Jack the Ripper on This Day in History

This Day In History: Mary Ann Nichols was murdered on this day in 1888. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims. There have been many theories as to who the Jack the Ripper might be, including Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll, Prince Albert Victor, son of Edward VII and grandson of Queen Victoria, British artist Walter Sickert, a German sailor named Carl Feigenbaum who was executed for murdering a New York woman in 1894, and Whitechapel mortuary attendant Robert Mann. Others, like Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed it might have been a woman, a Jill the Ripper, possible a midwife.

Jack the Ripper is featured in hundreds of works of fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between fact and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax diary: The Diary of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper appears in novels, short stories, poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television programmes, and films. More than 100 non-fiction works deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects. The term "Ripperology" was coined by Colin Wilson in the 1970s to describe the study of the case by professionals and amateurs.

See also: On Jack the Ripper by John E. Watkins 1919
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/on-jack-ripper-by-john-e-watkins-1919.html

Jack the Ripper Identified
Unmasking Jack the Ripper more than 130 years after he vanished.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/jack-the-ripper-identified

Your's Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
http://www.unz.org/Pub/WeirdTales-1943jul-00083

PORTRAIT of a KILLER-JACK THE RIPPER-CASE CLOSED by PATRICIA CORNWELL
http://bit.ly/2v4CvJL

Warren Buffett On This Day in History

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This Day In History: The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, was born on this day in 1930. Buffet is an American investor, business tycoon, and philanthropist, who is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The Berkshire Hathaway stock is the most expensive in the world (presently at 328,000.00). I actually bought fractional shares’s into every stock that Warren  Buffet owns so I guess in a way I created my own mini Berkshire Hathaway fund. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of $78.9 billion, making him the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, behind Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault.

Buffet is the most mentioned person in financial circles, and when he buys and sells, everyone takes notice. His recent gold acquisition marked to the world a public lack of confidence in the American dollar.

On Bitcoin he stated, "In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending."

Buffet bought his first stock when he was 11 years old, and made $53,000 by the age of 16. He also eats like Trump, preferring Cokes and McDonalds.

He reads a stack of books every day, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”

Buffettology

John Locke on This Day in History

This Day In History: English philosopher and physician John Locke was born on this day in 1632. Locke was a real “Renaissance Man” who found time to be an expert in, not only medicine, but also metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of education, economics, the Bible and theology (moving from Calvinist trinitarianism to Socinianism and Arianism, though he is still referred to as a Protestant Scholastic). He would go on to inspire David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Imanuel Kant and the founding fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson.

Locke was the Father of Classical Liberalism (Libertarianism). He stated that each person has a property in himself, and property precedes government. Unlike Descartes, Locke thought the mind was a blank slate (tabula rasa). The earth is given to humans in common. Locke’s doctrine that governments need the consent of the governed is central to the Declaration of Independence. He advocated separation of powers and believed that revolution was not only a right but an obligation at times.

John Locke wrote his major works in his 60's, and never really found time for a wife or romance. He did have an interesting feud with Isaac Newton. Newton would send strange, paranoid letters accusing Locke of trying to “entangle [him] with women.”

See also John Locke on Reading
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/john-locke-on-reading.html

See also Over 320 Books on DVDrom on Thinkers and Philosophy

Pizza Bomber/Hostage Brian Wells on This Day in History

Evil Genius Trailer

This Day In History: The death of Brian Wells happened on this day in 2003 in what came to be known as the Pizza Bomber case and the incident was shown live on TV. Wells was a pizza delivery man who was killed during an intricate plot involving a bank robbery, scavenger hunt, and homemade explosive device near Erie, Pennsylvania. If this sounds familiar to you, it is because it is also the basis of a Netflix series called "Evil Genius."

Wells' corpse was found with pages of lengthy, hand-written instructions addressed to "Bomb Hostage" telling him to rob the bank. The instructions also included a treasure hunt, listing a series of strictly timed tasks of collecting keys that would delay detonation and eventually defuse the bomb. It also warned that Wells would be under constant surveillance and any attempts to contact authorities would result in the bomb's detonation. "ACT NOW, THINK LATER OR YOU WILL DIE!" was scrawled at the bottom of the instructions.

This crime would go on to inspire other shows as well, such as the 2011 American comedy film 30 Minutes or Less which depicts a pizza delivery man being forced to wear a bomb vest and rob a bank, and a "Black Mirror" episode called “Shut Up and Dance" about a teenage pedophile who is blackmailed by hackers who know of his true nature into committing various crimes. Just like Wells’ ordeal Kenny is sent on a scavenger hunt across the suburbs of England carrying out a series of increasingly-violent and dangerous tasks on his tormentors’ behalf, including robbing a bank at gunpoint and later fighting to the death with another man, all in the span of a single day in a futile and hopeless attempt to keep his secrets from being leaked to the public.

In 2006 NBC had an episode in "Heist" where Zac Efron plays a teenage pizza delivery worker who is forced to commit a robbery with a bomb on his chest.

See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my digital books on disk and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

American Murderer & Body Snatcher Ed Gein on This Day in History

Ed Gein Documentary

This Day In History: American murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein was born on this day in 1906. Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, Ed Gein exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. His crimes were so remarkable that he inspired some of the most iconic horror movies of all time: Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Did you know that there are more than 222,000 unsolved murders since 1980. In 1965, the U.S. homicide clearance rate was 91 percent. By 2017, it had dropped to 61.6 percent, one of the lowest rates in the Western world. That means about 40 percent of the time, murderers get away with murder. On the bright side, the prevalence of serial killers have dropped 85 percent in the past 40 years.

Interesting fact: There is a legal Murder Zone in Yellowstone National Park. "There is a stretch of 50 miles within Yellowstone that crosses parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. If someone were to commit murder on this piece of land, the crime would take place in the state of Idaho, but under Wyoming's discretion. This portion of Yellowstone is unpopulated, with no potential jury members living in the area. Therefore, no jury trial can take place." ~Jessika M. Thomas 

See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my digital books on disk and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Today is National Dog Day

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This Day In History: Today is National Dog Day. One of the most insightful quotes about dogs comes from Henry C. Merwin in 1918: "The dog's life is short at the best, and every moment of it will be needed for his development. It is wonderful how, year by year, the household pet grows in intelligence, how many words he learns the meaning of, how quick he becomes in interpreting the look, the tone of voice, the mood of the person whom he loves. He is old at ten or eleven, and seldom lives beyond thirteen or fourteen. If he lived to be fifty, he would know so much that we should be uneasy, perhaps terrified, in his presence."

My favorite poems about dogs is The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling:

"THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way 

From men and women to fill our day; 

And when we are certain of sorrow in store, 

Why do we always arrange for more? 

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware        

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear." Read the rest at https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-power-of-dog-by-rudyard-kipling.html

Watch Red Dog

Philosopher David Hume on This Day in History

Visit my Economics blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

See also The Philosophy of Hume, Voltaire and Priestley - Over 170 Books on DVDrom

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This Day In History: Scottish Philosopher David Hume died on this day in 1776. One puzzle that Hume posed is especially pertinent today in the era of mass lockdowns. In his First Principles of Government, Hume wrote, "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."

200 years prior to Hume, Étienne de La Boétie wrote his "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" wherein he wonders, "how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation!"

It was however the great H.L. Mencken that figured out how this was done: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

David Hume: How Easily the Masses are Manipulated by the Few
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/02/david-hume-how-easily-masses-are.html