box left sitting on a table in the Technological Institute. The resulting blast only manages to inflict minor lacerations and burns. It is later determined to be the second explosive device fabricated by the Unabomber.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 9 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]35 people are killed in Tampa, Florida when the Liberian cargo ship Summit Venture smashes into a supporting pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Seven vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, topple into the water 150 feet below. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 9 1983[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The infallible Pope John Paul II retracts the Catholic Church's condemnation of astronomer Galileo Galilei, issued in 1633 by the infallible Pope Urban VIII. The Church had convicted the scientist of heresy, sentenced him to house arrest, and forced him to recant central scientific truths. In the end, this error only took 350 years to correct. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 9 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The CDC in Atlanta identifies a new strain of filovirus in blood samples taken from 14 disease victims in Kikwit, Zaire. Designated "Ebola," this new pathogen proves to be so tremendously virulent that the government of Zaire is forced to place the entire city of Kinshasa under quarantine in order to contain the outbreak. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 8 1842[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Following a birthday celebration for King Louis Philippe, 59 Parisians returning home by train are trapped in their railcars and incinerated when their train collides with another. In these early days of rail travel, coaches were locked and no means of escape was available. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 8 1902[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mt. Peleé erupts on the West Indies island of Martinique. A wall of superheated ash and rock cascades down the slopes, slamming directly into the community of Saint Pierre. The shockwave and intense heat even manage to destroy twenty ships in the harbor. Only two of the town's 28,000 residents survive the cataclysm.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 8 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Science fiction author Robert A Heinlein dies of emphysema, leaving behind a legacy of subversive novels -- many of which meditate on unconventional sexual mores. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 8 1991[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In a room at Little Rock's Excelsior Hotel, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton exposes his penis to state employee Paula Jones and propositions her to perform fellatio. In her civil deposition, Jones will later claim to have witnessed certain "distinguishing characteristics" of the governor's genitalia, the precise nature of which soon becomes the subject of much speculation. For her trouble, Jones eventually receives an out-of-court settlement for $850,000 and a nude pictorial in Penthouse magazine.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 8 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Former Senator and onetime Presidential candidate Bob Dole tells television interviewer Larry King that he participated in the Viagra impotence drug trials, and thoroughly enjoyed himself in the process. Dole's name soon becomes synonymous with erectile dysfunction.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 8 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Actress Dana Plato, who played Kimberly Drummond on Diff'rent Strokes, dies in Oklahoma of an overdose of Valium and Loritab. Just the previous day, Plato had appeared on the Howard Stern syndicated radio program claiming to be clean and sober.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 7 1915[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed by German submarine U-20 off the coast of Ireland. The ship goes under in just 18 minutes. In their panic, the crew only manages to launch 6 of the 48 lifeboats. As a result 1,201 are killed. Contrary to published reports of the time, the passenger ship was smuggling 3,863 boxes of ammunition and 323 bundles of guncotton into Britain.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 7 1945[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]German admiral Carl Doenitz unconditionally surrenders to Allied forces at Reims, France, thus ending the war in Europe. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 7 1959[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Small-time boxing promoter Don King is arrested in Cleveland on suspicion of drug dealing. His criminal record includes a 1955 arrest for arson, a 1954 arrest for murder, and others.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 7 2001[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Ronnie Biggs, England's escaped "Great Train Robber," returns to face the music after 35 years as a fugitive. After serving just fifteen months of a 30-year sentence, Biggs escaped from prison and fled to Brazil, where he avoided extradition by fathering the baby of a 19-year-old stripper. Partially paralyzed by a couple of strokes, Biggs returns to England for one last pint of beer before he dies. Instead he is taken into custody at Heathrow airport and promptly sent to Belmarsh prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence.[/FONT]

 

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 16 1984[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Intergender wrestling champion and conceptual comic Andy Kaufman pretends to die of lung cancer. In order to make it really convincing, Andy underwent months of radiation therapy and six weeks of psychic surgery in the Philippines. And he never made any more public appearances. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 16 1986[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In the most notorious retcon in the history of television, Pam Ewing wakes up to find her husband Bobby in the shower -- no small feat, considering he's been dead for a whole season. In order to revivify Bobby's character, the Dallas writers resorted to dismissing the entire preceding year as nothing more than Pam's protracted dream. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 16 1990[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Sammy Davis, Jr. dies of throat cancer in Beverly Hills. After the legendary Rat pack singer/entertainer is buried with $70,000 in jewelry, the family discovers that Mr. Bojangles was broke and left millions of dollars in unpaid back taxes. His widow then orders the body exhumed so they can repo the jewelry.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 16 1990[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Attached to a ventilator and swimming in antibiotics, Muppet creator Jim Henson dies of a severe case of pneumonia in a New York hospital. In keeping with his express wishes, no one is permitted to wear black at Henson's funeral service, which features 5,000 fans waving painted butterflies and a live band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 16 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After receiving an anonymous tip that a runaway teen was hiding there, police in Coral Gables, Florida search Jennifer Capriati's motel room and uncover 20 grams of marijuana. The 18-year-old professional tennis player winds up diverted to a drug treatment program, avoiding a court trial.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 15 1960[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Soviet Union launches Sputnik IV, a three-ton spacecraft containing a "dummy cosmonaut." The mission goes fine until they attempt to retrofire. A bug in the guidance system had pointed the capsule in the wrong direction, so instead of dropping into the atmosphere the satellite moves into a higher orbit.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 15 1972[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Hoping to gain everlasting infamy, Arthur Bremer pumps five bullets into Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace during a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland. In his haste, the gunman forgets to yell his carefully-chosen catchphrase, "Penny for your thoughts!" And when Wallace survives the assassination attempt, albeit confined to a wheelchair, Bremer's name is soon forgotten. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 15 1974[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Three Arab gunmen disguised as Israeli soldiers seize control of the schoolhouse at Ma'alot. Taken hostage are more than 100 teenaged students and their teachers. The captors, members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, demand the release of 26 political prisoners. Israeli commandos storm the school only 15 minutes before the deadline; 18 children are killed in the firefight. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 15 1985[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Graduate student John Hauser loses most of his right hand in a UC Berkeley computer room when he opens an innocent-looking box attached to a looseleaf binder. It is the second device left in this building from the Unabomber. In fact, the engineering professor who applies the tourniquet to Hauser's arm was the victim in the previous attack, three years prior. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 15 1991[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Alan Cooper stands trial in England for "committing a lewd, obscene, and disgusting act on the 12-foot dolphin called Freddie as they frolicked for 20 minutes off the harbor mouth at Amble, Northumberland." Cooper responds by claiming that his accuser was a sworn enemy and had trained dolphins for a movie to jump out of the water and tear off a woman's bikini bra. He is eventually acquitted of masturbating the cetacean. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 15 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Federal prosecutors in the Unabomber trial file the necessary paperwork requesting the death penalty for Ted Kaczynski.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 14 964[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pope John XII dies of injuries inflicted eight days prior by a jealous husband who caught him in flagrante delicto with his wife. The 26-year-old pontiff had received a blow to the temple, causing immediate paralysis. Critics had accused John of converting the Lateran Palace into a whorehouse.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 14 1610[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Fanatical monk François Ravaillac jumps aboard the coach of King Henry IV and stabs him twice through the open window. Then the French monarch bleeds to death before medical help can reach him.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 14 1976[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Keith Relf, former vocalist of the Yardbirds, is electrocuted in his London home while either tuning or playing a guitar belonging to either him or his son, in either the basement or the bathtub. Details are sort of sketchy, resulting from the family's reticence to describe the death scene. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 14 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mobbed-up international recording star and Academy Award winner Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack shortly after the airing of the final Seinfeld episode. The Chairman of the Board of Show Business had an oddly appropriate personal motto: "You gotta love livin' baby, 'cause dyin's a pain in the ass."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 14 2001[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Supreme Court rules that a federal law classifying marijuana as illegal has no exception for ill patients. The 8-0 decision is a major defeat for suffers of terminal diseases and groovy potheads alike. [/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]oday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 20 1960[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Music DJ Alan Freed, originator of the term "Rock and Roll," is indicted in New York in the Payola scandal. Freed had accepted $30,650 from five record companies to play their records, although to be fair "pay for play" was the accepted practice up to that point. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 20 1971[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The bassist and lead singer for the band Chicago undergoes five hours of emergency surgery after getting jumped at a Cubs-Dodgers baseball game. Peter Cetera winds up losing four teeth because some guys decided that his hair was too long. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 20 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Conservative British MP Harvey Proctor pleads guilty to committing acts of gross indecency against minors -- paying rent boys to spank them in his London flat. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 20 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Attempting to clear Tiananmen Square of student activists and quell 100 million others protesting throughout the country, China declares martial law in Beijing. Two weeks later, after they continue to loiter in the Square, thousands of students are massacred by government troops.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 20 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The dissolving body parts of eight people are discovered inside six plastic barrels sitting in an abandoned bank vault in Snowtown, Australia. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 19 1536[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In the first public execution of an English queen, Anne Boleyn is beheaded. In her speech, Boleyn has nothing but good things to say about her husband, Henry VIII: "I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1890[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nguyen Tat Thanh is born in central Vietnam. After World War I he devotes his life to the Communist cause, adopting a series of pseudonyms along the way. Finally he settles on "The Enlightener," that being the English translation of Ho Chi Minh. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1928[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Saloth Sar, one of the world's most successful mass murderers, is born in French Indochina. He later adopts the name Pol Pot in 1976, a year after the Khmer Rouge seizes control of Cambodia. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Chet Fleming files for a patent on his method for keeping a severed head alive. The mechanism includes blood filtering, pumping equipment, and nutrient supply. Ultimately, US Patent 4,666,425 is granted. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1992[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]17-year-old Amy Fisher shoots Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the face. Amy had been having an affair with Mary Jo's 38-year-old husband Joey. Fisher winds up spending seven years in prison, and Mary Jo winds up with a plate in her head. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Four servicemen are killed on an inspection flight when their Blackhawk helicopter crashes in the woods near Quantico, Virginia. Maj. William Barcley, SSgt. Brian Haney, Capt. Scott Reynolds, and Marine Sgt. Timothy Sabel had flown President Bill Clinton to the USS Theodore Roosevelt during his visit to the aircraft carrier two months prior. Hence, the men qualify as former "Clinton bodyguards" and their untimely deaths should be interpreted as evidence that they were killed simply because they knew too much. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 19 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jackie O., one the many women John F. Kennedy had sex with, dies of lymphatic cancer in her 15-room Manhattan apartment. In accordance with her 36-page will, most of her personal possessions are to be publicly auctioned by Sotheby's two years later. At which, one bidder observes that people are paying "100 times the value for objects that are amazingly mediocre." In fact, the average price for individual pieces of costume jewelry is $18,750.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 18 1843[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]"I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left." -- Joseph Smith, prophet of God and founder of the Mormon church [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 18 1904[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In Paris, 12 nations ratify the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. Another 48 countries and territories follow suit over the next six years. Conspicuously absent from the list of signatories is the United States of America. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 18 1936[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Tokyo gangster Kichizo Ishida is accidentally strangled by his mistress during a session of rough sex. Ishida had been a "gasper," someone who enjoys the sexual effects of asphyxiation. The woman, Sada Abe, indulged him by wrapping her pink kimono belt around his neck. After her lover's death, Abe cuts off Ishida's penis and scrotum with a meat cleaver and carries them around until she is finally arrested, three days later.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 18 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The body of Ian Curtis, lead singer of dirge band Joy Division, is discovered hanging in the kitchen by his wife. Curtis killed himself on the eve of Joy Division's U.S. tour. His surviving bandmates go on to form New Order. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 18 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in Washington state, 57 people are killed in an avalanche of volcanic mud in the eruption of Mount St. Helens. The volcano spews out 200 million cubic yards of of pumice, ash, and debris which covers 24 square miles of the valley below. [/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 24 1610[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Buggery is criminalized for the first time in North America, when the Virginia colony declares that "[n]o man shal commit the horrible, and detestable sinnes of Sodomie upon pain of death."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 24 1856[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A small gang led by abolitionist John Brown murders five pro-slavery homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas, hacking them to pieces with swords. The event comes to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 24 1920[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Senile French President Paul Deschanel falls off a train bound for Montbrison, and is later discovered wandering along the track in his pajamas. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 24 1964[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]All hell breaks loose in the closing minutes of a match between Peru and Argentina, after a referee disallows a goal. 318 people are killed and 500 injured in Lima, Peru, making it the worst soccer riot in history. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 23 1498[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Religious fundamentalist Girolamo Savonarola is executed in Florence, Italy for his many heresies. The Catholic Church had already excommunicated the Dominican friar the year before, but Savonarola continued to preach for radical reforms. Among other things, he held "bonfires of the vanities" for his parishioners' worldly possessions, because they competed with the word of God for attention. Brother Savonarola is hanged along with two accomplices and their bodies burned. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 1618[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In what is later called the "Defenestration of Prague," three men representing the soon-to-be Emperor Ferdinand II are thrown from a window in the Hradshin Palace by Protestant noblemen. Luckily for the imperial emissaries, they land on a large pile of trash and survive. But when the Catholic Ferdinand assumes the throne the following year, all hell breaks loose in Europe, starting with Bohemia. Thus begins the horrific religious conflict that comes to be known as the Thirty Years War. It is generally agreed that the war set back the continent a full century. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 1701[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Captain William Kidd is hanged in London. Afrer the first attempt fails when the rope snaps, Kidd is brought right back to the gallows and the process repeated. After death, the body is slathered in tar, chained up, and suspended over the Thames where it remains for years as an example to others considering a life of piracy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 1934[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A group of FBI agents and police officers from two states ambush Bonnie and Clyde on a highway near Gibsland, Louisiana. The men open fire as the bank robbers drive past the concealed posse, unloading hundreds of rounds into the car.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 1960[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reveals that Mossad agents have captured fugitive war criminal Adolf Eichmann and smuggled him out of Argentina. Ben-Gurion announces: "Eichmann is already in this country under arrest and will shortly be brought to trial." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 1984[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Candy heiress Helen Brach is declared legally dead, seven years after disappearing mysteriously in February 1977.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 23 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Scientists led by Dr. Anthony Atala (Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University) announce they can grow artificial, fully-functional bunny penises in a lab. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 22 337[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Emperor Constantine dies. Although quite dead, his embalmed corpse continues to act as head of state, receving state dignitaries and daily reports from ministers as if nothing had changed. Constantine's macabre leadership continues through winter. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1851[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Hail the size of pumpkins falls on Bangalore, India. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1949[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal falls out of a 16th floor window at Bethesda Naval Hospital with a bathrobe cord knotted tightly around his neck. The death is ruled a suicide, and Forrestal is buried in Arlington Cemetery. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1954[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]400 people attend the Bar Mitzvah for Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) in Hibbing, Minnesota. He later converts to Christianity in 1979. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1957[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A B-36 bomber accidentally drops a 10 megaton hydrogen bomb over an uninhabited area near Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conventional charges detonate on impact, leaving a radioactive crater 12 feet deep and 25 feet wide.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1967[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]322 Belgians are killed when fire sweeps through the second-largest department store in Brussels. Many of the victims leaped to their deaths, although most who landed on parked cars survive. The store, L'Innovation, had been having a sale on American goods. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1968[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The nuclear submarine U.S.S. Scorpion sinks to the bottom with all 99 aboard perishing, after it is reassigned to a spy mission and begins to head towards the Canary Islands. Navy Warrant Officer John Walker (a mole) had certainly reported enough to the KGB to allow them to read the Scorpion's encrypted transmissions. For reasons yet unknown, Navy officials of the U.S. and Soviet Union agree not to discuss the circumstances of this incident or the sinking of a Soviet sub the same year.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]May 22 1981[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Peter Sutcliffe is convicted of murdering 13 women in the Yorkshire Ripper trial. In the words of the presiding judge: "It is difficult to find words that are adequate in my judgment to describe the brutality and gravity of these offences and I say at once I am not going to pause to seek those words. I am prepared to let the catalogue of crimes speak for itself."[/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 5 1956[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Elvis Presley appears on Milton Berle TV show. His undulating hip movements during the song "Hound Dog" cause quite a controversy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 5 1968[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Seconds after Senator Robert F. Kennedy is shot dead by Sirhan Sirhan in a Los Angeles hotel, witnesses wrestle the Palestinian to the ground and grab his smoking .22-caliber revolver. Sirhan later claims to have been acting unconsciously, possibly the result of hypnotic brainwashing. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 5 1975[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]During the Wish You Were Here recording sessions, Syd Barrett just happens to wander into Abbey Road studio while Pink Floyd are mixing "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," a song written about Barrett. At first, none of Syd's former bandmates recognizes the fat, bald lunatic who is compulsively brushing his teeth. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 5 1986[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A 52-year old man in Auburn, Washington dies after taking an Excedrin capsule laced with cyanide. This is the first of two Excedrin deaths. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 5 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Reuters and ABC News both erroneously report the death of Bob Hope, after Arizona congressman Bob Stump announces the comedian's demise on the floor of the U.S. Congress. This is to the great surprise of Bob Hope himself, who was eating breakfast at the time. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 4 1939[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After already having been turned away by Cuba, the SS St. Louis is also denied permission to land in Florida. So it is forced to return to Europe with its cargo of 963 Jewish refugees, most of whom will later die in Nazi concentration camps. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 4 1967[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Emmy for best comedy TV series is won by The Monkees. Good heavens. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 4 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Chinese troops, firing a few warning shots, manage to push tens of thousands of student protesters out of Tiananmen Square without killing any of them. This changes once they're out of the Square, however. In the end, hundreds of unarmed citizens on the streets of Beijing are massacred by the army. Later, several leaders of the pro-democracy demonstration are publicly executed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 4 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]645 rail passengers are killed in a natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia. Their two trains are torn apart as they pass each other, throwing sparks near a leaky pipeline. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 4 2000[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Detroit rapper Eminem pistol-whips John Guerrera for kissing Kim Mathers, the object of his affections and/or rage. He is charged with disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. Eminem tells a different story on his album The Eminem Show: "you're full of shit too Guerrera / that was a fist that hit you"[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 3 1791[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The French Assembly passes a resolution bringing decapitation to the common criminal: "Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1943[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Three days after a sailor had been badly injured in a brawl with a group of Hispanics, a mob of 60 servicemen leaves the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory and bludgeons anybody wearing a zoot suit. The first two victims are a couple of boys, aged 12 and 13, who were just sitting in the Carmen Theater watching a movie. Thus begins a week-long race riot. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1968[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, arrives at the art studio of Andy Warhol and shoots him three times in the torso. Warhol barely survives the attempt on his life. Solanas is later jailed and institutionalized. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dies after 11 days in a hospital, recovering from surgery to stop internal hemorrhaging. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1991[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Students throw eggs at South Korean Prime Minister Chung Won Shik. Nobody is injured in the incident at Hankuk University in Seoul. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]15-year-old teen idol Brad Renfro is arrested in Knoxville, Tennessee and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 3 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The world's first fatal high-speed rail accident occurs when a train near Eschede, Germany derails and 101 people are killed.[/FONT]

 

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 12 1963[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Civil rights lawyer Medgar Evers is shot dead in the driveway of his home in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The assassin, a Klansman named Byron De La Beckwith, dodges prison when two all-white juries return hung verdicts, but is finally convicted of the crime in 1994. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 12 1978[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]David Berkowitz is sentenced to 365 consecutive years in prison without the possibility of parole. Berkowitz killed six New Yorkers between 1976 and 1977, known collectively as the Son of Sam murders. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 12 1991[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After 500 years of silence, Mount Pinatubo erupts, making an estimated 100,000 homeless and killing 300. Two U.S. military bases, Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, are abandoned. The blast is ten times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 12 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nicole Brown Simpson and her male friend Ronald Goldman are savagely murdered in front of Simpson's condominium complex in Brentwood, California. The most plausible suspect turns out to be Nicole's estranged husband O.J., who is arrested for the crime a month later.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 11 1881[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A phantom vessel appears in the sky to the passengers and crew of the ship Bacchante, including Price Albert Victor and Prince George, both sons of the Prince of Wales. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1936[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, suicides by blowing his brains out. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1955[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]An Austin-Healy and Mercedes-Benz collide at the Le Mans Grand Prix. The Mercedes drove into a dirt retaining wall, disintegrated, and the hood, chassis, and various auto parts sliced through the spectator crowd. Eighty-three were killed, and 100 others were missing various "parts". [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1962[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Frank Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin escape from Alcatraz. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1963[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Protesting the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1963[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Governor Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door, blocking admission of blacks to the University of Alabama. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1964[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Just after 9am, deranged World War II veteran Walter Seifert barges into a busy Cologne, Germany elementary school with a homemade flamethrower. He then proceeds to burn 8 children to death and seriously injure 21 others. In the process, he also stabs 2 teachers to death with a lance. Before police are finally able to apprehend him with a gunshot to the leg, Seifert swallows insecticide and proceeds to die in the hospital the next day.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1979[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]John Wayne dead of lung cancer. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Actor Ray Sharkey dead from AIDS. Ray was a cocaine/heroin addict who appeared as mobster Sonny Steelgrave on the TV show Wiseguy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 11 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=arial,helvetica][SIZE=-2] I ' M D E A D J I M [/FONT]
DeForest Kelley, "Bones" from the original Star Trek television series, dead of a "lingering illness". [/SIZE][/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 10 1692[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts after having been convicted of "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries." Bishop is just the first casualty of what will come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 10 1942[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The town of Lidice (Loditz) is liquidated by the Nazis as penalty for the assassination of Adolf Hitler's favorite general, Reinhard Heydrich. Every adult male is killed, the women sent to the camps, and the town bulldozed. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 10 1973[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The 17-year-old grandson of J. Paul Getty is abducted in Rome. When the kidnappers demand a $17 million ransom, the billionaire refuses. "I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren." After the grandson's severed ear arrives in the mail, Getty finally coughs up the money. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 10 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Percy Wood, president of United Airlines, receives a parcel at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois. Inside is a copy of the book Ice Brothers by Sloan Wilson. When he opens the book, it suddenly explodes, throwing shrapnel into Wood's hands, face, and thigh. The book turns out to be a present from the Unabomber. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 10 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Outside on the front lawn of his Miami home, Russell Cameron is covered with trash and doused with gasoline. Then his lunatic nephew, Thomas Pellechio, sets the pile on fire and runs away. When police arrive, they discover a 12.5 inch Oriental sword in Cameron's rectum, rammed in all the way up to the hilt. [/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 16 1750 BC[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]King Hammurabi dies in Babylon, and is succeeded by his son Samsu-iluna. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1948[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In the first skyjacking of a commercial plane, three armed men storm the cockpit of the Miss Macao, a passenger seaplane operated by Cathay Pacific airline. When the pilot refuses to turn over the controls, he is shot dead and the plane crashes into the ocean. The only survivor among the 27 people on board is the leader of the terrorists. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1958[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Imre Nagy, once prime minister of Hungary for all of ten days, is executed by the Soviet Union for attempting to withdraw his country from the Warsaw Pact. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1959[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]While entertaining friends at his home, George Reeves, who played the title character in the original Superman TV series, goes upstairs to his bedroom and commits suicide with a 9mm German Luger.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1960[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho opens in New York. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1976[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]15,000 schoolchildren take to the streets of Soweto to protest South Africa's adoption of bilingual instruction in the Afrikaans language. The nonviolent march ends abruptly when police and soldiers open fire on the crowd, killing 600 and igniting days of rioting throughout the region.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 16 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The founder of the United Kingdom's Monster Raving Loony Party, one Screaming Lord Sutch (real name David Edward Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow), is found hanged at his late mother's residence. Sutch was the longest lasting party leader in the UK at the time of his death, ruled a suicide. One of the Loony Party planks was to ask rhetorically, "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?" [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 15 1409[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Petros Philargos is elected Pope Alexander V by the Council of Pisa. This poses a certain amount of difficulty, as there already is a Pope in Rome, Gregory XII, and another in Avignon, Benedict XII. Ultimately, none of the three is willing to step down, leading the Chuch into a double schism. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1667[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jean-Baptiste Denis performs the world's first blood transfusion on a human subject. He gives a feverish and drowsy man about 12 ounces of lamb's blood, after which the patient "rapidly recovered from his lethargy, grew fatter and was an object of surprise and astonishment to all who knew him." Nevertheless, it will be another century before human-to-human transfusions are attempted.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1955[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Eisenhower administration stages the first annual OPAL exercise. In the "Operation Alert" drill, air raid sirens blare across America to assess our preparations for a nuclear attack. Duck and cover, people. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1969[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Hee Haw debuts on CBS television as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The country bumpkin musical comedy show quickly becomes an institution, airing weekly until its demise in December 1997. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1992[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Supreme Court rules in US v. Alvarez-Machain that it is permissible for America to abduct suspects in foreign countries and smuggle them into the United States for trial, without extradition approval from those other countries. Of course, the U.S. recognizes no reciprocal right for the reverse to happen on our soil. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Washington Times reports that at least 1,416 Boy Scout leaders have been expelled for molestation since 1973. Of course, those were only the ones who actually got caught. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 15 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Nicholas Vitalich is arrested outside a supermarket in San Diego, California for slapping his girlfriend upside the head with a large tuna. Vitalich is booked for assault with a deadly weapon, namely the fish. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 14 1648[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Midwife Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft. It is the first such execution for the Massachusetts colony, but not the first in the colonies.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1954[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At the Lincoln Memorial, President Dwight Eisenhower signs a law inserting the words "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance. Eisenhower declares: "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty." Precisely which Almighty is left to the listener's imagination. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1961[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]1980s pop music star Boy George is born in Kent, England. As he later comes to describe his childhood, "I had five brothers and I was brought up drinking the same water and being fed the same doctrine as my brothers, but somehow I turned out to be a fabulous homosexual."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1962[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Albert DeSalvo murders Anna Slesersby by strangling her with the belt from her robe. She is only the first victim of "The Boston Strangler." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1966[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Vatican announces the abolition of its Index librorum prohibitum (Index of Prohibited Books), originally instituted in 1557 by Pope Paul IV. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1976[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Gong Show debuts on NBC. People with dubious talents perform their acts before a celebrity panel of judges, who are free to eject the performer at any time by banging a large gong. The best non-gonged performer each night wins $516.32. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Zsa Zsa Gabor is arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer and driving with an expired license. Afterwards Zsa Zsa complains to the press that the handling she received from the BHPD "was like Nazi Germany." Ultimately, Gabor is convicted and sentenced to 72 hours in jail. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]During a week-long Product Tampering scare, Pepsi-Cola suspends its advertising campaign after nationwide reports of customers discovering syringes in unopened cans of Diet Pepsi. In response, television host David Letterman suggests ten new slogans, including "200cc's of great taste" and "Every can inspected by Ray Charles" (the company's blind celebrity spokesman). [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 14 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]New York's masked menace Spider-Man reveals his identity to the world during a press conference (in Civil War issue 2) to comply with the Superhero Registration Act. [/FONT]
​

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 28 1905[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Dr. Beaurieux picks up the freshly-severed head of Henri Languille just after it drops into the guillotine basket and shouts the man's name three times. According to the doctor's report: "Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. ... I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 28 1914[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]During a parade in Sarajevo, Nedjelko Cabrinovic tosses a grenade into the automobile carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sofia. But Ferdinand knocks the bomb away with his arm and his driver speeds away from the would-be assassin. A short while later, during the return drive, Gavrilo Princip pulls out an automatic pistol and kills both Ferdinand and his pregnant wife. Five weeks later, the continent of Europe erupts into World War I. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 28 1969[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The three-day Stonewall Riots, triggered by the police raid of a New York City gay bar, begin the gay rights movement. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 28 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mike Tyson is disqualified from a championship boxing bout after biting off a large portion of Evander Holyfield's ear. Tyson is later banned from boxing and fined $3 million for the incident. Tastes like chicken. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 27 1844[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mormon leader Joseph Smith, along with his brother Hyrum, are shot and killed by a mob while in jail at Carthage, Illinois. According to church legend, after Smith is shot a man raises a knife to decapitate him, but is thwarted by a thunderbolt from heaven. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 27 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Hillel Slovak, original guitarist from sock-friendly rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers dies of a smack overdose in Hollywood. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 27 1995[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The LAPD arrests streetwalker Divine Brown on Hawthorn Ave. where she is discovered giving British movie star Hugh Grant a blowjob in his white BMW. To be fair, they also arrest Grant for procuring said blowjob.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 27 2001[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Police arrest comedian Paula Poundstone in Malibu, California on charges of lewd conduct with a minor. Poundstone's pending criminal trial remains front page news for the next three months, until it is overshadowed by the World Trade Center attacks in September. Soon thereafter, she pleads guilty to a lesser charge, and the details of her indictment are never disclosed to the public. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 26 1945[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The United Nations Charter is signed at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House, paving the way for the New World Order. Aim for the blue helmets, everyone! [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 26 1961[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]John F. Kennedy tells the German nation and pastry lovers everywhere "Ich bin ein Berliner"; whether or not he is, in fact, a jelly donut remains a matter of speculation to this day. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 26 1968[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pope Paul VI declares that the bones of Apostle and first Pope, Saint Peter, were found underneath St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The bones are now housed in plexiglass containers near where they were found, but some of them are clearly those of domesticated animals.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 26 1990[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Irish Republican Army bombs the Carlton Club, an exclusive conservative gentleman's cabal in London. (It is a well known fact that Margaret Thatcher was denoted an "honorary man" in order to become a member. It is not clear what surgical modifications, if any, were necessary.) [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jun 26 1992[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=arial,helvetica][SIZE=-2] G O N A V Y [/FONT]
Secretary of the Navy H. Lawrence Garrett resigns over the handling of the Tailhook Scandal, in which 26 women were sexually abused. Some of the women, including 14 Navy officers, had been forced to run through a "gauntlet" where they were groped by Navy personnel. [/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 5 1946[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Louis Reard's latest swimsuit creation, the two-piece Bikini, goes on sale in Paris. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 5 1948[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The body of 29-year-old actress Carole Landis is discovered in her home in Brentwood Heights, California. Landis, whose film career had recently stalled, overdosed on Seconal and left behind a suicide note addressed to her mother. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 5 1963[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Catholic Church finally sanctions cremation as an acceptable means of remains disposal. (Code of Canon Law, Can. 1176) [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 5 1984[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In deciding United States v. Leon, the Supreme Court permits "good faith" exceptions the exclusionary rule. Illegal evidence is now admissible if obtained by the police in "good faith." Justice William Brennan writes, "The Court's victory over the Fourth Amendment is complete." [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 4 1054[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A supernova suddenly appears in the constellation Taurus. It is so bright that for the first 23 days it is visible during the day. Then it gradually fades away, finally disappearing after a year or so. Today the remnants of this star are the Crab Nebula.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 4 1826[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A comatose Thomas Jefferson dies on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, only a few hours before John Adams also expires. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 4 1961[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In the North Atlantic, a leaky pipe drains all of the coolant from the starboard reactor aboard the Soviet submarine K-19. 22 sailors are killed in the resulting nuclear accident. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 4 1976[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After receiving an especially bloody beating at the hands of her husband Ike, Tina Turner sneaks out of the Dallas hotel they're staying at while he is asleep. She walks away from their 16-year relationship with only 36 cents in her pocket. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 4 1984[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]For the first time, Nancy Reagan utters the immortal words: "Just say no." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 4 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A court in Lyon, France convicts Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, for the deportation of Jews, torture of resistance fighters, and crimes against humanity during World War II. Barbie spends the rest of his life in prison. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 3 1905[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Russian troops kill 6,000 in Odessa to break a general strike. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 3 1963[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Two former secretaries of the Nation of Islam file paternity suits against the head of their church, the honorable Elijah Muhammad. They claimed the prophet had fathered their four children. The allegations eventually cause Malcolm X to quit the NOI. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 3 1971[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jim Morrison is found dead of an apparent heart attack in his Paris apartment bathtub. That's what he wants us to think, anyway.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 3 1987[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Vladimir Nikolayev is sentenced to death for killing and eating two people in Novocheboksary, Chuvashia. When police arrested Nikolayev the previous year, they found human meat roasting on the stove, more in the oven, and body parts stashed on his balcony packed in snow. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 3 1988[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mistaking it for a F-14 fighter plane, the American warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air flight 655, killing all 290 people aboard. Despite his country's having recklessly downed a passenger airliner while operating inside Iran's territorial waters, Vice President George Bush declares a month later: "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 3 1989[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Television actor Jim Backus, known to millions as Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island, dies in Los Angeles of Parkinson's disease. [/FONT]
​

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 14 1789[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A mob of 20,000 people storms Bastille Prison in Paris, killing its personnel and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, a nobleman jailed for incest, and an insane Irishman. The warden is decapitated and his head carried around on a pike. So begins the French Revolution. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1881[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In the Sumner, New Mexico home of his friend Pete Maxwell, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid steps into a darkened bedroom and is shot dead by sheriff Pat Garrett. Billy's last words are "¿Quién es?" (Who is it?)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1902[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]One day after workmen noticed a large crack in the structure, the Belltower of St. Mark's collapses into a hill of white dust. Ten years later, the city of Venice erects an exact duplicate of the tower on the same spot. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1960[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a religious statue topples onto a shelf of votive candles in a Guatemalan insane asylum, the resulting blaze sweeps through the facility, killing 225 inmates and seriously injuring another 300. 50 lunatics manage to escape during the commotion, and only two are ever recaptured. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1966[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Richard Speck slaughters eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1969[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]El Salvador's defeat of the Honduras soccer team in Mexico City inflamed passions between the two countries to such an extent that the countries began warring with each other on this date. 2,000 people died during four days of hostilities known as the "Futbol War". [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Catherine Sheehan, a Beverly Hills whore, files suit against Jack Nicholson, alleging that the actor did not cough up the $1000 he owed her for sexual acts she performed with him the night of October 12, 1996. The complaint alleged assault, battery, and emotional distress; punitive damages were requested. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Actor/nudist Brad Pitt receives his wish for a court order requiring Playgirl magazine to remove the "Brad Pitt Nude" issue from the newsstands. Here's one of the offending photos, showing Pitt prancing about like a fucking fairy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 14 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Rapper Eminem remarries Kim Mathers, the subject of many of his rap songs, and 82 days later files for his second divorce from her. Eminem's best man, Proof, is later shot to death in a Detroit club. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 13 1793[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 13 1917[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The first appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. A later apparition that year was witnessed by 70,000 people in some manner of mass hallucination. The B.V.M. entrusted the children with three prophecies of the coming apocalypse, the third of which the Vatican retains in a locked wooden box, refusing to reveal it until after 1960. (They don't get around to it until 2000.) [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 13 1946[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Cheech Marin's birthday. He's actually (gasp) Iranian, and his name is Richard. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 13 1985[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 13 1994[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, is sentenced in Portland, Oregon, to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. He serves six months. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 12 1843[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy. The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 12 1979[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Bonanno boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", is whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn. Galante dies with a cigar still in his mouth. Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno, and Santo Trafficante. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 12 1979[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]It is "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brings along a disco record for the bonfire. During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs fly onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 12 1996[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Combative TV talk show host Morton Downey Jr., a former board member of the National Smokers Alliance who unfailingly smoked on the air, undergoes lung cancer surgery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, Downey begins a nationwide anti-smoking crusade. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 12 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Having secured his homemade bungee cord to the Lake Accotink Park train trestle in Springfield, Virginia, fast-food worker Eric A. Barcia leaps into the 70 foot drop. A couple of seconds later, he hits the pavement full-force and dies on the spot. During assembly, Barcia had carefully measured the equipment and made certain it was somewhat shorter than 70 feet, yet he neglected to consider the elasticity of his creation[/FONT]

 

[RIDER]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 25 1485[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]In Toledo, Spain, over 400 dead bodies are charged with heresy and burned in effigy, in a great public spectacle. What a wonderful thing, this Spanish Inquisition. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 25 1917[/FONT]
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[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, also known as Mata Hari, is found guilty of spying and is sentenced to death. There is no actual evidence that she is a spy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 25 1985[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Rock Hudson acknowledges he has AIDS. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 25 1990[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At a baseball game, actress Rosanne Arnold warbles the Star Spangled Banner, grabs her crotch, and endears herself to an entire nation. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 25 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Woodstock '99 festival ends in looting and rioting, leaving 12 trailers burned, towers toppled, and several women raped during the course of the show. About 500 state troopers were needed to quell the mass uprising of peace and love, apparently triggered by overpriced vendors and commercialization. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 25 2000[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]A right tire explosion on the Concorde causes the plane to crash after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, leaving 113 dead. It is the first crash in Concorde's history, and the only supersonic commercial flight to ever crash. [/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 24 1704[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a three-day siege, a force of 1,800 English and Dutch troops seizes Gibraltar from Spain. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht officially deeds it to Great Britain, who never gives it back. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 1915[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

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[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Almost 800 Western Electric employees and their family members perish when the chartered steamer Eastland rolls over in Chicago harbor. History blames the top-heaviness of the ship, exacerbated (ironically) by the recent addition of lifeboats. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 1980[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Comedic actor Peter Sellers dies of a heart attack in the Dorchester Hotel, London. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 1993[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After a game in Los Angeles, New York Mets outfielder Vince Coleman tosses an M-100 firecracker at a crowd of baseball fans in Dodger Stadium's parking lot. The firework injures three children waiting for autographs, including two-year-old Amanda Santos. Coleman spends 200 hours performing community service and the rest of the year not playing professional baseball. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 1998[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Russell E. Weston Jr., who believed Navy Seals were hiding in his cornfield, kills two cops and wounds a civilian with a .38 at the U.S. Capitol building. It is later revealed that Weston is a schizophrenic who stopped taking his medication. Two days prior to the Capitol shooting, at his grandmother's insistence, Weston shot and killed his family's 25 cats because they had fleas. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 1999[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Former Guns N' Roses guitarist "Slash" is arrested in West Hollywood for allegedly beating his girlfriend at the Le Parc Hotel five days prior. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 24 2002[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]By a vote of 420 to 1, James Traficant is expelled from the House of Representatives for a variety of abuses, chiefly: bribery, tax evasion, and racketeering. Traficant himself could not vote on the matter; the sole vote against expulsion came from embattled Congressman Gary Condit. Primarily he will be remembered for his magnificent toupee. At least we think it's a toupee.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 23 1944[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Red Cross is finally allowed to tour the Theresienstadt ghetto, only nine months after their initial request. The Nazis spent the time constructing fake stores, cafes, schools, and flower gardens. Ultimately, the ICRC finds conditions in the camp only moderately acceptable. Following the inspection, the Nazis produce a propaganda film in the "model Jewish settlement." Then they ship most of the cast off to Auschwitz. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1967[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]After 73 negroes are arrested at a nightclub in Detroit, a race riot breaks out and continues for seven days. 43 people are killed, more than 2,000 injured, and at least 1,400 acts of arson. On a positive note, store looting is perpetrated by both blacks and whites. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1972[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Organizational meetings are held at the Rockefeller estate for the Trilateral Commission, a group of powerbrokers representing the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Rockefeller, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Zbigniew Brzezinski attend. If you ever wonder who THEY are, it's them. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1982[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Vic Morrow is killed filming a stunt sequence for Twilight Zone: The Movie near Valencia, California. Morrow and two child actors are chopped into bits by the main rotor when a helicopter positioned dangerously close to the talent suddenly crashes. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1984[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, relinquishes her crown after Penthouse magazine announced its plans to publish lesbian-themed photos of her in its September issue. Prior to entering the Miss America contest Williams had certified having committed no embarrassing acts of "moral turpitude." [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1996[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Happy Birthday, Rotten.com![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1996[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Harry Morgan, Col. Potter on TV's M*A*S*H, is arraigned on charges of spousal abuse. LAPD officers responding to a 911 call at the couple's Brentwood, California home had discovered his wife Barbara bruised and bleeding from her face. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Jul 23 1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Andrew Cunanan, the homosexual serial killer whose five victims included fashion designer Gianni Versace, is found dead on the houseboat he was squatting in. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. [/FONT]