This Day in History: On this day in 1965, an 8-year-old boy was killed and eight other people injured when a stock car, driven by NASCAR champion Richard Petty, flew off a drag strip and into a crowd of spectators. The accident, which happened at the Southeastern International Dragway in Dallas, Georgia, happened when a tie rod broke on Petty's Plymouth Barracuda dragster while he was moving at 130 miles per hour. Most of the fans were able to get out of the way, but Wayne Dye of Austell died when the car struck him.
A month earlier, another spectator was killed during a race. "During the first lap of the NASCAR Grand National race Motor Trend 500, held at Riverside International Raceway on Sunday, 17 January 1965, the 1962 Pontiac #38 driven by Charles Powell, spun and went off the track, between turns one and two, ending into a dirt embankment on the infield.
In that same place a group of spectators were watching the race, standing on a forklift truck. At the moment of the accident several of them moved to see the spinning car, causing a freak accident. The forklift suddenly lost its balance, slid and rolled down an incline, at least five persons were seriously injured when it toppled over. One of them, Ronald Pickle, 20-year-old from San Diego, California, was killed upon impact, crushed between the truck and a chain link fence which kept the truck from rolling onto the track." Source
This day in history: The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on this day in 1951, limiting Presidents to two terms. The Twenty-second Amendment was a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt's election to an unprecedented four terms as president, but presidential term limits had long been debated in American politics. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered the issue extensively (alongside broader questions, such as who would elect the president, and the president's role). Many, including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, supported lifetime tenure for presidents, while others favored fixed terms. Virginia's George Mason denounced the life-tenure proposal as tantamount to elective monarchy. An early draft of the U.S. Constitution provided that the president was restricted to one seven-year term. Ultimately, the Framers approved four-year terms with no restriction on how many times a person could be elected president.
Early presidents, like Washington, resigned after 2 terms. Numerous academics and public figures have looked at his decision to retire after two terms, and have, according to political scientist Bruce Peabody, "argued he had established a two-term tradition that served as a vital check against any one person, or the presidency as a whole, accumulating too much power".
"It was Benjamin Franklin who summed up the best case for term limits more than two centuries ago: 'In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors . . . . For the former to return among the latter does not degrade, but promote them.' In other words, when politicians know they must return to ordinary society and live under the laws passed while they were in government, at least some of them will think more carefully about the long-term effects of the programs they support. Their end-all will not be re-election, because that option will not be available." Source
This Day in History: Camille Flammarion was born on this day in 1842. Flammarion was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research and related topics.
"It is difficult today to gauge the celebrity status that Flammarion held. Men, at least some men, admired and emulated Flammarion, and many a woman swooned over him. As the saying goes, some would 'give their right arm' to be in any way associated with the great Flammarion – indeed, in a bizarre but true story, Flammarion received a body part from a deceased young female admirer." Source
In his presidential address before the Society for Psychical Research in October 1923, Flammarion summed up his conclusions after 60 years of psychical research: "There are unknown faculties in man belonging to the spirit, there is such a thing as the double, thought can leave an image behind, psychical currents traverse the atmosphere, we live in the midst of an invisible world, the faculties of the soul survive the disaggregation of the corporeal organism, there are haunted houses, exceptionally and rarely the dead do manifest, there can be no doubt that such manifestations occur, telepathy exists just as much between the dead and the living as between the living."
This Day in History: Karl May was born on this day in 1842. May was a German writer best known for his adventure novels set in the American Old West. His main protagonist was Winnetou the Apache chief. He was a big deal in his time, selling 200 million copies of his books, and he was a favorite of Hitler and Einstein. Though his novels were set in the Wild West, Karl May never actually went to America. One German writer calls him "an impostor, a liar and a thief -- and one of Germany's most widely read authors. He embellished his own biography with as much fantasy as the scenarios in his adventure novels, and when the deceit was finally exposed, he never recovered. But his legend lives on." Perhaps that's too harsh an assessment as that describes many writers.
Karl May's works did provide a way of escaping a dark time in European history. "May provided Germans with a fantasy world to inhabit when ordinary people didn't travel. Later, when communism gripped large parts of Europe, his novels gave a sense of the world that was out of bounds to his captive audience, who hung on his words in a similar fashion to how downtrodden readers of another era must have lapped up their Dickens." Source
George Thorogood was born on this day in 1950. He is an American musician, singer and songwriter from Wilmington, Delaware. His "high-energy boogie-blues" sound became a staple of 1980s rock radio, with hits like his original songs "Bad to the Bone" and "I Drink Alone". He has also helped to popularize older songs by American icons, such as "Move It on Over", "Who Do You Love?", and "House Rent Blues/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer".
With his band, the Delaware Destroyers, Thorogood has released over 20 albums, two of which have been certified Platinum and six have been certified Gold. He has sold 15 million records worldwide. Thorogood and his band continue to tour extensively and in 2014 the band celebrated their 40th anniversary of performing.
His song Bad to the Bone had its own life in movies and TV. It was used in the opening of the movie Christine, where the song is played as the red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury rolls down the production line and injures an inspector, and again in the ending shot when a piece of Christine's grille moves. The song was used in the bar scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day where the Terminator first is shown in his full leather outfit. It can also be heard in the card game scene from the remake of The Parent Trap. The song was used in the 1988 drama film Talk Radio in the scenes where radio talk show host Barry Champlain's radio show, used as the opening and closing theme of his radio show. It was also used in the 2010 computer-animated superhero movie, Megamind. It was the title theme to Problem Child and its sequel, and Major Payne. It is also included in the South Park episode "You're Not Yelping" while Cartman walks down a hallway. It is also played during Shaun the Sheep Movie after Shaun is caught by Animal Containment.
The song was played in the episode of Who's the Boss?, "The Two Tonys", when Tony Micelli was playing pool against another guy named Tony Petardi (husband of Darlene, Tony Micelli's ex-girlfriend) and tries to beat him.
The song was used many times in Married... with Children, when Al Bundy does something fun, usually followed by the line "Let's Rock." For example, in "Hot off the Grill", "A Man's Castle", "Heels on Wheels" episodes.
The song was referenced in the episode of Family Matters, "Crash Course", by Steve Urkel when Eddie Winslow crashed the family station wagon in the living room without a driver's license. Urkel stated that he is bad to the bone and that bad is his middle name.
The song was referenced and background music was playing in the episode of Step By Step, "Something Wild" when Mark Foster dressed up for their Halloween party as a rebel to impress the prettiest girl in his school he invited to the part.
The song was played in the episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, "I Bowl Buster", when Will Smith and Carlton Banks go bowling to celebrate Carlton's acceptance to Princeton University and is played through the times Carlton struggles to bowl and causes multiple mishaps and injuries for him and Will.
Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song for the episode "Alvin's Oldest Fan" from their TV series. It was also featured in the episode "Endless Summer" of the series Renegade. Almost the entire record can be heard at the beginning of the episode "Nobody Lives Forever" on the TV series Miami Vice. An episode of Disney's TV show 101 Dalmatians: The Series has an episode named after the song.
Rudy Giuliani performed the song in Season 7, Episode 7 of The Masked Singer. His performance led judge Ken Jeong to walk off set.
This Day in History: February 23 is recognized as a feast day in honor of Polycarp of Smyrna.
Polycarp was a Christian bishop/overseer of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
Both Irenaeus and Tertullian say that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, one of Jesus' disciples. In On Illustrious Men, Jerome writes that Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle and that John had ordained him as a bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp is regarded as one of three chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch.
The webpage at https://carm.org/early-trinitarian-quotes has a few quotes where they are trying to show that the early Church Fathers believed in the Trinity Doctrine. They start off with Polycarp:
"O Lord God almighty . . . I bless you and glorify you through the eternal and heavenly high priest Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom be glory to you, with Him and the Holy Spirit, both now and forever" (n. 14, ed. Funk; PG 5.1040).
I noticed the same quotes with the same ellipsis (...) in Russell Sharrock's book, The Triunity of God (page 111); and in Matthew A. Paulson's book Breaking the Mormon Code, under the heading "Early Christian Quotations Suggesting the Trinity" and attributing the quote to Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians.
So what is missing in the ellipsis (...)? The words that are missing are "the Father of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ." So, the "Lord God almighty" is, according this quotation, the Father. The title "Lord God almighty" was not attributed to the Son or the Holy Spirit.
Also, this quote is not from Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians, but rather the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and this piece of work has been recognized as a literary forgery. See https://tinyurl.com/Polycarp-Forgery
Alvan Lamson, when examining the Epistle Of Polycarp came to the conclusion "that this old martyr had no conception of Jesus Christ as equal with God, or as one with him except in will and purpose. Here are no metaphysics, no confusion or obscurity, no hair-splitting distinctions. The Father is separated from the Son by a broad and distinct line, one as supreme, the other as subordinate; one as giving, the other as receiving; the Father granting to the Son a "throne at his right hand."
This day in History: At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery on this day in 2006, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
At least 36 arrests were made during an extensive police investigation.
Other Securitas depots had been previously targeted in the mid-1990s, when ram-raiders in Liverpool and Manchester had stolen more than £2 million. The Northern Bank robbery in Belfast was previously the biggest cash theft in UK history, when £26.5 million was stolen in 2004. This record was broken by the Tonbridge heist. The largest cash heist in global history took place in March 2003, when approximately US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq, shortly after the United States began the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
This Day in History: Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto was published on this day in 1848. As Paul Johnson wrote: "Marx was an academic; or rather, and worse, he was a failed academic." He railed against Capitalists exploiting their workers, but at the same time he had a lifelong hard-working maid that he never paid. He was a parasite all his life, sponging off his Capitalist cohort, Freidrich Engels. He had 7 children, 4 of whom died because of the poverty Marx made them endure. Two of his daughters who made it to later life (Laura and Eleanor) committed suicide. His Mother summed up his pathetic life with the following words: "I wish Karl would start accumulating capital instead of just writing about it."
Under Marxism, more than one hundred million people have died, either from being murdered or from starvation.
5 Things Marx Wanted to Abolish (Besides Private Property)
This Day in History: On this day in 2022, a 28-year-old man in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California is believed to have been using a knife to mix protein powder into a container of water while driving. The man lost control and crashed into a parked car. When he struck the parked car, his car's airbag propelled the knife into his neck, fatally injuring him. In addition to the two vehicles, four other cars were involved in the accident, with the stabbed man being the only casualty.
According to Forbes: "Although injuries from malfunctioning airbags tend to be the most serious, airbags can cause damage even when they work properly. The 10 most common airbag injuries include:
Facial injuries including bruising and fractures to the small bone due to the impact of the airbag
Chest injuries including heart injuries due to the impact of the airbag against the chest
Burns on the chest, hands, arms, or face when the fabric of the airbag moves along the skin
Fractures including to the skull, ribs, and wrist bones
Traumatic brain injuries
Eye injuries from chemical irritation or from the pressure of the airbag
Ear trauma, including hearing loss
Internal bleeding if organs are damaged by airbag deployment
Asthma attacks and other respiratory issues due to the chemicals involved in deployment
Injury to the fetus in pregnant women
These injuries are more likely to occur, and to be severe, if the vehicle occupants were not wearing a seatbelt when the airbag deployed. But even when the driver and passenger did everything correctly, they can still happen." Source
This Day in History: The anti-paganism policy of Constantius II forbade the worship of pagan idols in the Roman Empire on this day in 356. He also sought to advance Arianism/Semi-Arianism (the rejection of the Trinity doctrine) within Christianity. These policies may be contrasted with the religious policies of his father, Constantine the Great, whose Catholic orthodoxy was espoused in the Nicene Creed and who largely tolerated paganism in the Roman Empire.
Laws at this time prescribed the death penalty for those who performed or attended pagan sacrifices, and for the worshipping of idols. Pagan temples were shut down, and the Altar of Victory was removed from the Senate meeting house. There were also frequent episodes of ordinary Christians destroying, pillaging and desecrating many ancient pagan temples, tombs and monuments. Paganism was still popular among the population at the time. The emperor's policies were passively resisted by many governors and magistrates.
This Day in History: The great Renaissance sculptor and painter Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) died on this day in 1564.
Also, Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Cerquozzi was born on this day in 1602.
The first Michelangelo was known for frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508–12) in the Vatican, and his sculptures of David, now in the Accademia in Florence, and the Pietà, now in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
Michelangelo Cerquozzi was known for his genre scenes, battle pictures, small religious and mythological works and still lifes.
Other artists named Michelangelo are Michelangelo Anselmi (1492–1554); Michelangelo Carducci (1560s); Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) and Michaelangelo Meucci (1840–1890).
This Day in History: On this day in 1964, U.S. Postmaster General John A. Gronouski ordered that all letter carriers be provided with pepper spray in order to cut down the incidence of dog bites. "While the dog-bite problem has often been treated more or less as a joke," he said, "it is no laughing matter for our carriers and their families." There had been 7,000 dog bites in 1963. The Post Office Department purchased 115,000 "spray bombs" containing 15% pepper extract, with orders that the spray was not to be shot into a dogs face.
More than 5,400 postal employees were attacked by dogs in the United States in 2021.
This Day in History: The Toddlers' Truce ended on this day in 1957.
The Toddlers' Truce was an early British television scheduling policy that required transmissions to terminate for an hour each weekday between 6.00pm and 7.00pm – after the end of children's broadcasting and the start of the evening programs – so that young children could be put to bed.
"The policy didn't raise much of a reaction among audiences, although some in the government thought it reeked of a nanny state. However, the 1955 launch of the advertising-based ITV (in contrast to the BBC’s public broadcasting model) threw a wrench into the works. ITV felt that going dark for an entire hour, especially the one preceding primetime programming, meant the loss of an hour's worth of ad revenue, giving the BBC an unfair financial advantage." Source
Speaking of the nanny state...did you know that you need a license in the UK to watch live TV.
This Day in History: The new red and white maple leaf design was inaugurated as the flag of Canada on this day in 1965. It replaced the Union Flag and the Canadian Red Ensign. At noon, the new banner was raised first on the Peace Tower of the Parliament Building in Ottawa.
Red is the most popular color, appearing on over 75% of national flags of the world. White is found on 70% of the world’s flags and blue is used by almost half of all the national flags in the world.
The oldest flag in the world is the flag of Denmark.
The second tallest man-made structure in the western hemisphere, the 2,060 feet tall KXJB Tower at Galesburg, North Dakota, near Fargo, was accidentally knocked down by a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter that was on a training flight from Grand Forks Air Force Base on this day in 1968. All four men on the helicopter were killed after the aircraft struck a supporting guy-wire and then the television tower itself. Fargo's CBS affiliate, KXJB Channel 4 (now KRDK-TV), went off the air for 8 days. The tower had been second in height only to the nearby KTHI tower, which was 2,068 feet tall.
The tower fell again on April 6, 1997 during an ice storm, subjecting it to wind gusts of 70 mph and causing at least four inches of ice to accumulate on the structure.
This Day in History: Economist Thomas Malthus was born on this day in 1766. He is famous for his book An Essay on the Principle of Population where he argued that human population growth would outpace food production, which would lead to societal ruin. However, Malthus was wrong. He failed to anticipate the Industrial Revolution that came after his book and people were able to produce more despite rising populations.
Elon Muck recently weighed in on overpopulation. Pointing to the website https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html Elon concluded "Humanity takes up very little of Earth’s surface area – you can fit the entire population of Earth in New York City on one floor."
Elon also said "Population collapse is an existential problem for humanity, not overpopulation!"
The late Walter Williams concluded on population: "The greatest threat to mankind’s prosperity is government, not population growth. For example, Zimbabwe was agriculturally rich but, with government interference, was reduced to the brink of mass starvation. Any country faced with massive government interference can be brought to starvation. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook but also encourages the enactment of harmful, inhumane policies."
This Day in History: Philip Taylor Kramer, bassist for the psychedelic rock group, Iron Butterfly, disappeared on this day in 1995.
Kramer turned out to be something of a genius. He left Iron Butterfly and obtained a degree in aerospace engineering, he worked on the MX missile guidance system for a contractor of the US Department of Defense and later in the computer industry on fractal compression, facial recognition systems, and advanced communications. Kramer co-developed SoftVideo based on fractal compression and he also claimed to work on a transmission project that would result in faster-than-light speed communications. Like his father before him, Kramer set out to discredit Albert Einstein's theories.
From Steph Young: "'Chaos is perfect order!' Kramer had announced prior to his disappearance, 'I was able to decipher the code – it was heavily encrypted. People are going to want what I’m working on. We have to get off the planet…' that in the days before he disappeared, he had been supposedly working on perfecting a top-secret 30-year-old formula that he and his father believed would disprove Einstein and change the course of history. The formula was based on a theory that linked faster-than-light communications. ‘It was a kind of gravitational vibration wilder than anything seen on Star Trek. It was, he believed, worth billions, and then, one day, he disappeared, leaving behind a web of suspicion, intrigue and conspiracy theories more elaborate than anything since the grassy knoll.’ The Washington post asked; ‘Is Kramer trapped by his own technological wizardry, imprisoned somewhere in cyberspace?’ Many people believe that when Kramer vanished he entered another realm. On February 12th, 1995, he’d driven to LA Airport where he was due to pick up a business colleague and his wife. However, after approximately 45 minutes, he got back into his car and left the airport without waiting for his colleague to arrive. He stopped after a while and made a series of strange telephone calls. He called a former band member and good friend, Ron Bushy, and said to him, 'I’ll see you on the other side.' Then he called the police and said, 'This is Philip Taylor Kramer. I’m going to kill myself. And I want everyone to know O.J Simpson is innocent. THEY did it.' Then he disappeared." Source
On May 29, 1999, Kramer's Ford Aerostar minivan and skeletal remains were found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. However, his father never believed he killed himself and is quoted as saying "Taylor had told me a long time before there were people bothering him. They wanted what he was doing and some of them threatened him. He once told me that if I ever say I'm gonna kill myself, don't you believe it one bit. I'll be needing help."
This Day in History: Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen was born in Regina Saskatchewan on this day in 1926.
Although his notable performances in the films Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure gave him standing as a serious actor, Nielsen later gained enduring recognition for his deadpan comedy roles during the 1980s, after being cast for the comedy film Airplane!. In his comedy roles, Nielsen specialized in portraying characters oblivious to and complicit in their absurd surroundings. Nielsen's performance in Airplane! marked his turning point, which made him "the Olivier of spoofs" according to film critic Roger Ebert, and leading to further success in the genre with The Naked Gun film series, based on the earlier short-lived television series Police Squad!, in which Nielsen also starred. Nielsen received a variety of awards and was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
More actors than you think hail from Canada, such as Keanu Reeves, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds, Michael J. Fox, Kiefer and Donald Sutherland, Mike Myers, Matthew Perry, Rachel McAdams etc.
This Day in History: The Beach Boys album "20/20" was released on this day in 1969. It has a song co-written by Phil Spector, another written by Lead Belly, and a third written by Charles Manson.
The song "Never Learn Not to Love" was originally written by Charles Manson under the title "Cease to Exist". According to Carlin, Manson penned "Cease to Exist" specifically for the Beach Boys to record, and biographer Steven Gaines said that Manson "reportedly" wrote the song to help ease tensions within the group. Dennis produced the Beach Boys' version in September 1968, reworking the song's bluesy structure and altering its lyric (the opening lyric "Cease to exist" modified to "Cease to resist"). The title was also changed to "Never Learn Not to Love", much to Manson's indignation.
The song "Cotton Fields" was written by Lead Belly who was convicted of murder in 1918.
"I Can Hear Music" was co-written by Phil Spector. On February 3, 2003, Spector shot actress Lana Clarkson in the mouth while in his mansion.
This may not be the Beach Boys best album, but it has to be the only album in history featuring songs by three different murderers.
This Day in History: A Communist newspaper in Russia said the quiet part out loud on this day in 1969.
The Soviet government newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, whose audience was the young Communist Party members who belonged to the Party's youth wing, the Komsomol, published an unusually frank admission that the Soviet Union lagged behind the capitalist Western nations in almost every aspect of economic development. Noting that a 1961 prediction by former party leader Nikita Khrushchev— that the Soviet Union would surpass the United States in its standard of living by 1970— was not going to happen and was not even close to occurring, the newspaper survey presented statistics that Soviet citizens had 6.75% as many automobiles, one-fourth the number of radios, less than half as much new clothing and half as much meat and dairy products as Americans. The survey noted, however, that the Soviets were ahead in the number of physicians, the amount spent per student on education, and the amount of housing construction.
This Day in History: At 1:05am on this day in 1969, the Allende meteorite exploded as it entered the atmosphere over the village of Pueblito de Allende in Mexico's Chihuahua state. As the meteor exploded into two pieces which then fragmented into thousands, most of the stones fell in and around Pueblito Allende. Eventually, more than two tonnes — 4,400 lb — of fragments would be picked up; the Allende meteorite has become the most studied in the world, and is among the rarest because of its composition of carbonaceous chondrite.
It is estimated that 17 meteorites hit the earth's surface every day (about 6000 a year). Most of these go unseen.
This Day in History: Writer Ann Radcliffe died on this day in 1823. Little known today, she was the highest paid author in the 1790's. She was one of the first of the Gothic writers, writing novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian which inserted supernatural elements, though many complained that she failed to incorporate "real ghosts" into her stories. She influenced writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Walter Scott and was admired by Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
H.P. Lovecraft gave her high praise in his book, Supernatural Horror in Literature:
"Five years later, and all existing lamps are paled by the rising of a fresh luminary of wholly superior order—Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), whose famous novels made terror and suspense a fashion, and who set new and higher standards in the domain of macabre and fear-inspiring atmosphere despite a provoking custom of destroying her own phantoms at the last through laboured mechanical explanations. To the familiar Gothic trappings of her predecessors Mrs. Radcliffe added a genuine sense of the unearthly in scene and incident which closely approached genius; every touch of setting and action contributing artistically to the impression of illimitable frightfulness which she wished to convey. A few sinister details like a track of blood on castle stairs, a groan from a distant vault, or a weird song in a nocturnal forest can with her conjure up the most powerful images of imminent horror; surpassing by far the extravagant and toilsome elaborations of others. Nor are these images in themselves any the less potent because they are explained away before the end of the novel. Mrs. Radcliffe’s visual imagination was very strong, and appears as much in her delightful landscape touches—always in broad, glamorously pictorial outline, and never in close detail—as in her weird phantasies. Her prime weaknesses, aside from the habit of prosaic disillusionment, are a tendency toward erroneous geography and history and a fatal predilection for bestrewing her novels with insipid little poems, attributed to one or another of the characters.
Mrs. Radcliffe wrote six novels; The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), The Italian (1797), and Gaston de Blondeville, composed in 1802 but first published posthumously in 1826. Of these Udolpho is by far the most famous, and may be taken as a type of the early Gothic tale at its best. It is the chronicle of Emily, a young Frenchwoman transplanted to an ancient and portentous castle in the Apennines through the death of her parents and the marriage of her aunt to the lord of the castle—the scheming nobleman Montoni. Mysterious sounds, opened doors, frightful legends, and a nameless horror in a niche behind a black veil all operate in quick succession to unnerve the heroine and her faithful attendant Annette; but finally, after the death of her aunt, she escapes with the aid of a fellow-prisoner whom she has discovered. On the way home she stops at a chateau filled with fresh horrors—the abandoned wing where the departed chatelaine dwelt, and the bed of death with the black pall—but is finally restored to security and happiness with her lover Valancourt, after the clearing-up of a secret which seemed for a time to involve her birth in mystery. Clearly, this is only the familiar material re-worked; but it is so well re-worked that Udolpho will always be a classic. Mrs. Radcliffe’s characters are puppets, but they are less markedly so than those of her forerunners. And in atmospheric creation she stands preëminent among those of her time."
Listen to Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature
This Day in History: Chief John Smith died on this day in 1922. Smith was an Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indian who lived in the area of Cass Lake, Minnesota. It is said that he was 137 years old when he died. It is estimated that he was born during the American Revolution, though the exact age at the time of his death has been the subject of controversy.
He had 8 wives throughout his lifetime, but no children.
This Day in History: In Fairfield, California, a trial judge sentenced serial killer Juan Corona (the Machete Killer) to 25 life sentences, one for each of the 25 men whom he had been convicted of murdering on this day in 1973. Superior Judge Richard Patton added that the life sentences would "be served consecutively and not concurrently." Corona had been convicted of the crimes on January 18. Despite the sentence, California Adult Authority ruled the next day that Corona would be eligible for parole after only seven years rather than 175 years (7 years for each of the 25 life sentences) and that the consecutive sentences would be merged to run concurrently. An official commented, "Corona can serve only one life." Corona would spend the rest of his life in prison, dying at age 85 in 2019.
