Mormon Forger Mark Hofmann on This Day in History

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This Day In History: Forger and counterfeiter Mark Hofmann was born on this day in 1954. Considered as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, he often created documents relating to Mormon history that could embarrass them, and then sold those documents to the Church so that they could suppress them. Hofmann also forged and sold signatures of George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Boone, John Brown, Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, Francis Scott Key, Abraham Lincoln, John Milton, Paul Revere, Myles Standish, etc. Hofmann also forged an Emily Dickinson poem. Afraid of being discovered, he killed several people with bombs to throw suspicion away from himself. All this made for a fascinating book called The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.

After Hofmann was imprisoned, he was excommunicated by the LDS Church and his wife filed for divorce. Hofmann attempted suicide in his cell by taking an overdose of antidepressants. He was revived, but not before spending twelve hours lying on his right arm and blocking its circulation, thus causing muscle atrophy. His forging hand was thereby permanently disabled.

Hofmann's story was recently featured on Netflix as an American true crime documentary television miniseries called _Murder Among the Mormons_. In the week of its debut, the show was ranked third overall for original-content Video on Demand streaming, with 587 million minutes streamed, according to Neilson.

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Listen to: The Career of a Counterfeit Artist and the World of Literary Forgery

Venezuela's Hugo Chávez on This Day in History

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This Day In History: Socialist Hugo Chávez becomes victorious in the Venezuelan presidential elections on this day in 1999...a bad day for Venezuela. In 1950, Venezuela ranked among the top ten most prosperous nations in the world. In 1959, the Venezuelan GDP per capita was 10 percent higher than America’s. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and should be a very wealthy country. However, since Chavez (and Maduro) took power, the median monthly income is now $8. Roughly 90 percent of Venezuelans today live below the poverty line. Venezuelans have lost an average 24 pounds and have been reduced to eating pets and zoo animals. 

"It seems Chavez’s claim that 'the only way to save the world is through socialism,' was, unsurprisingly, incorrect. Some organizations and individuals, from Oxfam to Jeremy Corbyn, once admired Venezuela’s socialist experiment. Today, they are curiously silent about Venezuela’s decline. For the rest for the world, the now-impoverished nation offers a clear reminder of the necessity of property rights for any functioning economy." Source

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Two Strange Deaths on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Vladimir Likhonos, 25, a student of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute from Konotop, was killed when his chewing gum exploded on this day in 2009. Likhonos had a habit of dipping his chewing gum in citric acid to increase the gum's sour taste. On his work table police found about 100 grams (3.5 oz) of unidentified explosive powder which he used for chemistry studies. It resembled citric acid, and it is thought that he confused the two. The explosive was found to be four times stronger than TNT, and the explosion was possibly triggered either by reacting with Likhonos' saliva, or the pressure exerted by him chewing on the gum and explosive powder.

Also on this day in 2015, Ravi Subramanian, an Air India technician, was sucked into an aircraft's jet engine.

"It reportedly happened after the co-pilot of flight Al-619 to the southern city of Hyderabad mistook a signal from ground staff and started the engine. Maintenance man Ravi Subramanian, who was standing close by, was sucked into the engine and died instantly." Source

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Two Seminal Moments in Rock and Roll on This Day in History

On this day in 1956, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash got together for the first and last time for an impromptu jam session consisting of mostly Country and Gospel songs.

An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The recording was first released in Europe in 1981 as The Million Dollar Quartet with 17 tracks. A few years later more tracks were discovered and released as The Complete Million Dollar Session. In 1990, the recordings were released in the United States as Elvis Presley: The Million Dollar Quartet. This session is considered a seminal moment in rock and roll history.

Also on this day, in 1971, during a concert of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at the Montreux Casino, an audience member fired a flare gun into the venue's ceiling, causing a fire that destroyed the venue. The rock band Deep Purple, who were to use the Casino as the site for the recording of their next album, witnessed the fire from their hotel; the incident would be immortalized in their best known song, "Smoke on the Water".

In a 2004 publication by Rolling Stone magazine "Smoke on the Water" was ranked number 434 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", Total Guitar magazine's ranked "Smoke on the Water" number 4 on its "Greatest Guitar Riffs Ever", and in March 2005, Q magazine placed "Smoke on the Water" at number 12 in its list of the 100 greatest guitar tracks.

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The Dying State of Illinois on This Day in History

 

Illinois became the 21st U.S. state on this day in 1818. Chicago is its largest city, and the state's capital is Springfield; other major metropolitan areas include Metro East (of Greater St. Louis), Peoria and Rockford. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area.

That may change.

"European immigrants poured into Illinois in the 19th century, followed by African Americans in the 20th. But Illinois’s popularity is over. Today, more Illinoisans are leaving than moving in. Behind just New Jersey and California, the state ranks 3rd for outmigration...Illinois has the highest effective property tax rate in the nation, paying more compared to the value of their homes than other states’ residents. The state also has the 10th largest tax burden nationally, with the combined impact of personal income tax, property, sales, and business taxes comparatively high...The IRS estimates more than $16 million in tax dollars left Illinois from 2019 to 2020 as residents moved away, leaving less money to rebuild infrastructure, invest in schools, or complete projects that would attract more jobs and people to the state. That’s not the worst of it. The total wealth lost in Illinois’ outmigration tops $8 billion, more than any state except New York." Source

"Most residents leaving Illinois traveled to states with warmer climates where housing prices were significantly cheaper. South Carolina, Tennessee and North Carolina ranked highest for inbound moves nationally...Nearly half of Illinoisans have thought about moving away, citing high taxes as their No. 1 reason...Boasting the nation’s highest tax rates, second-highest property taxes, second-highest gas tax and nation-leading pension debt, it is little wonder why Illinois also leads the nation is losing residents." Source

"And keep in mind that the state also has a gigantic unfunded liability because of absurd promises of lavish pensions and fringe benefits for state and local government employees. It’s almost as if the politicians in Springfield want to make the state unattractive. The bottom line is that Illinois may have passed the tipping point and entered a death spiral. Sort of akin to being the Greece of America." Source

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The First Mixed Martial Arts Match on This Day in History

 

What has been called "the first mixed martial arts match of the modern age" took place on this day in 1963. The fight took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, when judo champion and professional wrestler Gene LeBell accepted a challenge to fight light heavyweight boxer Milo Savage, who was ranked fifth in the world at the time. LeBell, responding to a $1,000 challenge that no judo practitioner could defeat a boxer in a fight, defeated Savage in the fourth round by choking him and rendering him unconscious. The match itself, staged before 1,500 people, was billed as a "boxer vs. judo man" program.

The loss by Savage, the hometown favorite, caused the crowd to react violently. Bottles, chairs, and other debris were thrown into the ring. To prevent a full-blown riot, hometown hero and rated professional boxer Jay Fullmer (brother of boxers Gene and Don Fullmer) entered the ring to congratulate LeBell. The judoka (judo practitioner) and his team showed their sportsmanship by helping to revive Savage using the kappo healing technique, as neither the referee nor the ring doctor knew how to resuscitate him. Despite this, a man tried to stab LeBell on the way out and the latter had to be protected by the judokas and professional wrestlers who accompanied him.

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The Strange Mystery of Edwin Drood on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: A 9th instalment of The Mystery of Edwin Drood was supposed to be published on this day in 1870. This final novel by Charles Dickens was never completed as Dickens passed away on June 9th of that year.

However, things don't quite end there. Thomas Power James (better known as T. P. James) in Brattleboro, Vermont, claimed, in 1872, that Charles Dickens contacted him from beyond the grave and gave him power of attorney to complete The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 

"Numerous witnesses later testified that James would retire to his room, slump in a chair and go into trances that often lasted for hours. Afterward, young James would often write furiously, explaining to his friends that he was creating nothing...merely writing down the material which Dickens had given to him while he was entranced. Sometimes the material would cover many pages; at other times it consisted of only a few lines. Spirits, it seemed, had difficulties in transmission when the weather was bad." Stranger than Science by Frank Edwards.

Word got out about this strange project and many decried this all as a hoax, but when it was published on October 31 1873, the T.P. James became an overnight sensation. Many were astounded as to how remarkably the young man was able to write in Dickens' own voice. There were critics as well, but even Sherlock Holmes' creator Arthur Conan Doyle commented that "If it be indeed a parody it has the rare merit among parodies of never accentuating or exaggerating the peculiarities of the original." 

T. P. James eventually faded from the public spotlight and would go on to die in obscurity.

Read T.P. James work here.

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