Mar 16

St. Urho's Day, Patron saint of Finnish vineyard workers. Attributed to him is the miracle of banishing grasshoppers from Finland which he accomplished with a few choice Finnish phrases, thereby saving the season's grape crop. But in reality a bunch of very drunk people made this up in 1956.

Mar 16 1190

More than 150 and perhaps as many as 500 Jews, secured in Clifford's Tower at York, die from suicide and massacre after they are sieged by townspeople under Richard Malebys. Malebys was a nobleman who owed money to the Jews; after their siege all records relating to moneylending were destroyed. It is the largest massacre of Jews in the history of the United Kingdom.

Mar 16 1792

At a masquerade ball, a disgruntled Captain Jacob Johan Ankarstroem shoots Swedish King Gustav III near the heart with a bullet composed of lead and carpet tacks. The king dies twelve days later, and as punishment the Captain is decapitated, drawn, and quartered.

Mar 16 1949

Erik Estrada's birthday.

Mar 16 1968

Soldiers of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade Americal Division massacre over 300 civilian men, women, and children in the village of My Lai in South Vietnam.

Mar 16 1978

Italian Red Brigades kidnap former Italian Premier Aldo Moro for release of imprisoned comrades. Moro was murdered and his body found on 9 May 1978.

Mar 16 1984

The CIA's station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad and later murdered.

Mar 16 1994

Figure skater Tonya Harding arrested for obstruction of prosecution during the fallout from the Nancy Kerrigan figure skate clubbing.

3/16/2008 1:35:50 PM

Mar 17 965

Pope Leo VIII dies of a stroke during sexual intercourse. Perhaps the best way for a man to die, but not a very appropriate choice for the Bishop of Rome.

Mar 17 1942

John Wayne Gacy, part time clown, serial killer, and sodomizer of dozens of boys, is born in Chicago. His father was convinced Gacy was a "sissy", but friends and family didn't really suspect anything untoward was afoot until his 1968 arrest for coercing a teenage boy employee into committing multiple homosexual acts.

Mar 17 1948

The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is founded in San Bernardino, California by veterans of World War II who were former members of the Pissed Off Bastards. Hell's Angels has 100 chapters globally, with more than 1600 members.

Mar 17 1966

A U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.

Mar 17 1999

Six members of the International Olympic Committee are expelled for corruption, all from poor third world countries. They received bribes from Salt Lake City totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars, a practice that had been going on for years. It should also be noted that the IOC Vice President at the time was named "Dick Pound".

3/17/2008 11:36:12 AM

Quote :

"They received bribes from Salt Lake City totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars, a practice that had been going on for years."

fucking dishonest Mormons
for cereal

3/17/2008 11:37:13 AM

Mar 18 1314

Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake during the final purge of the Templars in France. Among the things de Molay admitted to the Inquisitor panel (though possibly coerced) were the obligation of Templars to deny Christ when they joined, and a sacrament that involved spitting on a crucifix.

Mar 18 1965

The Rolling Stones are fined 5 UKP for urinating on a Stratford garage wall at the ABC, Romford.

Mar 18 1970

Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) is convicted on obscenity charges after he asks for an F, a U, a C, and one other letter at a concert in Massachusetts.

Mar 18 1980

A significant percentage of the Soviet space program's scientists are killed when a Vostok rocket explodes on the launch pad. Fifty people die at the Plesetsk Space Center.

Mar 18 1984

JTMONEYNCSU born.

3/18/2008 12:09:03 PM

Mar 19 1935

Rioting breaks out in Harlem after rumors that a shoplifter was beaten or killed by police in the basement of Kress's department store, neither of which was actually true. But still an estimated 10,000 rioters cause $2M damage to whitey's businesses.

Mar 19 1945

Adolf Hitler orders all military and industrial facilities within the Third Reich destroyed. Albert Speer does everything he can to stop this from happening, in direct defiance of Hitler.

Mar 19 1957

Elvis Presley tours and then immediately agrees to purchase the 14 acre Graceland estate from Ruth Moore for $100,000. It is now his cemetery.

Mar 19 1982

The guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, dies during the Diary of a Madman tour after the plane he is flying in buzzes the band's tour bus and clips the wing of the plane, crashing into a nearby farmhouse.

Mar 19 1987

Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns his PTL ministry after it is revealed he nailed former church secretary Jessica Hahn.

Mar 19 1990

Andrew Wood, lead singer of influential but now mostly forgotten Seattle band "Mother Love Bone" dies of a smack overdose.

3/19/2008 12:26:24 PM

Mar 20 1899

Martha M. Place, the first woman to be honored by a seat in the electric chair, dies at Sing-Sing Prison, executed for murder.

Mar 20 1928

Fred Rogers, born today in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Mar 20 1960

South African police massacre 69 black civil rights demonstrators in Sharpeville incident, which moves African National Congress to abandon its policy of nonviolence.

Mar 20 1968

The U.S. goes off the gold standard, turning paper dollars into paper tigers.

Mar 20 1995

Members of the Aum cult release Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway. Eleven people die and 5,500 are injured. The cult's doctrine of "Poa" make mass murder the way to save their own souls. They had intended eventually to produce 70 tons of the gas.

Mar 20 1995

Last words of Thomas J. Grasso, executed in Oklahoma by lethal injection: "I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this."

Mar 20 1996

Erik and Lyle Menendez convicted of First Degree Murder. They killed their parents for their money, and then lied all about it.

3/20/2008 12:07:35 PM

Mar 21 1843

According to Biblical crackpot William Miller, Christ would return sometime in the year following this day in 1843. After Jesus failed to appear by the next March, Miller claimed it was the result of an arithmetic error and recalculated the deadline to be October 22, 1844. The Lord was AWOL on that date also.

Mar 21 1962

In 1962, A bear becomes the first creature to be ejected at supersonic speeds.

Mar 21 1963

Alcatraz Prison closed (1963)

Mar 21 1976

In 1976, David Bowie and Iggy Pop were arrested on suspicion of marijuana posession in New York. They were released on $2,000 bail. The charges were dropped.

Mar 21 1980

Mobster Angelo Bruno killed with a shotgun blast to the head while he waits in his car after dinner. The Genovese family thus asserted Philadelphia's traditional claim to Atlantic City. His replacement is his former capo Phil "Chicken Man" Testa.

Mar 21 1984

Actor Dudley Moore arrested for beating his girlfriend. Charges were dropped at her request and Moore married the foolish woman.

3/21/2008 12:19:31 PM

Mar 21 2007

— A mutation in a little-studied structural region of the AIDS virus causes resistance to several HIV drugs, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine by Gilda Tachedjian and colleagues from Australia, Canada, and the United States. It becomes known as the "Super Aids" amongst the scientific community.

3/21/2008 12:38:06 PM

ahahah thanks for the shoutout on march 18th!!!

3/21/2008 8:39:56 PM

3/21/2008 8:40:25 PM

Mar 22 1622

A band led by the Brother of Powhatan slaughters 347 settlers near Jamestown, in the first indian massacre.

Mar 22 1923

Marcel Marceau's birthday. Fucking mimes.

Mar 22 1931

William Shatner, the great actor, birthday.

Mar 22 1933

The first SS-run concentration camp, Dachau, receives prisoners.

Mar 22 1947

U.S. President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835, beginning the Great Loyalty Crusade. 2,000,000 government employees were required to take oaths and submit to loyalty investigations; of those a mere 139 were terminated in the span of three years.

Mar 22 1972

National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommends ending criminal penalties for possession of marijuana. No subsequent administration has heeded their recommendation.

Mar 22 1978

One of the Flying Wallendas, 73 year old Karl Wallenda, plunges to his death on a cable strung between two hotels in San Juan, PR.

Mar 22 1991

Ivana divorces The Donald.

3/22/2008 12:25:33 PM

Mar 23 1989

In 1989, a 1000-foot diameter asteroid misses the Earth by only 500,000 miles. (Astronomers did not see it until it passed.)

Mar 23 1990

Gerald Bull, the man assisting Iraq in the construction of a supergun, assassinated by Israeli agents outside his flat in Brussels, Belgium.

Mar 23 1997

Five dead bodies are found arranged in a cross formation at the burned Quebec home of Didier Queze. They were members of the Solar Temple cult who in 1994 to 1996 had totalled 69 suicides in Europe and North America.

Mar 23 1997

Heaven's gate suicides leave 39 dead, all wearing NIKE shoes.

3/23/2008 1:02:08 PM

Mar 24 1874

Houdini born.

Mar 24 1973

Lou Reed's ass bitten onstage by rabid fan in Buffalo.

Mar 24 1989

Cold Fusion announced.

Mar 24 1989

Exxon tanker Valdez, piloted by a drunk captain, strikes a well-charted reef at Prince William sound, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil.

3/24/2008 12:45:01 PM

Mar 25

Jesus crucified (according to old beliefs)

Mar 25 1915

In 1915, first submarine disaster; US F-4 sinks off Hawaii, 21 lives lost.

Mar 25 1967

As part of Operation Green Mist, the U.S. Army detonates explosive warheads containing the deadly sarin nerve agent at Upper Waiakea Forest Reserve on the big island of Hawaii. The open-air tests are kept secret for more than thirty years.

Mar 25 1975

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew during a reception at Ri'Assa Palace. The errant nephew was executed by beheading.

Mar 25 1990

Intentionally set fire at the Happy Land Social Club in NYC kills 87 by smoke inhalation.

3/25/2008 7:36:03 AM

March 25 1984

schpenxel was born.

3/25/2008 7:36:27 AM

Mar 26 1830

Joseph Smith publishes The Book of Mormon, after translating it from golden plates turned over by the angel Moroni. Smith maintained that the text contained in the tablets were written in "Reformed Egyptian" which he read by means of two magic stones from the Old Testament, the Urim and Thummim.

Mar 26 1942

Nazis began sending Jews to Auschwitz.

Mar 26 1969

John & Yoko's "Bed-In" begins.

Mar 26 1970

Peter Yarrow of folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, admits fucking a 14 year old girl in Washington D.C.

3/26/2008 11:42:21 AM

Mar 27 30

Pontius Pilate condemns Jesus to death.

Mar 27 1866

Patent for a urinal is granted to Andrew Rankin.

Mar 27 1945

Argentina declares war on Nazi Germany. Of course, this was just a silly charade for the benefit of the world community. Argentina would be a quiet ally of Germany for the duration of the war, even welcoming many Nazi and SS leaders to emigrate there in the aftermath.

Mar 27 1964

One of the largest quakes in US history strikes southeast of Anchorage, Alaska, hitting 8.6 on the richter scale. 118 people are killed, and a tidal wave destroys four square blocks of Anchorage. The control tower at the airport, 60 feet high, snapped. Damage in the state is estimated at $500 million.

Mar 27 1977

The worst airline disaster in history occurs when the confused pilot of a KLM Boeing 747 taking off collides with a Pan Am Boeing 747 which was on the runway. A total of 583 people die.

3/27/2008 11:59:47 AM

Mar 28 0

According to Des Pascha Comutus, written in 243 CE, Jesus Christ's birthday was March 28. It later became the familiar December 25 after Rome changed it in 336.

Mar 28 193

The Roman ruler Pertinax is murdered by the Praetorian Guard. There being no obvious successor and no Senatorial volunteers, the Guard auctions off the emperorship. The high bidder is Senator Didius Julianus, for 300 million sesterces. After hearing of this, Roman general Septimus Severus in Dalmatia marched on Rome, beheading the new emperor upon arrival.

Mar 28 1930

Constantinople becomes Istanbul.

Mar 28 1941

Virginia Woolf commits suicide.

Mar 28 1947

Leftover Jap boobytrap from WWII explodes in Corregidor, killing 28.

Mar 28 1975

A fire in the maternity wing at Kucic Hospital, Rijeka, Yugoslavia, kills 25 incubating babies.

Mar 28 1979

Three Mile Island nuclear accident, Harrisburg PA.

Mar 28 1996

78 people apparently perish in a fire at the Pasar Anyar shopping center in Bogor, West Java. The estimate is lowered to 10 after it is discovered that most of the dead are store mannequins.

Mar 28 1997

Martin Lawrence slugs someone in a barroom brawl at the "Gate" nightclub in Hollywood, apparently because he was jostled while dancing. He receives two years probation and community service.

3/28/2008 12:32:52 PM

Mar 29 1951

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are both convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.

Mar 29 1977

Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend, and coincidentally a friend of both Jackie Kennedy and George HW Bush, Dallas socialite George de Mohrenschildt dies from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the mouth, at 3:45 pm. It is likely he was going to be called to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Mar 29 1979

A U.S. House of Representatives committee report finds that John F. Kennedy's assassination was the result of a conspiracy.

Mar 29 1992

Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Bill Clinton tells the New York Times: "When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale, and never tried it again."

Mar 29 1997

Kazuo Konya, a former member of the Aum cult, tells Tokyo Municipal Court that he paid $8,100 for the privilege of drinking the guru's blood in a 1988 initiation ritual. Other former cult members also testify they paid for blood, strands of Shoko Asahara's hair, and his bath water. Some say they paid $2,400 for an intravenous injection of an unknown substance. Ironically, all throughout, Asahara preached to his followers that they should renounce materialism.

3/29/2008 12:34:32 PM

Mar 30 315

The Donation of Constantine grants to the See of Rome dominion over all earthly thrones of Europe, a document made by that Roman emperor after his conversion to Christianity in return for being cured from leprosy. But in 1440, anachronisms in the document prove that it was really a fraud written around 752 AD, during the reign of and under orders of Pope Stephen III.

Mar 30 1282

After vespers on Easter Monday, a French soldier touches the breast of a young Sicilian bride, causing an outrage that precipitated the slaughter of perhaps 2,000 Frenchmen living and ruling over Sicily.

Mar 30 1968

Two children in the Bowery come across the body of a homeless drug addict later identified as Bobby Driscol, 31, the voice of Disney's "Peter Pan".

Mar 30 1981

While President Reagan undergoes surgery for a life-threatening gunshot wound, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announces to the press: "As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President."

Mar 30 1995

A police officer who was also a member of the Aum Supreme Truth cult fires three shots into Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of Japan's National Police Agency. Takaji is seriously wounded but survives. Investigators try unsuccessfully to hide the fact that the gunman was a police officer.

3/30/2008 1:15:15 PM

Mar 31 1492

Ferdinand and Isabel expel all of the Jews from Spain. Even with the infusions of gold and silver arriving during the 16th century from the Americas, this is an act from which Spain never recovers. By expelling their merchant and banking class, Jews and Muslims, the country is left ill-equipped to process the new wealth, which ultimately winds up in the coffers of other countries and squandered on disastrous military campaigns.

Mar 31 1889

Phallic symbol Eiffel Tower completed.

Mar 31 1959

The Dalai Lama is forced to leave Tibet, after the Red Communists make it very unpleasant for him to stay. He accuses the Chinese of making genocide against the Tibetan people, by systematic destruction of Tibetan culture and execution of thousands of prominent citizens.

Mar 31 1991

Danny Bonaduce arrested for assault after he fought with a transvestite prostitute. No contest, 750 hours community service.

Mar 31 1995

The president of the Selena Fan Club, Yolanda Saldivar, kills the Tejano music popstar Selena in Corpus Christi, TX. "It just went off, I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to kill anybody". That might be true, but the jury did not believe her.

Mar 31 1996

During a homebrew exorcism in Rhode Island, a man accidentally punctures the esophagus of his mother-in-law when he jams two pointy steel crucifixes down her throat, causing a large quantity of blood to gush out. Mario Garcia is later charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

3/31/2008 12:46:34 PM

assult with a dangerious weapon? I just thought they classified all inanimate objects as deadly nowdays

3/31/2008 1:04:02 PM

Mar 31 1995

The president of the Selena Fan Club, Yolanda Saldivar, kills the Tejano music popstar Selena in Corpus Christi, TX. "It just went off, I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to kill anybody". That might be true, but the jury did not believe her.

3/31/2008 1:13:08 PM

Apr 1

April Fool's Day

Apr 1 1793

Unsen volcano erupts, accompanied by several devastating earthquakes. The Japanese island is completely destroyed, killing approximately 53,000 inhabitants.

Apr 1 1961

Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye get married!

Apr 1 1984

Legendary Motown singer Marvin Gaye, who had recently moved back in with his parents, physically batters his own father. Minutes later Dad returns with a gun, shooting Marvin twice in the chest and killing him instantly.

Apr 1 1996

Wilson Pickett arrested for possession of cocaine, after a screaming, bloodied woman is seen running from his house.

Apr 1 1998

Ukranian serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko is sentenced to death for some 52 murders over the preceding decade. The versatile Onoprienko's weapons of choice include hammers, firearms, pillows, dumbbells, and fire.

4/1/2008 12:36:19 PM

I think that the server fuck up got rid of my April 3rd and 4th posts.

Apr 4 1561

Over Nuremberg, Germany, a battle in the sky transpires between black and blood-red balls, disks, and crosses. It is never made clear who prevailed in this UFO incident.

Apr 4 1958

Lana Turner's 14 year old daughter stabs her mother's boyfriend. A coroner's jury finds she committed justifiable homicide.

Apr 4 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee.

Apr 4 1988

Arizona Governor Evan Mecham becomes the first U.S. governor to be impeached and removed from office in nearly 60 years. He was convicted for obstructing justice by discouraging a state official from investigating a death threat, and also misusing $80,000 in public money. Mecham was known for rescinding the state's observation of Martin Luthur King, Jr. Day, requesting lists of state employees who were gay, and using the word "pickaninnies."

Apr 5 1815

Mount Tambora erupts in what is now Indonesia, killing 12,000 and spewing eighty cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere at once. The blast is heard more than 900 miles away, and makes summer feel like winter in many parts of the world.

Apr 5 1944

The Nazis begin deporting jews from Hungary.

Apr 5 1949

Twenty newborn babies and 57 other people die as St. Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, IL is destroyed by fire.

Apr 5 1951

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for acts of treason, which in this case means giving atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union.

Apr 5 1990

London physician Raymond Crocket is removed from the medical register after it is shown that he paid for and removed kidneys from Turkish donors brought to England.

Apr 5 1994

Kurt Cobain blows his fucking head off.

Apr 5 1997

Allen Ginsberg dies. We are sure that Allen's work for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) has touched us all.

Apr 5 1998

"Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of -- of people who are suffering. Because they've exploited -- we have seen the -- we have seen the Nigger and Greaseball, we've seen the Chink, we've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap, we have seen the wily Filipino, we've seen everything but we never saw the Kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around." --Marlon Brando, on Larry King Live

4/5/2008 9:47:02 PM

Apr 6 1868

Mormon prophet Brigham Young marries 23-year-old Ann Eliza Webb. This is Young's 27th wife, 18 of which are still married to him.

Apr 6 1976

Howard Hughes dies of health complications related to syphillis.

Apr 6 1990

Police trace a series of obscene phone calls to the president's private White House telephone. The caller turns out to be the president of American University in Washington, Richard E. Berendzen, who was apparently hung up over some personal ad. He is later forced to resign his position but is never charged with any crime.

Apr 6 1994

The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi are both killed in a mysterious plane crash near the Rwandan capital. Consequently, widespread violence erupts in Rwanda amidst rumors that the plane had been shot down.

4/6/2008 5:59:17 PM

Apr 7 1948

Twenty Buddhist monks in Shanghai are immolated as their monastery burns.

Apr 7 1970

The X-rated movie Midnight Cowboy wins the Oscar for Best Picture.

Apr 7 1989

Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Norwegian sea, with two nuclear reactors and two nuclear torpedoes aboard. 41 crewmembers die, and the submarine remains one mile below the surface of the ocean, with its nuclear weapons intact.

Apr 7 1994

Courtney Love arrested on drug charges in Beverly Hills. What a surprise!

Apr 7 1998

Wendy O. Williams, former porn star and singer for The Plasmatics, kills herself with a gun near her Connecticut home.

Apr 7 1998

Pop singer George Michael is arrested by an undercover police officer after wanking in front him in a public toilet. One of our rotten.com staffers has checked out the restroom (at Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills) and reports that it continues to be "cruisy."

Apr 7 1999

A bomb goes off in the "Valley of the Fallen" church, which is carved into a mountainside north of Madrid. The church houses the mortal remains of dictator Francisco Franco. The terrorist group GRAPO claims responsibility, and while there were no injuries, the damage was extensive.

Apr 7 2155

First Contact between humans and the prominently-coiffured Centauri Alliance. (Babylon 5 timeline)

4/7/2008 4:01:34 AM

Apr 8 1991

Retired horse jockey Willie Shoemaker loses control of his Ford Bronco; the resulting crash renders him paralyzed from the neck down. Shoemaker is later arrested for drunk driving, but no charges are ever filed.

Apr 8 1992

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat suffers only minor injuries after his airplane crashes into the Libyan desert. However, three others on board the craft are killed.

Apr 8 1994

Kurt Cobain's body is found 3 days after committing suicide with a shotgun.

4/8/2008 6:48:39 PM

Apr 9 1241

Mongols collect nine bags of ears after a battle with Henry, Duke of Poland, at Liegnitz. A feigned retreat separated the 500 Teutonic Knights from their infantry, and the Mongols slaughtered the entire infantry. Apparently you can fit 25,000 ears into nine bags.

Apr 9 1940

Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Norwegian national socialist Vidkun Quisling seizes the opportunity to declare himself the new prime minister of Norway, but the Germans replace him only five days later.

Apr 9 1948

Jewish terror groups Irgun and Lehi massacre Arab villagers of Deir Yassin located on Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road. News of massacre creates panic among other Palestinians, who flee former mandatory Palestine at onset of first Arab-Israeli war.

Apr 9 1992

Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering by a federal court in Miami.

4/9/2008 1:01:16 PM

Apr 10 1848

250 people die in a bridge collapse in Yarmouth, England. They had gathered on the suspension bridge to watch a clown boat be pulled by a flock of geese.

Apr 10 1917

133 people are killed in an explosion at the Eddystone ammunition factory in Chester, PA. Satan is immediately implicated, with one official declaring the blast to be "the result of a diabolical plot conceived in the degenerate brain of a demon in human guise." It later turns out to have been caused by poorly-maintained powder loading machinery.

Apr 10 1919

Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata and his bodyguards are shot to death after being lured to a meeting by army colonel Jesus Guajardo. For his deception, Guajardo collects a reward of 52,000 pesos and is promoted to the rank of general.

Apr 10 1942

Approximately 66,000 Filipino and 11,796 U.S. soldiers near the Philippine town of Mariveles surrender to Japanese forces. Unable to feed their wounded and starving POWs, the Japanese opt for the 61-mile "Bataan Death March" to mitigate the problem.

Apr 10 1945

Buchenwald death camp liberated by U.S. forces.

Apr 10 1947

Agents of the FBI pay a visit to Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan and his wife, actress Jane Wyman. They accuse the couple of belonging to Communist front groups. Reagan quickly agrees to become a secret informer.

Apr 10 1992

Comedian Sam Kinison killed in a car accident.

Apr 10 1997

The Jerusalem Post reports that high rabbinical sources have confirmed the birth of a rare red heifer named Melody in a kibbutz near Haifa. The ashes from such a beast will be needed to ceremonially purify any Jews before they would be permitted to enter the former site of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. At present, the parcel is occupied by the Dome of the Rock mosque, which is located on the spot where Muslims believe that Mohammed rode his horse into Heaven. The goal here is to reconstruct the Hebrew temple, but this would necessitate tearing down the mosque, virtually guaranteeing outright war between Israel and the Arab world. Even more ominous, the construction project is a necessary prerequisite for the second coming of Christ, which itself involves all the End Times stuff in the book of Revelation. Melody is the first red heifer in 2,000 years, and quite possibly the last.

Apr 10 2003

FBI agents raid the Noonday, Texas home of avowed white supremacist William Joseph Krar. Upon searching the domicile and some rented storage units, the agents turn up an arsenal including briefcase bombs with remote-controlled detonators, full-auto machine guns, silencers, nearly 500,000 rounds of ammunition, a 1953 military land mine, more than 800 grams of sodium cyanide, and a copy of The Turner Diaries. Krar later receives 11 years for possession of a dangerous chemical weapon.

4/10/2008 3:40:59 AM

Apr 11 34

Jesus Christ resurrected?

Apr 11 1890

Death of John Merrick, the Elephant Man.

Apr 11 1979

Kampala, the capital of Uganda, falls to the Tanzanians and dictator Idi Amin is overthrown. Amin, an occasional cannibal who killed perhaps 300,000 during his reign, had made the mistake of invading Tanzania.

Apr 11 1991

Brian Huntley of Hull, England is convicted of raping a prostitute, aged 19. Because she demanded the rapist use a condom, Huntley is given a short 3 years imprisonment. The next day's headline of the Daily Mirror: "Judge praises rapist who wore condom".

Apr 11 1996

Jessica Dubroff, a 7-year-old pilot hoping to become the youngest American ever to fly coast-to-coast, is killed along with her father and flight instructor when their single-engine plane crashes on takeoff in Cheyenne, WY.

4/11/2008 6:20:57 PM

Apr 12 1945

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president ever elected to four terms of office, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, GA. The following day, Vice President Harry S. Truman assumes the post and is told for the first time about the Manhattan Project.

Apr 12 1960

Eric Peugeot, 4-year-old son of the auto manufacturer, is kidnapped in Paris. The child is later freed after a $300,000 ransom is paid. Ultimately, the perpetrators are caught and sent to prison.

Apr 12 1961

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyevich Gargarin is the first man in space, aboard Vostok I.

Apr 12 1988

U.S. patent 4,736,866 is granted to Harvard University for a genetically-modified mouse, engineered to be particularly susceptible to carcinogens. The cancer-prone "Harvard Oncomouse" is the world's first patented creature, and perhaps also the most screwed.

Apr 12 1989

1960s counterculture icon Abbie Hoffman kills himself by overdosing on barbituates.

Apr 12 1992

EuroDisney opens to the public, attracting a meager 50,000 visitors. Expectations had been about ten times as many. This underwhelming response by the European public will continue for more than a year. Finally, after 18 months of retooling, the resort is ultimately rechristened Disneyland Paris.

Apr 12 1994

The US Tax Court rules that Indiana exotic dancer Chesty Love can claim a $2,088 tax credit for depreciation on her 56FF breast implants. The judge found that Love's surgical augmentation did in fact increase her income, also that she was unable to derive any personal benefit from them, as the oversized mammaries "contorted her body into a grotesque appearance."

Apr 12 1995

To celebrate David Letterman's 49th birthday, actress Drew Barrymore climbs atop the Late Night desk and flashes her bosomy protuberances at the man. Just in case you aren't a gap-toothed talk show host, here's what you missed.

Apr 12 1995

The Hong Kong Eastern Express reports that China sanctions the consumption of aborted human fetuses as a "health benefit." One practitioner willing to admit a taste for this is Dr. Zou Qin of the Luo Hu Clinic, who boasts having consumed more than 100 meals of human veal -- stew and soup, mostly.

4/12/2008 2:52:34 PM

damn those chinese are hardcore...eating human fetuses???

4/12/2008 2:56:48 PM

I think South Park has already demonstrated their health benefits.

4/12/2008 2:58:12 PM

Apr 13 1883

Convicted cannibal Alfred Packer is sentenced to death in Colorado.

Apr 13 1919

British troops fire on a crowd of Indians peacefully protesting the occupation, leaving 379 dead and 1,200 wounded.

Apr 13 1970

56 hours and 205,000 miles from planet Earth, the crew aboard Apollo 13 hears "a pretty loud bang" when oxygen tank number two spontaneously explodes. Astronaut Jack Swigert informs Mission Control in Houston: "Hey, we've got a problem here." Miraculously, the crew manages to return home in their crippled spacecraft.

Apr 13 1981

Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke wins a Pulitzer Prize for her story about Jimmy, an 8 year old heroin addict. Strangely, police could find no trace of this boy. And this was one of those investigative journalism Pulitzers, not a fiction Pulitzer, so she was forced to return the award two days later. Cooke later clerked part-time at a department store cosmetics counter in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Apr 13 1982

David Crosby of CSNY arrested while freebasing cocaine and for illegal possession of a .45 handgun. Sentence: 5 years.

Apr 13 1984

Itinerant serial killer Henry Lee Lucas found guilty by a Texas jury for the murder of "Orange Socks", a hitchhiker whose name is not known. Lucas and his partner Ottis Toole are thought to have killed as many as 200 people. Ironically new evidence places Lucas in Florida at the supposed time of the Orange Socks murder.

Apr 13 1990

The Soviet Union admits to Katyn Massacre of 15,000 Polish army officers.

Apr 13 1992

Chicago's downtown business center is crippled by massive flooding, as 124 million gallons of water inundate 50 miles of underground freight tunnels and adjoining basements. City workers dump sandbags, rocks, and mattresses into the Chicago River in a vain attempt to slow the floodwaters. All told, it will take 12 days to seal the leak and drain the tunnels. The disaster causes $800 million in damage, and the IRS graciously grants one week of amnesty for Chicago-area residents to file their tax returns.

Apr 13 1994

The United Nations Human Rights Committee declares sodomy to be a basic human right. The committee determined that laws against assfucking (particularly in Tasmania) breach articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

4/13/2008 2:58:20 PM

Apr 14 73

With the 10th Roman Legion about to breach the gates of their mountaintop fortress, 960 Sicarii Jews commit mass suicide at Masada. According to Josephus, the radical cult selected ten swordsmen by lottery to perform the killing. Then they held a second lottery to choose one man to kill the remaining nine. Finally, the last one fell on his sword.

Apr 14 1865

President Abraham Lincoln receives a cranial gunshot wound from the nation's most famous actor, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln dies the following day, primarily from ill-advised attempts to extract the bullet lodged in his brain.

Apr 14 1986

Hindus crossing a bridge over the sacred Ganges river at Hardwar, India to bathe during the Kumbha Mela fete somehow stampede. 46 pilgrims are trampled.

Apr 14 1989

California winery worker Ramon Salcido picks up a butcher knife and kills his wife, mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, and two of his own daughters. Then he goes to work and kills his supervisor.

4/14/2008 3:27:33 AM

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/dayintech_0414

Quote :

"John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton focus a proton beam on lithium and bust its nucleus. The era of accelerator-based experimental nuclear physics is born. Ernest Rutherford, who first postulated the concept of atomic nucleus in 1910, had called for "a million volts in a soapbox" to advance nuclear research. Working in a vacant room at Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, Englishman Cockcroft and Irishman Walton used spare parts along with some wood and nails to build the world's first nuclear-particle accelerator in 1929. At the heart of the Cockcroft-Walton generator, a system of capacitors and thermionic rectifiers upped the voltages to 600,000 volts. It wasn't a million volts, but it proved sufficient. The research duo used their new-found juice to accelerate hydrogen nuclei in a discharge tube and have them bombard a layer of lithium. Sure enough, when the hydrogen nucleus (one proton) collided with the lithium nucleus (three protons and four neutrons), the lithium broke into two helium nuclei (with two protons and two neutrons each) shooting off in opposite directions. POW! First Walton, then Cockcroft, then Rutherford himself observed the results on a zinc sulfide screen: the wave patterns characteristic of the helium nucleus -- the alpha radiation Rutherford had discovered. It wasn't changing lead into gold, as the medieval alchemists had dreamt. But it was the first nuclear transmutation of one element (lithium) to another (helium) under full human control (as opposed to using natural radiation, as Rutherford had already done). Even better, Cockcroft and Walton measured the total kinetic energy of the helium nuclei. It was greater than that of the original hydrogen and lithium nuclei. But they also observed a loss in the total mass of the nuclei. This provided confirmation of Einstein's law (E = mc2) on the equivalence of mass and energy. The initial computations were subject to experimental error, but later scientific work in this vein confirmed the equation in detail. Particle accelerators advanced rapidly in power and design -- like Ernest Lawrence's circular accelerator, or cyclotron. (Earnest researchers, these chaps: Rutherford, Walton, Lawrence.) Cockcroft and Walton received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951. The citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work had "opened up a new and fruitful field of research which was eagerly seized upon by scientific workers the world over ... profoundly influenced the whole subsequent course of nuclear physics [and] stands out as a landmark in the history of science." The Cockcroft-Walton circuit is still used to supply voltage in large particle accelerators. The very word atom is from the Greek for indivisible."

4/14/2008 11:32:39 AM

What a shameful thread.

I have requested that gunzz lock this and suspend all of the padders.

4/14/2008 11:34:09 AM

i started this thread ... why would i lock it

4/14/2008 11:35:39 AM

Apr 15 1792

The Guillotine is first tested on human corpses.

Apr 15 1912

Unsinkable ship Titanic sinks after being torn by iceberg, with a loss of 1493 passengers.

Apr 15 1945

British and Canadian troops liberate the Bergen-Belsen death camp in northern Germany.

Apr 15 1955

The first McDonald's franchise opens in Des Plains, a suburb of Chicago. Because it is the first one launched by Ray Kroc, he names it "McDonald's #1" despite the fact that the McDonald brothers had already opened eight of their chain restaurants before they began accepting licensees. Kroc's unfortunate numbering system guarantees perpetual confusion for amateur fast food historians the world over.

Apr 15 1962

Actress Clara Blandick, 80, the Auntie Em of the Wizard of Oz, takes an overdose of sleeping pills and ties a plastic bag around her head in a Hollywood hotel room. Prior to this, she had prominently arranged her resume and press clippings so the newspapers would get her obituary right.

Apr 15 1989

96 soccer fans are crushed to death at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England. During the opening minutes of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, Sheffield police order a gate opened at one end of the stadium. A throng of 2,000 Liverpool fans attempt to surge into the seating section, smashing more than 250 already-seated fans against the security fence.

Apr 15 1990

Greta Garbo dead.

Apr 15 1990

Mass food poisoning kills 150 people at an engagement party in Basti, Uttar Pradesh. Advice: Don't eat the bread.

Apr 15 1999

Dutch airlines KLM issues an apology for shredding 400 ground squirrels at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. The squirrels did not have proper importation papers, and thus were forced to meet their fate of grinding steel rotary blades. A public outcry forced KLM's apology.

4/15/2008 3:06:51 AM

Apr 16 1943

Chemist Albert Hofmann inadvertently experiences the world's first acid trip when a miniscule quantity of lysergic acid diethylamide accidently seeps through the skin of his finger. After leaving work early, he went home and settled into "a not unpleasant intoxicated condition." Then he had solid two hours of visual hallucinations: "I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." It will be another three days before Hofmann gets up the courage to swallow 250 micrograms and ride his bicycle home.

Apr 16 1947

552 people are killed in Texas City, TX when 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer aboard the S.S. Grandcamp suddenly explodes. The blast generates a 2,000-foot mushroom cloud and is heard 160 miles away, leading some witnesses to believe that they had just been hit by a Russian A-bomb. 3,000 people suffer injuries and perhaps 200 more are unaccounted for. One-third of Texas City is decimated, twenty blocks of the waterfront are obliterated, and windows more than ten miles away are shattered.

Apr 16 1953

President Eisenhower addresses the nation concerning the relative priorities of "guns" versus "butter." In a fair fight, we'd have to bet on the guns.

Apr 16 1966

Alongside FBI officials, New York district attorney G. Gordon Liddy arrests Timothy Leary for possession of marijuana after raiding his Millbrook estate. The Supreme Court later rules this bust unconstitutional.

Apr 16 1995

Marlon Brando's daughter Cheyenne hangs herself in Tahiti.

4/16/2008 12:53:18 PM

Apr 17 1792

The Guillotine is tested at Bicetre Hospital in Paris, decapitating a sheep and a number of human cadavers.

Apr 17 1961

In an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro, 1,500 Cuban exiles make a series of amphibious landings at the Bay of Pigs. After it becomes painfully obvious in just a matter of hours that the forces were trained, equipped, and armed by the United States, President John F. Kennedy withholds necessary air cover. In three days of fighting, Cuba captures 1,197 of the rebels and kills approximately 200.

Apr 17 1965

The FBI Laboratory in Washington reports their inability to make out the vocals on the hit single "Louie Louie." Thus, the Bureau is unable to determine whether the record constitutes obscene matter.

Apr 17 1969

A Los Angeles jury convicts Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Sirhan receives a death sentence, but it is later reduced to life in prison.

Apr 17 1974

Vinnie Taylor of Sha Na Na dies of a smack overdose.

Apr 17 1984

London police officer Yvonne Fletcher is shot dead and ten bystanders are wounded when a gunman in the Libyan Embassy opens fire on a crowd of protestors gathered outside. One week later, the British government cuts off all diplomatic relations and the Libyans are deported. The Libyan Government finally "accepts general responsibility for the behaviour of its diplomats inside its London Embassy at the time of the shooting" in July 1999, and pays an undisclosed sum to Fletcher's family.

Apr 17 1997

After a newspaper publishes photographs of Belgian paratroopers committing human rights violations during a 1993 UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Belgium's Defense Minister Jean-Pol Poncelet announces that the elite fighting unit may be disbanded. The photos depict one soldier urinating on a Somali corpse, and two men swinging a child over a campfire by the wrists and ankles.

4/17/2008 6:37:36 PM

Apr 18 1906

A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., followed by a major aftershock three hours later. More than 3,000 people are killed from either collapsing structures or any of the 59 separate fires which burn over the next three days. In the downtown area, the U.S. Army is forced to dynamite whole city blocks in order to contain the flames, due to the lack of water pressure.

Apr 18 1955

Nobel Prize recipient Albert Einstein dies in his hospital bed from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Seven hours later, his brain is plunked into a jar of formalin and taken away by the pathologist. It will remain missing for 23 years.

Apr 18 1983

62 people are killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide bombing against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The attacker used a van packed with one ton of high explosives. Included among the dead is the CIA's entire Middle East bureau. The group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility, although the intelligence community believes it was actually the work of Hezbollah.

Apr 18 1988

American auto worker John Demjanjuk is convicted of crimes against humanity by an Israeli court. They determined that he was Treblinka's notorious "Ivan the Terrible." The court sentences him to hang one week later, but the conviction is later overturned when it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity. In 2002, a U.S. federal court later strips Demjanjuk of his citizenship after it rules that he did in fact work as a Nazi prison guard, although at Sobibor, Majdanek, and Flossenburg.

4/18/2008 12:24:19 PM

Apr 19 1910

Halley's comet reappears, last seen in 1835. The Earth passes safely through the comet's tail with no perceptible effect, not counting the death of Mark Twain.

Apr 19 1943

During an early-morning operation to exterminate the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto, Nazi troops experience heavy casualties and are forced to retreat before nightfall. Jewish resistance fighters, armed with rifles and molotov cocktails, manage to kill or wound at least 200. The battle will rage on for another three weeks.

Apr 19 1956

UK Frogman disappeared bugging underside of Khruschev's warship in Portsmouth (1956)

Apr 19 1989

47 crewmen aboard the battleship USS Iowa are killed when a gun turret explodes during a training exercise in the Atlantic. Navy investigators later rule out all accidental causes, and conclude that someone manning the gun, "most probably" one Clayton Hartwig, had sabotaged its operation as a suicide attempt. The Navy ignored the fact that the propellant bags were 44 years old and proven to be chemically unstable.

Apr 19 1993

More than 80 Branch Davidians burn to death in Waco, Texas as the FBI stages a disastrous final assault on their compound. This brings a sudden end to the 51-day siege.

Apr 19 1995

Timothy McVeigh kills 168 Oklahomans when his truck bomb detonates in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building.

Apr 19 1995

Singer Bobby Brown is arrested at Disneyworld for beating a man and tearing off his ear. Neil Kelly, the man with the reattached ear, later sues Brown for $6.6 million but eventually settles out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Apr 20

It's 4/20. If your kid cuts school today, he just might have a chemical dependency. That's all we're gonna say.

Apr 20 1233

Pope Gregory IX places the Inquisition, in existence since 1227, under the aegis of the Dominican Order. Torture is apparently sometimes necessary to save souls, and the office continues to exist today as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Apr 20 1889

In Braunau, Austria, Klara Hitler gives birth to a bouncing baby boy named Adolf.

Apr 20 1979

President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a Killer Swamp Rabbit, while on vacation in Plains GA. The rabbit swam menacingly towards him, and he had to repel the ferocious creature with a paddle. There were no injuries. Press Secretary Jody Powell leaked the story to the press, and the White House had a lot of explaining to do.

Apr 20 1992

Alone in his apartment watching TV, British comedic legend Benny Hill suffers a fatal heart attack. His body goes undiscovered for four days.

Apr 20 1993

Latoya Jackson's husband and manager, Jack Gordon, is arrested after allegedly beating her with a dining room chair in their New York apartment.

Apr 20 1999

After their homemade timebombs fail to detonate in the school cafeteria, the heavily-armed duo of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decide to prowl through Columbine High School, indiscriminately gunning down classmates. A total of 15 are killed in their shooting spree. Contrary to news reports, their selection of victims is apparently random; they aren't hunting for jocks or blacks. Nor do they execute that Christian girl -- Valeen Schnurr in fact manages to crawl away and live to tell her story. They are not goths, they aren't gay, nor were they ever members of that dorky clique calling themselves the "Trenchcoat Mafia." They don't even listen to Marilyn Manson. Harris and Klebold are just a couple of extremely pissed-off kids with an arsenal.

4/20/2008 4:24:40 AM

Apr 21 1847

Lewis Keseberg, the final member of the Donner Party still stranded in the mountains, is escorted to safety by a fourth rescue party. Later accounts hold that Keseberg was discovered "seated, like a ghoul, in the midst of dead bodies, with his face and hands smeared with blood, and a kettle of human flesh boiling over the fire."

Apr 21 1933

Nazi Germany outlaws shechita, the Jewish butchering ritual for kosher meat preparation. Things only get worse from here.

Apr 21 1992

Convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris consumes two large pizzas, a bucket of fried chicken, and some ice cream on the eve of his execution. Later, before the gas chamber is activated, Harris propounds: "You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the grim reaper."

4/21/2008 12:47:56 PM

^ apparently he also had a bag of jelly beans, a six-pack of Pepsi, and a pack of Camel cigarettes

4/21/2008 1:14:35 PM

i think i have like 4 facebook bdays today

4/21/2008 1:16:30 PM

Well he ripped off a quote from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

4/21/2008 2:42:55 PM

Apr 22 1915

The German Army opens 5,700 canisters of chlorine gas upwind of French soldiers at Ypres. It is the first use of poison gas for military purposes.

Apr 22 1923

Kinky centerfold model Bettie Mae Page born in Nashville, Tennessee. As she describes herself, "I was never the girl next door."

Apr 22 1934

John Dillinger's gang shoots their way out of an FBI ambush outside the Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in northern Wisconsin. The FBI accidentally kills one innocent bystander and injures two others in the humiliating debacle.

Apr 22 1954

Porn star and onetime Ivory Snow model Marilyn Chambers is born in Westport, Connecticut.

Apr 22 1992

215 people are killed and 1,500 injured when two miles of sewer lines explode in Gaudalajara, Mexico. 20 city blocks in the downtown area are leveled by the blast. A corroded petroleum pipeline had filled the sewer with explosive fuel.

Apr 22 1994

Richard M. Nixon suffers a fatal stroke. His body is laid to rest on the grounds of his Presidential Library.

Apr 22 1997

After a four-month standoff, 140 government commandos storm the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru. Of the 72 hostages, one is killed in the ensuing firefight, along with all 14 of their captors.

4/22/2008 4:32:16 AM

Apr 23 33

According to Christian tradition, Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, after being crucified three days prior.

Apr 23 1940

198 negroes are killed when the Rhythm Night Club burns down in Natchez, Mississippi. According to one eyewitness: "Everyone was trying to get out and crushing each other as the fire was burning them. All were crying and yelling and after a while I could smell the burning meat. I hope I never see anything like it again." The fire is blamed on the decorative but highly-combustible Spanish moss.

Apr 23 1951

Lenny Bruce is arrested in Miami Beach, Florida for fraudulently soliciting funds for a leper colony while dressed as a priest.

Apr 23 1969

Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death for assassinating Robert Kennedy.

Apr 23 1975

Peter Ham of Badfinger suicides at age 27, by hanging himself. Another bandmate, Tom Evans, suicides later in 1983.

Apr 23 1983

The West German magazine Stern announces a major historical find: the discovery of 60 volumes of personal diaries purported to have been handwritten by Adolf Hitler.

Apr 23 1985

The Coca-Cola Bottling Company announces that it has irrevocably changed the formula for its flagship beverage, unveiling "New Coke." The company stands firm on its decision until public pressure finally forces them to reintroduce the original drink, exactly 79 days later.

4/23/2008 11:52:59 AM