On this day:
- Thread starter Singlemalt
- Start date
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"On September 25, 1957, under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine Black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. After a tense standoff, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the court order.
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in educational facilities was unconstitutional. Five days later, the Little Rock School Board issued a statement saying it would comply with the decision when the Supreme Court outlined the method and time frame in which desegregation should be implemented.
Arkansas was at the time among the more progressive Southern states in regard to racial issues. The University of Arkansas School of Law was integrated in 1949, and the Little Rock Public Library in 1951. Even before the Supreme Court ordered integration to proceed “with all deliberate speed,” the Little Rock School Board in 1955 unanimously adopted a plan of integration to begin in 1957 at the high school level. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit, arguing the plan was too gradual, but a federal judge dismissed the suit, saying that the school board was acting in “utmost good faith.” Meanwhile, Little Rock’s public buses were desegregated. By 1957, seven out of Arkansas’ eight state universities were integrated.
In the spring of 1957, there were 517 Black students who lived in the Central High School district. Eighty expressed an interest in attending Central in the fall, and they were interviewed by the Little Rock School Board, which narrowed down the number of candidates to 17. Eight of those students later decided to remain at all-Black Horace Mann High School, leaving the “Little Rock Nine” to forge their way into Little Rock’s premier high school.
In August 1957, the newly formed Mother’s League of Central High School won a temporary injunction from the county chancellor to block integration of the school, charging that it “could lead to violence.” Federal District Judge Ronald Davies nullified the injunction on August 30. On September 2, Governor Orval Faubus—a staunch segregationist—called out the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School and prevent integration, ostensibly to prevent the bloodshed he claimed desegregation would cause. The next day, Judge Davies ordered integrated classes to begin on September 4.
That morning, 100 armed National Guard troops encircled Central High School. A mob of 400 white civilians gathered and turned ugly when the Black students began to arrive, shouting racial epithets and threatening the teenagers with violence. The National Guard troops refused to let the Black students pass and used their clubs to control the crowd. One of the nine, 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, was surrounded by the mob, which threatened to lynch her. She was finally led to safety by a sympathetic white woman.
Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann condemned Faubus’ decision to call out the National Guard, but the governor defended his action, reiterating that he did so to prevent violence. The governor also stated that integration would occur in Little Rock when and if a majority of people chose to support it. Faubus’ defiance of Judge Davies’ court order was the first major test of Brown v. Board of Education and the biggest challenge of the federal government’s authority over the states since the Reconstruction Era.
The standoff continued, and on September 20 Judge Davies ruled that Faubus had used the troops to prevent integration, not to preserve law and order as he claimed. Faubus had no choice but to withdraw the National Guard troops. Authority over the explosive situation was put in the hands of the Little Rock Police Department.
On September 23, as a mob of 1,000 whites milled around outside Central High School, the nine Black students managed to gain access to a side door. However, the mob became unruly when it learned the Black students were inside, and the police evacuated them out of fear for their safety. That evening, President Eisenhower issued a special proclamation calling for opponents of the federal court order to “cease and desist.” On September 24, Little Rock’s mayor sent a telegram to the president asking him to send troops to maintain order and complete the integration process. Eisenhower immediately federalized the Arkansas National Guard and approved the deployment of U.S. troops to Little Rock. That evening, from the White House, the president delivered a nationally televised address in which he explained that he had taken the action to defend the rule of law and prevent “mob rule” and “anarchy.” On September 25, the Little Rock Nine entered the school under heavily armed guard.
Troops remained at Central High School throughout the school year, but still the Black students were subjected to verbal and physical assaults from a faction of white students. Melba Patillo, one of the nine, had acid thrown in her eyes, and Elizabeth Eckford was pushed down a flight of stairs. The three male students in the group were subjected to more conventional beatings. Minnijean Brown was suspended after dumping a bowl of chili over the head of a taunting white student. She was later suspended for the rest of the year after continuing to fight back. The other eight students consistently turned the other cheek. On May 27, 1958, Ernest Green, the only senior in the group, became the first Black person to graduate from Central High School.
Governor Faubus continued to fight the school board’s integration plan, and in September 1958 he ordered Little Rock’s three high schools closed rather than permit integration. Many Little Rock students lost a year of education as the legal fight over desegregation continued. In 1959, a federal court struck down Faubus’ school-closing law, and in August 1959 Little Rock’s white high schools opened a month early with Black students in attendance. All grades in Little Rock public schools were finally integrated in 1972."
Milovan1
Well-Known Member
I got to meet Gale at the L.A. Sports Arena for a sports show back in '92 and
had him sign a football for me. He was wearing an open collared very tight & bright yellow golf shirt
looked very buff and solid as a rock lol. The same day I hung out with Jack Tatum & Lester Hayes if
you remember played for The Raiders. Asked Jack if I can look close up at his Super Bowl ring and he
held out his hand, I grabbed his hand and took a close look. Asked Lester who was the toughest player he had to go against and he
lightly pounded middle of his chest a couple times and said "Jerry Rice, he's got heart".
Muhammed Ali was there also and I was gonna have him sign the famous b&w photo of him standing over floored Sonny Liston
with Ali's arm swung down clenched fist but didn't want to fight the crowd at his signing table. What a day. Gale Sayers
was courteous, kind and pleasant. I was so excited to meet him and to shake his hand.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"On September 26, 1944, Operation Market Garden, a plan to seize bridges in the Dutch town of Arnhem, fails, as thousands of British and Polish troops are killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.
British Gen. Bernard Montgomery conceived an operation to take control of bridges that crossed the Rhine River, from the Netherlands into Germany, as a strategy to make “a powerful full-blooded thrust to the heart of Germany.” The plan seemed cursed from the beginning. It was launched on September 17, with parachute troops and gliders landing in Arnhem. Holding out as long as they could, waiting for reinforcements, they were compelled to surrender. Unfortunately, a similar drop of equipment was delayed, and there were errors in locating the proper drop location and bad intelligence on German troop strength. Added to this, bad weather and communication confused the coordination of the Allied troops on the ground.
The Germans quickly destroyed the railroad bridge and took control of the southern end of the road bridge. The Allies struggled to control the northern end of the road bridge, but soon lost it to the superior German forces. The only thing left was retreat-back behind Allied lines. But few made it: Of more than 10,000 British and Polish troops engaged at Arnhem, only 2,900 escaped.
Claims were made after the fact that a Dutch Resistance fighter, Christiaan Lindemans, betrayed the Allies, which would explain why the Germans were arrayed in such numbers at such strategic points. A conservative member of the British Parliament, Rupert Allason, writing under the named Nigel West, dismissed this conclusion in his A Thread of Deceit, arguing that Lindemans, while a double agent, “was never in a position to betray Arnhem.”
Winston Churchill would lionize the courage of the fallen Allied soldiers with the epitaph “Not in vain.” Arnhem was finally liberated on April 15, 1945.
Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the 101st, 82nd and British 1st Airborne Divisions and the Polish Brigade 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. 14,589 troops were landed by glider and 20,011 by parachute. Gliders also brought in 1,736 vehicles and 263 artillery pieces. 3,342 tons of ammunition and other supplies were brought by glider and parachute drop.
To deliver its 36 battalions of airborne infantry and their support troops to the continent, the First Allied Airborne Army had under its operational control the 14 groups of IX Troop Carrier Command, and after 11 September the 16 squadrons of 38 Group (an organization of converted bombers providing support to resistance groups) and a transport formation, 46 Group.
The combined force had 1,438 C-47/Dakota transports (1,274 USAAF and 164 RAF) and 321 converted RAF bombers. The Allied glider force had been rebuilt after Normandy until by 16 September it numbered 2,160 CG-4A Waco gliders, 916 Airspeed Horsas (812 RAF and 104 U.S. Army) and 64 General Aircraft Hamilcars. The U.S. had only 2,060 glider pilots available, so that none of its gliders would have a co-pilot but would instead carry an extra passenger.
A costly failure, Operation Market Garden remains a remarkable feat of arms. This is not because of its strategic ambition, but because of the determination and courage shown by Allied airborne troops and the units that tried to reach them. It also led to the liberation of a large part of the Netherlands at a time when many Dutch people were close to starvation.
USA: Two Congressional Medal’s of Honor, 10 Silver Stars, 11 Distinguished Service Crosses, Britain: 5 Victoria Crosses, 41 Military Crosses (British), 37 DFC (British) were awarded.
XXX Corps of the British Second Army suffered fewer than 1,500 casualties, which stands in stark contrast to the 8,000 casualties suffered by the 1st Airborne Division. On several occasions, units of the flanking British Corps made contact with paratroopers before units of XXX Corps, and fought on to support them until the end of the operation. The higher toll by the 101st Airborne Division reflects the reality that aside from contending with the local German defenders, they also had to combat German troops retreating from the XXX Corps advance.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Carson received a master’s degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932 and spent the next several decades researching the ecosystems of the East Coast. She rose through the ranks of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and published many works on the environment, including The Sea Around Us. In the late '50s, she became concerned by reports of the unintended effects insecticides were having on other wildlife, and the Audubon Society approached her about writing a book on the topic. Silent Spring was the result of this partnership and several years of research, focusing primarily on the effects of DDT and similar pesticides. Carson was diagnosed with breast cancer during this time, causing the book’s publication to be delayed until 1962.
Silent Spring did not call for an outright ban on DDT, but it did argue that they were dangerous to humans and other animals and that overusing them would dramatically disrupt ecosystems. Carson met with staunch criticism, largely from the chemical industry and associated scientists. She was called “a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature” and “probably a communist,” among other things, but the firestorm around her drew attention to a problem Americans were finally ready to acknowledge.
Despite her illness, Carson made a slew of media appearances and testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee, finding more supporters than detractors. Though she died only two years after the book’s publication, the movement she helped popularize blossomed over the next decade. Her successors fought for the creation Environmental Protection Agency, formed in 1970, and her arguments were instrumental in securing a nationwide phase-out of DDT, which began in 1972. Carson’s work on pesticides not only drew attention to their unintended consequences but also familiarized the public with the extent of the harm mankind could inflict upon nature, one of the most important lessons our species has had to learn."
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"Many school children can recite the basics. Penicillin was discovered in London on September 28,1928. As the story goes, Dr. Alexander Fleming, the bacteriologist on duty at St. Mary’s Hospital, returned from a summer vacation in Scotland to find a messy lab bench and a good deal more.
Upon examining some colonies of Staphylococcus aureus, Dr. Fleming noted that a mold called Penicillium notatum had contaminated his Petri dishes. After carefully placing the dishes under his microscope, he was amazed to find that the mold prevented the normal growth of the staphylococci.
It took Fleming a few more weeks to grow enough of the persnickety mold so that he was able to confirm his findings. His conclusions turned out to be phenomenal: there was some factor in the Penicillium mold that not only inhibited the growth of the bacteria but, more important, might be harnessed to combat infectious diseases.
As Dr. Fleming famously wrote about that red-letter date: “When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”
Fourteen years later, in March 1942, Anne Miller became the first civilian patient to be successfully treated with penicillin, lying near death at New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, after miscarrying and developing an infection that led to blood poisoning.
Actually, Fleming had neither the laboratory resources at St. Mary’s nor the chemistry background to take the next giant steps of isolating the active ingredient of the penicillium mold juice, purifying it, figuring out which germs it was effective against, and how to use it. That task fell to Dr. Howard Florey, a professor of pathology who was director of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. He was a master at extracting research grants from tight-fisted bureaucrats and an absolute wizard at administering a large laboratory filled with talented but quirky scientists.
This landmark work began in 1938 when Florey, who had long been interested in the ways that bacteria and mold naturally kill each other, came across Fleming’s paper on the penicillium mold while leafing through some back issues of The British Journal of Experimental Pathology. Soon after, Florey and his colleagues assembled in his well-stocked laboratory. They decided to unravel the science beneath what Fleming called penicillium’s ”antibacterial action.”
One of Florey’s brightest employees was a biochemist, Dr. Ernst Chain, a Jewish German émigré. Chain was an abrupt, abrasive and acutely sensitive man who fought constantly with Florey over who deserved credit for developing penicillin. Despite their battles, they produced a series of crude penicillium-mold culture fluid extracts.
During the summer of 1940, their experiments centered on a group of 50 mice that they had infected with deadly streptococcus. Half the mice died miserable deaths from overwhelming sepsis. The others, which received penicillin injections, survived.
It was at that point that Florey realized that he had enough promising information to test the drug on people. But the problem remained: how to produce enough pure penicillin to treat people. In spite of efforts to increase the yield from the mold cultures, it took 2,000 liters of mold culture fluid to obtain enough pure penicillin to treat a single case of sepsis in a person.
In September 1940, an Oxford police constable, Albert Alexander, 48, provided the first test case. Alexander nicked his face working in his rose garden. The scratch, infected with streptococci and staphylococci, spread to his eyes and scalp. Although Alexander was admitted to the Radcliffe Infirmary and treated with doses of sulfa drugs, the infection worsened and resulted in smoldering abscesses in the eye, lungs and shoulder. Florey and Chain heard about the horrible case at high table one evening and, immediately, asked the Radcliffe physicians if they could try their ”purified” penicillin.
After five days of injections, Alexander began to recover. But Chain and Florey did not have enough pure penicillin to eradicate the infection, and Alexander ultimately died.
Another vital figure in the lab was a biochemist, Dr. Norman Heatley, who used every available container, bottle and bedpan to grow vats of the penicillin mold, suction off the fluid and develop ways to purify the antibiotic. The makeshift mold factory he put together was about as far removed as one could get from the enormous fermentation tanks and sophisticated chemical engineering that characterize modern antibiotic production today.
In the summer of 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II, Florey and Heatley flew to the United States, where they worked with American scientists in Peoria, Ill., to develop a means of mass producing what became known as the wonder drug.
Aware that the fungus Penicillium notatum would never yield enough penicillin to treat people reliably, Florey and Heatley searched for a more productive species.
One hot summer day, a laboratory assistant, Mary Hunt, arrived with a cantaloupe that she had picked up at the market and that was covered with a ”pretty, golden mold.” Serendipitously, the mold turned out to be the fungus Penicillium chrysogeum, and it yielded 200 times the amount of penicillin as the species that Fleming had described. Yet even that species required enhancing with mutation-causing X-rays and filtration, ultimately producing 1,000 times as much penicillin as the first batches from Penicillium notatum.
In the war, penicillin proved its mettle. Throughout history, the major killer in wars had been infection rather than battle injuries. In World War I, the death rate from bacterial pneumonia was 18 percent; in World War II, it fell, to less than 1 percent.
From January to May in 1942, 400 million units of pure penicillin were manufactured. By the end of the war, American pharmaceutical companies were producing 650 billion units a month.
Ironically, Fleming did little work on penicillin after his initial observations in 1928. Beginning in 1941, after news reporters began to cover the early trials of the antibiotic on people, the unprepossessing and gentle Fleming was lionized as the discoverer of penicillin. And much to the quiet consternation of Florey, the Oxford group’s contributions were virtually ignored.
That problem was partially corrected in 1945, when Fleming, Florey, and Chain — but not Heatley — were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In his acceptance speech, Fleming presciently warned that the overuse of penicillin might lead to bacterial resistance.
In 1990, Oxford made up for the Nobel committee’s oversight by awarding Heatley the first honorary doctorate of medicine in its 800-year history.
Maybe this September 28, as we celebrate Alexander Fleming’s great accomplishment, we will recall that penicillin also required the midwifery of Florey, Chain and Heatley, as well as an army of laboratory workers."
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Early on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, a tragic, medical mystery began with a sore throat and a runny nose. It was then that Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old girl from Elk Grove Village, a suburb of Chicago, told her mother and father about her symptoms. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. Mary was dead by 7 a.m. Within a week, her death would panic the entire nation. And only months later, it changed the way we purchase and consume over-the-counter medications.
That same day, a 27-year-old postal worker named Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois, died of what was initially thought to be a massive heart attack but turned out to be cyanide poisoning as well. His brother and sister-in-law, Stanley, 25, and Theresa, 19, of Lisle, Illinois, rushed to his home to console their loved ones. Both experienced throbbing headaches, a not uncommon response to a death in the family and each took a Tylenol extra-strength capsule or two from the same bottle Adam had used earlier in the day. Stanley died that very day and Theresa died two days later.
Over the next few days, three more strange deaths occurred: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois. All of them, it turned out, took Tylenol shortly before they died.
It was at this point, early October of 1982, that investigators made the connection between the poisoning deaths and Tylenol, the best-selling, non-prescription pain reliever sold in the United States at that time. The gelatin-based capsules were especially popular because they were slick and easy to swallow. Unfortunately, each victim swallowed a Tylenol capsule laced with A lethal dose of cyanide.
McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of the health care giant, Johnson & Johnson, manufactured Tylenol. To its credit, the company took an active role with the media in issuing mass warning communications and immediately called for a massive recall of the more than 31 million bottles of Tylenol in circulation. Tainted capsules were discovered in early October in a few other grocery stores and drug stores in the Chicago area, but, fortunately, they had not yet been sold or consumed. McNeill and Johnson & Johnson offered replacement capsules to those who turned in pills already purchased and a reward for anyone with information leading to the apprehension of the individual or people involved in these random murders.
The case continued to be confusing to the police, the drug maker and the public at large. For example, Johnson & Johnson quickly established that the cyanide lacing occurred after cases of Tylenol left the factory. Someone, police hypothesized, must have taken bottles off the shelves of local grocers and drug stores in the Chicago area, laced the capsules with poison, and then returned the restored packages to the shelves to be purchased by the unknowing victims.
To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found.
One man, James Lewis, claiming to be the Tylenol killer wrote a “ransom” letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million in exchange for stopping the poisonings. After a lengthy cat and mouse game, police and federal investigators determined that Lewis lived in New York and had no demonstrable links to the Chicago events. That said, he was charged with extortion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 1995 after serving only 13 years.
Other “copy-cat” poisonings, involving Tylenol and other over-the-counter medications, cropped up again in the 1980s and early 1990s but these events were never as dramatic or as deadly as the 1982 Chicago-area deaths. Conspiracy theories about motives and suspects for all these heinous acts continue to be bandied about on the Internet to this day.
Before the 1982 crisis, Tylenol controlled more than 35 percent of the over-the-counter pain reliever market; only a few weeks after the murders, that number plummeted to less than 8 percent. The dire situation, both in terms of human life and business, made it imperative that the Johnson & Johnson executives respond swiftly and authoritatively.
For example, Johnson & Johnson developed new product protection methods and ironclad pledges to do better in protecting their consumers in the future. Working with FDA officials, they introduced a new tamper-proof packaging, which included foil seals and other features that made it obvious to a consumer if foul play had transpired. These packaging protections soon became the industry standard for all over-the-counter medications. The company also introduced price reductions and a new version of their pills — called the “caplet” — a tablet coated with slick, easy-to-swallow gelatin but far harder to tamper with than the older capsules which could be easily opened, laced with a contaminant, and then placed back in the older non-tamper-proof bottle.
Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, Tylenol’s sales rebounded to its healthy past and it became, once again, the nation’s favorite over-the-counter pain reliever. Critics who had prematurely announced the death of the brand Tylenol were now praising the company’s handling of the matter. Indeed, the Johnson & Johnson recall became a classic case study in business schools across the nation.
In 1983, the U.S. Congress passed what was called “the Tylenol bill,” making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof.
Sadly, the tragedies that resulted from the Tylenol poisonings can never be undone. But their deaths did inspire a series of important moves to make over-the-counter medications safer (albeit never 100 percent safe) for the hundreds of millions of people who buy them every year.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opens fire on a crowd attending the final night of a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800. Although the shooting only lasted 10 minutes, the death and injury tolls made this massacre the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time of the attack.
Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired man who lived in Mesquite, Nevada, targeted the crowd of concert-goers on the Las Vegas strip from the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. He had checked into the hotel several days before the massacre.
Paddock began firing at the crowd at 10:05 p.m. using an arsenal of 23 guns, 12 of which were upgraded with bump stocks – a tool used to fire semi-automatic guns in rapid succession. Within the 10-minute period, he was able to fire more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition.
An open-door alert sent hotel security guard Jesus Campos to investigate the 32 floor at the start of the shooting. After arriving on the floor via the stairs, Campos couldn’t get past a barricade blocking the entrance so he used the elevator instead. While walking through the hall, he heard a drilling sound coming from Paddock’s room and was shot in the leg, through the door.
Once authorities were alerted, they arrived at Paddock’s suite at 10:17 p.m. and didn’t breach for nearly another hour at 11:20 p.m. Paddock was found dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His motives remain unknown.
In addition to the arsenal of weaponry found in Paddock’s hotel room, a note calculating how to attack the crowd based on trajectory and distance was also found. Authorities concluded that Paddock had no connections with terrorist groups such as ISIS and that his planned attack was carried out without accomplices.
The deadly shooting horrified the country and sparked debate over gun control legislation once again, with gun-control advocates claiming that Paddock’s use of bump stocks led to increased causalities. In response, some states banned bump stocks.
Milovan1
Well-Known Member
I remember this well. How awful.
Milovan1
Well-Known Member
October 1st on this day in music
1956 - Elvis Presley
After test audiences gave a negative reaction to Elvis Presley dying at the end of the film Love Me Tender, The King was called back to re-shoot the scene. In the new ending, the hero lived.
1965 - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He introduced his new touring band on this tour, made up of guitarist Robbie Robertson, organist Garth Hudson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manual and drummer Levon Helm. They will become known simply as The Band.
1966 - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix appeared live for the first time in the UK when he jammed with Cream at their gig at London Polytechnic. Hendrix made his official UK live debut a month later on Friday 25 Nov 1966, when the Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared at the Bag O'Nails Club, London.
1967 - The Rolling Stones
Thieves broke into Mick Jagger's London flat in England and stole jewellery and furs belonging to his then girlfriend Marianne Faithfull.
1967 - John Peel
The first edition of UK BBC Radio 1's 'Top Gear' was aired. Presented by John Peel and Pete Drummond they featured The Move, Traffic, Pink Floyd, Tim Rose and Tomorrow featuring Keith West.
1970 - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix was buried at The Greenwood Cemetery at the Dunlop Baptist Church, Seattle. Among the mourners; Miles Davis, Eric Burdon, Johnny Winter and members of Derek and the Dominoes.
1973 - Simon Park Orchestra
The Simon Park Orchestra were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Eye Level,' taken from the ITV series 'Van Der Valk.' It was the first TV theme to become a No.1 in the UK.
1975 - Al Jackson
39 year old Al Jackson, drummer for Booker T. And The MGs, was shot and killed by a burglar at his home. His wife was questioned about the killing because she was arrested in July for shooting her husband in the chest during a domestic dispute. He wasn't badly hurt and the charges were dismissed when his wife claimed self-defense. Jackson had returned home to what police described as a botched robbery attempt. According to Jackson's wife, an intruder made her answer the door and then threw her husband to the floor demanding money. Jackson was forced to lie face down and then was shot in the back five times. The identity of the culprit remains a mystery. Booker T had backed such artists as Otis Redding, Al Green and Sam and Dave.
1977 - Elton John
Elton John became the first musician to be honoured in New York City's Madison Square Hall Of Fame.
1977 Meco
Meco started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with a disco version of 'Star Wars Theme'. Had other hits with versions of 'Close Encounters', 'Wizard Of Oz' and 'Empire Strikes Back'.
1981 - Martin Chambers
The Pretenders were forced to cancel the last leg of a US tour after drummer Martin Chambers put his hand through a windowpane, cutting tendons and arteries.
1982 - John Cougar
John Cougar went to No.1 on both the US album and singles chart with the album 'American Fool' and the single 'Jack And Diane'.
1983 - David Bowie
A David Bowie world convention was held at The Cunard Hotel in London. The event had the largest collection of Bowie merchandise ever assembled.
1986 - Andy McVann
Andy McVann drummer with Liverpool band The Farm was killed in a car crash during a police chase.
1988 - Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi scored their first UK No.1 album with 'New Jersey', their fourth release. The follow-up to Slippery When Wet produced five Billboard Hot 100 top ten singles, the most top ten hits to date for a hard rock album. 'Bad Medicine' and 'I'll Be There for You' both hit No.1 on Billboard Hot 100.
1990 - New Kids On The Block
Forbes Magazine listed New Kids On The Block as the fifth richest entertainers in the US with an income of $78 million.
1994 - Michael Jackson
The Daily Mirror in the UK printed a photo of Michael Jackson in a scoutmaster's uniform along with five young Boy Scouts. A Boy Scouts leader later made a statement saying that Jackson had no association with the organization.
1999 - Lena Zavaroni
Singer Lena Zavaroni died aged 35 after a long battle against anorexia. Zavoroni was discovered on TV talent show Opportunity Knocks, in 1974 she became the youngest British singer to earn a silver disc with 'Ma He's Making Eyes At Me' and the youngest person to appear on TV's Top Of The Pops.
2002 - James Blunt
James Blunt left the British army having served six years, (in the cavalry regiment). Blunt rose to prominence in 2004 with the release of his debut studio album Back to Bedlam, before achieving worldwide fame with the singles 'You're Beautiful' and 'Goodbye My Lover'.
2004 - AC/DC
The Lord Mayor of Melbourne officially opened 'AC/DC' Lane after the veteran rockers. The Lord Mayor erected the sign to cheers and bagpipes playing the bands song 'Long Way To The Top'. The City of Melbourne had extra copies of the sign made, in anticipation of fans stealing them.
2004 - Bruce Palmer
Canadian bassist Bruce Palmer died of a heart attack. Member of The Mynah Birds and The Buffalo Springfield. Also worked with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and Neil Young.
2004 - Ms Dynamite
Ms Dynamite was arrested over allegations of assault after an incident at a restaurant in Central London. Ms Dynamite (real name Niomi McLean-Daley), was arrested in connection with the allegation after voluntarily attending a police station, she was later released on bail.
2005 - Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty was arrested during a police drugs operation in Shrewsbury where his band Babyshambles had been playing and held overnight. Police said a man and a woman were arrested for possession of class A drugs and 17 others searched during an operation in Telford. A gig in Norwich planned for the following night was cancelled.
2007 - Radiohead
Radiohead's official website crashed after the band announced that their new album 'In Rainbows' would only be available to order via www.radiohead.com. Fans could pre-order the download at any price they choose or pay £40 for a "discbox", which included two CDs, two records, plus artwork and booklets.
2007 - Spice Girls
The Spice Girls London reunion concert sold out in 38 seconds after fans were notified tickets had gone on sale. More than one million people in the UK registered for the concert, on 15 December 2007 at the O2 arena, tickets cost £55-75. Three more London dates were added to the world tour which was kicking off in Vancouver on 2nd Dec.
2015 - The Beatles
An original tape of The Beatles performing at The Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1962 was found after 50 years languishing in a desk drawer. It featured the Fab Four playing 'Some Other Guy' in September 1962, four weeks before their debut single came out. It was recorded after the group were filmed for Granada TV's Know The North, but was never broadcast.
2018 - Charles Aznavour
French singer, actor, public activist and diplomat Charles Aznavour was found dead in a bathtub at his home at Mouriès at the age of 94. He was famous for his 1974 UK No.1 single 'She' and was one of France's most popular and enduring singers (dubbed France's Frank Sinatra). He sold more than 180 million records, recorded more than 1,200 songs (interpreted in nine languages) and he wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs for himself and others.
2019 - Ed Sheeran
Accounts released revealed that Ed Sheeran Ltd, made a gross profit of £23,770,262, equating to £65,124 a day during 2018. The accounts also showed that he paid £4,506,139 in tax. Separate figures for total earnings before tax, costs and fees found the singer generated £89.8m last year, putting him below Coldplay at £94.2m and U2 at £96.3m, according to Forbes.
2019 - Beverly Watkins
American blues guitarist Beverly Watkins died age 80. She worked with artists like James Brown, B.B. King, and Ray Charles.
1956 - Elvis Presley
After test audiences gave a negative reaction to Elvis Presley dying at the end of the film Love Me Tender, The King was called back to re-shoot the scene. In the new ending, the hero lived.
1965 - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He introduced his new touring band on this tour, made up of guitarist Robbie Robertson, organist Garth Hudson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manual and drummer Levon Helm. They will become known simply as The Band.
1966 - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix appeared live for the first time in the UK when he jammed with Cream at their gig at London Polytechnic. Hendrix made his official UK live debut a month later on Friday 25 Nov 1966, when the Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared at the Bag O'Nails Club, London.
1967 - The Rolling Stones
Thieves broke into Mick Jagger's London flat in England and stole jewellery and furs belonging to his then girlfriend Marianne Faithfull.
1967 - John Peel
The first edition of UK BBC Radio 1's 'Top Gear' was aired. Presented by John Peel and Pete Drummond they featured The Move, Traffic, Pink Floyd, Tim Rose and Tomorrow featuring Keith West.
1970 - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix was buried at The Greenwood Cemetery at the Dunlop Baptist Church, Seattle. Among the mourners; Miles Davis, Eric Burdon, Johnny Winter and members of Derek and the Dominoes.
1973 - Simon Park Orchestra
The Simon Park Orchestra were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Eye Level,' taken from the ITV series 'Van Der Valk.' It was the first TV theme to become a No.1 in the UK.
1975 - Al Jackson
39 year old Al Jackson, drummer for Booker T. And The MGs, was shot and killed by a burglar at his home. His wife was questioned about the killing because she was arrested in July for shooting her husband in the chest during a domestic dispute. He wasn't badly hurt and the charges were dismissed when his wife claimed self-defense. Jackson had returned home to what police described as a botched robbery attempt. According to Jackson's wife, an intruder made her answer the door and then threw her husband to the floor demanding money. Jackson was forced to lie face down and then was shot in the back five times. The identity of the culprit remains a mystery. Booker T had backed such artists as Otis Redding, Al Green and Sam and Dave.
1977 - Elton John
Elton John became the first musician to be honoured in New York City's Madison Square Hall Of Fame.
1977 Meco
Meco started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with a disco version of 'Star Wars Theme'. Had other hits with versions of 'Close Encounters', 'Wizard Of Oz' and 'Empire Strikes Back'.
1981 - Martin Chambers
The Pretenders were forced to cancel the last leg of a US tour after drummer Martin Chambers put his hand through a windowpane, cutting tendons and arteries.
1982 - John Cougar
John Cougar went to No.1 on both the US album and singles chart with the album 'American Fool' and the single 'Jack And Diane'.
1983 - David Bowie
A David Bowie world convention was held at The Cunard Hotel in London. The event had the largest collection of Bowie merchandise ever assembled.
1986 - Andy McVann
Andy McVann drummer with Liverpool band The Farm was killed in a car crash during a police chase.
1988 - Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi scored their first UK No.1 album with 'New Jersey', their fourth release. The follow-up to Slippery When Wet produced five Billboard Hot 100 top ten singles, the most top ten hits to date for a hard rock album. 'Bad Medicine' and 'I'll Be There for You' both hit No.1 on Billboard Hot 100.
1990 - New Kids On The Block
Forbes Magazine listed New Kids On The Block as the fifth richest entertainers in the US with an income of $78 million.
1994 - Michael Jackson
The Daily Mirror in the UK printed a photo of Michael Jackson in a scoutmaster's uniform along with five young Boy Scouts. A Boy Scouts leader later made a statement saying that Jackson had no association with the organization.
1999 - Lena Zavaroni
Singer Lena Zavaroni died aged 35 after a long battle against anorexia. Zavoroni was discovered on TV talent show Opportunity Knocks, in 1974 she became the youngest British singer to earn a silver disc with 'Ma He's Making Eyes At Me' and the youngest person to appear on TV's Top Of The Pops.
2002 - James Blunt
James Blunt left the British army having served six years, (in the cavalry regiment). Blunt rose to prominence in 2004 with the release of his debut studio album Back to Bedlam, before achieving worldwide fame with the singles 'You're Beautiful' and 'Goodbye My Lover'.
2004 - AC/DC
The Lord Mayor of Melbourne officially opened 'AC/DC' Lane after the veteran rockers. The Lord Mayor erected the sign to cheers and bagpipes playing the bands song 'Long Way To The Top'. The City of Melbourne had extra copies of the sign made, in anticipation of fans stealing them.
2004 - Bruce Palmer
Canadian bassist Bruce Palmer died of a heart attack. Member of The Mynah Birds and The Buffalo Springfield. Also worked with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and Neil Young.
2004 - Ms Dynamite
Ms Dynamite was arrested over allegations of assault after an incident at a restaurant in Central London. Ms Dynamite (real name Niomi McLean-Daley), was arrested in connection with the allegation after voluntarily attending a police station, she was later released on bail.
2005 - Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty was arrested during a police drugs operation in Shrewsbury where his band Babyshambles had been playing and held overnight. Police said a man and a woman were arrested for possession of class A drugs and 17 others searched during an operation in Telford. A gig in Norwich planned for the following night was cancelled.
2007 - Radiohead
Radiohead's official website crashed after the band announced that their new album 'In Rainbows' would only be available to order via www.radiohead.com. Fans could pre-order the download at any price they choose or pay £40 for a "discbox", which included two CDs, two records, plus artwork and booklets.
2007 - Spice Girls
The Spice Girls London reunion concert sold out in 38 seconds after fans were notified tickets had gone on sale. More than one million people in the UK registered for the concert, on 15 December 2007 at the O2 arena, tickets cost £55-75. Three more London dates were added to the world tour which was kicking off in Vancouver on 2nd Dec.
2015 - The Beatles
An original tape of The Beatles performing at The Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1962 was found after 50 years languishing in a desk drawer. It featured the Fab Four playing 'Some Other Guy' in September 1962, four weeks before their debut single came out. It was recorded after the group were filmed for Granada TV's Know The North, but was never broadcast.
2018 - Charles Aznavour
French singer, actor, public activist and diplomat Charles Aznavour was found dead in a bathtub at his home at Mouriès at the age of 94. He was famous for his 1974 UK No.1 single 'She' and was one of France's most popular and enduring singers (dubbed France's Frank Sinatra). He sold more than 180 million records, recorded more than 1,200 songs (interpreted in nine languages) and he wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs for himself and others.
2019 - Ed Sheeran
Accounts released revealed that Ed Sheeran Ltd, made a gross profit of £23,770,262, equating to £65,124 a day during 2018. The accounts also showed that he paid £4,506,139 in tax. Separate figures for total earnings before tax, costs and fees found the singer generated £89.8m last year, putting him below Coldplay at £94.2m and U2 at £96.3m, according to Forbes.
2019 - Beverly Watkins
American blues guitarist Beverly Watkins died age 80. She worked with artists like James Brown, B.B. King, and Ray Charles.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
63 years ago
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire. The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871.
Despite the fire’s devastation, much of Chicago’s physical infrastructure, including its water, sewage and transportation systems, remained intact. Reconstruction efforts began quickly and spurred great economic development and population growth, as architects laid the foundation for a modern city featuring the world’s first skyscrapers. At the time of the fire, Chicago’s population was approximately 324,000; within nine years, there were 500,000 Chicagoans. By 1893, the city was a major economic and transportation hub with an estimated population of 1.5 million. That same year, Chicago was chosen to host the World’s Columbian Exposition, a major tourist attraction visited by 27.5 million people, or approximately half the U.S. population at the time.
In 1997, the Chicago City Council exonerated Mrs. O’Leary and her cow. She turned into a recluse after the fire, and died in 1895
http://livinghistoryofillinois.com/pdf_files/Chicago Fire of 1871.pdf
California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
August complex fire expanded beyond 1m acres, elevating it from a mere ‘megafire’ to a new classification: ‘gigafire’
www.theguardian.com
raratt
Well-Known Member
I was watching the tankers on flightradar24 yesterday, they have the heavy birds flying out of McLellan to do drops on that fire.California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
August complex fire expanded beyond 1m acres, elevating it from a mere ‘megafire’ to a new classification: ‘gigafire’
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
At 12:15 p.m. local time October 12, 2000, a motorized rubber dinghy loaded with explosives blows a 40-by-40-foot hole in the port side of the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer that was refueling at Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and 38 wounded in the attack, which was carried out by two suicide terrorists alleged to be members of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network.
The Cole had come to Aden at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula to refuel on its way to join U.S. warships that were enforcing the trade sanctions against Iraq. It was scheduled to remain in the port for just four hours, indicating that the terrorists had precise information about the destroyer’s unannounced visit to the Aden fueling station. The terrorists’ small boat joined a group of harbor ships aiding the Cole moor at a refueling, and they succeeded in reaching the U.S. warship unchallenged. Their dinghy then exploded in a massive explosion that ripped through the Cole’s port side, badly damaging the engine room and adjoining mess and living quarters. Witnesses on the Cole said both terrorists stood up in the moment before the blast.
The explosion caused extensive flooding in the warship, causing the ship to list slightly, but by the evening crew members had managed to stop the flooding and keep the Cole afloat. In the aftermath of the attack, President Bill Clinton ordered American ships in the Persian Gulf to leave port and head to open waters. A large team of U.S. investigators was immediately sent to Aden to investigate the incident, including a group of FBI agents who were focused exclusively on possible links to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden had been formally charged in the U.S. with masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
Six men believed to be involved in the Cole attack were soon arrested in Yemen. Lacking cooperation by Yemeni authorities, the FBI has failed to conclusively link the attack to bin Laden.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On October 13, 2010, the last of 33 miners trapped nearly half a mile underground for more than two months at a caved-in mine in northern Chile, are rescued. The miners survived longer than anyone else trapped underground in recorded history.
The miners’ ordeal began on August 5, 2010, when the San Jose gold and copper mine where they were working, some 500 miles north of the Chilean capital city of Santiago, collapsed. The 33 men moved to an underground emergency shelter area, where they discovered just several days’ worth of food rations. As their situation grew more desperate over the next 17 days, the miners, uncertain if anyone would find them, considered suicide and cannibalism. Then, on August 22, a drill sent by rescuers broke through to the area where the miners were located, and the men sent back up a note saying, “We are fine in the refuge, the 33.” Food, water, letters, medicine and other supplies were soon delivered to the miners via a narrow bore hole. Video cameras were also sent down, making it possible for rescuers to see the men and the hot, humid space in which they were entombed. As engineering and mining experts from around the world collaborated on the long, complex process of devising a way to bring the 33 men up to the surface, the miners maintained a system of jobs and routines in order to keep up morale.
Rescuers eventually drilled and reinforced an escape shaft wide enough to extract the men, one by one. (Employees of a Pennsylvania-based drilling-tool company played a role in drilling the rescue shaft.) On October 12, the first of the miners was raised to the surface in a narrow, 13-foot-tall capsule painted white, blue and red, the colors of the Chilean flag. The approximately 2,000-foot ascent to the surface in the capsule took around 15 minutes for each man.
The miners were greeted by a cheering crowd that included Chile’s president, Sebastian Pinera; media from around the world; and friends and relatives, many of whom had been camped at the base of the mine in the Atacama Desert for months. Millions of people around the globe watched the rescue on live TV. Less than 24 hours after the operation began, all 33 of the miners, who ranged in age from 19 to 63, had been safely rescued. Almost all the men were in good health, and each of them sported dark glasses to protect their eyes after being in a dimly lit space for so long.
The rescued miners were later honored with trips to a variety of destinations, including England, Israel and Florida’s Walt Disney World, where a parade was held in their honor
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are arrested at dawn by King Phillip the Fair, and later confess under torture to heresy.
today we know it as Friday the 13th
today we know it as Friday the 13th
Milovan1
Well-Known Member
I remember this well when it happened. There was a movie made about the incident that I seen a couple months ago can't remember
the name of it but it was a good movie. Not low budget by all means. The end of the movie for the movie had a get together of the actual miners it happened to as well. Well made flick.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"The Cuban Missile Crisis begins on October 14, 1962, bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane offered incontrovertible evidence that Soviet-made medium-range missiles in Cuba—capable of carrying nuclear warheads—were now stationed 90 miles off the American coastline.
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba had been steadily increasing since the failed April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, in which Cuban refugees, armed and trained by the United States, landed in Cuba and attempted to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Though the invasion did not succeed, Castro was convinced that the United States would try again, and set out to get more military assistance from the Soviet Union. During the next year, the number of Soviet advisors in Cuba rose to more than 20,000.
Rumors began that Russia was also moving missiles and strategic bombers onto the island. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev may have decided to so dramatically up the stakes in the Cold War for several reasons. He may have believed that the United States was indeed going to invade Cuba and provided the weapons as a deterrent. Facing criticism at home from more hard-line members of the Soviet communist hierarchy, he may have thought a tough stand might win him support. Khrushchev also had always resented that U.S. nuclear missiles were stationed near the Soviet Union (in Turkey, for example), and putting missiles in Cuba might have been his way of redressing the imbalance.
Two days after the pictures were taken, after being developed and analyzed by intelligence officers, they were presented to President Kennedy. During the next two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union would come as close to nuclear war as they ever had, and a fearful world awaited the outcome."