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JANUARY 1
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JANUARY 2
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JANUARY 3
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JANUARY 4
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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Yr Hen Galan- New Years Eve in the Julian calendar, still celebrated in the Gwaun and Teifi valleys.
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Yr Hen Galan- New Years Day in the Julian calendar, still celebrated in the Gwaun and Teifi valleys.
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Click here for report and pictures of the Holyhead carol service.
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15Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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16Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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17Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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18Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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19The new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages - on line soon
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Feast Day of Saint Sebastian
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21 January 1846- First issue of Daily News, editor Charles Dickens
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22 January 1901- Death of Queen Victoria
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Feast Day of St John the Almsgiver
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Dwynwen Santes- The saint's day for Welsh lovers
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Australia Day
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27 January 1927- John Logie Baird's first public demonstration of television.
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28 JANUARY 1521 The Diet of Wurms, at which Martin Luther was condemned by the Church.
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29 JANUARY 1848 Scotland adopted Greenwich Mean Time
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30 JANUARY 1790 The first purpose built lifeboat launched, on the River Tyne
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31 JANUARY 1606 Execution of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators
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Feast Day of St Seiriol Founder of Penmon Abbey - lived on Ynys Seiriol (Puffin Island)
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Ground-hog Day Legend has it that if the ground-hog sees his shadow, he'll return to his hole, and winter will last another six weeks.
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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4Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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6Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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9Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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11Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
", "
Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
", "
14Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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16Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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17NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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18NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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19NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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20NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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21NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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22NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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23NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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24NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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25NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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26NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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27NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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28NOTE (and apology): There may be some delays in updates over the next few days as we are installing a new computer system.
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Gwyl Dewi Sant - St David's Day
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2Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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3Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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4Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day
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5Ash Wednesday
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6Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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7Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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8Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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9Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
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Click here the latest Salvation Army News.
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Click here the latest Christian news and views.
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Click here our archived articles.
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Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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14Watch out for news of the new Salvation Army Headquarters' pages
", "
Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
", "
Click here the latest Salvation Army News.
", "
Click here the latest Christian news and views.
", "
Click here our archived articles.
", "
Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
", "
Click here the latest Salvation Army News.
", "
Click here the latest Christian news and views.
", "
Click here our archived articles.
", "
Click here for article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
", "
Click here the latest Salvation Army News.
", "
Click here the latest Christian news and views.
", "
Click here our archived articles.
", "
Click here for new article on the early history of the Salvation Army in Caernarfon.
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Click here for an The Light of the World by Major A.J.Brown.
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Summer Time begins tomorrow - Put your clocks forward tonight
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Sul y Mamau (Mothering Sunday)
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MARCH 31
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All Fools' Day
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Palm Sunday
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Good Friday
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Easter Eve
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Easter Day
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Easter Holiday
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JUNE 1
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JUNE 2
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JUNE 3
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JUNE 5
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JUNE 5
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JUNE 6
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JUNE 7
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JUNE 8
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JUNE 9
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JUNE 10
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JUNE 11
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JUNE 12
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JUNE 13
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JUNE 14
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JUNE 15
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JUNE 16
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JUNE 17
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JUNE 18
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JUNE 19
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JUNE 20
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE
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JUNE 28
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JUNE 29
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JUNE
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JULY 1
1927: A rain of fish descends upon Western Australia's Upper Swan Valley.", "
JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY 9
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JULY 10
1979: A Bigfoot is spotted near Steinbach, Manitoba.", "
JULY 11
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JULY 12
1975: Sticky pebbles rain from the sky onto Etterbeek, Belgium.", "
JULY 13
1927: A rain of fish falls on St. Catharines, Ontario.", "
JULY 14
1959: Aussie hunters see a red UFO land on Prince of Wales Island.
1968: A fisherman catches a four-foot-long shark. In fresh water. In Rivieres des Prairies. Which is in Montrél. That's in Canada, you know.", "
JULY 15
1966: In Lachaud, Corrèze, France, a farmer hears an explosion, and suddenly finds himself covered by a tacky dust, which leaves second-degree burns on his face and arms. Later, he will develop anemia.", "
JULY 16
1933: The Virgin Mary decides to make a surprise visit to some children in Crollon, Manche, France.", "
JULY 17
1959: Fish rain from the sky upon Lismore, New South Wales.", "
JULY 18
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY
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JULY 23
1947: A surveyor at Baurú, Brazil, watches a disc-shaped UFO, 150 feet in diameter, descend to the ground on tripod landing gear. Three seven-foot-tall beings emerge and try to lure the man inside the craft; he runs and hides, and then watches as the beings play catch with huge boulders.", "
JULY 24
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JULY 25
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JULY 26
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JULY 27
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JULY 28
1962: A student near Paraná, Argentina, is knocked off his motorcycle by a white-haired, three-eyed creature.
1968: A UFO containing several inhabitants is spotted in both St-Stanislas-de-Kotska and Upton, Quebec.
1973: A small crocodile appears where crocodiles shouldn't be found at all -- in Montréal, Quebec.", "
JULY 29
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JULY 30
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JULY 31
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AUGUST 1
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AUGUST 2
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AUGUST 3
1864: Facing death by hanging alongside an accomplice for robbery and assault, Samuel Woods steps up to the gallows and performs a little song and dance before the lever is pulled at Australia's Melbourne Gaol.", "
AUGUST 4
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AUGUST 5
1962: Marilyn Monroe dies.
1970: Bigfoot makes an appearance near Cobalt, Ontario.", "
AUGUST 6
1979: A three-foot-long crocodile makes an unexpected appearance in Belgium's River Maas.", "
AUGUST
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AUGUST
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AUGUST 9
1965: A trucker spots Bigfoot near Smithville, Ontario.", "
AUGUST 10
1903: Fishermen on New Brunswick's St. Croix River see a Loch Ness-type monster in the water.", "
AUGUST 11
1927: A man and a boy in Czechoslovakia's Tatra Mountains find themselves pelted by stones from the sky. What's more, the rock showers follow the pair -- indoors.", "
AUGUST 12
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AUGUST 13
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AUGUST 14
1965: A grouping of disc-shaped UFOs, which appear to multiply before the eyes of witnesses, are seen in the skies over Lnar, Czechoslovakia.", "
AUGUST 15
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AUGUST 16
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AUGUST 17
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AUGUST 18
1979: Outside Ottawa, Ontario, a plane has a near-miss with a UFO, and the plane's cockpit instruments go haywire.", "
AUGUST 19
1977: The distinctly striped -- and presumably extinct -- Tasmanian tiger is seen near Derby, Tasmania. ", "
AUGUST 20
1957: An Argentinian Air Force officer spots a UFO over Quilino, Córdoba; a voice tells the man -- in Spanish -- not to be afraid; the inhabitants have arrived to warn earthlings of the dangers of atomic energy.
1979: While traveling Tasmania's Murchison Highway outside Queenstown, an ex-cop loses all power in her vehicle and finds her watch stopped as a green light appears in the sky. The light vanishes a few minutes later, and the woman's car and watch both start up again. However, upon her arrival in Burnie, she notices that her petrol gauge registers far less fuel than it should.", "
AUGUST
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AUGUST
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AUGUST 23
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AUGUST 24
1982: An anomalous big-cat sighting is reported from Eneabba, Western Australia.", "
AUGUST 25
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AUGUST
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AUGUST 27
1968: A five-minute rainfall of meat and blood descends on Coçpava, Brazil.", "
AUGUST 28
1977: Moments before a rainstorm in Canet-Plage, France, thousands of tiny frogs rain down from the sky.", "
AUGUST 29
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AUGUST 30
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AUGUST 31
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SEPTEMBER 1
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SEPTEMBER 2
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SEPTEMBER 3
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SEPTEMBER 4
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SEPTEMBER 5
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SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER 9
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SEPTEMBER 10
1957: A UFO explodes in the sky near Ubatuba, Brazil; debris recovered from the ocean turns out to be pure magnesium.", "
SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER 15
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SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER 18
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SEPTEMBER 19
1963: A nine-foot-tall being, reportedly dropped from a UFO hovering over Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, tries to communicate with a group of children, who flee the scene.", "
SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER 21
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SEPTEMBER 22
1909: The body of St. Bernadette of Lourdes is exhumed 30 years after her death, and found to be completely incorrupt.
1972: A motorist in the Dominican Republic stops for three hitchhiking alien beings in Palenque, San Cristobal, one of which identifies itself by name as a human male who disappeared on a boat trip in 1959.", "
SEPTEMBER 23
1960: A UFO crashes into the ocean off the north coast of Labrador, Newfoundland.
1973: During a rainstorm, a shower of thousands of toads descends on Brignoles, France.
1979: A black panther on the loose is seen, chased, and clocked at 45mph in the most unlikely of places -- Emerald, Queensland, Australia.", "
SEPTEMBER 24
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SEPTEMBER 25
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SEPTEMBER 26
1932: David Bennett earns the dubious -- and dual -- distinction of becoming the first person executed at Australia's Pentridge Prison, and the last in the state of Victoria hanged for the crime of sexual assault on a minor.", "
SEPTEMBER
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SEPTEMBER 28
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SEPTEMBER 30
1964: At Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina, a man reports seeing several UFOs drop from the sky into the ocean, and later a series of lighted objects emerge from the same spot and fly away.
1980: An Australian farmhand near Rosedale, Victoria, is awakened by cows mooing at a UFO overhead; he chases it on a motorcycle and watches it vanish into the sky. Tomorrow, he will find landing marks burned into the ground, and some 10,000 gallons missing from the farm's water tank.", "
OCTOBER 1
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OCTOBER 2
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OCTOBER 3
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OCTOBER 4
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OCTOBER 5
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OCTOBER 6
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OCTOBER 7
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OCTOBER 8
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OCTOBER 9
1954: Locals in Huy, Belgium, report the landing of a cigar-shaped UFO with two beings visible inside.", "
OCTOBER 10
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OCTOBER 11
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OCTOBER 12
1912: The Yowie -- Australia's Bigfoot -- is spotted drinking from a creek near Bombola, New South Wales.", "
OCTOBER 13
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OCTOBER 14
1957: Twenty-three-year-old Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas Boas is abducted right off his tractor by aliens, then stripped, bled, and finally seduced by a female being aboard a UFO.
1968: Residents of Rosario, Argentina, report strange lights in the sky; a local farmer finds one of his cows lying dead in a field, near seven circular patches of burned grass.", "
OCTOBER 15
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OCTOBER 16
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OCTOBER 17
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OCTOBER 18
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OCTOBER 19
Today is the feast day of St. John de Brébeuf (1593-1649), who invented the game of la crosse (much to the delight of future Wisconsonians).
1987: Black Monday: Dow Jones plummets 508.32 points. (Hey, in 1987, this really was a crisis... even if it doesn't seem so implausible now.)
1987: Santos Alves of Brazil, searching a trash heap for scrap iron, finds a discarded irradiation machine containing a capsule of glowing blue -- and highly radioactive -- isotope cesium 137. Alves takes the machine home, cracks it open to see what's inside, and and ends up contaminating the 'hood, forcing 125 neighbors to evacuate their homes, and sending 35 to the hospital.", "
OCTOBER 20
1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins persecuting suspected Communists in the film industry, ending many stellar careers.
1970: Singing mall rat Tiffany is born.
1977: Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered plane crashes, killing three members of the band.
1987: A U.S. Air Force jet crashes into a Ramada Inn near Indianapolis, killing ten.
1988: A man blows himself up in New York City's 125th Street subway station.
1998: Verified idiot Jason Allen of Morehead City, North Carolina, dies after swallowing 90 caffeine pills on a dare -- ingesting the equivalent of 250 cups of coffee.", "
OCTOBER 21
1978: Frederick Valentich, piloting a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania, reports that his craft is being chased by a UFO. Neither pilot nor plane is ever seen again.
1980: The Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series for the first time in 98 years. Fans are grateful for miracle of videotape, without which no one would ever believe it happened.
1989: Buck Helm is pulled alive from rubble of collapsed Cypress freeway overpass in Oakland, California, four days after Loma Prieta earthquake. He won't make it -- but moment is a bright spot in midst of grisly horror.
1991: Oakland Hills (California) fire burns up a lot of rich people's homes, and kills 24.", "
OCTOBER 22
1844: Second Adventist Movement founder William Miller pinpoints Second Coming for today. Non-event will be called The Great Disappointment, and Miller will lose some 100,000 disillusioned followers.
1894: For poisoning her husband, three daughters, and a would-be suitor, Martha Needle becomes the third woman hanged in Australia.
1962: Cuban Missile Crisis begins.
1990: Brian Jewell, 17, of Lakewood, New Jersey, dies after accidentally hanging himself while performing as a hanging victim for a 'Haunted Hayride.'
1995: Frogs rain down on car full of tourists near Loch Lomond.", "
OCTOBER 23
1794: St. Josephine Leroux is martyred by guillotine in France.
1983: And you think you've had bad dates: NBC news anchor Jessica Savitch drowns after her dinner companion, New York Post vice president Martin Fischbein, accidentally drives his car into the Delaware Canal.
1959: Weird Al Yankovic is born.
1983: 241 U.S. Marines are killed by a terrorist's suicide bomb at Beirut International Airport.
1996: According to 17th-century Irish archbishop James Ussher, the world will end today. Insiders report Jesus has no plans for a comeback anytime soon, despite numerous book and movie offers.", "
OCTOBER 24
1954: Four days after a UFO is seen over Jean-Mermoz, reports come in from Algeria of a small man with 'glowing eyes' on a beach at Ain el Turck.
1967: Leo Held -- father, husband, Boy Scout leader, and PTA dad -- guns down three co-workers (he just doesn't like them), finds neighbor at work and kills her (for throwing him out of a carpool), then kills another neighbor and wounds the man's wife (because he didn't like them burning leaves). After police shootout, Held dies in hospital -- but not before uttering last words: 'I had one more to go.'.
1997: In Granby, CT, dozens of passerby fail to come to aid of 40-year-old hit-and-run victim on side of road. Pedestrians on way to annual haunted-house event think woman is part of show.", "
OCTOBER 25
1983: You say Gruh-nay-duh, and I say Gruh-nah-duh, let's call the whole thing off... Ronald Reagan sends U.S. Marines to invade Grenada.
1986: For his 15 seconds of fame, Michael Sergio upstages game six of World Series by parachuting into Shea Stadium.
1998: On a soccer field in the Congo, all 11 members of one team are killed by lightning, while the other team is left unscathed, prompting accusations of witchcraft.
1999: Excite@Home acquires Blue Mountain for $780 million. Two years from now, to no one's surprise, Excite@Home will declare bankruptcy.
2001: As of today, 10,000 Americans are taking Cipro to ward off anthrax. What, you didn't get yours?", "
OCTOBER 26
Today is the feast day of St. Lucian (d. ca. 250), demon worshipper and sorcerer who converts to Catholicism after a woman deflects one of his evil spells with the Sign of the Cross.
1466: I think, therefore I end up in Twisted History: Desiderius Erasmus is born.
1909: Prince Horiboemi Ito of Japan is assassinated.
1979: Korean president Park Chung-Hee is assassinated by the head of South Korea's intelligence agency.
1984: It's a sad day in Mayfield, USA: Beaver Cleaver's beloved Miss Landers (Sue Randall) dies at age 49.
1993: U.S. Patent No. 5,255,452 is issued for a Method and Means for Creating Anti-Gravity Illusion.'", "
OCTOBER 27
1910: An unidentified airship with red and green lights is spotted crossing the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
1972: A cigar-shaped UFO leads a caravan of some twenty smaller, disc-shaped craft in procession over Gaillac, France..
2001: Following widespread certainty that recent anthrax attacks are the work of Middle Easterners, the FBI and CIA admit that the spores are from a U.S. source.
2001: A 2.6 earthquake rattles New York City. New Yorkers think this is a big deal, while Californians wonder why it even warrants mention in the news.", "
OCTOBER 28
Discouraged by the state of the planet lately? Have we got a saint for you: Today is the feast day of St. Jude, patron of lost causes, who was clubbed to death, and beheaded posthumously. Jude is the guy you pray to when all hope is lost.
It's also the feast day of St. Simon the Apostle, patron saint of sawyers -- because he was martyred by being sawn in half. (Which would make about as much sense as naming JFK the patron saint of marksmen.)
1919: Congress overrides President Wilson's veto and passes Volstead Act, a.k.a. Prohibition, paving the way for a booming bootleg market.
1992: Followers of Korean Christian minister Lee Jang Rim kill themselves when world fails to end today.", "
OCTOBER 29
Feeling lucky... punk? Well, forget it: Today is the feast day of St. Mary of Edessa, patron saint of those burdened by sexual temptation. Now put that thing away.
1979: A man fleeing a Baltimore restaurant to avoid paying a $3.43 check runs in front of a tractor-trailer and is crushed to death.
1991: First, he'll show you how not to do it: In the first known modern bungee-jump death, a 29-year-old instructor is killed when his cord breaks during a 60-foot jump from a hot-air balloon in Perris, California.
1997: Church of Satan founder Anton La Vey dies. And goes straight to Hell, probably.", "
OCTOBER 30
1888: The ballpoint pen is patented.
1901: The Houston Chronicle reports: 'Dr. W.R. Knox's automobile went on a rampage today at noon and burned off all the enamel on the rear portion of the phaeton besides doing several other unseemly things. It was standing in front of the Binz building, when all of a sudden it shot out a streak of fire and began spinning like a scared cat.'
1938: Orson Welles' invasion-from-Mars story, War of the Worlds, airs on CBS radio, panicking countless gullible Americans.
1948: Twenty people die and 6,000 more get sick in Donora, Pennsylvania -- from smog.", "
OCTOBER 31
Happy Halloween -- and Samhain! Appropriately, this is the feast day of St. Wolfgang.
1926: Magician and occultist Harry Houdini dies.
1956: Britain and France start bombing Egypt in an effort to convince the Middle Eastern country to reopen the Suez Canal.
1963: A disc-shaped UFO plummets into Brazil's Peropava River.
1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards.
2001: In Anchorage, Alaska, two trick-or-treaters suffer minor injuries when a bull moose appears out of nowhere and runs them down. 'Halloween is a scary time for moose,' states a local biologist.", "
NOVEMBER 1
1512: Michelangelo, 37, unveils his completed panorama of the Bible on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
1951: The U.S. detonates the first atomic bomb in New Mexico.
1950: Puerto Rican nationalists attempt to assassinate President Harry S Truman. A Secret Service agent and one of the terrorists are killed.
1952: The U.S. detonates the first hydrogen bomb on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
1991: University of Iowa student Gang Lu, unhappy about earning only second place in the race for a physics award, opens fire on a college board meeting, killing five and permanently paralyzing one before shooting himself.", "
NOVEMBER 2
1583: For refuting King Henry VIII's claim of spiritual supremacy, John Bodey is hanged, drawn, and quartered in Andover, England.
1878: The largest specimen of the elusive invertebrate architeuthis dux washes ashore in Newfoundland. It weighs in at 2.2 tons, with one tentacle measuring 35 feet.
1957: As a 'lens-shaped' craft flies over Texas, electrical lights dim and auto engines suddenly quit.
1988: A Mexican radio station reports that Mike Tyson has died in a car wreck.
1991: Good point, or sour grapes? Jermaine Jackson releases the song, 'Word to the Badd,' dissing freaky little brother Michael.", "
NOVEMBER 3
1966: More than 100 Italians die when the Arno River floods Florence.
1986: Lebanese magazine Al Shiraa is the first to break the news of the illegal Iran-Contra deal, in which U.S. weapons were sold to Iran in exchange for the release of 52 American hostages, with profits from the sales going to the CIA to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. In a nutshell, this is A Very Bad Thing Indeed.
1995: CNN's phones ring off the hook after the network broadcasts the Hubble telescope's first photos of the Eagle Nebula, in which countless people spot the face of Jesus.", "
NOVEMBER 4
1646: Massachusetts Bay Colony declares denial of Bible as Word of God capital offense, punishable by death.
1954: A fisherman observes three small aliens emerge from a UFO to collect samples of flora and fauna near Pontal, Brazil.
1966: London paper prints John Lennon's offhand remark that the Beatles are 'more popular than Jesus,' setting off hysteria among reactionaries who begin burning Beatle records.
1979: Iranians storm U.S. Embassy, taking 52 hostage.
1995: Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated.", "
NOVEMBER 5
1944: The U.S. Navy spots a Japanese balloon bomb floating in the Pacific Ocean, just 66 miles southwest of San Pedro, California.
1967: A TWA jet goes down in Cincinnati, killing 70.
1975: Travis Walton, subject of the much-hyped and quickly-forgotten film dramatization Fire in the Sky, is abducted by an alien spaceship in Snowflake, Arizona.
1990: U.S. Congress finally decides to give you your rightfully-owed Medicare payments for having your head examined outside the setting of a shrink's office.
1996: United States Patent No. 5,571,247 is issued for a Self-Containing Enclosure for Protection from Killer Bees.", "
NOVEMBER 6
1572: Earthlings recoil in fear as a supernova is seen in the constellation Cassiopeia.
1923: The USSR adopts an experimental calendar, with five-day weeks.
1945: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its insidious witch hunt with the investigation of seven radio commentators.
1964: The antidepressant Aventyl is approved for use by the FDA.
1990: Fire devastates the Universal Studios backlot.
2001: Harold Saber, 80, of New Jersey, always said that when he was ready to die he would drive himself to the funeral home. Today, he does: He pulls into the parking lot of a local funeral chapel, shuts off his car, and expires.", "
NOVEMBER 7
1637: Distaff preacher Anne Hutchinsonis is convicted of heresy and banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1793: Christianity is abolished in France.
1870: The Howard, Rhode Island, Asylum for the Incurably Insane opens it doors.
1872: The brigantine Mary Celeste sets sail from New York for Europe. The ship will be found in the Azores, with no sign of her crew. Ever.
1959: American college-bound students have a new reason to sweat today: The first ACT is administered.
1962: Richard M. Nixon, loser in the California gubernatorial race, tells reporters: 'You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore.' Already, he's lying.", "
NOVEMBER 8
1656: Sir Edmond Halley, that fellow who would discover a certain comet, is born.
1933: Afghanistan's King Nadir Shah is assassinated.
1923: Adolf Hitler begins his ascent to power by taking over a German beer hall.
1961: A concerned U.S. citizen writes to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and asks if MAD Magazine's fictional mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is a Communist.
1966: Like a scene out of one of his own B-movies, actor Ronald Reagan is elected governor of California.
1973: The right ear of John Paul Getty III arrives at a newspaper office, along with a ransom note demanding $2.9 million for the release of the kidnapped heir.", "
NOVEMBER 9
1942: Eddie Leonski, American G.I. and serial killer known as 'The Brown-Out Strangler,' is executed at Australia's Pentridge Prison -- not by Australia, mind you; the Pentridge gallows was simply borrowed for the task by the U.S. Army, which lacked any such facilities of its own in the country.", "
NOVEMBER 10
Today is the feast day of St. Leo the Great (d. A.D. 461), a guy we could really use at the U.N. right now: Leo talked Attila the Hun out of sacking and pillaging Rome.
1938: Throughout Germany, Nazis destroy Jewish homes, businesses, and 177 synagogues, killing 91, in what will come to be known as Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass.
1946: Soviet scientists begin assembling the world's first nuclear reactor.
1969: Sunny day, everything's A-OK... 'Sesame Street' debuts on public TV.
1975: A storm sinks the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior, claiming all 29 crew members.", "
NOVEMBER 11
1215: The Catholic Church defines 'transubstantiation' -- the literal transformation of Eucharistic bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
1770: London's notorious insane asylum, Bethlehem Hospital, a.k.a. Bedlam, stops admitting the public, who have been visiting the place for the past two centuries to watch mentally disturbed patients as a common form entertainment.
1863: Convicted murderess Elizabeth Scott becomes the first woman executed in Australia, hanged with two cohorts at the Melbourne Gaol.
1880: Australia's most infamous bushranger and lionized antihero, Ned Kelly, is hanged at Melbourne Gaol for the murder of a policeman. His last words: 'Such is life.'", "
NOVEMBER 12
1933: Hugh Gray takes the first known photo of the Loch Ness Monster.
1934: Charles Manson is born 'No Name Maddox' in Cincinnati.
1966: Solely for the purpose of becoming (in)famous, Robert Smith, 19, walks into a Mesa, Arizona, beauty school and starts shooting. He kills five, injures two, and happily waits for police to arrive.
1998: When Thailand's Rasi Salai district runs out of money to feed local primates, approximately 1,000 hungry monkeys invade homes, shops, and restaurants, and make a right mess of things.
2001: Two months and a day after the September 11th attacks, an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashes into the suburban Queens, NY, neighborhood of Belle Harbor, minutes after take-off.", "
NOVEMBER 13
Today is the feast day of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, patron saint of immigrants -- and the first American saint.
1841: Famous headshrinker James Braid sees a demonstration of 'mermerism' for the first time, and ends up coining the word 'hypnotism.'
1855: The passenger ship New Era runs aground in heavy fog on her Bremen-to-New York route; 284 of the 427 aboard perish.
1909: A coal mine fire in Cherry, Illinois, kills 259.
1974: Nuclear technician Karen Silkwood, who knows too much for her own good about radioactive leaks at Oklahoma's Kerr-McGee nuclear plant, is run off the road and killed while on her way to talk to a reporter.", "
NOVEMBER 14
We hereby proclaim this
National Mass Murder Day
1959: Dick Hickock and Perry Smith murder the entire Clutter family at their farmhouse in Holcomb, Kansas; the story will immortalized in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
1974: On the 15th anniversary of the Clutter murders, ugly dullard Ronald DeFeo, Jr., shoots his entire family as they sleep in their beds in Amityville, Long Island.
1991: They say nobody gets fired from the civil service -- except for postal worker Thomas McIlvane. Sacked for his continually rotten attitude, McIlvane, p.o.'d, returns to the P.O., blows away four supervisors, then kills himself.", "
NOVEMBER 15
1963: Valium is approved by the FDA.
1966: 'Mothman,' a mysterious winged creature, begins making appearances around West Virginia.
1982: While Valium is a good idea, Halcion -- also approved today by the FDA -- might not be.
1988: The PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) declares independence for the Palestinian state -- which also signifies the PLO's willingness to recognize the existence of the state of Israel... even if Israel has been around some forty years already.
2001: The Philadelphia Daily News quotes numerous eyewitnesses who are certain Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania on September 11th.", "
NOVEMBER 16
1621: The Catholic Church finally adopts January 1st as the first day of the calendar year (instead of March 1st).
1881: The trial of Charles Guiteau, who assassinated President James Garfield because the prez refused him a federal appointment, begins. In quite a novel move, Guiteau will plead insanity, claiming that God told him to do it.
1957: Ed Gein, the simple-minded serial killer whose grisly acts will inspire Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs, claims his last victim.
2001: High-profile microbiologist Don Wiley goes missing; his body will be found in the Mississippi River.", "
NOVEMBER 17
1859: Eighteen-year-old William Siddons becomes the youngest person executed in Australia.
1882: Reports trickle in from Europe of cigar-shaped craft visible within a particularly spectacular Aurora Borealis display.
1973: President Richard M. Nixon states: 'I am not a crook.' Well, technically, he's not lying. This time.
1986: Japan Airlines Flight 1628 is chased across the skies of Alaska by a UFO.
1991: Jerry Van Dyke's daughter kills herself.
1997: Islamic radicals gun down 60 tourists in Luxor, Egypt.
2001: Singling out yet another Democrat, somebody sends an anthrax-contaminated letter to Senator Patrick Leahy.", "
NOVEMBER 18
This is the memorial day of Leonard Kimura, a Japanese Jesuit priest martyred in 1619, in Nagasaki. Arrested for being a Christian, he was punished for converting other prisoners by being roasted to death over a slow fire in front of a crowd of 20,000.
1964: Don't have enough to be outraged about today? Try this: Closeted gay paranoiac dirty trickster and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover calls the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a 'most notorious liar.'
1978: After investigating reports that some 900 Bay Area residents are being held against their will by Jim Jones' People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, California Congressman Leo J. Ryan and four reporters are gunned down by Jones' goons.", "
NOVEMBER 19
1493: Christopher Columbus discovers Puerto Rico.
1600: England's King Charles I is executed by Parliament.
1961: Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson, vanishes in New Guinea.
1961: Jodie 'She's Not a Lesbian, But Please Pay No Attention to Longtime Companion and Matching-Ring-Wearer Cydney Bernard Who's Helping Raise Her Two Artificially-Inseminated Kids' Foster is born.
1962: In Cheyenne, WY, future V.P. Dick Cheney scores first drunk-driving conviction and loses license for 30 days.
1995: Unexplained deaths of scores of goats, rabbits, cats, turkeys and cows in Puerto Rico are blamed on 'goat-sucker' Chupacabra, described by witnesses as hairy and red-eyed.", "
NOVEMBER 20
1967: The population of the United States hits the 200 million mark.
1973: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, Here I am at Camp Granada... Novelty-song legend Allan Sherman dies.
1975: Spanish dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco finally dies -- and the Chevy Chase jokes begin.
2001: Leon Resnick, 31, of Florida, dies on his jet ski when he is hit square in the face by a low-flying duck.
2002: Eighteen-year-old Adam Ports of Ohio cleanses the gene pool of one less idiot when, inspired by MTV's 'Jackass,' he is killed after falling off the back of a pickup truck while attempting to toss a burning chair onto the road.
2002: The mummified bodies of a German woman, her son, and their dead dog, all apparently dead some three years, are found in their home in In Lehigh Acres, Florida.", "
NOVEMBER 21
1837: Indefatigable Aussie Thomas Morris skips jumprope 22,806 times.
1916: The Britannic, sister ship of the Titanic, explodes and sinks in the Aegean Sea.
1974: Congress overrides President Ford's veto of the Freedom of Information Act.
1977: The Concorde departs London for New York for the first time.
1980: A real-life Towering Inferno at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills 84 people.
2002: Samantha, a reticulated python from Borneo, believed at 26 feet (8 metres) and 275 lbs. (125 kg) to be the largest snake in captivity, dies at the Bronx Zoo, at the estimated age of 32.", "
NOVEMBER 22
1928: Ravel's Bolero is performed in public for the first time, bringing world quintessential Music to Make Love By.
1955: The Soviet Union tests first plane drop of thermonuclear bomb over Kazakhstan.
1963: Amazing marksmanship: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald who, according to Warren Commission, is able to shoot prez in back of the head and front of the throat with one shot.
1963: In the wake of the JFK assassination, hardly anyone notices when Aldous Huxley kills himself with an overdose of LSD.
2002: The Lancet medical journal reports on the painful burns suffered by a 50-year-old scientist unaware of the effects of an overheating laptop on his private parts.", "
NOVEMBER 23
1654: 31-year-old Blaise Pascal, inarguably one of the greatest mathematicians in history (for whom the programming language is named), experiences a religious epiphany and abandons the study of science altogether.
1955: In Morecambe, Lancashire, England, a television transmission is received from station KLEE-TV in Houston, Texas. But here's the real thing: KLEE stopped broadcasting three years ago.
1970: Pope Paul VI issues a decree prohibiting cardinals over the age of 80 from voting for a new pope. His Holiness doesn't say anything about taking away their driver's licenses, however.
1970: An earthquake in Naples kills some 4,500 Italians.", "
NOVEMBER 24
1946: Serial killer Ted Bundy is born Theodore Robert Cowell in an unwed mothers' home in Burlington, Vermont.
1947: The Clarksdale Victory smashes into Hippa Island, snapping in two and killing 49.
1963: Jack Ruby shoots and kills Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Dept.
1983: At San Francisco's Condor Club, a 23-year-old nude dancer awakens trapped beneath the body of her boyfriend, crushed to death by a piano that rose into the ceiling on a motorized platform. She's too drunk to recall how she ended up under the body -- which kept her from being crushed as well.
1992: A UFO crashes on Long Island.", "
NOVEMBER 25
The feast day of St. Catherine of Alexandria was today -- until 1969, when Pope Paul VI did some major housecleaning among the saints and wiped St. Catherine off the calendar. For the record, Catherine was one of Joan of Arc's spiritual advisors, martyred by decapitation in Alexandria, Egypt, ca. A.D. 310.
1919: The U.S. deports anti-war activist Alexander Berkman to Russia.
1943: Liberty ship John P. Gaines breaks apart off Alaska, killing 10 of the crew.
1960: Georgous, sexy John F. Kennedy, Jr., destined to follow the family fate of a quick, tragic, and early end, is born -- exactly three years to the day before the burial of his father.", "
NOVEMBER 26
1865: The only children's classic known to have been written under the influence of opium (and lots of it), Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, is published.
1962: After trying out a host of other band names, four Liverpudlians make their first recording as The Beatles.
1969: Cream performs for the last time, at Royal Albert Hall.
1973: During the Watergate investigation, presidential secretary Rose Mary Woods testifies that she 'accidentally' erased 18 minutes of one of Richard M. Nixon's tape recordings.
1975: Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme is found guilty of attempting to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford.", "
NOVEMBER 27
Today is the feast day of St. James Intercisus, patron of torture victims, martyred in A.D. 421 by being cut into 28 separate pieces, dying only after decapitation. ('Intercisus' means 'cut to pieces.')
1885: Killer Edward Hunter, 71, earns dubious distinction of becoming oldest person executed in Australia.
1934: FBI guns down Baby Face Nelson.
1952: 'Trunk Murderess' Winnie Ruth Judd escapes prison -- for sixth time.
1975: Ross McWhirter, Guinness Book of World Records co-editor, is murdered.
1978: San Francisco Mayor George Moscone & city supervisor Harvey Milk are shot dead by supervisor Dan White, who will blame effect of too many Twinkies. After perfunctory sentence, White will off himself, too.", "
NOVEMBER 28
1859: Legend of Sleepy Hollow author Washington Irving asks, 'When will this end?' and promptly dies.
1895: The winner of the first U.S. auto race comes in with an average speed of 7 mph. Yes, that's seven.
1942: Boston's Coconut Grove nightclub fire kills nearly 500.
1994: Cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death in prison by another inmate.
1999: In Duluth, MN, Patricia Kay McCleary, 42, marries, dies, and gives birth, in that order, all within 24 hours. After her wedding to Rick McCleary, Kay suffers an aneurysm, is taken to the hospital, declared brain dead, and then delivers her baby, three months premature, by caesarean section.", "
NOVEMBER 29
Today is the feast day of St. Saturninus, a healer whose presence in Toulouse short-circuits the regular news bulletins local pagan priests were receiving from the gods. When locals try to force Saturninus to make a sacrifice to pagan idols, the idols crumble, and the enraged mob drags him to death behind a bull.
1919: The U.S. deports anti-war activist and author Emma Goldman.
1965: Dale Cummings does a record 14,118 consecutive sit-ups.
1988: Numerous UFO sightings are reported in Belgium.
2001: A farmer in Corguinho, Brazil, reports that a mid-air UFO crash has blinded his two cows.", "
NOVEMBER 30
Your word for today is saltire -- an X-shaped cross -- used to crucify St. Andrew the Apostle, whose feast day is today. Andrew, incidentally, is the patron of single women seeking husbands.
A.D. 30: Cleopatra kills herself, supposedly with an asp.
1222: Londoners report seeing dragons in the skies.
1554: 'Bloody Mary' Tudor brings Catholicism back to England, and has 300 Protestant leaders burned at the stake.
1924: The first transatlantic fax is sent. Yes, really.
1930: Future Watergate burglar turned angry conservative commentator G. Gordon Liddy is born.
1936: At the other end of the political spectrum, Yippie radical Abbie Hoffman is born.", "
DECEMBER 1
1955: A round of applause, please, for Rosa Parks, the gutsy black lady who refuses to relinquish her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest sets off a year-long bus boycott by African Americans, & sets the stage for the modern civil rights movement.
1988: Four months after the plane-crash death of Lt. Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan -- the first woman to lead a Muslim nation.
1994: Crooked PTL minister Jim Bakker is released from prison. Nobody cares.
1999: Self-proclaimed 2,000-year-old vampire Joshua Rudiger (who by conventional calculations is 22) is found guilty of the murder of a homeless woman in San Francisco.", "
DECEMBER 2
1814: The Marquis de Sade, grandaddy of BDSM, dies in a French insane asylum.
1859: In Virginia, abolitionist John Brown is hanged for attempting to incite a slave rebellion.
1959: Flooding caused by the collapse of the Malpasset Dam in Fréjus, France, kills 412.
1981: Spain requests membership in NATO.
1982: In Utah, retired dentist Barney Clark receives the first successully implanted artificial heart (the Jarvik-7); he will live another 112 days.
Ah, the good old days...

1986: The Dow-Jones index hits a record 1955.57.

1993: The Dow-Jones hits a record 3702.11", "
DECEMBER 3
1948: The Chinese passenger ship Kiangya, carrying civil-war refugees, strikes a mine, explodes, and sinks, killing more than 3,000.
1979: Eleven fans are killed and dozens injured in a stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati.
1980: The Reagan administration claims that yesterday's rapes, murders, & hasty burials of three American nuns & a missionary by U.S.-trained Salvadoran troops were provoked by the victims. Even FBI & CIA disagree with official story.
1990: In Maryland, 20-year-old U.S. Army Reserve parachutist Martin S. Eskew is asphyixated after a miscalculated jump lands the soldier in a pool of liquified manure.", "
DECEMBER 4
Today is the feast day of St. Barbara, imprisoned and tortured by her own father for her faith. He finally beheads her, and is immediately struck dead by lightning.
1872: The brigantine Mary Celeste is discovered off the Azores, her stock intact but her crew missing, as if everyone aboard has suddenly vanished into thin air. The mystery of the Mary Celeste is never satisfactorily solved.
1912: War breaks out between the U.S. & Germany when Germans sink U.S. ships in Hawaii. War will last one week.
1969: Chicago police murder four Black Panthers while they sleep, bringing total to roughly 20 in past year and a half.", "
DECEMBER 5
A most interesting day in the annals of religion...
Today is the feast day of St. John Almond, an Irish priest whose skillful proselytization resulted in his being hanged, drawn, and quartered on this day in 1612.
1484: Pope Innocent VIII issues the Witch Bull, an order to begin a long-term witch hunt, with torture and death for those proved to be witches.
1988: Televangelist Jim Bakker is charged with mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud after skimming the top off sales of thousands of 'lifetime memberships' to his Heritage U.S.A. theme park. Prison and a divorce from mascara-addicted wife Tammy Faye will follow.", "
DECEMBER 6
1969: The Rolling Stones' problem-plagued free concert at California's Altamont Raceway, for which the Stones hired Hell's Angels as security guards in exchange for beer, culminates in the beating death by the Angels of an 18-year-old black man. In addition, two people asleep in their sleeping bags are run over by vehicles and killed; another concert-goer drowns.
1989: Taking to heart his father's belief that women were slaves who didn't merit higher education, 25-year-old Canadian mysoginist Marc Lepine knows where to place the blame for his rejection by a Montreal engineering college: He goes to the school, and begins shooting every woman he sees, killing 15 and wounding 14 more, before killing himself.", "
DECEMBER 7
Today is the feast day of St. Ambrose of Milan, also known as The Honey Tongued Doctor, due to his polished oratory skills.
1817: William Bligh, ill-tempered captain of the HMS Bounty, dies in London at age 63.
1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. You knew that. But did you also know that today marks the first sinking of a Japanese sub by U.S. forces?
1982: Convicted murderer Charlie Brooks, Jr., is the first person in the U.S. to be executed by lethal injection, in -- where else? -- Texas.
1997: A cargo jet crashes into an apartment building in Irkutsk, Russia, and explodes, killing 23 on board and nearly 400 on the ground; 24 more are never found.", "
DECEMBER 8
Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people, Living life in peace...
-- John Lennon, silenced by a madman's bullet today, 1980
Today is the feast day of St. Jane of Cácere, a Benedictine abbess murdered by marauding Spanish soldiers in 1383.
1587: Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed.
1792: Henry Laurens becomes the first person cremated in the U.S.
1943: Acid-tripping charismatic sex god Jim Morrison is born.
1947: The Virgin Mary drops in on four schoolgirls at L'Isle Bouchard, France.
1966: The ferry Heraclion sinks off Crete, killing 217.", "
DECEMBER 9
Today is the memorial of Clara Isabella Fornari (d. 1744), still awaiting canonization. A nun at 16, Clara suffered constant stigmata, & displayed crown of thorns that grew through skin covering her skull. During one of her frequent visions, Jesus himself placed a ring on her finger and declared her his 'spouse of sorrow.' Resisting lifelong temptation to kill herself, Clara died naturally at age 47.
1848: Blame Joel Chandler Harris for some nasty racial stereotyping; born today, he will live to create the tales of Uncle Remus.
1953: General Electric orders the termination of all Communist employees.
1958: The much-too-far-right-wing John Birch Society is organized in Indianapolis.", "
DECEMBER 10
Today is International Human Rights Day. You know, one of those in-name-only days that sounds nice, but no longer means much of anything anymore.
Today is also the feast day of St. Eulalia of Merida, a young Spanish girl who wanted to be a martyr -- so she presented herself to Christian persecutor Diocletian, confessed her faith, and got her wish, resulting in her torture and immolation (alongside Saint Julia of Merida). Eulalia was about 13 at the time.
1869: Yeee-ha! Half a century ahead of the rest of the country, the territory of Wyoming gives women the right to vote.
1967: Two days after recording 'Dock of the Bay,' Otis Redding dies in a plane crash.", "
DECEMBER 11
1931: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who will be much disliked by Oregon after moving his band of followers there, is born.
1932: Let it snow, let it snow, let it... what? Cold white stuff falls on San Francisco, where the temp has dropped to 27ºF.
1957: Great balls of fire! Jerry Lee Lewis marries his 13-year-old cousin, Myra.
1994: Russia invades Chechnya, beginning a protracted conflict that goes from bad to worse to uh... well, horrible.
1996: Hailstones 'the size of cricket balls' rain down on the town of Singleton, Australia, destroying homes, businesses, automobiles, and everything else in sight, resulting in $24 million in damage, and a lot of really nervous wombats.", "
DECEMBER 12
Today is the feast day of St. Hermogenes, about whom little is known other than the fact that he was martyred along with St. Donatus by being sent to die of the cold after being dumped into a swamp.
1098: The Christian Crusades officially begin in Spain, with various sundry maurading, plundering, and murdering... all in the name of Jesus, of course.
1712: The colony of South Carolina enacts a law requiring all colonists to attend church on Sunday, and refrain from any form of labor whatsoever, under threat of two hours in the public stocks.
2000: The U.S. Supreme Court hands the presidency to George W. Bush.", "
DECEMBER 13
Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end burn human beings.

-- Author Heinrich Heine, born in Dusseldorf, Germany, today in 1797.
1928: The clip-on tie is invented.
1944: A Japanese kamikaze crashes into the U.S. cruiser Nashville, killing 138.
1964: Three white men try to blow up a black church in Montgomery, AL -- for which they will spend just ten days in jail.
1973: Future San Francisco mayor Art Agnos is shot by serial Zebra Killer.
1988: After 29 hours, three men succeed in quest to stop at all 466 stations on New York subway system.
1990: A Sicilian earthquake kills 18 people.", "
DECEMBER 14
1503: French soothsayer Nostradamus, who will scare the daylights out of self-appointed interpreters for at least five centuries, is born.
1911: Wacky musical genius Spike Jones is born.
1944: In Hollywood, 'Mexican Spitfire' Lupe Velez arranges herself neatly on her bed and waits to die from an overdose of sleeping pills, but winds up drowning in her toilet.
1963: In Detroit, smooth-as-silk vocalist Dinah Washington checks out at age 39, with an O.D. of downers.
1995: If you think the religious right is freaking out about stem-cell research, you've forgotten about AIDS patient Jeff Getty, who today receives a bone marrow transplant -- from a baboon.", "
DECEMBER 15
1890: Chief Sitting Bull attempts to give himself up to the white men, and is promptly slaughtered by them.
1923: President Coolidge finally remembers to release 31 conscientious objectors from prison -- five years after the end of WWI.
1944: Major Glenn Miller's plane is lost over the English Channel.
1966: Walt Disney dies. Or so they say.
1973: The American Psychiatric Association finally removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
1999: In Cumbria, Jehovah's Witnesses Paul Wilson and Janet Pooley, both 41, kill themselves in a suicide pact after being expelled from the church for 'forming an improper relationship.'", "
DECEMBER 16
1631: Mount Vesuvius blows, killing 4,000 Italians.
1773: Overtaxed to the max, American colonists board a British cargo ship and dump its load of tea into Boston Harbor.
1811: An 8.6 earthquake strikes New Madrid, Missouri, changing the course of the Mississippi River.
1916: 'Mad monk' Grigori Rasputin is poisoned by right-wing Russian patriots. When he fails to sicken, let alone die, he is riddled by gunfire, and his body is thrown into a river, buried, and then (a year later) exhumed and burned.
2000: Former U.S. Justice Dept. war-crimes prosecutor John Loftus makes a public statement about the WWII business dealings of G.W. Bush's grandpa, Prescott, with the Nazis.", "
DECEMBER 17
1919: Today is the day the world is supposed to end, according to meteorologist Albert Porta, based on the alignment of the planets. Guess what doesn't happen?
1944: U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry are released from U.S. internment camps.
1960: A U.S. Air Force jet crashes into a Munich church steeple and lands on a streetcar, killing 49.
1969: Otherworldly warbler Tiny Tim, 47, marries 17-year-old Miss Vicki on 'The Tonight Show.' On the same day, the U.S. Air Force states conclusively that there are no such things as extraterrestrial UFOs -- yet fails to explain existence of Mr. Tim.
1991: In Spain, Israel & Palestine begin peace talks -- which do no damned good.", "
DECEMBER 18
1878: France's S.S. Byzantin sinks in Dardanellen, killing 210.
1964: Plans for New York City's World Trade Center are announced.
1967: Convicted serial killer Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, is sentenced to life in prison. More than 30 years later, his guilt will still be in doubt.
1970: Nuclear testing in southern Nevada throws a radioactive cloud of dust into the skies over ...wait for it... Wyoming. (The point? Measure the distance on a map sometime.)
1980: During the height of a worldwide buying frenzy, gold hits $1,000 an ounce in the U.S.
1996: Smartest thing she's ever done? Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from scary alien being Michael Jackson.", "
DECEMBER 19
1776: Brilliant and eloquent American patriot Thomas Paine puts pen to paper and begins the first of his American Crisis series with the sentence: 'These are the times that try men's souls.'
1910: Baltimore wins the dubious distinction of becoming the first U.S. city to require segregated (black and white) residential neighorhoods. City's image will improve only with release of John Waters films some 60 years later.
1941: Adolf Hitler becommes commander-in-chief of the German Army.
1989: Iranian supertanker Kharg-5 explodes, releasing 19 million gallons of crude oil into Atlantic off Canary Islands.
1997: James Cameron's Titanic is released across U.S.", "
DECEMBER 20
1669: In first jury trial held in American colonies, Marcus Jacobson is convicted of insurrection. His penalty: flogging, branding, and slavery.
1860: South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1951: Atomic energy is used for first time to generate electricity in U.S.
1987: Passenger ferry Dona Paz collides with oil tanker Victor off Manila; 4,000-plus die.
1988: London's world-famous Harrod's department store is bombed by animal-rights activists for carrying coats with natural fur collars.
1989: With Manuel Noriega no longer useful to CIA, U.S. invades Panama.
1991: It figures: A CIA task force stamps its report on 'openness' as Top Secret.", "
St Dimot's Day
Not really - this is a dummy/test page.
1879: ", "
DECEMBER 22
We say outright: these are madmen, yet these madmen have their own logic, their teaching, their code, their God even, and it's as deepset as it could be.

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, pardoned moments before his scheduled execution today in 1849
Drink up! Anglicans recognize today as memorial of St. Vincent, patron of vintners.
1882: Thomas Edison invents Christmas tree lights.
1981: Pres. Reagan authorizes distribution of 30 million lbs. of surplus cheese to poor. Cheese turns out to be moldy.
1984: Koko the signing gorilla is devastated by news that her kitten has died.
1993: Australia starts returning Aboriginal land to its rightful residents.", "
DECEMBER 23
1917: The first penal colony in North America is established in Virginia.
1888: Vincent Van Gogh cuts off his ear. Future self-portraits are decidedly different.
1947: The University of Tennessee refuses to play Duquesne University in college basketball, because the latter has a black player on the team.
1963: Fire breaks out on the Greek ship Laconia; 128 die.
1987: Charlie Manson faithful Squeaky Fromme, serving a life sentence for her assassination attempt on President Ford, escapes from prison.", "
DECEMBER 24
1973: A ferry capsizes off the coast of Ecuador; 200 drown.
1971: Juliane Margaret Koepcke is the sole survivor of a Peruvian Airlines crash in the Amazon -- but she won't be found for another ten days.
1971: Crotch-grabbing Puerto Rican teeny-bopper icon Ricky Martin is born.
1980: Americans remember the Tehran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds.
1983: Three Bigfoots -- er, Bigfeet? -- are spotted near Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
1991: Walter Hudson, weighing in at 1,025 lbs., dies at the age of 46. Remember this when you're thinking about having that second slice of pie tomorrow.
", "
DECEMBER 25
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Please accept this most politically-incorrect wish of joy and peace for you and yours, despite the tanked economy, the imminent invasion of Iraq, the complete disembowelment of your right to privacy, and general worldwide malaise.
1909: A mysterious, lighted airship passes silently over the city of Norwich, Connecticut.
1946: Just before his death, W.C. Fields asks his wife to bury his body in a wall crypt: 'I had enough of the cold ground in my youth.' Mrs. Fields will ultimately deny his request, burying her husband in the ground.
1977: Charlie Chaplin dies in Switzerland.", "
DECEMBER 26
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
-- Ambrose Bierce, who disappears on this day in 1913.
1893: Mao Tse-Tung is born.
1969: The S.S. Badger State explodes and sinks in the North Pacific.
1991: The gun nightclub owner Jack Ruby used to kill alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 is sold at auction for $220,000.", "
DECEMBER 27
1899: Christian temperance zealot Carry Nation makes her first destructive raid, trashing a saloon in Medicine Lodge, Kansas.
1906: Perpetually depressed actor Oscar Levant, who will make a career of parading his neuroses on the late-night talk-show circuit, is born.
1947: 'Howdy Dowdy' debuts on television.
1985: Gorilla savior Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
1992: Harry Connick, Jr., is nabbed carrying a gun at JFK Airport in New York.", "
DECEMBER 28
Today is the feast day of the Holy Innocents, slaughtered by King Herod is his unsuccessful quest to kill a very young Jesus.
1908: 80,000 people are killed in an earthquake in Messina, Italy.
1937: Maurice Ravel, whose Bolero will serve as the backdrop for more sexual encounters than the entire works of Barry White, is born.
1976: Aboriginals spot a USO -- Unidentified Sea Object -- some 90 feet long, off Coomlieyna Beach, South Australia.
1983: In a druken stupor, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson falls off his docked boat and drowns in Marina del Rey, California.", "
DECEMBER 29
1173: Thomas a Beckett is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.
1890: The 7th Cavalry slaughters 300 Native Americans at Wounded Knee (South Dakota).
1972: Seventy-one days after their plane crashes in the Andes Mountains of South America, fourteen rugby players (who have subsisted on the flesh of passengers who died in the crash), are rescued.", "
DECEMBER 30
Today is the feast day of St. Egwin, Bishop of Worcester, who was judged by the church to be too harsh with his priests. As penance, Egwin left for Rome; on the way, he locked his own feet in shackles, and threw the key into the River Avon. Miraculously, he found the key when he arrived in Rome -- in the belly of a fish he bought at the market.
1947: A green-colored chunk of space debris, dubbed 'The Green Dragon Meteor,' explodes over the Hart Mountain region of southern Oregon, showering the area with meteorites.", "
DECEMBER 31
1993: Transgendered Brandon Teena and two friends are murdered by sick freaks John Lotter and Marvin Nissen near Humboldt, Nebraska.
1994: In Miami, presidential nephew George P. Bush breaks into ex-girlfriend's house. Ex's daddy is not amused, calls cops.
2000: A Guwahati, India, man climbs a tree to escape an elephant stampede and is pulled down by a pachyderm, which kills him and guards corpse for next two weeks, carrying it, bathing it, and refusing to allow villagers to recover it.
2005: Mark your calendar: A bunch of provisions relating to electronic surveillance in the hastily-passed USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 are set to expire today -- which means your freedom of speech may be reinstated by then. We hope." ); var timenow = new Date(); var daycountbymonth = new Array(0,31,59,90,120,151,181,212,243,273,304,334); var currmonth = timenow.getMonth(); var totaldays = daycountbymonth[currmonth] + timenow.getDate()-1; document.write("
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