This Day & History ...

Today in Rotten History
Apr 27 4977 BC

God creates the universe, according to calculations by mystic and part-time astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Apr 27 1509

The entire state of Venice is excommunicated by Pope Julius II for an entirely secular reason: the refusal to place parts of Romagna under the Pope's control.

Apr 27 1521

In an hourlong battle with Philippine islanders, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his men are repeatedly jabbed with sharpened bamboo spears. After Magellan finally succumbs to his wounds, the natives hack him to pieces with their swords.

Apr 27 1861

In a blatantly unconstitutional act, President Abraham Lincoln suspends habeas corpus inside a zone between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The government may now detain citizens indefinitely without ever filing charges. A year and a half later, Lincoln expands the scope of his order to the entire nation.

Apr 27 1865

At least 1,700 Union soldiers are killed when the boiler aboard the steamship Sultana suddenly explodes.

Apr 27 1940

Heinrich Himmler gives orders to construct a concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland. Only 14 months later, Auschwitz is open for business.

Apr 27 1963

Comedian Lenny Bruce is arrested in Miami for illegal possession of hypodermic needles. They were, however, for legally-prescribed prescription drugs.

Apr 27 1986

During a live TV special, journalist Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone's vault beneath the Lexington Hotel in Chicago. He finds nothing inside, apart from a few empty bottles.

Apr 27 1986

Someone interrupts the HBO satellite feed during the movie The Falcon and The Snowman. For five minutes, two-thirds of their customer base receives the message: Good evening HBO from Captain Midnight. $12.95 a month? No way! (Showtime-Movie Channel Beware.) Three months later, the FCC arrests Florida satellite dish retailer John R. MacDougall for the crime.

Apr 27 1987

After determining that Kurt Waldheim had "assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of persons" during his Nazi years, the Department of Justice places him on a watch list of undesirable aliens. As such, the sitting President of Austria is disallowed entry into the U.S. It is the first time that a foreign head of state is legally forbidden from visiting America.


Yesterday in Rotten History
Apr 26 1865

Discovered hiding in a farmer's tobacco shed, John Wilkes Booth is shot in the neck by a complete lunatic. Dying and paralyzed from the neck down, he whispers: "Tell my mother I did it for my country." As his hands are held up to his face, Booth mutters "useless... useless..." They are his last words.

Apr 26 1933

Hermann Goering founds the Geheime Staatspolizei, otherwise known as the Gestapo. The original purpose of this "Secret State Police" is to disrupt and harass opponents of National Socialism, but it will later come to adopt many additional responsibilities.

Apr 26 1969

Paul McCartney denies rumors of his recent death. Eventually, most people come to believe him.

Apr 26 1986

44 seconds into a late-night experiment at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, reactor number four sustains two large explosions. A plume of dangerous radioactivity looms three kilometers high, making it the worst catastrophe in the history of nuclear power. The Soviet news agency TASS holds off reporting the incident for almost 48 hours.

Apr 26 1991

In a telephone interview, Michigan judge Francis Bourisseau explains that he would never grant an abortion to a minor, except perhaps for white girls raped by blacks. For some reason, this statement manages to attract wide attention.

Apr 26 2006

Snoop Dogg and his entourage arrested in London's Heathrow Airport for creating a disturbance when British Airways wouldn't allow the group into a first class lounge. After being escorted outside, there was a fight and seven police officers were injured. After a night in jail, the group is freed but Big Snoop Dogg has been banned from the U.K. and British Airways as a result of the melee.


Wait there's more
Apr 25 1599

Oliver Cromwell -- who will later become the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland -- is born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Apr 25 1792

French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier is beheaded by the guillotine, making him its first victim.

Apr 25 1974

Jim Morrison's widow Pamela dies of a heroin overdose.

Apr 25 1994

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=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 6 1527Mercenaries sack the city of Rome, an event considered by many to mark the end of the Renaissance.
May 6 1626
Manhattan purchased by Dutch governor Peter Minuet for the equivalent of $24 in goods, which compounded at 6% annually is approximately $78 billion. But some scholars feel the actual value of the goods transferred to be in excess of $500, which translates to $1.6 trillion for the island when compounded.
May 6 1853
Ignoring signals, a train travels through an open drawbridge and into the Norwalk river in Connecticut, killing 46 passengers. The engineer and crew jumped clear, not warning the others of their fate.
May 6 1862
Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden and the essay Civil Disobedience, dead at age 44. His last words were "Moose... Indian".
May 6 1937

Zeppelin Hindenberg explodes at Lakehurst NJ, leaving 36 dead and others seriously burned. Official cause of the explosion is listed as "St. Elmo's Fire," although it probably also involved the flammable silver paint the Germans used to coat the thing.
May 6 1983
West German authorities announce that the recently discovered "Hitler Diaries" are counterfeits, made from paper not available until at least 1955. Parties unknown managed to swindle the German magazine Stern out of an undisclosed sum, and esteemed historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was so convinced of their authenticity that he proclaimed "I'm staking my reputation on it."
May 6 1987
Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker is formally defrocked by the Assemblies of God.
May 6 1993
Disgruntled postal worker Mark Richard Hilburn (recently fired) enters the Dana Point, CA post office and shoots two former coworkers, killing one.
May 6 1993
Disgruntled 27-year veteran Lawrence Jasion enters the garage area of the Dearborn, Michigan post office and whips out a .38 revolver. He proceeds to kill mechanic Gary Montes and wound two other coworkers. Before anyone can react, Jasion then blows his brains out. The Dearborn office was infamous for its authoritarian policies.
May 6 2002
Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn is shot six times in the head as he leaves a recording studio in Hilversum, near Amsterdam. His party platform was based on repeal of the discrimination clause of the constitution, an odd position considering that Fortuyn was homosexual. It is not clear what assassin Volkert van der Graaf's motive was, speculations ranging from Fortuyn's public statements regarding fur farming (van der Graaf is a founder of that country's Animal Liberation Front) to his sympathies towards Dutch Muslims.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 5 2349 BCNoah's Ark lands on Mount Ararat, according to calculations by James Ussher, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland.
May 5 840
A son of Charlemagne, Emperor Louis of Bavaria, dies of fright during a total eclipse of the sun. His sons quarrel, causing the division of his Empire into France, Germany, and Italy.
May 5 1821
Napoleon dies on the island of St. Helena, some suspect from arsenic poisoning. More likely, he died from stomach cancer as did his father.
May 5 1925
High school teacher John T. Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution by authorities in Dayton, Tennessee, as part of a publicity stunt to make the town famous. Since Scopes admitted teaching the theory, he was found guilty, and the law remained on the books in the backward state until 1967.
May 5 1945
Elsie Mitchell and five children she is watching are killed by a Japanese balloon bomb which drifted over the Pacific into Oregon. They are the only people killed in action on the US mainland during World War II.
May 5 1955

An internal CIA memo emphasizes the need for a drug that creates a state of "pure euphoria" and no letdown. From this springs Operation Midnight Climax, in which CIA brothels were set up in San Francisco, and their customers surreptitiously dosed with LSD by prostitutes. Operative George Hunter White observed reactions behind a two way mirror, purely in the interest of science.
May 5 1961
Alan B. Shepard is the first American in space, with a fifteen minute suborbital flight. He was forced to piss himself in his suit prior to launch, as it lacked an evacuation system.
May 5 1982
Secretary Janet Smith in the computer science department at Vanderbilt University is injured when she opens a package from the Unabomber.
May 5 1993
Dude! After getting pulled over for erratic driving, Keanu Reeves is arrested for drunk driving in Los Angeles.
May 5 2000
"On May 5 of the year 2000, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be aligned with the earth for the first time in 6,000 years. On that day the ice buildup at the South Pole will upset the earth's axis, sending trillions of tons of ice in the water sweeping over the surface of our planet."
-- 5/5/2000: Ice -- the Ultimate Disaster by Richard W Noone
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 14 964Pope 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.
May 14 1610
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.
May 14 1976
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.
May 14 1998
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."
May 14 2001
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.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 13 1913The latest brainchild of Russian aircraft design genius Igor Sikorsky embarks on its maiden flight. The Grand, easily the world's most luxurious passenger plane, includes such innovations as upholstered seats, a balcony, and even a lavatory.
May 13 1917
Three small children in Fatima, Portugal receive the first of six visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Over the next five months she lays some pretty heavy shit on the kids, including a three-part secret: a vision of Hell, a prophecy of war with godless Russia, and a third secret which remains classified until Y2K.
May 13 1972
Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and nonfunctional elevators cause 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping to their death.
May 13 1981
A delusional Turk guns down Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. Mehmet Ali Agca believes that the Vatican is an abomination before God and must be destroyed. 19 years later, the Church will disclose that the assassination attempt was foretold in 1917, as part of the third secret of Fatima.
May 13 1985
After attempting to serve arrest warrants at 6221 Osage Avenue, police in West Philadelphia are sucked into a 90-minute gunfight with members of the MOVE organization. Later, police drop a bomb on the house from a helicopter. The bomb misses its target and ignites a fire which consumes the entire city block. 61 houses are destroyed in the conflagration, killing 11 MOVE members -- including five children -- and leaving hundreds of neighbors homeless.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] May 12 1797Following Napoleon's conquest of Venice, Ludovico Manin reluctantly steps down as its last Doge. Thus ends the Most Serene Republic's 820-year history of national sovereignty.
May 12 1932
When a truck driver stops in rural New Jersey to take a leak, he stumbles upon the badly decomposed body of the Lindbergh Baby lying in a shallow grave 45 feet from the highway.
May 12 1971
Tor Johnson dies of congestive heart failure at the age of 67 in San Fernando, California. The man who once wrestled under the name "The Super Swedish Angel" leaves behind a legacy of B-movie acting roles, most famously as the bald zombie in Ed Wood's masterpiece "Plan 9 from Outer Space."
May 12 1982
During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, decided that the Pope must be killed for being an "agent of Moscow."
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 7 1692At 11:43am, a catastrophic earthquake strikes Port Royal, Jamaica, then known as "the richest and wickedest city in the world." Buildings are shaken apart and ships in harbor hurled onto busy streets. In just three minutes, the temblor takes out 70% of the population, killing 1,600 and seriously injuring 3,000 others.
Jun 7 1954
Despondent over court-ordered estrogen treatments to cure his homosexuality, Alan Turing commits suicide by consuming an apple laced with cyanide. Turing is considered the founder of modern computing, a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and a crucial member of the team that cracked Germany's Enigma cipher in World War II.
Jun 7 1958
Prince Roger Nelson is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The boy is destined to one day be known as the artist formerly known as Prince.
Jun 7 1982
In an effort to defray its $500,000 annual upkeep costs, Priscilla Presley opens Graceland to the public only five years after Elvis died in an upstairs bathroom. The bathroom is kept off-limits to tourists.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 6 1752A devastating fire destroys a third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes. Two other large-scale fires already struck the city in the previous 13 days.
Jun 6 1882
A cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into Bombay harbor, drowning 100,000 inhabitants.
Jun 6 1968
Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. The Democratic lawmaker had been campaigning for his party's Presidential nomination when he was shot three times by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan.
Jun 6 1976
American expatriate J. Paul Getty, named the richest man in the world in 1957, dies in London at age 83. According to the oil baron, "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
Jun 6 1981
An Indian passenger train traveling between Mansi and Saharsa jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing, submerging 11 compartments beneath the Bagmati river. Although the government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing, the actual figure is more like 1,000 killed.
Jun 6 1984
Indira Gandhi dispatches the Indian Armed Forces to attack the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in an effort to flush out terrorists hiding inside Sikhism's most holy shrine. The government asserts that 576 combatants were killed and 335 wounded in the operation, although independent observers claim that this figure omits thousands of unarmed Sikh civilians who were killed in the crossfire.
Jun 6 1985
Authorities in Embu, Brazil exhume the grave of one Wolfgang Gerhard in order to determine its true identity. The remains are later proven to be those of Dr. Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's notorious "Angel of Death." Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in the ocean in February 1979.
Jun 6 1989
During the Tehran funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini, frenzied mourners accidentally tip his corpse out of its coffin and onto the ground. Three million horrified followers bear witness to the desecration.
Jun 6 1990
US district court judge Jose Gonzalez rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law. Gonzalez declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."
Jun 6 1991
For robbing a Las Vegas video store five weeks earlier, a judge gives former Diff'rent Strokes child star Dana Plato a six-year suspended sentence. Plato's haul from the caper was $164, which she obtained by brandishing a pellet gun at the clerk.
Jun 6 1997
During her senior prom, New Jersey teenager Melissa Drexler gives birth to a healthy baby in a bathroom stall. She then strangles the child with a plastic bag and severs the umbilicus with the sharp edge on the tampon dispenser. After stashing the corpse in the trash, Drexler returns to prom and proceeds to eat a salad, request a Metallica song, and dance.
Jun 6 1999
In the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, 345 prisoners run out of the main gate of Putim maximum security prison, without even the slightest response from the warden or guards. This makes the 10th escape for the 3-year-old detention center. Authorities will kill two of the fugitives and accidentally jail five innocent bystanders in the ensuing manhunt.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 5 1956Elvis Presley appears on Milton Berle TV show. His undulating hip movements during the song "Hound Dog" cause quite a controversy.
Jun 5 1968
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.
Jun 5 1975
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.
Jun 5 1986
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.
Jun 5 1998
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.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 13 1886The bodies of Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II and his physician, Dr. Gudden, are discovered floating face-down in Lake Starnberg. The recently-deposed monarch had been under house arrest ever since his uncle, Prince Luitpold von Bayern, staged a coup a few days earlier.
Jun 13 1920
The United States Postal Service rules that children may not be sent via Parcel Post.
Jun 13 1934
Two months before becoming Fuhrer, Hitler meets Mussolini in Venice. Unfortunately, Mussolini refuses to have an interpreter and his German is not good, so neither man can understand the other. Unimpressed, Mussolini gathers a general impression of the German as "a silly little monkey."
Jun 13 1944
The Third Reich fires eleven V-1 flying bombs at England from France. Only four of the Buzzbombs actually strike London, but the Germans will eventually follow that up with another 9,000.
Jun 13 1962
Three convicts -- Frank Lee Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin -- escape from Alcatraz island in a rowboat made out of raincoats. They are the only prisoners believed to have successfully escaped.
Jun 13 1971
Next to the White House wedding photo of President Nixon's daughter Tricia, the New York Times runs its first story on the "Pentagon Papers," a top secret DoD analysis authored by the RAND Corporation detailing every mistake and deception made during the 30-year history of the Vietnam War. Attorney General John Mitchell manages to block any further publication of the embarrassing documents, but the court order is countermanded two weeks later in a Supreme Court decision.
Jun 13 1981
During the Trooping the Colour ceremony, a 17-year-old fires six blanks from a revolver at Queen Elizabeth II, startling her horse. Marcus Sargeant is later sentenced to five years imprisonment for the offense.
Jun 13 1985
Mailroom workers discover a bomb inside a suspicious parcel at Boeing, Inc.'s Fabrication Division in Auburn, Washington. After the police bomb squad disarms it, investigators discover the initials "FC" stamped on both caps, making it the first explosive device recovered intact from the Unabomber.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 12 1963Civil 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.
Jun 12 1978
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.
Jun 12 1991
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.
Jun 12 1994
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.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 11 1881A 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.
Jun 11 1936
Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, suicides by blowing his brains out.
Jun 11 1955
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".
Jun 11 1962
Frank Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin escape from Alcatraz.
Jun 11 1963
Protesting the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection.
Jun 11 1963
Governor Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door, blocking admission of blacks to the University of Alabama.
Jun 11 1964
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.
Jun 11 1979
John Wayne dead of lung cancer.
Jun 11 1993
Actor Ray Sharkey dead from AIDS. Ray was a cocaine/heroin addict who appeared as mobster Sonny Steelgrave on the TV show Wiseguy.
Jun 11 1999
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DeForest Kelley, "Bones" from the original Star Trek television series, dead of a "lingering illness".
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 22 1633The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his scientific view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe: "I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies, and I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church."
Jun 22 1940
France surrenders; hilarity ensues. Adolf Hitler forces the instrument of surrender to be signed in the very railcar in which the French inflicted the humiliating World War I Treaty of Versailles upon the Germans.
Jun 22 1941
The German Army invades Russia, quickly destroying five Russian armies and one fourth of the Red air force. At completion of the war in 1945, nearly 27 million Soviets were dead. Thus ended the German-Soviet "Peace and Friendship" Treaty.
Jun 22 1969

Judy Garland dies of a barbiturate overdose in her London apartment, either by accident or suicide. Quote from Judy: "When I die I have visions of fags singing 'Over the Rainbow' and the flag at Fire Island being flown at half mast."
Jun 22 1993
Dr. Charles Epstein of Tiburon, CA is injured when he opens a padded manilla package containing a surprise gift from the Unabomber.
Jun 22 2004
In a chance meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Patrick Leahy, the pair argue about Halliburton's no-bid Iraq contracts. The "frank exchange of views" ends, Cheney says this to Leahy: Fuck yourself! Cheney's spokesman does not deny the VP dropped the f-bomb.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 21 1877The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants who were labor activists, are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Author and Judge John P. Lavelle of Carbon County said of this, "The Molly Maguire trials were a surrender of state sovereignty. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested the alleged defenders, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows."
Jun 21 1942
A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, and fires 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens. Nobody is injured. It is one of a handful of attacks by the Japanese during World War II against the U.S. mainland.
Jun 21 1982
Using an innovative Jodie Foster defense, John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Nobody is impressed by this verdict.
Jun 21 1989

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is indeed protected speech under the Constitution, prompting Congress to put forth an endless series of amendments to ban the activity.
Jun 21 2001
At the beginning of Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling's speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, Francine Cavanaugh throws a pie at him. She is arrested by San Francisco police as Skilling begins his lecture entitled "The Roles and Responsibilities of the Energy Industry".
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 20 1756In Calcutta, 146 British prisoners are placed in a 18 foot by 14 foot cell known as The Black Hole by a Bengali, Siraj-ud-daula, and held there until the following morning. Of those imprisoned, only 23 survive.
Jun 20 1782

Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States. Although several early American politicians were Masons, the Masonic institutions themselves deny that the Seal is Masonic; therefore, any resemblance is purely coincidental. Of course.
Jun 20 1893
Lizzie Borden is found innocent of giving her stepmother and father forty and forty-one whacks, respectively.
Jun 20 1947

Bugsy Siegel is shot to death at Virginia Hill's mansion, on orders from Meyer Lansky. Siegel gets it twice in the face, and his right eyeball ends up on the dining room floor. [We don't have a picture of the eyeball, but we do have his toe tag.]
Jun 20 1993
Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel for President Clinton, apparently commits suicide with an unnumbered pistol at Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. Foster's empty briefcase later turns up at the White House. But after it is searched again, it is miraculously found to contain his suicide note.
Jun 20 2001
Houston mommy Andrea Yates drowns her five children, one after another, in the bathtub then notifies the authorities. Yates is later sentenced to life in prison which is overturned. She was on medication for post-partum depression and had recently attempted suicide.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 26 1945The 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!
Jun 26 1961
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.
Jun 26 1968

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.
Jun 26 1990
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.)
Jun 26 1992
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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.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 25 1876

During the Battle of Little Big Horn, General George Armstrong Custer witnesses a large group of Indians fleeing their village, and decides to press his advantage. The cavalry officer shouts, "We've caught them napping, boys!" Then he splits his force of 210 men into three groups, in order to slaughter as many of the retreating noncombatants as possible. Which is right about the time Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse sweep in and kill the white men. Two days later, Custer's body is found amidst a cluster of 42 other corpses, the general entirely naked except for one boot, one sock, and an arrow stuck in his penis.
Jun 25 1910
The Mann Act, sometimes known as the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910, makes it a federal crime to convey or assist in transporting women across state lines for prostitution, debauchery, or "any other immoral purpose." Men convicted of this heinous (if vague) statute face up to five years and a $5,000 fine for each count. Penalties are doubled if the female is underage, but men and boys are apparently not covered. This is, by far, the biggest party pooper in legislative history. Unless you're into guys.
Jun 25 1949
Jimmy Walker's dy-no-mite birthday.
Jun 25 2009
Controversial pop singer Michael Jackson suffers a heart attack at a rented mansion in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, completely upstaging Farrah Fawcett who had died earlier in the day. Dead within the same week are Ed McMahon, Mollie Sugden, Karl Malden, and infomercial pitchman Billy Mays.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jun 24 1374In a sudden outbreak of Dancing Mania (aka "St. John's Dance"), people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle experience terrible hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion. Many of the sufferers are afflicted with frothing at the mouth, diabolical screaming, and sexual frenzy. The phenomenon lasts well into the month of July. Nowadays, ergot madness is suspected as being the ultimate cause of the disorder.
Jun 24 1947

Businessman pilot Kenneth Arnold encounters a formation of nine flying saucers near Mt. Ranier, Washington, exhibiting unusual movements and velocities of 1,700 mph. No explanation is found for this first report of flying saucers in the recent era, but it does earn Mr. Arnold legions of skeptics and an eventual IRS tax audit.
Jun 24 1948
East Germany blockades the city of West Berlin.
Jun 24 1957
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, though a dissenting opinion included with the ruling notes the issue of prior restraint renders this a terrible decision.
Jun 24 1993
Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter opens a padded envelope in his office when it suddenly explodes. Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand. In this condition he manages to walk down five flights of stairs and over to the university hospital a block away. It is the handiwork of the Unabomber.
Jun 24 2004
Rapper DMX is arrested at New York's JFK Airport after he and a partner were trying to steal a car. While attempting to flee, DMX plows his SUV into a security gate while claiming to be an undercover federal agent. He later pleads guilty, blames Valium and receives jail time.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 20 1923While driving his 1919 Dodge, retired revolutionary Pancho Villa is ambushed and assassinated. But even with 16 gunshot wounds he still manages to kill one of his attackers. Curiously, Villa's head is stolen from his grave three years later and never recovered. Despite persistent rumors, Yale's secret society Skull and Bones denies they possess the artifact.
Jul 20 1944
In an attempt on Hitler's life, a timebomb explodes in the situation room of the Wolf's Lair, killing four Nazi officers but only wounding the Fuhrer. After his close call, Hitler becomes even more paranoid. A massive purge is to follow, resulting in the execution of thousands of officers.
Jul 20 1951
In Jerusalem at the al-Aqsa Mosque, King Abdullah of Jordan is shot three times in the head and chest by Mustapha Shukri Usho, a Palestinian opposed to peace with Israel. Abdullah dies on the spot.
Jul 20 1969
On live television, the world watches as Neil Armstrong steps foot on the Moon. That is, unless it was faked.
Jul 20 1973
In Hong Kong, martial artist Bruce Lee drops into a coma and dies of cerebral edema. He had been experiencing brain problems beginning in May, which included sporadic loss of consciousness. Lee's death transpires shortly before the release of Enter the Dragon, his most successful film.
Jul 20 1994
O.J. Simpson offers a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Real Killers. To this day progress remains elusive, although Simpson's golf score has improved somewhat.
Jul 20 2005
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) changes the rating of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from mature to adults only forcing a recall. The game had been distributed with a hidden sex game made unlockable by a clever hacker's modification titled Hot Coffee. The recall cost Rockstar Games millions of dollars although the incident generated lots of free publicity.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Jul 19 1692Five Salem witches are hanged for the crime of witchcraft, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched. Eventually, the village executes a total of 20 witches.
Jul 19 1937
The Nazis open "Entartete Kunst," the Degenerate Art show, in Munich. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject. The German youth are not admitted, lest they become tainted.
Jul 19 1952
During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force is prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these are all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."
Jul 19 1957
Michael Landon stars in his first film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf. He must have been so proud.
Jul 19 1966
Frank Sinatra marries Mia Farrow in Las Vegas. Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: "Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!"
Jul 19 1991
Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson rapes Desiree Washington, one of the Miss Black America contestants, after a pageant rehearsal. The illicit nookie lands Tyson in prison for three years.
Jul 19 1993
President Clinton unveils the universally-unpopular "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule. One person summarizes the policy: "the military now permits gays to remain in the military, provided they don't act like fairies."
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 9 1945Because of the dense cloud cover over Kokura, USAF Maj. Charles Sweeney diverts his B-29 Bock's Car to the designated secondary target, 95 miles to the south. There he drops "Fat Man" -- a 22 kiloton Atomic Bomb -- over the city of Nagasaki, population 270,000. The blast kills 24,000 immediately, but another 46,000 perish from radiation-related illnesses over the next four months.
Aug 9 1960
Harvard professor Timothy Leary consumes seven Psilocybe caerulescens mushrooms in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Five hours later, the self-described atheist experiences a "fullblown conversion experience" next to a swimming pool. It is Leary's first drug trip.
Aug 9 1969
Tate Murders by Charles Manson's followers: Frykowski - shot twice, bludgeoned 13 times, stabbed 51 times; Pregnant Sharon Tate stabbed in the neck, breast, back, womb.
Aug 9 1974
Finally bowing to pressure from Senator Barry Goldwater and RNC chairman George Bush, President Richard M. Nixon resigns from office. His successor, Gerald Ford, assures the American people that their "long national nightmare is over."
Aug 9 1995
Jerry Garcia dies of a heart attack at Serenity Knolls near Novato, California. He had checked himself into the drug rehab center a few days prior, in hopes of kicking his longstanding heroin habit.
Aug 9 1997
Officers of Brooklyn's 70th precinct sodomize 30 year old Haitian immigrant Abner Louima with a toilet plunger, then insert the feces-contaminated plunger into Louima's mouth. Later, NYPD officials try feebly to dismiss the suspect's injuries as having resulted from ordinary homosexual activity, but a medical examination proves that to be inconsistent with the evidence.
Aug 9 1999
The U.S. Government closes the Mustang Ranch, a 104 room bordello near Reno, Nevada. U.S. Customs seized the house of ill repute for tax violations, which it believed to be operated by a front corporation controlled by Joe Conforte, original owner of the property when it first opened in 1955.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 8 192540,000 robed Klansmen march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. -- a bit less than 1% of total Klan membership.
Aug 8 1960
Brian Hyland's song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini" reaches number one on the pop charts.
Aug 8 1963
By tampering with railway signals, a 15 man team halts the Glasgow-to-Euston Royal Mail train in Buckinghamshire. The criminals make off with 120 sacks containing £2.6 million in cash. The incident goes down in history as "The Great Train Robbery."
Aug 8 1973
Elmer Wayne Henley confesses to killing his partner and to the the sadistic murders of 27 teenage boys beginning in 1970. Following Henley's instructions, police dig up 27 bodies before calling off the search. This beat Juan Corona's record of 25 victims.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 7 1882Ellison Hatfield is stabbed 26 times and shot in the back by Tolbert McCoy and two of his brothers. Two days later, the Hatfield clan captures the three McCoys and executes them by firing squad. Thus begins generations of bloodshed between the families, ultimately causing about 100 casualties.
Aug 7 1953
Eisenhower signs legislation retroactively granting Ohio official statehood for the previous 150 years. In 1803, apparently everyone just assumed that Ohio was a state, even though Congress had never passed legislation to that effect. The nation remained blissfully unaware of this fact until nosy historians began snooping around in preparation for Ohio's sesquicentennial.
Aug 7 1956
A convoy of seven army trucks loaded with dynamite explodes in front of the railway terminal in Cali, Colombia. The downtown district is instantly leveled, killing 1,200 people and injuring thousands more in the process.
Aug 7 1960
Film and television actor David Duchovny is born in New York City. Two of his most popular TV roles include Special Agent Fox Mulder from The X-Files, and transvestite DEA agent Dennis Bryson in three episodes of Twin Peaks (second season, though).
Aug 7 1998
224 are killed and 2,200 injured when the U.S. Embassies in Kenya, Nairobi and Tanzania are simultaneously struck by powerful car bombs. Nairobi is hit particularly hard, with a multitude of charred corpses littering the streets. Three months later, the United States indicts Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in absentia for the attacks.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 14 410Visigoths under King Alaric sack Rome after slave co-conspirators open the city gates for them. Looting lasts for six days.
Aug 14 1908
Thousands of angry whites begin rampaging through the negro neighborhood of Springfield, Illinois. At least two blacks are lynched and one baby killed before the state militia finally quells the race riot two days later.
Aug 14 1941
Corporal Josef Jakobs, a German spy, is the final prisoner executed at the Tower of London. Having a broken ankle, he is seated in a fine wooden Windsor chair and executed by an eight man firing squad of Scots Guards.
Aug 14 1945
Over the radio, Hirohito announces his unconditional surrender to Allied forces, thus bringing an end to World War II. This broadcast is the first chance the Japanese people have had to hear their god-emperor's speaking voice.
Aug 14 1951
Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst dies at home in Beverly Hills, California.
Aug 14 1965
Salvatore Bono and Cherilyn Sarkisian La Pierre capture #1 on the American pop charts with their song "I Got You Babe," launching the careers of Sonny & Cher.
Aug 14 2126
The next scheduled perihelion for the "Doomsday Rock," also known as the Swift-Tuttle Comet. The six-mile-diameter mass is thought to be roughly the same size as the asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs and will probably come within 15 million miles of planet Earth.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 13 1521After an 80-day siege, Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés captures Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire. When the Spaniards fail to discover Montezuma's treasure, they torture Cuauhtemoc by pouring hot oil over his feet. The emperor responds by asking, "Am I on a bed of roses?" They hang him three years later.
Aug 13 1926
Fidel Castro is born on his father's 23,000-acre sugar cane plantation near Biran, Cuba.
Aug 13 1942
Walt Disney's Bambi premieres in New York City.
Aug 13 1986
11 Mexican peace officers abduct DEA special agent Victor Cortez, Jr. along with an informant. The two are taken to a Guadalajara police station, where the men are beaten and tortured for four hours in an attempt to extract the names of other American drug enforcement agents operating in Mexico. The pair are freed only after Cortez's superior somehow arrives at the station and demands their immediate release.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 20 1191Crusaders massacre 3,000 bound Muslim prisoners at Acre, after a breakdown in negotiations over payment of their ransom. The killings take place in full view of the army from which they were taken.
Aug 20 1940
Leon Trotsky dies while in exile in Mexico after the Stalinist assassin Jacques Mornard stabs him in the head with a pickaxe. Mornard receives the Order of Lenin (Orden Lenina) upon his release from a Mexican prison.
Aug 20 1968
The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia.
Aug 20 1979
Social studies teacher Albert Fentress of Poughkeepsie New York lures an 18-year-old boy into his basement, ties him up, murders him, and then cooks and devours the boy's genitals. Fentress is found totally nuts and is sentenced to psychiatric care.
Aug 20 1986
Rather than submit to being fired, part-time letter carrier Pat Sherrill shoots 14 coworkers at his Edmond, Oklahoma post office.
Aug 20 1989
Born Free conservationist George Adamson and two assistants are gunned down by Somali poachers at Kampi Ya Simba, Kenya.
Aug 20 1998
President Clinton orders cruise missile attacks against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan suspected of making chemical weapons.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Aug 19 1934Adolf Hitler wins absolute power when 89.9% of the German electorate consolidates the positions of President and Chancellor into a single office, occupied by him.
Aug 19 1960
The Soviet Union convicts U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage, sentencing him to 3 years in prison and 7 years of hard labor.
Aug 19 1960
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik V into orbit. On board are two dogs (Belka and Strelka), along with 2 unnamed rats and 40 mice. The menagerie is recovered safely the next day from the landing capsule.
Aug 19 1978
More than 400 people are killed when arsonists lock the exits and set fire to the Rex Cinema in Abadan, Iran. Although the blaze was probably the work of students of fundamentalist Islam, most Iranians immediately assume that it was started by government agents on order of the Shah.
Aug 19 1983
Heisman trophy winner Billy Cannon (from LSU) is sentenced to five years in prison for counterfeiting.
Aug 19 1996
After Miss Universe Alicia Machado gains 40 pounds in just 3 months, she is ordered to lose 27 pounds in two weeks or forfeit the crown.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Oct 6 1014Czar Samuil of Bulgaria dies after an army of 15,000 of his men is returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home. For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars.
Oct 6 1536
The man to translate the Holy Bible into English, William Tyndale, is strangled and burnt at the stake in Brussels, Belgium. Translations of the Bible into vernacular had been long suppressed, but oddly most of the work in the KJV's New Testament is Tyndale's.
Oct 6 1815
Mayfield, New York resident Barent Becker is hanged for serving his wife Ann a dish of stewed tomatoes and arsenic.
Oct 6 1976
During a televised debate, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Ford loses the election. [He and Dan Quayle should do lunch.]
Oct 6 1977

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr., Los Angeles' infamous "Hillside Stranglers," rape and murder their first victim, 21-year-old waitress Elissa Kastin. They dump her naked corpse on Chevy Chase Drive.
Oct 6 1980
John Lydon, of band PiL and formerly the Sex Pistols, arrested for disorderly conduct in a Dublin bar.
Oct 6 1981
During a commemoration of the Yom Kippur War, armed gunmen leap from a truck and begin shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Along with Sadat, the assassins kill eight others.
Oct 6 1997
Six boys watch as a female classmate is held down and raped in a locker room at Paramount High School in Boligee, Alabama. In all, about twelve boys are present at the incident; only six are ever charged.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Oct 5 1858An arsonist sets fire to New York City's iron and glass Crystal Palace. America's most prestigious museum is reduced to 1,200 tons of molten slag, causing $2 million in damage and destroying thousands of priceless artworks belonging to the American Institute.
Oct 5 1864
60,000 are killed when a tropical cyclone hits Calcutta. On the same day, a 200-foot tsunami kills thousands in Kamaishi, Japan.
Oct 5 1942
German engineer Herman Graebe witnesses a Nazi mass execution in the Ukraine. After the war, he writes a famous and terrifying testimony.
Oct 5 1990

After a ten-day trial, a jury acquits the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center of obscenity charges resulting from an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. So, bullwhips up the ass are now officially A-OK.
Oct 5 1994
Predicting that the world would soon end in an environmental disaster, homeopath Luc Jouret and 52 others belonging to his Order of the Solar Temple commit mass suicide near Cheiry, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada.
Oct 5 1996
Less than a year after Thomas Hamilton gunned down a teacher and 16 preschoolers in Dunblane, Scotland, British authorities ban the sale of Slaughter in the Playground, a CD-ROM game based on hunting and killing children on a school playground.
Oct 5 1999
In a move reminiscent of both Nazi crimes committed against Gypsies and the postwar construction of the Berlin Wall, the town of Usti nad Labem in the Czech Republic begins construction of a barrier to separate a portion of its Gypsy population away from more respectable folks.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Oct 13 54Roman Emperor Claudius I consumes a favorite mushroom dish prepared by his fourth wife, Agrippina. What he does not know is that the meal is laced with the toxin of the Amanita phalloides mushroom. Feeling ill the next morning, Claudius summons his personal physician. Unfortunately, the doctor happens to be a co-conspirator in the scheme, administering a colocynth enema which kills Claudius instantly.
Oct 13 1972
Due to poor visibility, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying the Montevideo Old Christians Rugby Club crashes high in the Chilean Andes. Of the 45 people aboard the flight, only 27 survive the crash, and just 16 make it to their rescue 72 days later. Their secret? Cannibalism. According to one survivor, "the slight browning of the flesh gave it an immeasurably better flavor, softer than beef but with much the same taste."
Oct 13 1988

A report published in the journal Nature declares the Turin shroud to be a 13th century fake. Although carbon-14 testing places the shroud's fabrication somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD, true believers spend much of the next several years attempting to explain away the radiocarbon test results.
Oct 13 1997
Nike, Inc. fines one of its shoe factories in Vietnam $5,000 after it becomes known that plant management ordered workers to create 51 rubber penises. Although the schlongs were produced strictly as gag gifts for a company official's birthday, Nike sees no humor in the matter.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Oct 12 1285Accused of the ritual murder of Catholic boys, 180 Jews are burned alive in Munich when an angry mob sets fire to their synagogue.
Oct 12 1960
In response to a speech by the Philippine delegation denouncing the USSR's domination of Eastern Europe, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev brandishes one of his sandals at the man during a general assembly of the United Nations.
Oct 12 1966
Sammy Davis, Jr. makes a cameo appearance on the ABC television series Batman, during one of their legendary Batclimbs.
Oct 12 1969
According to rumor, Paul is dead. However, the Beatle somehow persists in making several public appearances for years.
Oct 12 1969
Police capture Charles Manson at Barker Ranch, inside Death Valley National Park. Charlie is arrested for arson, after burning a maintenance vehicle blocking his favorite dune buggy route. One of his followers, Susan Atkins, is arrested the following day and spills the beans about the Tate/LaBianca murderers. Manson has not left prison since.
Oct 12 1970

During his court martial for the My Lai Massacre, Lt. William Calley testifies that Cpt. Ernest Medina had ordered that anybody they couldn't move would be "wasted." Which is why Calley said he and his men killed 350 Vietnamese, including more than 100 civilian men, women, and children.
Oct 12 1978

Former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious stabs girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in room 100 of New York's Chelsea Hotel. Because Sid remembers nothing about the crime, theories include robbery and an abortive suicide pact. Vicious dies of an ugly heroin overdose shortly before his trial.
Oct 12 1997
Folk singer John Denver dies when his newest toy, a homebuilt Long-EZ single-seat airplane, crashes into the ocean near Monterey, California. Unfortunately, the person who constructed the plane opted to locate the fuel tank selector valve behind the pilot's left shoulder. In order for Denver to reach back and switch tanks, he had to let go of the flight controls. At which point, the aircraft plunged 500 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Divers later recover most of the body, but not the head. Denver is ultimately identified by his fingerprints.
Oct 12 2000
Two al Qaeda agents pull alongside the USS Cole in a fiberglass boat disguised as a tender at the harbor in Aden, Yemen. Then the boat explodes, ripping a 40-foot hole along the port side of the destroyer's hull, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39 others.
Oct 12 2003
30 lunatics are killed in Randilovshchina, Belarus when a fire sweeps through their sanitarium, many of whom die locked in their rooms. It is believed that the blaze was an act of arson by one of the patients.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 10 4004 BCAdam and Eve are driven from Paradise.
Nov 10 1928
Emperor Hirohito enthroned at Kyoto.
Nov 10 1938

Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass, in Germany. Members of the SA, SS, and Hitler Youth round up some 30,000 jews. Jewish homes and shops are targeted for vandalism, 177 synagogues are destroyed by fire and 91 jews are killed.
Nov 10 1940
Walt Disney begins serving as a secret informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, to report back information on Hollywood subversives. He was made a "Full Special Agent in Charge Contact" in 1954. We should note that Disney was atheist and thus subversive in his own little way.
Nov 10 1972
Two men hijack Southern Airways Flight 49 out of Birmingham, and hopscotch it variously in the U.S., Canada, and Cuba while demanding $7M. At one point they circle Oak Ridge National Laboratory and threaten to crash the plane into that top secret nuclear installation. After two days, and exhausting most of the aircraft's supply of mini liquor bottles, the plane lands for good in Havana where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro. Said one of the two hijackers later, "I wanted to fly over the Statue of Liberty and urinate on it."
Nov 10 1997
Seymore Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot" published, includes allegations that explicit photos were taken of John F. Kennedy with various sex partners and brought by a Secret Service agent to a Washington gallery for framing. The gallery owner, Sidney Mickelson, stated that the participants included a naked Kennedy and assorted lady friends wearing masks. [photo of an FOIA memo]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 9 1888

Mary Jane Kelly, a 25 year old hooker, falls victim to Jack the Ripper. Mary's face had been mutilated; her breasts had been removed and she had been disemboweled. Her various internal organs were scattered about.
Nov 9 1953
Dylan Thomas drinks himself to death.
Nov 9 1971
John Emil List, a "deeply religious" Lutheran, kills his mother, wife, and three teenage children. He is not found until 1988, living with a new improved family as Robert P. Clark in Richmond Virginia.
Nov 9 1997

Michael Paul Lookinland, aka "Bobby" from the Brady Bunch, charged with drunk driving in St. George, Utah. With a BAL of 0.258, the 36 year old former child star was very drunk.
Nov 9 2005
After being shuffled around the weekly schedule, Fox television executives give up on Arrested Development and release the last four episodes in a two-hour block. The show does not go on despite interest from rival networks ABC and Showtime.
Nov 9 2346
Romulans commit an atrocity now known as the Khitomer Massacre, slaughtering over 4,000 Klingons on an agricultural colony. Worf and Kahlest are the only two to survive.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 8 1879Leon Trotsky's birthday!
Nov 8 1923
Adolf Hitler attempts to seize the government in Munich. The event is now known as the "Beer Hall Putsch" and lands his ass in jail.
Nov 8 1937

The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) opens in Munich, which ran until the 16th. Later, a film is released by the same name. "Wherever rats appear they bring ruin, by destroying mankind's goods and foodstuffs."
Nov 8 1973
The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper along with a ransom note. It takes two weeks to arrive. Previously, the kidnapping was thought to be a ruse by the son to obtain money, but the ear convinces his father to pay the $2.9M ransom.
Nov 8 1991

Convicted crack smoker Marion Barry, who served six months in prison in 1990, is re-elected mayor of Washington D.C. Astonishing. And even more astonishing, on the same day Sonny Bono is elected to the United States Congress.
Nov 8 1997
President Bill Clinton speaks at a dinner sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization. It is the first time an American president has so addressed a gathering of sodomites.
Nov 8 1997
A newborn baby is abandoned at a toilet in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. While the baby was found within five minutes of birth, police are still searching for the mother.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 17 1796Empress Catherine the Great dies of a stroke while sitting on the commode.
Nov 17 1968

NBC preempts the final 1:05 from a very close Jets-Raiders NFL football game with "Heidi". Two touchdowns were scored during this missing time. Sports fans everywhere applaud and understand the network's decision.
Nov 17 1973

"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook."
Nov 17 1992
Scaremongering "journalists" at Dateline NBC falsify a demonstration involving a GM truck exploding on impact. In reality the trucks do not explode on impact, and smarmy reporters do not always tell the truth.
Nov 17 1997
In a three hour gun battle, Islamic militants in the ancient pharaonic city of Luxor indiscriminately slaughter 60 tourists. Six gunmen and two Egyptian policemen are also killed.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 16 1906Opera star Enrico Caruso is charged with an indecent act committed in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo. He pinched the bottom of a woman described as "pretty and plump", causing outrage amongst New York high society. Caruso claimed a monkey pinched the lady's bottom.
Nov 16 1957

Serial killer Ed Gein kills his final victim, Bernice Worden, a store clerk in her 50's. Her decapitated body is later found outdoors hanging from a block and tackle, gutted. Some parts were unaccounted for.
Nov 16 1981
Actor William Holden dies after a fall, hitting his head on a table. He is too fucking drunk to telephone for assistance; instead he bleeds to death while dabbing his serious wound with Kleenex.
Nov 16 1989
A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops slaughters six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 15 1864The sack and burning of Atlanta by General William Tecumseh Sherman, making Georgia howl. That act and the subsequent March to the Sea makes Sherman the most hated and despised man in Georgia history.
Nov 15 1940
Nazis quarantine the Warsaw Ghetto, population 400,000 Juden.
Nov 15 1941

SS chief Himmler orders the arrest and concentration of all homosexuals in Germany. Excluded were certain top Nazi officials who happened to be fags, including Himmler.
Nov 15 1978
A chartered Icelandic Airlines DC-8 with 249 pilgrims returning from Mecca, crashes on approach to Sri Lanka's international airport in Colombo, killing 183 believers.
Nov 15 1979
A package from the Unabomber in the mail carried aboard American flight 444 explodes on the way to Washington. Several people suffer smoke inhalation.
Nov 15 1985
A research assistant is injured when he opens a present from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor.
Nov 15 1990

Producers acknowledge that Milli Vanilli (the 1990 "Best Artist" Grammy Award winners) did not sing on their album. One of the duo, Robert Pilatus, later attempts suicide in 1991 but he couldn't even get that performance right. He does succeed 7 years later, though.
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Today in Rotten History
Nov 18 1421

On Saint Elizabeth's Day, heavy storms combine with the high tide to cause a series of dikes to fail in southern Holland. Massive flooding destroys 72 villages, killing somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 people.

Nov 18 1686

King of France Louis XIV's anal fistula is operated on by surgeon Charles Francois Felix, with great success. To prepare for the operation Felix practiced his surgery on anuses of the peasantry, with some fatalities at first but improving his technique in time for the royal bung.

Nov 18 1969

Joseph P Kennedy dies at age 81. Achievements: Bootlegger; ambassador to England; his mob ties helped get John F. Kennedy elected. When Jackie wanted a divorce from the philandering president, he offered her $1 million.

Nov 18 1970

Singer/polygamist Jerry Lee Lewis divorces his third wife Myra Gail, after 12 years of marriage. Not only was she jailbait when they got married (being 13 at the time), but Lewis was married to Jane Mitcham at the time.

Nov 18 1978

Congressman Leo Ryan is slain at the People's Temple compound in Guyana, after which over 900 members of the cult led by the Reverend Jim Jones drank cyanide laced Flavor Aid (a Kool Aid knockoff), their bodies bloated by the sun when they are discovered several days later.

Nov 18 1997

Gary Glitter arrested in Britain on a child porn charge. Glitter had brought his computer in for repair, where contraband images were discovered.

Nov 18 1998

Geeky comic strip Penny Arcade debuts. We thank them for the Fruit Fucker 2000.

On 23 September 2011
The OPERA experiment announced an unexpected measurement of the speed of neutrinos between CERN and Gran Sasso. This led to an impressive media coverage.
The Einstein theory is shaken ???

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 26 1865

Lewis Carroll sends the manuscript for the psychedelic novel "Alice in Wonderland" to his 12 year old special friend Alice Liddell. (Incidentally Carroll, born Charles Dodgson, had a thing for very young girls, frequently photographing them nude.)
Nov 26 1973
The Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, stabbed to death in prison by a fellow inmate in Massachusetts. DeSalvo had killed 13 women.
Nov 26 1975
Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme found guilty of attempting to assassinate President Ford. It is unclear why anyone would want to assassinate such an uninteresting president.
Nov 26 1976

Sex Pistols single Anarchy in the UK released. The song later appeared on Never Mind the Bollocks. Sadly, it has yet to be equalled.
Nov 26 2008
Mumbai is rocked by a series of terror attacks, coordinated by Pakistani militants who were high on cocaine and LSD. 173 people die in the attacks.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Nov 25 1867Patent granted to Alfred Nobel for dynamite.
Nov 25 1957
Mexican painter Diego Rivera dies of heart failure. Earlier as a student, Rivera claimed to have purchased cadavers and experimented with Cannibalism. Human dining preferences included breasts and brains. Also in his autobiography he wrote that he had cancer of the penis, doctors recommending amputation. Both stories are considered somewhat suspect.
Nov 25 1970
Japanese playwright and novelist Yukio Mishima commits seppuku (self disembowelment) after an aborted coup attempt in Japan. He had authored over 100 works and was deemed by Life magazine the "Japanese Hemmingway"; certainly he is one of the best writers Japan has ever produced. But Mishima believed that "true manhood" required you to face your own death willingly.
Nov 25 1987

Secretarial bimbo Fawn Hall, Oliver North's assistant, removes documents from sealed National Security Council offices inside the White House by hiding them inside her skirt. Go girl!
Nov 25 1997
The Weekly World News reports that the Japanese have a fetishistic attraction to US Attorney General Janet Reno, whom many Americans believe is actually a man. If these reports are true, at the very least we should impose trade sanctions.
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Today in Rotten History
Nov 30 1731100,000 dead when a massive quake strikes Peking, China.
Nov 30 1900
Celebrated Irish author/sodomite Oscar Wilde, dies in Paris of meningitis. Wilde had been charged three times with indecency, specifically "the seduction and corruption of young men." Evidence admitted against him included testimony about fecal stains on his sheets.
Nov 30 1929
Dick Clark, the American Bandstander, born. We heard a rumor about extensive facial plasticizing treatments in the early 1970's. While this rumor remains unverified we must note that the man no longer ages and may not even be human.
Nov 30 1954
At 1 pm, an 8.5 pound stone meteorite falls from the sky and strikes Elizabeth Hulitt Hodge from Sylacauga, Alabama. The housewife was seriously bruised but survived, although the meteorite destroyed her radio.
Nov 30 1985

Frankenchrist released by the Dead Kennedys. More controversial than the album itself was the packaging: The Shriners filed suit regarding the cover (pictured were some of the ridiculous little cars they drive); and a poster by H.R. Giger included in the album sparked an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Nov 30 1991
In Costa Mesa, California, battered wife Omaima Nelson kills her abusive husband and then proceeds to cook him. "I did his ribs just like in a restaurant. It's so sweet, it's so tender and delicious. I like mine tender."
Nov 30 1994
Rapper Tupac Shakur is shot five times in the chest in what may or may not have been an attempted robbery. He lives but is shot dead in Las Vegas, Nevada later.


Yesterday in Rotten History Nov 29 1864The Sand Creek Massacre, in which the US Army sent soldiers into an Indian encampment, slaughtering 300 Indian. The Cheyenne and Arapaho had been given an American flag to prevent such an event from occurring, but an army colonel chose to disregard it.
Nov 29 1944

Malcolm X, then known as small-time criminal Malcolm Little, was arrested for larceny. He received a three months suspended sentence and one year probation.
Nov 29 1961

The US sends the chimpanzee Enos into space, on the Mercury Atlas 5 capsule from Cape Canaveral.
Nov 29 1986
Death of 82 year old Archibald Leach, better known as Cary Grant. While rumors of Grant's sexuality have been around for years, consider in perspective the words of US congressman Bob Dornan, spoken on the House floor: "I do not think Cary Grant was a homosexual or bisexual. He just got carried away at those orgies."
Nov 29 1987
The KAL flight from Abu Dhabi to Bankgok explodes due to a bomb planted by North Korean agents, off Burma. All 115 aboard were killed. The two agents responsible take suicide pills in Bahrain while they were being questioned.
Nov 29 2001
The "quiet" Beatle George Harrison silenced by cancer.


Wait there's more Nov 28 1942A fire at the sleazy Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Boston, kills 491 people. Flammable artificial palm trees aided the spread of the fire. The numerous dead were crushed, burnt, and asphyxiated, all within minutes.
Nov 28 1953

Frank Olson, government scientist, jumps to his death from the Statler Hotel in New York City. In 1975 it is revealed that Olson had been administered LSD by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb in a CIA experiment.
Nov 28 1981
A drunk Natalie Wood topples off her yacht near Catalina Island and drowns. Her husband Robert Wagner, and melodramatic friend Christopher Walken, were onboard and unaware of her predicament, apparently having some sort of argument in the cabin.
Nov 28 1994
Homosexual cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer beaten to death with a broomstick by inmate Christopher Scarver while cleaning the prison bathroom. Dahmer's brain was to be preserved in formaldehyde at the request of Mom, but a court ordered its destruction in late 1995.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Today in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Dec 4 1930Rhythm method accepted by the Vatican as an approved method of birth control. Does the pope wear a condom?
Dec 4 1978
Dianne Feinstein named mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of Mayor Moscone, jump-starting her otherwise pathetic political career. The pro-censorship bitch is now a US Senator, and carries a handgun for protection while campaigning to prohibit others from doing so.
Dec 4 1988
Actor Gary Busey seriously injured in a near-fatal motorcycle crash, which he states also caused an out-of-body experience. Busey was not wearing his helmet, but after the accident told the press he would continue pursuing his out-of-helmet experiences. [Update 1997: Busey had a nose tumor, found God, and now wears a helmet.]
Dec 4 1993

Frank Zappa dead of prostate cancer in Los Angeles at age 52.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Yesterday in Rotten History[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Dec 3 1890Isaac Jordan, the U.S. Congressional Representative from the great state of Ohio, dies after an interesting elevator accident in Cincinnati.
Dec 3 1948

Ozzy Osbourne's birthday. "I never set out to be a businessman. I just wanted to have fun, fuck chicks and do drugs."
Dec 3 1968
Elvis makes a comeback! Only slightly chunkier than in the old days, everyone thought he was a has-been. Elvis sure showed them.
Dec 3 1974
Civil aviation authorities in England issue a warning to pilots to avoid a 40 foot long inflated pig. The aeropork had escaped its tether during a Pink Floyd photo shoot. Radar contact was lost at 18,000 feet. [At this time, the sex of the pig was indeterminate. Later, oversized male genitalia are attached.]
Dec 3 1979
At Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, eleven concertgoers variously aged 15 to 27 years are trampled and suffocated trying to get in to see The Who. Insufficient exits were available, and a request by police to open more was ignored.
Dec 3 1984
Methyl isocyanate leaks from a Union Carbide pesticide plant located at a slum in Bhopal, India. The gas kills 4,000 people and injures 200,000 others, many of whom were permanently blinded or disabled. The event set a standard for industrial accidents that has yet to be equalled.
Dec 3 1997
Former Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie is arrested in Los Angeles for obstructing justice and lying about a securities fraud scam. The fifty-six-year-old former child star had tried to make stock transactions at a public company without paying.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wait there's more[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Dec 2 1814Death of the Marquis de Sade, in a lunatic asylum at Charenton. The good Marquis wrote, "There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship."
Dec 2 1938
Albert Kessel and Robert Lee Cannon put down in California's new gas chamber. The executions are a smashing success.
Dec 2 1956
The Mad Bomber strikes! At Brooklyn's Paramount Theater, injuring 7. The bomber terrorized New York City between 1940 and 1956.
Dec 2 1964
Beatle Ringo Starr has his tonsils removed at University College Hospital in London, causing him to miss part of the Scandinavian and Far East tour.
Dec 2 1980
Four American churchwomen -- three nuns and a lay worker -- are raped, murdered, and buried outside El Salvador's capital, San Salvador. Five national guardsmen are convicted in the killings, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Dec 2 1994

Heidi Fleiss, the "Hollywood Madam," is convicted of three counts of felony pandering. She provided prostitutes to Hollywood celebrities.
Dec 2 1997
David Afuta, the hairdresser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is found dead with two bullets in his chest at in his apartment after a murder/suicide. The other victim, Anat Elimelech, had one bullet in her. It is not clear which person pulled the trigger. The incident sends the Israeli media into a tizzy.
Dec 2 1997
The bodies of three children who were victims of a human sacrifice performed by their parents are dug up in Caratal village, Trinidad. The three children, the offspring of Kenrick and Chandrowtie London variously aged 17 months to 3 years, had been sacrificed in a religious ceremony that was intended to bring prosperity.
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