ah new coke

one of the greatest blunders ever

if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Coke is a commodity almost now

4/23/2008 12:37:59 PM

Apr 24 1928

The Supreme Court of Canada declares that though women are indeed legal "persons," they are nevertheless ineligible to serve in the Canadian Senate. The Court agreed that the term "person" applies equally to humans of both genders, but the British North America Act referred specifically to "fit and qualified persons" -- necessarily excluding unfit and unqualified people (aka females).

Apr 24 1934

The present incarnation of actress Shirley MacLaine is born.

Apr 24 1967

Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov soon becomes the world's first space mission fatality after his Soyuz parachutes become entangled four miles above the Earth.

Apr 24 1980

A mission to rescue 53 American hostages from Tehran fails; 8 US soldiers are killed.

Apr 24 1993

An IRA bomb causes $1.5 billion of damage in central London when it destroys several square blocks. One person is killed and 40 injured.

Apr 24 1995

The Unabomber strikes, killing a timber industry lobbyist. Gilbert Murray is killed in his Sacramento office, opening mail addressed to the man he replaced.

Apr 24 1997

A petri dish arrives in an 8x10 manila envelope at the Washington, D.C. offices of B'nai B'rith International. The dish, labeled "anthracks," drips a liquidy red gel which is later determined to contain a relatively harmless strain of Bacillus cereus.

4/24/2008 5:01:40 AM

Apr 25 1599

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

Apr 25 1792

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

Apr 25 1974

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

Apr 25 1994

Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (King Adrock) is sentenced to 200 hours of community service for battering a TV cameraman during the memorial service for actor River Phoenix.

4/25/2008 3:07:11 AM

Apr 26 1865

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

Apr 26 1933

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

Apr 26 1969

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

Apr 26 1986

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

Apr 26 1991

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

4/26/2008 4:31:24 AM

Apr 27 4977 BC

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

Apr 27 1509

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

Apr 27 1521

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

Apr 27 1861

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

Apr 27 1865

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

Apr 27 1940

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

Apr 27 1963

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

Apr 27 1986

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

Apr 27 1986

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

Apr 27 1987

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

4/27/2008 1:56:10 PM

Apr 28 585

An unforeseen total eclipse of the sun interrupts a battle between Lydia and Media, bringing a sudden end to their six-year war.

Apr 28 1789

In the middle of the South Pacific, the crew of the HMS Bounty mutinies, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 other crewmen adrift in an open boat.

Apr 28 1881

Billy the Kid escapes from a New Mexico jail, killing jailer Bob Ollinger and a fellow prisoner in the process. Billy will survive for another three months before Pat Garrett finally kills him.

Apr 28 1942

The ongoing global conflict is given the name "World War II" after a Gallup Poll is taken.

Apr 28 1945

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are captured by partisan fighters and executed.

Apr 28 1996

After finishing his lunch at the Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, 28-year-old Martin Bryant pulls out an AR15 rifle and kills 12 tourists. Then he drives to a nearby bed & breakfast and slays 23 others. Bryant surrenders himself to police the next morning, after catching himself on fire in the act of burning down the B&B.

4/28/2008 1:31:21 PM

Apr 29 1901

Train robber and one of the last of the Old West outlaws, Thomas "Black Jack" Ketchum is unsuccessfully hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. The executioner's poor choice of rope and Ketchum's recent increase in weight combine to produce a gruesome decapitation in the gallows.

Apr 29 1945

With Allied forces closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun in their fortified bunker. They will kill themselves the following day.

Apr 29 1945

The American 7th Army liberates the Dachau death camp outside of Munich.

Apr 29 1981

Marilyn Barnett publicly alleged that she had a lesbian relationship for seven years with Billie Jean King, one of America's best-known female athletes and winner of many national and international tennis championships.

Apr 29 1992

Rioting erupts in Los Angeles after Rodney King's assailants are acquitted by a jury. The looting and destruction begins in South Central L.A. and quickly radiates outward. By the time things are under control, 51 are dead and the city has sustained $1.5 billion in property damage. Civil disorder manages to spread to other North American cities, through the influence of live TV coverage.

Apr 29 1996

Search and rescue teams begin dragging Maryland's muddy Wicomico River after former CIA director William Colby is reported missing. They soon discover his partially-submerged canoe underneath a boat dock, but his body isn't located until it rises to the surface a week later.

4/29/2008 1:41:10 PM

why marry the day before you kill yourselves?

4/29/2008 1:55:09 PM

can't be married in heaven w/o being married in the flesh

4/29/2008 1:59:21 PM

Apr 30 1943

The body of one Major Martin washes ashore on the Spanish coastline, carrying sensitive papers detailing an upcoming Allied invasion of Sardinia. "Martin" is actually an unidentified corpse carrying forged documents, intended to misdirect Italian defense forces. When the Allies later invade Sicily, most of Italy's defenses are in Sardinia.

Apr 30 1945

Newlyweds Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun kill themselves in the charming and romantic Fuhrerbunker, ending all hope for a ten-thousand-year Reich.

Apr 30 1961

Lee Harvey Oswald, during his stay in the Soviet Union, marries hospital employee Marina Prusakova. Oswald later becomes disenchanted with Soviet life, and the couple emigrates to the United States. Even so, he never permits his wife to learn English.

Apr 30 1975

Saigon falls to the Communists, necessitating a sudden helicopter evacuation from the U.S. embassy's rooftop. Says one of the pilots: "We sent the journalists out on one of the earliest lifts because they were becoming a pain in the ass."

Apr 30 1991

Tropical cyclone Marian hits the Chittagong region of Bangladesh, killing 138,000 people and causing more than $1.5 billion in damage. Although 95% of the population heard the cyclone warning, most did not believe that a cyclone was actually on its way.

Apr 30 1993

During a quarterfinals match in Hamburg, deranged tennis fan Gunter Parche sneaks up on Monica Seles and stabs her in the back with a boning knife. Parche was just paving the way for Steffi Graf, whom he was actively stalking, to take the top ranking from Seles. His plan succeeds.

(Major Martin was finally identified as the corpse of a homeless man pulled from a London morgue a few years ago.)

4/30/2008 1:08:26 PM

May 1 1776

Adam Weishaupt founds the Bavarian Illuminati, the secret society which controls your mind as part of its plot to overthrow organized religion and control the global economy. If you don't believe it, ask yourself what novus ordo seclorum is doing on your dollar bill.

May 1 1863

The Confederate Congress decrees that captured Negro soldiers from the Union Army are to be summarily put to death, on the grounds that they have already "incited servile insurrection."

May 1 1889



The first of May is designated "International Workers Day," in commemoration of Chicago's Haymarket riots of 1886. The new holiday is actually an appropriation of the banned Beltane (Day of Fire), or May Day, traditionally celebrated by encircling a phallic maypole with delectable fertile virgins.

May 1 1942

The 215th and final hanging occurs at California's San Quentin maximum security prison. Subsequent executions utilize the facility's gas chamber, and ultimately, inmate's choice of that or lethal injection.

May 1 1945

Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda tell their six children they are about to receive inoculation shots, but the injections actually contain poison. The parents then exit the Fuhrerbunker, where an SS man shoots them both in the back of the head.

May 1 1960

The Soviet Union fires a SAM-2 surface-to-air missile at the U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers. The aircraft crashes inside Russian territory, near Sverdlosk. For whatever reason, Powers opts not to swallow his suicide pill and is taken into custody.

May 1 1993

During a May Day rally, Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa and his retinue of bodyguards are blown to bits by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.

May 1 1997

Sportscaster Frank Gifford is caught on video having sex with TWA flight attendant Suzen Johnson at the New York Regency Hotel. On the tape, Johnson is heard moaning: "Oh, God that's so good. Oh my, you're so big. I knew you would be -- I just knew you would be." A tabloid paid Johnson $75,000 to fornicate with Gifford, and she later goes on to pose nude in Playboy for a six-figure check.

5/1/2008 1:09:49 PM

May 2 1863

At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson is accidentally shot three times by his own men. Jackson's left arm is amputated, and he dies eight days later from complications.

May 2 1946

Six prisoners attempt to escape the federal prison on Alcatraz island. They take over their cellblock but fail to gain access to the outside. One guard held hostage is executed by prisoners, and another dies in the attempt to retake the cellblock. The Battle of Alcatraz ends only after the deaths of three prisoners, and two others are subsequently executed at San Quentin.

May 2 1957

Senator Joseph McCarthy dies of hepatitis, brought about by unabated alcoholism. Two and a half years prior he had been censured by the Senate for his "inexcusable" and "reprehensible" conduct during his highly-publicized Communist witch-hunt. McCarthy eventually discovered that it was far more effective to have private industry oppress its workforce, rather than the government oppress its citizenry.

May 2 1957

Mob figure Frank Costello is shot in the head by Vincent "the Chin" Gigante. Instead of killing him, the bullet circumnavigates between his skin and cranium, exiting through the original wound. Costello retires from the Mafia soon after.

May 2 1972

World famous drag queen and longtime G-man J. Edgar Hoover dies in his sleep at the age of 77.

May 2 1997

At 4:45 a.m., L.A. County Sheriff's deputies pull over a car in West Hollywood driven by comedian/actor Eddie Murphy. In the passenger seat is one Atisone Seiuli, a 20-year-old pre-op transsexual prostitute. Murphy informs the officers that he was just trying to be a "good samaritan" and give his she-male acquaintance a ride home. Seiuli is taken into custody for an outstanding prostitution warrant, but the officers allow Murphy to leave without any further ado.

5/2/2008 2:23:38 PM

Quote :

"Instead of killing him, the bullet circumnavigates between his skin and cranium, exiting through the original wound."

wat?

5/2/2008 2:25:38 PM

I know a chick that got shot in the head and a similar thing happened, the difference being that the bullet stopped once it got to the back of her head, it didnt make it all around and out the original hole.

5/2/2008 2:29:37 PM

Small caliber bullets can do squirrelly shit like that.

5/2/2008 3:42:09 PM

May 3 1945

British torpedo bombers attack the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek in the Baltic Sea. Both vessels are flying white flags, as there are almost 7,000 concentration camp prisoners aboard. In the process of abandoning ship, the German captain of the Arcona uses a machete to hack his way through the mass of people. When the ships sink, virtually all of the prisoners drown, making this the single largest loss of life in the history of ocean travel.

May 3 1963

Eugene "Bull" Connor directs security forces in Birmingham, Alabama to unleash police dogs on civil rights protesters, and then blast them with high-pressure fire hoses. Unfortunately for segregationists, television networks bring the footage to a shocked national audience. In the wake of the overwhelming public response, President Kennedy quips that Connor "has done more for civil rights than almost anybody else."

May 3 1987

The Miami Herald runs a story that Senator Gary Hart had spent the preceding weekend alone with a woman other than his wife. In an attempt to quell persistent rumors of an extramarital affair, Hart had previously challenged reporters to spy on him, saying: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored." The Presidential candidate withdraws from the race just five days later, and the homewrecker, one Donna Rice, goes on to launch a career crusading against pornography.

May 3 1988

The White House confirms stories that President Ronald Reagan's travel and public appearances are scheduled around astrological data furnished by a mystic in San Francisco. The astrologer also supplies input to the timing of critical international events, such as a recent arms control summit in Iceland.

5/3/2008 1:39:52 PM

May 4 1854

Joseph Tussaud returns to London with the well-used blade of the guillotine he purchased from Clement Sanson, the last in a line of Sansons who held the office of Executioner of Paris for over 150 years. The blade is now part of Tussaud's Wax Museum collection.

May 4 1970

28 Ohio National Guardsmen kill four students and wound nine others at Kent State University. The Guardsmen had read them the riot act, but the students refused to disperse. So they shot them.

May 4 1991

Bing Crosby's son Dennis Crosby puts a shotgun to his head, ending his life in a boarding house in California. A younger brother, Lindsay, had also killed himself with a shotgun two years earlier.

May 4 1999

At the Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Wisconsin, Chad Alvarez nukes a fraternal brother's Quaker parrot, Iago, in the house microwave. The animal explodes. For this he is sentenced to ten days in jail, and fined $1000. Alvarez is the son of the university's football coach.

May 4 1999

A newly-delivered baby falls through a train toilet as it is born near the city of Guangzhou, China. After the fall, a second train speeds over the newborn. Although the baby survives unharmed, radio announcers are later reprimanded for laughing hysterically as they report the story.

May 4 2000

The "I Love You" computer worm rampages through Internet email systems, inflicting damages somewhere in the $2-to-$15 billion range. The worm spreads by exploiting design flaws in the Microsoft Outlook mail client and also the gullibility of your typical computer user. A variety of Filipino suspects is ultimately narrowed down to an AMA Computer College student from Manila.

May 4 2001

After dinner at Vitello's in Studio City, film and television actor Robert Blake remembers that he left something at the restaurant. When he returns to the car, he discovers his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, slumped over in the passenger seat. She had been shot in the head by person or persons unknown. Bakley later dies of her injury. One year later, Blake is charged with the murder.

5/4/2008 5:37:14 AM

May 5 2349 BC

Noah's Ark lands on Mount Ararat, according to calculations by James Ussher, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland.

May 5 840

A son of Charlemagne, Emperor Louis of Bavaria, dies of fright during a total eclipse of the sun. His sons quarrel, causing the division of his Empire into France, Germany, and Italy.

May 5 1821

Napoleon dies on the island of St. Helena, some suspect from arsenic poisoning. More likely, he died from stomach cancer as did his father.

May 5 1925

High school teacher John T. Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution by authorities in Dayton, Tennessee, as part of a publicity stunt to make the town famous. Since Scopes admitted teaching the theory, he was found guity, and the law remained on the books in the backward state until 1967.

May 5 1945

Elsie Mitchell and five children she is watching are killed by a Japanese balloon bomb which drifted over the Pacific into Oregon. They are the only people killed in action on the US mainland during World War II.

May 5 1955

An internal CIA memo emphasizes the need for a drug that creates a state of "pure euphoria" and no letdown. From this springs Operation Midnight Climax, in which CIA brothels were set up in San Francisco, and their customers surreptitiously dosed with LSD by prostitutes. Operative George Hunter White observed reactions behind a two way mirror, purely in the interest of science.

May 5 1961

Alan B. Shepard is the first American in space, with a fifteen minute suborbital flight. He was forced to piss himself in his suit prior to launch, as it lacked an evacuation system.

May 5 1982

Secretary Janet Smith in the computer science department at Vanderbilt University is injured when she opens a package from the Unabomber.

May 5 1993

After getting pulled over for erratic driving, Keanu Reeves is arrested for drunk driving in Los Angeles.

May 5 2000

"On May 5 of the year 2000, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be aligned with the earth for the first time in 6,000 years. On that day the ice buildup at the South Pole will upset the earth's axis, sending trillions of tons of ice in the water sweeping over the surface of our planet."
-- 5/5/2000: Ice -- the Ultimate Disaster by Richard W Noone

5/5/2008 11:59:42 AM

May 6 1527

Mercenaries sack the city of Rome, an event considered by many to mark the end of the Renaissance.

May 6 1626

Manhattan purchased by Dutch governor Peter Minuet for the equivalent of $24 in goods, which compounded at 6% annually is approximately $78 billion. But some scholars feel the actual value of the goods transferred to be in excess of $500, which translates to $1.6 trillion for the island when compounded.

May 6 1853

Ignoring signals, a train travels through an open drawbridge and into the Norwalk river in Connecticut, killing 46 passengers. The engineer and crew jumped clear, not warning the others of their fate.

May 6 1862

Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden and the essay Civil Disobedience, dead at age 44. His last words were "Moose.. Indian".

May 6 1937

Zeppelin Hindenberg explodes at Lakehurst NJ, leaving 36 dead and others seriously burned. Official cause of the explosion is listed as "St. Elmo's Fire," although it probably also involved the flammable silver paint the Germans used to coat the thing.

May 6 1983

West German authorities announce that the recently discovered " (Broken link for Hitler Diaries)" are counterfeits, made from paper not available until at least 1955. Parties unknown managed to swindle the German magazine Stern out of an undisclosed sum, and esteemed historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was so convinced of their authenticity that he proclaimed "I'm staking my reputation on it."

May 6 1987

Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker is formally defrocked by the Assemblies of God.

May 6 1993

Disgruntled postal worker Mark Richard Hilburn (recently fired) enters the Dana Point, CA post office and shoots two former coworkers, killing one.

May 6 1993

Disgruntled 27-year veteran Lawrence Jasion enters the garage area of the Dearborn, Michigan post office and whips out a .38 revolver. He proceeds to kill mechanic Gary Montes and wound two other coworkers. Before anyone can react, Jasion then blows his brains out. The Dearborn office was infamous for its authoritarian policies.

May 6 2002

Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn is shot six times in the head as he leaves a recording studio in Hilversum, near Amsterdam. His party platform was based on repeal of the discrimination clause of the constitution, an odd position considering that Fortuyn was homosexual. It is not clear what assassin Volkert van der Graaf's motive was, speculations ranging from Fortuyn's public statements regarding fur farming (van der Graaf is a founder of that country's Animal Liberation Front) to his sympathies towards Dutch Muslims.

5/6/2008 3:45:06 AM

May 7 1915

The oceanliner Lusitania is torpedoed by German submarine U-20 off the coast of Ireland. The ship goes under in just 18 minutes. In their panic, the crew only manages to launch 6 of the 48 lifeboats. As a result 1,201 are killed. Contrary to published reports of the time, the passenger ship was smuggling 3,863 boxes of ammunition and 323 bundles of guncotton into Britain.

May 7 1945

German admiral Carl Doenitz unconditionally surrenders to Allied forces at Reims, France, thus ending the war in Europe.

May 7 1959

Small-time boxing promoter Don King is arrested in Cleveland on suspicion of drug dealing. His criminal record includes a 1955 arrest for arson, a 1954 arrest for murder, and others.

May 7 2001

Ronnie Biggs, England's escaped "Great Train Robber," returns to face the music after 35 years as a fugitive. After serving just fifteen months of a 30-year sentence, Biggs escaped from prison and fled to Brazil, where he avoided extradition by fathering the baby of a 19-year-old stripper. Partially paralyzed by a couple of strokes, Biggs returns to England for one last pint of beer before he dies. Instead he is taken into custody at Heathrow airport and promptly sent to Belmarsh prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

5/7/2008 4:21:38 AM

1847 - In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.

1946 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with about 20 employees.

5/7/2008 4:31:17 AM

Quote :

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

damn

5/7/2008 9:23:01 AM

May 8 1842

Following a birthday celebration for King Louis Philippe, 59 Parisians returning home by train are trapped in their railcars and incinerated when their train collides with another. In these early days of rail travel, coaches were locked and no means of escape was available.

May 8 1902

Mt. Peleé erupts on the West Indies island of Martinique. A wall of superheated ash and rock cascades down the slopes, slamming directly into the community of Saint Pierre. The shockwave and intense heat even manage to destroy twenty ships in the harbor. Only two of the town's 28,000 residents survive the cataclysm.

May 8 1988

Science fiction author Robert A Heinlein dies of emphysema, leaving behind a legacy of subversive novels -- many of which meditating on unconventional sexual mores.

May 8 1991

In a room at Little Rock's Excelsior Hotel, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton exposes his penis to state employee Paula Jones and propositions her to perform fellatio. In her civil deposition, Jones will later claim to have witnessed certain "distinguishing characteristics" of the governor's genitalia, the precise nature of which soon becomes the subject of much speculation. For her trouble, Jones eventually receives an out-of-court settlement for $850,000 and a nude pictorial in Penthouse magazine.

May 8 1998

Former Senator and onetime Presidential candidate Bob Dole tells television interviewer Larry King that he participated in the Viagra impotence drug trials, and thoroughly enjoyed himself in the process. Dole's name soon becomes synonymous with erectile dysfunction.

May 8 1999

Actress Dana Plato, who played Kimberly Drummond on Diff'rent Strokes, dies in Oklahoma of an overdose of Valium and Loritab. Just the previous day, Plato had appeared on the Howard Stern syndicated radio program claiming to be clean and sober.

5/8/2008 12:08:14 PM

May 9 1950

L. Ron Hubbard publishes the first edition of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This follows on the heels of a feature article in the pulp sci-fi magazine Astounding Science Fiction. A book review in the The New Republic describes the work as "a bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long-acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology." The subsequent movement goes on to become one of the scariest, most powerful pseudoreligious cults in modern history.

May 9 1978

The body of former Italian premier Aldo Moro is discovered in the back seat of a Renault. He had been kidnapped 54 days prior by the Red Brigades, who demanded the release of their incarcerated comrades. When Italian authorities refused to give in, Moro's captors killed him. Above is a photo of the hostage holding a newspaper announcing his own death.

May 9 1979

Northwestern University graduate student John Harris opens a cigar box left sitting on a table in the Technological Institute. The resulting blast only manages to inflict minor lacerations and burns. It is later determined to be the second explosive device fabricated by the Unabomber.

May 9 1980

35 people are killed in Tampa, Florida when the Liberian cargo ship Summit Venture smashes into a supporting pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Seven vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, topple into the water 150 feet below.

May 9 1983

The infallible Pope John Paul II retracts the Catholic Church's condemnation of astronomer Galileo Galilei, issued in 1633 by the infallible Pope Urban VIII. The Church had convicted the scientist of heresy, sentenced him to house arrest, and forced him to recant central scientific truths. In the end, this error only took 350 years to correct.

May 9 1995

The CDC in Atlanta identifies a new strain of filovirus in blood samples taken from 14 disease victims in Kikwit, Zaire. Designated "Ebola," this new pathogen proves to be so tremendously virulent that the government of Zaire is forced to place the entire city of Kinshasa under quarantine in order to contain the outbreak.

5/9/2008 1:07:51 PM

May 10 1924

In perhaps the single worst mistake in the history of crime fighting, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone selects J. Edgar Hoover to head the Bureau of Investigation, later known as the FBI. He will remain at the post until his death 48 years later.

May 10 1933

Joseph Goebbels presides over a public book burning in Berlin, which destroys more than 20,000 volumes. The collection includes books by Einstein and Freud. During the bibliocaust, Goebbels declares: "We have directed our dealings against the un-German spirit; consign everything un-German to the fire."

May 10 1941

Running out of fuel and unable to find a suitable spot to land his Messerschmitt, Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess bails out over Scotland. When Hess claims to have made the trip in order to negotiate a peace treaty with England, the Nazis declare that he was a psychotic who "lived in a state of hallucination." After the war, Hess is confined to Spandau prison until his apparent suicide in 1987.

May 10 1969

The Battle of Dong Ap Bia begins with an assault on Hill 937. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill.

May 10 1977

Joan Crawford succumbs to stomach cancer at the age of 73. In the early days of her career, Crawford had performed in several stag films, and later spent a considerable sum buying back the prints to destroy them.

May 10 1993

In the worst manufacturing plant fire in history, 188 employees, most of them young women, burn to death in a doll factory in Bangkok, Thailand. The management had locked the doors, so the workers could produce their Bart Simpson dolls without any distractions.

May 10 1994

Former building contractor, children's party clown, and jailhouse artist John Wayne Gacy is executed by lethal injection. Police found 28 shallow graves in the crawlspace beneath Gacy's house in 1978. After a dinner which included fried chicken, fried shrimp, and french fries, Gacy is strapped to a gurney. When asked if he has any last words, the serial killer obliges with: "Kiss my ass."

May 10 1994

300 active-duty Marines stationed at Twenty-Nine Palms receive a 46-question, multiple-choice survey. Given a hypothetical situation, more than a quarter of respondents indicate their willingness to "fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government." On the positive side, almost two-thirds recognize that the order would be patently unconstitutional.

5/10/2008 12:58:37 PM

May 11 1310

54 members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake in France for being heretics. Established during the Crusades to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, this military order came into increasing conflict with Rome until Clement V officially dissolves it at the Council of Vienna in 1312.

May 11 1907

A derailment outside Lompoc, California kills 32 Shriners, when their chartered train jumps off the tracks at a switch near Surf Depot. Many of them were scalded to death when the steam boiler ruptured. No word on the fates of their groovy fezzes.

May 11 1960

Four Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from a bus stop in Buenos Aires.

May 11 1981

Jamaican music legend and U.N. Peace Medal recipient Bob Marley dies of brain cancer in a Miami hospital at the age of 36. Marley had quietly begun a course of radiation therapy at Sloan-Kettering a few months prior, but abandoned it just two days later after word leaked out.

May 11 1985

56 soccer fans are killed and more than 200 injured in Bradford, England when fire sweeps through the grandstands of Valley Parade stadium. In less than ten minutes, the structure is reduced to a burning pile of wood.

5/11/2008 1:34:10 PM

May 12 1797

Following Napoleon's conquest of Venice, Ludovico Manin reluctantly steps down as its last Doge. Thus ends the Most Serene Republic's 820-year history of national sovereignty.

May 12 1932

When a truck driver stops in rural New Jersey to take a leak, he stumbles upon the badly decomposed body of the Lindbergh Baby lying in a shallow grave 45 feet from the highway.

May 12 1971

Tor Johnson dies of congestive heart failure at the age of 67 in San Fernando, California. The man who once wrestled under the name "The Super Swedish Angel" leaves behind a legacy of B-movie acting roles, most famously as the bald zombie in Ed Wood's masterpiece "Plan 9 from Outer Space."

May 12 1982

During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, decided that the Pope must be killed for being an "agent of Moscow."

5/12/2008 12:48:26 PM

May 13 1913

The latest brainchild of Russian aircraft design genius Igor Sikorsky embarks on its maiden flight. The Grand, easily the world's most luxurious passenger plane, includes such innovations as upholstered seats, a balcony, and even a lavatory.

May 13 1917

Three small children in Fatima, Portugal receive the first of six visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Over the next five months she lays some pretty heavy shit on the kids, including a three-part secret: a vision of Hell, a prophecy of war with godless Russia, and a third secret which remains classified until Y2K.

May 13 1972

Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and nonfunctional elevators cause 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping to their death.

May 13 1981

A delusional Turk guns down Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. Mehmet Ali Agca believes that the Vatican is an abomination before God and must be destroyed. 19 years later, the Church will disclose that the assassination attempt was foretold in 1917, as part of the third secret of Fatima.

May 13 1985

After attempting to serve arrest warrants at 6221 Osage Avenue, police in West Philadelphia are sucked into a 90-minute gunfight with members of the MOVE organization. Later, police drop a bomb on the house from a helicopter. The bomb misses its target and ignites a fire which consumes the entire city block. 61 houses are destroyed in the conflagration, killing 11 MOVE members -- including five children -- and leaving hundreds of neighbors homeless.

May 14 964

Pope John XII dies of injuries inflicted eight days prior by a jealous husband who caught him in flagrante delicto with his wife. The 26-year-old pontiff had received a blow to the temple, causing immediate paralysis. Critics had accused John of converting the Lateran Palace into a whorehouse.

May 14 1610

Fanatical monk François Ravaillac jumps aboard the coach of King Henry IV and stabs him twice through the open window. Then the French monarch bleeds to death before medical help can reach him.

May 14 1976

Keith Relf, former vocalist of the Yardbirds, is electrocuted in his London home while either tuning or playing a guitar belonging to either him or his son, in either the basement or the bathtub. Details are sort of sketchy, resulting from the family's reticence to describe the death scene.

May 14 1998

Mobbed-up international recording star and Academy Award winner Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack shortly after the airing of the final Seinfeld episode. The Chairman of the Board of Show Business had an oddly appropriate personal motto: "You gotta love livin' baby, 'cause dyin's a pain in the ass."

5/14/2008 12:59:46 PM

the end times are nearing, sir

5/14/2008 1:00:21 PM

I found a picture of the Sikorsky Grand.

5/14/2008 1:13:45 PM

May 15 1960

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik IV, a three-ton spacecraft containing a "dummy cosmonaut." The mission goes fine until they attempt to retrofire. A bug in the guidance system had pointed the capsule in the wrong direction, so instead of dropping into the atmosphere the satellite moves into a higher orbit.

May 15 1972

Hoping to gain everlasting infamy, Arthur Bremer pumps five bullets into Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace during a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland. In his haste, the gunman forgets to yell his carefully-chosen catchphrase, "Penny for your thoughts!" And when Wallace survives the assassination attempt, albeit confined to a wheelchair, Bremer's name is soon forgotten.

May 15 1974

Three Arab gunmen disguised as Israeli soldiers seize control of the schoolhouse at Ma'alot. Taken hostage are more than 100 teenaged students and their teachers. The captors, members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, demand the release of 26 political prisoners. Israeli commandos storm the school only 15 minutes before the deadline; 18 children are killed in the firefight.

May 15 1985

Graduate student John Hauser loses most of his right hand in a UC Berkeley computer room when he opens an innocent-looking box attached to a looseleaf binder. It is the second device left in this building from the Unabomber. In fact, the engineering professor who applies the tourniquet to Hauser's arm was the victim in the previous attack, three years prior.

May 15 1991

Alan Cooper stands trial in England for "committing a lewd, obscene, and disgusting act on the 12-foot dolphin called Freddie as they frolicked for 20 minutes off the harbor mouth at Amble, Northumberland." Cooper responds by claiming that his accuser was a sworn enemy and had trained dolphins for a movie to jump out of the water and tear off a woman's bikini bra. He is eventually acquitted of masturbating the cetacean.

May 15 1997

Federal prosecutors in the Unabomber trial file the necessary paperwork requesting the death penalty for Ted Kaczynski.

May 16 1984

Intergender wrestling champion and conceptual comic Andy Kaufman pretends to die of lung cancer. In order to make it really convincing, Andy underwent months of radiation therapy and six weeks of psychic surgery in the Philippines. And he never made any more public appearances.

May 16 1986

In the most notorious retcon in the history of television, Pam Ewing wakes up to find her husband Bobby in the shower -- no small feat, considering he's been dead for a whole season. In order to revivify Bobby's character, the Dallas writers resorted to dismissing the entire preceding year as nothing more than Pam's protracted dream.

May 16 1990

Sammy Davis, Jr. dies of throat cancer in Beverly Hills. After the legendary Rat pack singer/entertainer is buried with $70,000 in jewelry, the family discovers that Mr. Bojangles was broke and left millions of dollars in unpaid back taxes. His widow then orders the body exhumed so they can repo the jewelry.

May 16 1990

Attached to a ventilator and swimming in antibiotics, Muppet creator Jim Henson dies of a severe case of pneumonia in a New York hospital. In keeping with his express wishes, no one is permitted to wear black at Henson's funeral service, which features 5,000 fans waving painted butterflies and a live band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

May 16 1995

After receiving an anonymous tip that a runaway teen was hiding there, police in Coral Gables, Florida search Jennifer Capriati's motel room and uncover 20 grams of marijuana. The 18-year-old professional tennis player winds up diverted to a drug treatment program, avoiding a court trial.

5/16/2008 4:01:07 AM

May 17 1924

Two youths discover a human skull on the banks of the Leine in Hanover, Germany. And although two more skulls are found a month later, police ignore it until a sackful of bones turn up on the riverbank. Dragging the Leine yields another 500 bones, belonging to about 27 victims. Eventually, police arrest Fritz Haarmann for the crimes. He would lure runaway boys back to his apartment, where they would be raped, killed, and cut into steaks. Then the unlicensed butcher would sell the meat as beef on the black market. All told, he killed between 40 and 50 boys.

May 17 1974

During a gun battle with members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the LAPD fires tear gas into their Watts hideout. The canisters ignite a fire which soon consumes the house. Three other SLA members, including kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, watch the events unfold on TV in their motel room down the street from Disneyland.

May 17 1980

A three-day race riot breaks out after an all-white jury acquits four white Miami police officers of killing Arthur McDuffie, a black insurance salesman. The cops had beaten him with their flashlights and billyclubs, and he died in the hospital. 18 fatalities and more than $100 million in property damage are the final result.

May 17 1992

Bandleader, accordion player, and soap bubble aficionado Lawrence Welk dies of pneumonia in his beachfront condo in Santa Monica, California.

5/17/2008 4:25:25 AM

May 18 1843

"I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left." -- Joseph Smith, prophet of God and founder of the Mormon church

May 18 1904

In Paris, 12 nations ratify the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. Another 48 countries and territories follow suit over the next six years. Conspicuously absent from the list of signatories is the United States of America.

May 18 1936

Tokyo gangster Kichizo Ishida is accidentally strangled by his mistress during a session of rough sex. Ishida had been a "gasper," someone who enjoys the sexual effects of asphyxiation. The woman, Sada Abe, indulged him by wrapping her pink kimono belt around his neck. After her lover's death, Abe cuts off Ishida's penis and scrotum with a meat cleaver and carries them around until she is finally arrested, three days later.

May 18 1980

The body of Ian Curtis, lead singer of dirge band Joy Division, is discovered hanging in the kitchen by his wife. Curtis killed himself on the eve of Joy Division's U.S. tour. His surviving bandmates go on to form New Order.

May 18 1980

After a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in Washington state, 57 people are killed in an avalanche of volcanic mud in the eruption of Mount St. Helens. The volcano spews out 200 million cubic yards of of pumice, ash, and debris which covers 24 square miles of the valley below.

5/18/2008 1:29:42 PM

May 19 1536

In the first public execution of an English queen, Anne Boleyn is beheaded. In her speech, Boleyn has nothing but good things to say about her husband, Henry VIII: "I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord."

May 19 1890

Nguyen Tat Thanh is born in central Vietnam. After World War I he devotes his life to the Communist cause, adopting a series of pseudonyms along the way. Finally he settles on "The Enlightener," that being the English translation of Ho Chi Minh.

May 19 1928

Saloth Sar, one of the world's most successful mass murderers, is born in French Indochina. He later adopts the name Pol Pot in 1976, a year after the Khmer Rouge seizes control of Cambodia.

May 19 1987

Chet Fleming files for a patent on his method for keeping a severed head alive. The mechanism includes blood filtering, pumping equipment, and nutrient supply. Ultimately, US Patent 4,666,425 is granted.

May 19 1992

17-year-old Amy Fisher shoots Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the face. Amy had been having an affair with Mary Jo's 38-year-old husband Joey. Fisher winds up spending seven years in prison, and Mary Jo winds up with a plate in her head.

May 19 1993

Four servicemen are killed on an inspection flight when their Blackhawk helicopter crashes in the woods near Quantico, Virginia. Maj. William Barcley, SSgt. Brian Haney, Capt. Scott Reynolds, and Marine Sgt. Timothy Sabel had flown President Bill Clinton to the USS Theodore Roosevelt during his visit to the aircraft carrier two months prior. Hence, the men qualify as former "Clinton bodyguards" and their untimely deaths should be interpreted as evidence that they were killed simply because they knew too much.

May 19 1994

Jackie O., one the many women John F. Kennedy had sex with, dies of lymphatic cancer in her 15-room Manhattan apartment. In accordance with her 36-page will, most of her personal possessions are to be publicly auctioned by Sotheby's two years later. At which, one bidder observes that people are paying "100 times the value for objects that are amazingly mediocre." In fact, the average price for individual pieces of costume jewelry is $18,750.

5/19/2008 1:07:34 PM

May 20 1960

Music DJ Alan Freed, originator of the term "Rock and Roll," is indicted in New York in the Payola scandal. Freed had accepted $30,650 from five record companies to play their records, although to be fair "pay for play" was the accepted practice up to that point.

May 20 1971

The bassist and lead singer for the band Chicago undergoes five hours of emergency surgery after getting jumped at a Cubs-Dodgers baseball game. Peter Cetera winds up losing four teeth because some guys decided that his hair was too long.

May 20 1987

Conservative British MP Harvey Proctor pleads guilty to committing acts of gross indecency against minors -- paying rent boys to spank them in his London flat.

May 20 1989

Attempting to clear Tiananmen Square of student activists and quell 100 million others protesting throughout the country, China declares martial law in Beijing. Two weeks later, after they continue to loiter in the Square, thousands of students are massacred by government troops.

May 20 1999

The dissolving body parts of eight people are discovered inside six plastic barrels sitting in an abandoned bank vault in Snowtown, Australia.

5/20/2008 12:35:04 PM

May 21 1871

Government troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting. By the close of "Bloody Week" some 20,000 communards have been massascred and 38,000 arrested.

May 21 1952

Mr. T is born in the ghetto.

May 21 1956

The Cherokee test of Operation Redwing commences over Bikini Atoll, consisting of a 3.8 megaton nuclear bomb dropped from a B-52 bomber. The bomb is successfully detonated at an altitude of 4,350 feet, but the flight crew missed their assigned target by four miles. Although it is a complete failure from a scientific standpoint, it demonstrates America's ability to deliver hydrogen bombs over long distances.

May 21 1972

A deranged Australian geologist takes a hammer to Michelangelo's Pieta, shouting "I am Jesus Christ -- risen from the dead!" Laszlo Toth is never charged with any crime, instead receiving a free trip to an Italian insane asylum. Toth's name is later adopted by comedian and SNL regular Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci) for a long series of pranks by mail.

May 21 1979

A judge gives Dan White only seven years for the premeditated murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone, prompting thousands to march on San Francisco's City Hall. In what will come to be known as the White Night Riots, the demonstration takes a violent turn, resulting in significant property damage and the torching of twelve SFPD cruisers. Police respond with brutal beatdowns at gay bars in the Castro district.

May 21 1991

At an outdoor political rally, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and 16 bystanders are blown to bits by a pregnant woman bearing a basket of flowers. The suicide bomber is believed to have been a member of a Hindu terrorist group called the Tamil Tigers. (The assassin, Dhanu, is pictured above center.)

May 21 1996

At least 500 -- possibly as many as 1,000 -- people are killed when the Bukoba ferry suddenly capsizes on Lake Victoria. The manifest lists 443 people on board, but this doesn't count the hundreds of third-class passengers.

May 21 1997

Mattel introduces Barbie's new friend, Becky The School Photographer, a "differently-abled" doll in a bright purple wheelchair.

5/21/2008 1:12:14 PM

May 22 337

Emperor Constantine dies. Although quite dead, his embalmed corpse continues to act as head of state, receving state dignitaries and daily reports from ministers as if nothing had changed. Constantine's macabre leadership continues through winter.

May 22 1851

Hail the size of pumpkins falls on Bangalore, India.

May 22 1949

Former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal falls out of a 16th floor window at Bethesda Naval Hospital with a bathrobe cord knotted tightly around his neck. The death is ruled a suicide, and Forrestal is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

May 22 1954

400 people attend the Bar Mitzvah for Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) in Hibbing, Minnesota. He later converts to Christianity in 1979.

May 22 1957

A B-36 bomber accidentally drops a 10 megaton hydrogen bomb over an uninhabited area near Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conventional charges detonate on impact, leaving a radioactive crater 12 feet deep and 25 feet wide.

May 22 1967

322 Belgians are killed when fire sweeps through the second-largest department store in Brussels. Many of the victims leaped to their deaths, although most who landed on parked cars survive. The store, L'Innovation, had been having a sale on American goods.

May 22 1968

The nuclear submarine U.S.S. Scorpion sinks to the bottom with all 99 aboard perishing, after it is reassigned to a spy mission and begins to head towards the Canary Islands. Navy Warrant Officer John Walker (a mole) had certainly reported enough to the KGB to allow them to read the Scorpion's encrypted transmissions. For reasons yet unknown, Navy officials of the U.S. and Soviet Union agree not to discuss the circumstances of this incident or the sinking of a Soviet sub the same year.

May 22 1981

Peter Sutcliffe is convicted of murdering 13 women in the Yorkshire Ripper trial. In the words of the presiding judge: "It is difficult to find words that are adequate in my judgment to describe the brutality and gravity of these offences and I say at once I am not going to pause to seek those words. I am prepared to let the catalogue of crimes speak for itself."

5/22/2008 3:49:44 AM

May 23 1498

Religious fundamentalist Girolamo Savonarola is executed in Florence, Italy for his many heresies. The Catholic Church had already excommunicated the Dominican friar the year before, but Savonarola continued to preach for radical reforms. Among other things, he held "bonfires of the vanities" for his parishioners' worldly possessions, because they competed with the word of God for attention. Brother Savonarola is hanged along with two accomplices and their bodies burned.

May 23 1618

In what is later called the "Defenestration of Prague," three men representing the soon-to-be Emperor Ferdinand II are thrown from a window in the Hradshin Palace by Protestant noblemen. Luckily for the imperial emissaries, they land on a large pile of trash and survive. But when the Catholic Ferdinand assumes the throne the following year, all hell breaks loose in Europe, starting with Bohemia. Thus begins the horrific religious conflict that comes to be known as the Thirty Years War. It is generally agreed that the war set back the continent a full century.

May 23 1701

Captain William Kidd is hanged in London. Afrer the first attempt fails when the rope snaps, Kidd is brought right back to the gallows and the process repeated. After death, the body is slathered in tar, chained up, and suspended over the Thames where it remains for years as an example to others considering a life of piracy.

May 23 1934

A group of FBI agents and police officers from two states ambush Bonnie and Clyde on a highway near Gibsland, Louisiana. The men open fire as the bank robbers drive past the concealed posse, unloading hundreds of rounds into the car.

May 23 1960

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reveals that Mossad agents have captured fugitive war criminal Adolf Eichmann and smuggled him out of Argentina. Ben-Gurion announces: "Eichmann is already in this country under arrest and will shortly be brought to trial."

May 23 1984

Candy heiress Helen Brach is declared legally dead, seven years after disappearing mysteriously in February 1977.

5/23/2008 1:04:29 PM

May 24 1610

Buggery is criminalized for the first time in North America, when the Virginia colony declares that "[n]o man shal commit the horrible, and detestable sinnes of Sodomie upon pain of death."

May 24 1856

A small gang led by abolitionist John Brown murders five pro-slavery homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas, hacking them to pieces with swords. The event comes to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre.

May 24 1920

Senile French President Paul Deschanel falls off a train bound for Montbrison, and is later discovered wandering along the track in his pajamas.

May 24 1964

All hell breaks loose in the closing minutes of a match between Peru and Argentina, after a referee disallows a goal. 318 people are killed and 500 injured in Lima, Peru, making it the worst soccer riot in history.

5/24/2008 2:43:24 PM

May 25 1895

British playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons," to wit: fucking some rent boys. For his crime, Wilde is sentenced to two years of hard labor in Reading jail.

May 25 1925

John T. Scopes is indicted by a grand jury for violating Tennessee's anti-evolution statute, which he claimed to have broken by teaching Darwin's theory of natural selection in a Dayton high school. Later, on July 10th, the "Scopes Monkey Trial" begins.

May 25 1979

Immediately after flight 191 takes off from Chicago's O'Hare Airport, engine number one tears loose from its wing and falls off. A few seconds later, the DC-10 rolls onto its left side and impacts the ground. All 271 aboard the plane are killed in the explosion, along with two bystanders.

May 25 1980

Televangelist Oral Roberts senses an "overwhelming holy presence" and hallucinates a 900-foot-tall Jesus Christ. The deity reaches down and picks up a 60-story hospital, bragging to the Oklahoman preacher: "See how easy it is for Me to lift it!"

May 25 1985

11,000 people are killed in Bangladesh when a cyclone hits the Bay of Bengal. A 10-to-15 foot wall of water surges over the Ganges delta, devastating a wide area and drowning half a million cattle.

May 25 1996

The body of Bradley Nowell is discovered in his room at San Francisco's Ocean View Motel. Nowell, lead singer for radio trio Sublime, was killed by an accidental smack overdose.

5/25/2008 1:09:33 PM

May 26 1232

Gregory IX issues the bull Declinante jam mundi, bringing the Papal Inquisition to Spain.

May 26 1647

Alse Young, a widow, is hanged for witchcraft in Hartford, Connecticut. Her daughter Alice is accused of the same offense 30 years later, in Massachusetts.

May 26 1868

In England's last public execution, Michael Barrett is hanged at Newgate. All subsequent hangings are held behind prison walls. Presiding over the event is executioner William Calcraft, who frequently supplements his income by selling the clothes and noose worn by the condemned.

May 26 1960

America's UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge charges the Soviets with having bugged the Moscow embassy. He shows off a large wooden carving of the United States seal which had been hollowed out to conceal a sophisticated resonant cavity transmitter. Less than 30 years later a newly-rebuilt Moscow embassy is determined to be "structurally riddled with eavesdropping devices."

May 26 1978

A safety officer at Northwestern University opens a suspicious package which had been delivered to a professor. The object explodes in Terry Marker's hands, making him the first victim of the Unabomber.

May 26 1980

By orders of military dictator Chun Doo Hwan, and with the blessing of the Carter administration, the South Korean government massacres 2,000 pro-democracy protesters in Kwangju city.

May 26 1994

"Price Is Right" host Bob Barker admits to having had an 18-month sexual relationship with former co-host Dian Parkinson. The onetime Playboy model was suing the game show's host and its production company for sexual harassment. Barker denies that the sex had been anything but consensual, claiming that "she volunteered the hanky-panky." Parkinson later drops the suit.

May 26 1994

Dogged by rumors of pedophilia, Michael Jackson weds Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic. The couple keeps their marriage secret for six weeks, then files for divorce 18 months after that.

5/26/2008 1:04:15 PM

May 27 1923

Henry Kissinger is born in Fuerth, Germany. 50 years later, Dr. Kissinger receives the Nobel Peace Prize for quitting the Vietnam War. No kidding.

May 27 1942

A couple of Czech assassins ambush the car carrying Reinhard Heydrich and toss a grenade into the front seat. The man who headed the Wannsee Conference is mortally wounded in the attack, and dies of septicemia a week later. The Nazis retaliate by obliterating the Catholic village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and its inhabitants.

May 27 1977

After the pressing plant initially refuses to duplicate the record and the printer refuses to make the covers, Virgin finally releases "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols in time for the monarch's Jubilee celebration.

May 27 1991

Cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer manages to convince Milwaukee police that the dazed naked boy found staggering on the sidewalk and bleeding from the ass is his drunken lover, instead of a 14-year-old boy struggling to fight the effects of date-rape drugs. The MPD officers chalk it up to a "homosexual lovers spat" and escort them both back to Dahmer's apartment. After the cops leave, Jeffrey strangles the boy, rapes his corpse, and eats some flesh from the carcass of his twelfth victim.

May 27 1993

Five are killed and 37 wounded when a Fiat Fiorino explodes outside the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. The car bomb (a combination of PETN, T4, and TNT) also manages to obliterate three priceless artworks and substantially damage thirty more. The bombing appears to have been the work of the Sicilian Mafia.

May 27 1995

During the third jump of an equestrian event in Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is thrown headfirst over his horse. Reeve breaks his neck in two places, instantly rendering him a quadriplegic, unable to move or breathe without assistance.

5/27/2008 3:53:28 AM

May 28 1946

Manhattan Project scientists Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann file for a secret patent on their design for the hydrogen bomb initiator.

May 28 1959

America launches a Jupiter rocket containing a rhesus monkey named Able and a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker. After experiencing nine minutes of microgravity, the capsule successfully returns to Earth with both monkeys intact. However, Able dies during surgery to remove his electrodes.

May 28 1981

Former Milwaukee police officer and Playboy bunny Laurie "Bambi" Bemenek breaks into the house of her husband's ex-wife and murders her. Prosecutors will claim that Bemenek was incensed over the amount of alimony her husband was paying. Bambi later escapes from prison in 1990, fleeing to Canada.

May 28 1987

German teenager Matthias Rust lands his Cessna in Moscow's Red Square, buzzing the Kremlin on the way in. He serves 18 months in prison for this prank, which also costs the commander of the Soviet Air Command his job.

May 28 1998

Talented comedian Phil Hartman dies at the hand of his crazy wife Brynne, who then commits suicide after the police arrive. Hartman's corpse is found in bed with multiple gunshot wounds to the head. SNL televises a very bad retrospective of his work several weeks later.

5/28/2008 2:32:24 PM

May 29 526

A major earthquake accompanied by a fire destroys the city of Antioch, killing perhaps a quarter of a million people. The rebuilding efforts are wiped away two years later by another major quake.

May 29 1453

Constantinople is taken by Ottoman Turks, after a fifty day siege led by Sultan Mehmet II. The city defense of 10,000 men was no match for a force of 100,000 armed with heavy artillery. It is the final gasp of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

May 29 1806

Dueling over a horse racing wager, future President Andrew Jackson takes a bullet in the chest from fellow lawyer Charles Dickinson. The slug shatters two ribs and buries itself near his heart. Then it is Jackson's turn to fire, which manages to sever an artery and kill his opponent.

May 29 1985

Two hours before kickoff of the European Cup Final, a riot breaks out in the stadium between supporters of Liverpool and Juventus at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium. 39 soccer fans are killed and more than 350 injured on live television.

May 29 1999

Hikers discover the skeletal remains of Philip "Taylor" in his Ford Aerostar at the bottom of a 200-foot ravine in Malibu, California. The onetime bassist for the band Iron Butterfly had disappeared four years prior.

5/29/2008 5:19:39 AM

May 30 1431

Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen, France for relapsing into heresy. After having signed a confession a week earlier, Joan appeared in court wearing difformitate habitus -- degenerate apparel -- or more precisely, men's clothing.

May 30 1593

After a night of drinking, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is killed in the boarding house of Eleanor Bull. The official determination is that Ingram Frizer stabbed Marlowe in the head while they were fighting over the bill.

May 30 1942

Returning home from a night of drinking and reminiscing about the recent death of John Barrymore, movie star Errol Flynn flips on the lights and is horrified to discover Barrymore's corpse propped up in a living room chair. Some of Flynn's friends had given a funeral director $200 to borrow the body for a couple of hours.

May 30 1961

After a group of armed men ambushes the Chevrolet carrying Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator attempts to bargain with them. He is shot five times point-blank, and dies face down in the street.

5/30/2008 4:42:21 AM

May 31 1889

Relentless rain and inadequate maintenance causes the South Fork Dam to fail, unleashing a 35-foot-high wall of water on Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Then 2,209 people are entombed beneath a pile of debris half a mile wide.

May 31 1921

After a white woman claims that a black man had grabbed her arm in an elevator, the largest race riot in U.S. history breaks out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Marauding whites set fire to the exclusively-negro Greenwood district, leveling its 35 city blocks of black-owned businesses. The official death toll is reported as 36, but later historians estimate it was more like 300.

May 31 1962

For crimes against humanity, the nation of Israel hangs Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Ramleh prison. He is later cremated and his ashes scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, outside the territorial waters of the Jewish state.

May 31 1963

Nun Nu Thanh Quang, a Buddhist monk, immolates himself at the Dieu de Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam.

May 31 1996

Timothy Leary dies quietly in his sleep, thereby failing his intended mission of suiciding live on the Internet. On a brighter note, a longstanding Moody Blues prophecy is fulfilled.

5/31/2008 1:00:19 PM

Jun 1 1571

The "Triple Tree" gallows is installed at Tyburn, England in time for the execution of John Storey, who is hanged, drawn, and quartered for committing treason. The Triple Tree consists of an equilateral triangle nine feet long on each side, 18 feet off the ground. It can hang as many as 24 prisoners at once, and will remain in place for almost 200 years.

Jun 1 1660

After having received a last-minute reprieve seven months earlier, Mary Dyer is hanged for heresy after returning to Boston. Dyer was a member of the Quakers, a subversive religious sect which had been banned by the Puritan colony under "pain of death."

Jun 1 1926

Gladys Baker gives birth to Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles.

Jun 1 1967

The Beatles officially release their new album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in both mono and stereo versions.

Jun 1 1968

Helen Keller -- America's all-time favorite deaf, dumb, and blind Socialist -- finally dies in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 87.

Jun 1 2001

In just two minutes, Nepal's royal family is nearly exterminated by one of its own. With a selection of machine guns, Crown Prince Dipendra massacres eight relatives, including King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya. He then turns the gun on himself. Even though Dipendra winds up comatose in a hospital bed, a government council crowns him king anyway. The new monarch dies three days later.

6/1/2008 1:38:56 PM

Jun 2 1740

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade is born at Condé palace in Paris.

Jun 2 1793

Jean Paul Marat recites names of 29 people to the French Assembly, virtually all of whom will be guillotined. Over the next year 17,000 will be executed in the Reign of Terror.

Jun 2 1996

Ray Combs, host of television's Family Feud, hangs himself with his bedsheets at Glendale Adventist Hospital. Combs was on a 72 hour suicide watch.

Jun 2 1999

Pope John Paul II blesses the Vatican's new underground parking garage. A miracle of modern technology!

Jun 2 2003

Thousands of defeated Iraqi troops marched on U.S. occupation headquarters in Baghdad, demanding to be paid. It is perhaps the first time in history a defeated army has demanded payroll from the victors.

6/2/2008 1:36:29 PM

Quote :

"President Andrew Jackson takes a bullet in the chest from fellow lawyer Charles Dickinson. The slug shatters two ribs and buries itself near his heart. Then it is Jackson's turn to fire, which manages to sever an artery and kill his opponent. "

baller as fuck.

totally badass thread.

6/2/2008 2:59:15 PM

Jun 2 2008

Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Raleigh NC lose the focal point of the city as well as hearty lunches as it's most centralized Bojangles Chicken and Biscuits burns to the ground

6/2/2008 3:11:34 PM