11

8/7/2008 3:13:32 AM

Aug 8 1925

40,000 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, David Owen Brooks, 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 beats Juan Corona's record of 25 victims.

Aug 9 1945

Because of the dense cloudcover 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.

8/9/2008 11:28:51 AM

1988 - WAYNE GRETZKY GETS TRADED FROM EDMONTON TO L.A


SHIT WAS EPIC.

[Edited on August 9, 2008 at 11:39 AM. Reason : ]

8/9/2008 11:39:17 AM

Aug 10 1628

To assist in the war with Poland, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus builds a magnificent warship, the Vasa, with 64 bronze cannon on two tiers. But on its maiden voyage, the lower gunports are accidentally left open, and the ship immediately sinks to the bottom of Stockholm harbor. The ship remains submerged until it is raised in 1961 to become a tourist attraction.

Aug 10 1966

Last words of James French, sent to the Electric Chair by the state of Oklahoma: "How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? FRENCH FRIES."

Aug 10 1969

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca are brutally murdered in their Los Feliz, California home by followers of Charles Manson. They take some of their victims' blood and smear HEALTER SKELTER on the refrigerator door.

Aug 10 1972

Paul McCartney and his wife Linda are arrested in Sweden after postal officials intercept a parcel of hashish addressed to their band, Wings.

Aug 10 1989

Disgruntled postal worker John Merlin Taylor blows his wife's brains out with a .22 Ruger, then drives to his job at the Orange Glen post office in Escondido, California. There he kills two coworkers on the back loading dock, then wounds another inside before blowing his own brains out.

Aug 10 1996

Heated by the sun, powerlines begin to sag in Oregon. Somehow this triggers a series of failures which cascades throughout the Western states. Four million people lose electrical service in Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, and Texas. It is probably the worst power outage in US history.

8/10/2008 1:44:02 PM

You forgot yesterday


August 9, 1978: TWW Legend djeternal was born.

8/10/2008 1:50:22 PM

Aug 11 1772

The summit of Papandayan volcano in West Java suddenly implodes, unleashing a catastrophic debris avalanche which blankets an area of 250 square km. Tumbling boulders flatten 40 villages and their 2,957 inhabitants.

Aug 11 1933

Jerry Falwell is born in Lynchburg, Virginia. Contrary to reports later published in the esteemed journal HUSTLER, Falwell never actually fucks his own mother in an outhouse.

Aug 11 1965

A white motorcycle cop from the California Highway Patrol pulls over a car at 116th and Avalon, near Watts. When Marquette Frye fails the field sobriety test, the CHP officer places him under arrest and radios for a transportation unit and a towtruck. 15 minutes later, with more than 1,000 spectators gathered to watch the scene, a scuffle breaks out between police officers and members of the driver's family. This altercation sets the stage for the bloody Watts riots two days later.

Aug 11 1975

Paratroopers from Indonesia invade the island of East Timor, ostensibly to end a civil war, but in reality to seize the territory. They perpetrate a reign of terror against the inhabitants, which continues to this day.

Aug 11 1984

Not realizing that his weekly radio address is already on the air, President Ronald Reagan quips into his live microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Aug 11 1997

Responding to reports of a domestic disturbance at the L'Elysee condominiums in West Los Angeles, LAPD officers encounter Christian Slater "swinging his arms and yelling incoherently" in the building stairwell. The movie actor reveals to police that "the Germans are coming and they will kill us." He also mentions that he has been awake for most of two days, and the last thing he remembers is "snorting a couple of lines of cocaine this morning." When officers attempt to put him in handcuffs, Slater knocks one of them to the floor and makes an unsuccessful grab for the cop's weapon. His punishment? 59 days in jail.

8/11/2008 8:59:38 PM

Aug 12 30 BC

Cleoptara, Queen of Egypt and former wife to Julius Caesar, commits suicide by means of venomous snakebite to the mammary gland.

Aug 12 1676

Wampanoag chieftain Metacom (or "Philip") is killed in a swamp near Mount Hope. Thus ends King Philip's War, the first war between Indians and European settlers.

Aug 12 1869

In San Francisco, Emperor Norton I issues a stern edict outlawing both the Republican and Democratic political parties. Violators face a prison term of five-to-ten years.

Aug 12 1948

Russian schoolteacher Oksana Kosenkina is injured when she jumps out the window of the Soviet Consulate in New York City. Soviet officials claim they had rescued her from "White Russian" kidnappers, but Kosenkina says she was trying to escape from the Soviets. The US later expels the consul general, and the Soviets close their consulate.

Aug 12 1951

Dr. Jean Vieu discovers two patients stricken with abdominal pain and grotesque hallucinations in Pont St. Esprit, France. They are just the first of more than 230 afflicted townspeople, thanks to bread tainted with ergot.

Aug 12 1953

In Siberia, the Soviet Union successfully tests its first thermonuclear device, based on Andrei Sakharov's fission-fusion "Layer Cake" design: alternating layers of uranium and hydrogen fuel sandwiched together and wrapped around a conventional Atomic Bomb. The fission explosion compresses the hydrogen, causing a fusion reaction.

Aug 12 1985

30 minutes after takeoff, JAL flight 123 loses all hydraulic pressure, rendering the controls inoperable. The crew attempts a return to Tokyo-Haneda airport by adjusting power to the engines, but the 747 crashes into a mountain ridge near Mt. Osutaka. When rescue workers arrive the following morning, they find 4 survivors and 520 dead.

8/12/2008 9:35:39 PM

Aug 13 1521

After 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.

Aug 14 410

Visigoths under King Alaric sack Rome after slave co-conspirators open the city gates for them. Looting lasts for six days.

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.

8/14/2008 12:14:43 PM

Aug 15 1057

Macbeth is killed in the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. He had been king of Scotland for 17 years.

Aug 15 1935

Will Rogers, the most famous man in America, dies near Barrow, Alaska when his sea plane plunges into a lagoon. At the time, he and one-eyed aviator Wiley Post were surveying possible flight paths between Seattle and the Soviet Union.

Aug 15 1969

Woodstock begins on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York. Tickets are $18 for three days of counterculture musical acts, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Sha-Na-Na.

Aug 15 1994

International terrorist Carlos the Jackal is jailed in France. The assassin was turned over by the Sudanese government after he checked into a Khartoum hospital for varicose vein surgery on one of his testicles.

8/15/2008 12:11:22 PM

Quote :

"Aug 15 1969 Woodstock begins on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York. Tickets are $18 for three days of counterculture musical acts, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Sha-Na-Na"

Woodstock =

[Edited on August 15, 2008 at 2:48 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2008 2:47:21 PM

Aug 16 1819

60 cavalrymen charge into a crowd of approximately 70,000 protesters at St. Peter's Field in Manchester, England. The soldiers begin to hack away at the people with their sabers and trample them under hoof. 11 die and 400 are wounded in the Manchester Massacre, also called the Battle of Peterloo.

Aug 16 1938

Blues musician Robert Johnson, who presumably sold his soul to the devil (the story somewhat being told by the movie Crossroads), is poisoned by a jealous husband in Three Forks, Mississippi.

Aug 16 1960

Emmett O. Hashfield abducts Avril Terry, an 11-year-old girl in Booneville, Indiana. He then proceeds to murder, dismember, and eat portions of her, before tossing the leftovers in a river.

Aug 16 1977

Elvis Presley dies in his home at the age of 42, while sitting on the toilet. In the bathroom, he had been reading The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. Presumably, Elvis' search was concluded shortly thereafter.

Aug 16 1987

Mercury, Venus, and Mars all get bunched up near the Sun in what some call the Harmonic Convergence. Thousands of nutballs clustered at sacred locations like Mount Shasta, California begin meditating their asses off for some damn reason.

Aug 16 1997

Aida Nur El-Din, a night nurse at Alexandria University's El-Mairy Hospital, confesses to Egyptian authorities that she killed at least 18 ICU patients by injecting them with drugs stolen from the pharmacy. Before she can be taken downtown, El-Din jumps out a three-story window in a failed suicide attempt.

8/16/2008 4:58:55 PM

Quote :

"Woodstock begins on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York. Tickets are $18"

Only the squares bought tickets to woodstock. Everyone else just crashed. The concert promoters spent the next 30 years paying off their debt.

8/16/2008 5:06:00 PM

Aug 17 1896

Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year-old mother of two, becomes the world's first automobile fatality when she steps in front of a car outside the Crystal Palace in London. At the coroner's inquest, Arthur Edsall states he had been driving at only 4 mph. The motorist also claims that when he saw the pedestrian, he rang his bell and shouted "Stand back!" For whatever reason, the coroner accepts Edsall's preposterous story.

Aug 17 1948

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is arrested for bad checks in San Luis Obispo, California. In court a fortnight later, Hubbard pays the $25 fine.

Aug 17 1980

Dingos snatch baby Azaria from a campground near Ayers Rock, Australia. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, is later convicted of murder and spends three years in prison, but the conviction is ultimately overturned. Apparently there have been a number of baby/dingo incidents over the years, the dingo not differentiating animals from humans. (The fact that if you rearrange the letters in LINDY CHAMBERLAIN you get CHILDREN BY ANIMAL is just a coincidence.)

Aug 17 1987

Rudolf Hess found hanged by an electrical cord at Spandau prison, aged 93. He was incarcerated there for 40 years, 21 of those years as the solitary inmate. In 1941 Hess flew to Scotland with ideas of peace in his head, making Hitler very very upset.

Aug 17 1996

Belgian police discover the bodies of two eight-year-old children kidnapped for pedophilic purposes in the town of Jumet, a suburb of Charleroi. The children had starved while Marc Dutroux was jailed for theft, there being nobody to feed them. Along with the two is the body of Bernard Weinstein, one of the perpetrators of the kidnappings. In early September, two additional teenage bodies are discovered in a house owned by Marc Dutroux. The revelations send the entire Belgian nation into shock.

8/17/2008 7:32:26 PM

Aug 18 1227

Genghis Khan dies in his sleep, after a fall from his horse. His old age and drinking probably contributed to his death, which the Mongols manage to keep secret for some time.

Aug 18 1503

Pope Alexander VI dies. He was the father of seven illegitimate children, and during his reign chose as his lover the lovely sixteen year old Guilia Farnese. A portrait of Guilia dressed as the Virgin Mary appeared over Alexander's bedchamber door, but by no means was she his only liaison.

Aug 18 1590

Sent to England to get supplies three years prior, John White finally returns to Roanoke Island and discovers his colony "strongly enclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with [curtain walls] and [bastions] -- very fort-like." There is no sign of the settlers or where they may have gone, but carved in the bark of one of the trees is the word CROATOAN.

Aug 18 1999

A giant black rainbow encircles the Earth, sucking all oxygen from the atmosphere. The air returns shortly thereafter, but only after millions die from asphyxiation. On the bright side, the survivors go on to build a utopian civilization. It all happens precisely as predicted in the 1950s by Criswell, the TV psychic immortalized in the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space.

8/18/2008 2:51:40 PM

Quote :

" Aug 11 1984 Not realizing that his weekly radio address is already on the air, President Ronald Reagan quips into his live microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.""

haha, Reagan, that was awesome. I'd love to hear that show.

Quote :

" Aug 13 1521 After 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. "

That dude was badass

Quote :

" Aug 18 1590 Sent to England to get supplies three years prior, John White finally returns to Roanoke Island and discovers his colony "strongly enclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with [curtain walls] and [bastions] -- very fort-like." There is no sign of the settlers or where they may have gone, but carved in the bark of one of the trees is the word CROATOAN."

WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?!! WHERE DID THEY GO!?!

Quote :

" Aug 18 1999 A giant black rainbow encircles the Earth, sucking all oxygen from the atmosphere. The air returns shortly thereafter, but only after millions die from asphyxiation. On the bright side, the survivors go on to build a utopian civilization. It all happens precisely as predicted in the 1950s by Criswell, the TV psychic immortalized in the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space."

I totally don't remember that.

8/18/2008 10:03:51 PM

Aug 19 1934

Adolf 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. All because he didn't jab himself with the poison needle.

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.

8/19/2008 2:47:43 PM

Aug 20 1191

Crusaders 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.

8/20/2008 12:41:16 PM

nothing good happened today in history

8/20/2008 12:43:38 PM

Aug 21 1614

Erzsebet Bathory, ruler of Transylvania, dies at 54. She had sought immortality by killing young virgins and bathing in their blood. It didn't work.

Aug 21 1985

Just seconds after stepping off the plane, opposition candidate Benigno Aquino is gunned down by assassins at Manila Int'l Airport, on orders of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.

Aug 21 1986

1,700 people are killed in Cameroon when Lake Nyos emits a huge cloud of fast-moving fog, quickly enveloping the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum. The lethal mist, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide and water vapor, displaces the oxygen in the low-lying zones, killing thousands of cattle and even more birds and wild animals. One eyewitness later describes the landscape as being "littered with human remains and animal carcasses."

Aug 21 1996

Superfreak Rick James (prisoner J29237) is released from Folsom Prison after serving a two year sentence for drugs and assault. He had planned to marry his fiance, Tanja Anne Hijazi, upon release but she had been nicked for shoplifting a pair of boots two days earlier. They do make a cute couple.

8/21/2008 11:04:04 AM

Aug 22 1485

Richard III slain at Bodsworth.

Aug 22 1776

George Washington asks the Continental Congress for permission to burn New York City, to stop the city from being used to quarter troops arriving via the British fleet. It is declined, but his soldiers set 1/4th of the town ablaze on September 21.

Aug 22 1911

Mona Lisa stolen.

Aug 22 1989

Huey Newton murdered.

Aug 22 1992

FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi fires a rifle shot that kills unarmed Vicki Weaver, at the Ruby Ridge standoff. Horiuchi claimed he was trying to shoot another man in the back. The FBI also killed Weaver's fourteen year old son Sam, and the son's dog.

Aug 22 1995

David Gahan, lead singer of rock group Depeche Mode, was hospitalized after trying to commit suicide by slashing his wrist. Gahan was found in his Hollywood home with a two-inch slit in his wrist.

8/22/2008 3:01:13 AM

GW was baller.

8/22/2008 10:06:33 AM

Aug 23 1305

Scottish patriot William Wallace ("Braveheart") hanged, disemboweled, drawn, and quartered. His head was displayed on London Bridge.

Aug 23 1926

Rudolf Valentino dies.

Aug 23 1939

Germany and Russia signed the Molotov-Ribbentropp non-aggression pact (1939)

Aug 23 1951

Ninety West Point cadets are expelled for cheating, including most of the Academy's football team.

Aug 23 1968

The Youth International Party designates Pigasus as their choice of candidate for U.S. President. The boar hog is introduced at a press conference outside the Chicago Civic Center, with the slogan "They nominate a President and he eats the people. We nominate a President and the people eat him." The gathering is broken up shortly thereafter when the Chicago PD takes into custody the Yippie organizers and their pig.

Aug 23 1994

Inside an abandoned boathouse on the Scottish island of Jura, two members of the band KLF set fire to 20,000 fifty pound notes in front of witnesses. It takes two hours to burn all UKP 1,000,000.

Aug 23 1995

St. Petersburg resident Ilshat Kuzikov arrested in his apartment in connection with the murders of Misha Bochkov and Edik Vassilevsky, whose severed heads were found in city streets. Discovered in his apartment were jars of pickled human remains, bags of ears, a pair of arms and legs, and a partially eaten "casserole".

8/23/2008 12:33:46 PM

Aug 24 79

Pompeii buried by Vesuvius, apparently to punish the debauchery that made the town famous. Tens of thousands of people perished only to have plaster casts made centuries later of the hollows their bodies once occupied.

Aug 24 1572

Troops loyal to the French crown alongside Catholic civilians massacre the Protestant Huguenots of Paris, estimates range between 20,000 and 100,000 deaths. At news of this carnage of this St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, a gleeful Pope Gregory XIII ordered celebrations and a medal to be struck.

Aug 24 1812

The White House and other public buildings in the District of Columbia are torched by the British.

Aug 24 1958

Red China commences the shelling of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, which hold one-third of Chiang Kai Shek's troops. The United States threatens nuclear retaliation for this, but the American people do not support the stance. A very strange compromise is worked out, permitting China to shell the islands on odd dates and Chiang Kai Shek's troops to resupply the islands on even dates.

Aug 24 1981

Mark David Chapman sentenced to 20 years for killing Beatle John Lennon.

8/24/2008 10:29:53 AM

Aug 25 1835

The New York Sun publishes stunning revelations that Sir John Hershel has observed little men living on the surface of the moon. The stories, now generally believed to be false, brings the paper record circulation.

Aug 25 1900

Nietzsche is dead.

Aug 25 1989

Homosexual Congressman Barney Frank confirms that he paid a male whore, Stephen L. Gobie, for sex on several occasions. Frank later hires the man as a housekeeper, but scandal erupts when Gobie is discovered using the congressman's apartment as a sodomite bordello.

Aug 25 1993

Snoop Doggy Dogg arrested on charges of accomplice to murder, manslaughter, in Los Angeles.

Aug 25 2001

Rhythm and blues Singer Aaliyah's plane crashes on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas, killing her and eight others. Excessive weight aboard the tail end likely caused the plane to go down.

8/25/2008 3:33:20 PM

Aug 26 1903

The St. Petersburg newspaper Znamya ("Banner") serializes a set of articles revealing the dual menace of the Freemasons and international Jewry. The series is just the first incarnation of what is later called the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Aug 26 1980

Hotel workers discover a 1,000-pound time bomb at Harveys Resort & Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Attached to the device is a ransom note, demanding that $3 million be delivered to a remote location by helicopter. After the delivery goes bad, bomb squad personnel are left to defuse the gadget by robot. The resulting blast blows a five-story hole in the structure and causes $12 million in damage.

Aug 26 1987

A rampaging elephant in Bangkok, Thailand, destroys a radio center and kills two people.

8/26/2008 11:05:36 AM

"i swear if they play that fucking song one more time i am going to go down there and smash that station out of existence"

-Mr Elephant.

8/26/2008 11:10:53 AM

I feel you Mr. Elephant. I'm glad someone actually took it upon themselves!!!

8/26/2008 11:17:41 AM

Aug 27 1883

After three massive explosions over the previous 16 hours, the volcanic island of Krakatoa suffers a final, inconceivably destructive blast. The noise is heard 3,000 miles away in Madagascar. Two-thirds of the island's land mass collapses into the ocean, and the resulting 175-foot tsunami wipes away 163 coastal towns and villages along the Sunda Straight, killing 36,417 inhabitants.

Aug 27 1928

The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlaws war forever.

Aug 27 1967

While The Beatles are away in Bangor, Brian Epstein is found dead in his home. Officially, the cause of death was accidental overdose of sleeping pills, but many believe it was suicide. He was becoming increasingly depressed over his lack of involvement with the Beatles and also his personal turmoil caused by trying to keep his homosexuality a secret.

Aug 27 1968

TV newsman Dan Rather gets beaten up in front of cameras on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The reporter is trying to interview a delegate being dragged off the floor when the bruisers suddenly turn on the Rather. "He lifted me right off the floor and put me away. I was down, the breath knocked out of me, as the whole group blew on by me... In the CBS control room, they had switched the camera onto me just as I was slugged."

Aug 27 1979

The IRA assassinates Louis Earl Mountbatten by placing a bomb on his yacht off the coast of Ireland. Mountbatten was the Queen's cousin, a war hero, and one of the most respected people in England.

Aug 27 1987

Jello Biafra's obscenity trial ends in Los Angeles, with the jury deadlocked 7-5 in favor of acquittal. Prosecutors had hoped to throw the Dead Kennedys singer in jail for including an H.R. Giger poster in the packaging of his band's latest album, Frankenchrist.

Aug 27 1990

Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan is killed when his Bell 206B helicopter crashes into a man-made ski hill near Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

8/27/2008 4:00:18 PM

Aug 28 1968

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

Aug 28 1988

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

Aug 28 1995

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

8/28/2008 9:59:39 AM

Aug 29 1904

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

Aug 29 1966

The Beatles hold their final concert at Candlestick Park.

Aug 29 1993

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

Aug 29 1994

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

Aug 29 1996

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

Aug 29 1996

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

8/29/2008 9:54:22 AM

Mr. Joshua! no mention of MLK yesterday?!?!?!

8/29/2008 9:56:47 AM

I just copy and paste.

8/29/2008 9:57:30 AM

plus, Erica, it's today in rotten history

not good things like "I have a dream."

8/29/2008 9:59:58 AM

Note to self: Don't ever be homeless in Brazil

8/29/2008 10:01:38 AM

Quote :

"Aug 29 1996 California becomes the first state in the nation to require the surgical or chemical castration of persons who have committed two or more sexual assaults on minors."

this should be done nationwide.

8/29/2008 7:56:51 PM

Aug 30 1859

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

Aug 30 1974

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

8/30/2008 7:12:36 PM

what would have tied the two together was if the dude driving the train was hopped up on the cocaine.

8/30/2008 9:06:30 PM

maybe he was.. maybe he was celebrating the anniversary

8/30/2008 9:08:19 PM

good point.

8/31/2008 1:55:52 AM

Aug 31 1422

Henry V dies of dysentery!

Aug 31 1888

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

Aug 31 1919

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

Aug 31 1997

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

Aug 31 1999

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

8/31/2008 10:58:58 AM

fucking paparazzi.

8/31/2008 2:56:42 PM

Sep 1 1923

A 7.9 magnitude earthquake strikes the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama at noon. Almost 142,000 people are killed by falling building or in the resulting fires. Yokohama suffers 88 separate blazes, which rage unabated for two days. In all, 694,000 homes are destroyed, leaving 1.5 million survivors homeless.

Sep 1 1939

Hitler reluctantly invades Poland, but only after being provoked by warmongering Poles. The previous night, a Polish commando team shot their way into a German radio station in the border town of Gleiwitz, and broadcasted a radical call to arms against the peaceloving people of Germany. Except that it was all an elaborate sham engineered by Nazi general Reinhard Heydrich, dubbed Operation Canned Goods.

Sep 1 1941

The Third Reich passes a law requiring Jews to wear a prominent yellow star in public.

Sep 1 1956

Elvis Presley buys his mama a pink Cadillac.

Sep 1 1969

Troops led by Muammar Qaddafi execute Operation Jerusalem, seizing control of Libya in a military coup.

Sep 1 1983

Korean Air flight 007 strays off-course, approaching the Kamchatka peninsula. The Soviet Union scrambles fighter jets to intercept the Boeing 747, and gives the order to shoot down the passenger plane five minutes after it crosses the border. Two surface-to-air missiles later, and there are 269 corpses floating in the sea.

9/1/2008 10:19:56 AM

^ that last one is pretty hardcore

9/1/2008 10:21:11 AM

PINK CADILLAC!!!!

9/1/2008 10:22:22 AM

damn commies.

9/2/2008 2:26:06 AM

Sep 3 1941

At Auschwitz, the Germans conduct a live trial on 600 Russian POWs and 298 sick prisoners to test the lethality of an insecticide known as Zyklon-B. It turns out to be extremely effective at killing people.

Sep 3 1962

american poet edward estlin cummings dies from a brain hemorrhage after splitting firewood in north conway, new hampshire

Sep 3 1969

Ho Chi Minh dies of heart failure in Hanoi, Vietnam. He had asked to be cremated and his ashes buried on three hilltops. Contrary to his express wishes, Uncle Ho is embalmed and put on display in a mausoleum just like Lenin's.

Sep 3 1971

The office of Daniel Ellsberg's Beverly Hills psychiatrist is burglarized by Nixon's plumbers, led by CIA operative E. Howard Hunt. Watergate investigators later uncover a memo about the burglary addressed to White House domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman, predating the actual crime.

9/3/2008 10:08:06 AM

I wonder if Uncle Ho is related to Uncle Luke?

9/3/2008 10:12:11 AM

Sep 4 1976

George W Bush is arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent. He pays the $150 fine and has his driving privileges suspended for a month. Years later, during Bush's 2000 campaign for President, a WPXT-TV reporter from Portland, Maine uncovers the arrest record just one week prior to election day. It is also revealed that Bush's V.P. candidate, Dick Cheney, had arrests for drunken driving in 1962 and 1963.

Sep 4 1991

25 workers are killed when a fire breaks out at the Imperial Foods food processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Most of the victims -- predominantly single mothers -- die of smoke inhalation. The facility's rear exit had been padlocked by management to deter employee pilferage. The Imperial plant had never once in its 11-year history been inspected by the state. The owner, Emmet Roe, later receives 19 years in prison for the 25 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Sep 4 1993

3'11" actor Herve Villechaize puts a pistol to his chest and commits suicide in his North Hollywood, California home.

Sep 4 2000

During a campaign stop in Naperville, Illinois, Presidential candidate George W Bush turns to running mate Dick Cheney and says, "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." Cheney responds, "Oh yeah, he is, big-time." Unbeknownst to the men, their comments are transmitted clearly to the television news feed. Rather than offer a mea culpa to Clymer, Bush later issues this non-apology: "I regret that a private comment I made to the vice-presidential candidate made it onto the public airwaves. I regret everybody heard what I said."

9/4/2008 10:20:56 PM

Quote :

"american poet edward estlin cummings dies from a brain hemorrhage after splitting firewood in north conway, new hampshire "

iswydt

9/4/2008 10:37:49 PM

Sep 5 1921

Undiscovered actress Virginia Rappe somehow ruptures her bladder during actor-comedian Fatty Arbuckle's party at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Three days later, the feverish woman is checked into a maternity hospital, where she dies from peritonitis. Arbuckle is eventually tried for murder, but acquitted.

Sep 5 1949

A former sharpshooter in World War II, pharmacy student Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey with a souvenir Luger. He later tells a reporter "I'm no psycho. I have a good mind. I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets."

Sep 5 1972

Five Palestinians armed with machine guns sneak into the Olympic Village in Munich. There they take nine Israeli athletes hostage, killing two others in the process. Later, they demand safe passage out of the country and the release of 200 Palestinians from prison in Israel. Ultimately, none of the athletes makes it out alive.

Sep 5 1975

Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme almost assassinates President Gerald Ford with a .45 automatic in Sacramento, California. But Fromme is tackled by a Secret Service agent before she can remember to rack a round into the firing chamber.

Sep 5 1989

During a televised speech from the Oval Office, President George HW Bush holds up a bag of crack cocaine purchased across the street at Lafayette Park. Three weeks later, a DEA official admits to The Washington Post that crack dealers don't actually hang out in Lafayette Park, so they purposely lured one to the spot. "We had to manipulate him to get him down there. It wasn't easy." Reportedly, the seller's first question was: "Where the fuck is the White House?"

Sep 5 1990

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, LAPD chief Daryl Gates opines: "Casual drug users should be taken out and shot."

Sep 5 1991

Disgraced children's television star Pee-wee Herman returns to the public eye for the first time after his masturbation arrest, appearing on the MTV Video Music Awards. He opens with the line: "Heard any good jokes lately?"

Sep 5 2003

One Disneyland guest is killed and 10 others injured when the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster jumps the tracks in Frontierland.

9/5/2008 2:43:19 PM