Robert Craig Knievel, known professionally as Evel Knievel, died on this day in 2007 of pulmonary disease in Clearwater, Florida. Evel Knievel was an American stunt performer and entertainer. Throughout his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps. Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.
Knievel's most famous stunt was an attempt to jump the fountains at Caesars Palace, which resulted in severe injuries. Despite never successfully jumping the Grand Canyon, Knievel became a legendary figure, breaking numerous records and suffering hundreds of bone fractures throughout his career.
During his career, Knievel may have suffered more than 433 bone fractures, earning an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the survivor of "most bones broken in a lifetime". This number could be exaggerated.
Evel's son Robbie also became a motorcycle stunt performer who completed over 340 jumps, setting 20 world records. He died earlier this year of pancreatic cancer.
This day in history: Three large earthquakes happened on this day in history.
In 1114, a large earthquake damaged the areas of the Crusaders in the Middle East. Antioch, Mamistra, Marash and Edessa are hit by the shocks. At least 40,000 people were killed in the earthquake; a number contested by historians due to the small population in the area at the time. These earthquakes were associated with seismic activity on the East Anatolian Fault.
In 1732, a magnitude 6.6 Irpinia earthquake caused 1,940 deaths in the former Kingdom of Naples, southern Italy.
In 1783, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck New Jersey. Shaking was felt from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania. A brief foreshock occurred at 9:00 PM on November 29 and an aftershock five hours later were reported only in New York City and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The earthquake caused intensity VII damage on the Mercalli intensity scale. George Washington was sleeping at Fraunces Tavern when the earthquake struck, but he was not woken by the tremors.
It stands as the most powerful earthquake to occur in the state.
This day in history: On this day in 1969, 22-year-old graduate student Betsy Aardsma was murdered by a single stab wound inside the Pattee Library at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Though Aardsma's murder remains officially unsolved, local investigative journalists and two independent authors have published testimony and reports which strongly indicate Penn State geology professor Richard Haefner may have been responsible for her death, which has been described by one author as Pennsylvania's most infamous unsolved murder.
The evidence indicating Haefner's guilt of Aardsma's murder is circumstantial. Haefner was never charged with her murder, and died in 2002.
Aardsma's murder ultimately became a major factor in the creation of a university police force at Penn State. The years prior to her death had seen an increase in both violent crime, sexual assaults, and raucous student protests at the university, which had only a campus patrol to provide immediate law and order. Her death epitomized the need for increased public safety measures on the university campus, and a university police force was established in the early 1970s.
On this day in 1924, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in New York City.
The following is Google's AI description of the parade: "The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade aims to bring families and children together. The parade has been a holiday tradition since 1924. It features balloons and floats with characters from children's entertainment."
However, this year saw a boycott because the parade was to include the trans agenda, and pro-Palestine protestors tried to stop the parade by gluing themselves to the pavement.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving parade is definitely no longer for children.
This day in history: American gun designer John Browning died on this day in 1926.
Browning developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms – many of which are still in use around the world. He made his first firearm at age 13 in his father's gun shop and was awarded the first of his 128 firearm patents on October 7, 1879, at the age of 24. He is regarded as one of the most successful firearms designers of the 19th and 20th centuries and pioneered the development of modern repeating, semi-automatic, and automatic firearms.
Browning influenced nearly all categories of firearms design, especially the autoloading of ammunition. He invented, or made significant improvements to, single-shot, lever-action, and pump-action rifles and shotguns. He developed the first reliable and compact autoloading pistols by inventing the telescoping bolt, then integrating the bolt and barrel shroud into what is known as the pistol slide. Browning's telescoping bolt design is now found on nearly every modern semi-automatic pistol, as well as several modern fully automatic weapons. He also developed the first gas-operated firearm, the Colt–Browning Model 1895 machine gun – a system that surpassed mechanical recoil operation to become the standard for most high-power self-loading firearm designs worldwide. He also made significant contributions to automatic cannon development.
Browning's most successful designs include the M1911 pistol, the water-cooled M1917, the air-cooled M1919, and heavy M2 machine guns, the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, and the Browning Auto-5 – the first semi-automatic shotgun. Some of these arms are still manufactured, often with only minor changes in detail and cosmetics to those assembled by Browning or his licensees. The Browning-designed M1911 and Hi-Power are some of the most copied firearms in the world.
This day in History: On this day in 1967, hundreds of people in the city of Chiquinquirá, in Colombia, were poisoned, and 81 died, after eating bread that had been made with flour that had been contaminated with parathion, a liquid insecticide. All but ten of the deaths were children; the deaths would later be attributed to an accident that happened when the flour and the parathion were being transported in the same delivery truck. When the truck driver made a sharp turn, three of the containers of parathion shattered and spilled into the bags of flour, which was then delivered to the bakery.
Murder charges would later be filed against a Bogotá truck driver who had delivered the flour and the owner of the bakery that had baked and sold the bread to local residents.
Parathion is so toxic it has been banned in most countries. Parathion was commonly used for suicides in the 1950s and 1960s.
This day in history: The Chick-fil-A chain of shopping mall chicken restaurants was inaugurated on this day in 1967 by S. Truett Cathy, with the opening of a location inside Atlanta's Greenbriar Mall to sell Truett's chicken fillet sandwiches. For its first 19 years, the chain would be limited to indoor shopping malls until inaugurating its first stand-alone location in 1986.
This day in history: The world found out on this day in 1953 that the Piltdown Man was discovered as a hoax the day before.
Piltdown Man was basically a medieval human skull combined with the lower jaw of an orangutan that was "found" in a gravel pit in the near the village of Piltdown, England. Hailed as the "missing link" between man and ape-like species by promoters of evolution for decades, Piltdown man was exposed as a fraud only through later scientific testing and simple observation. The refusal of the discoverer to allow independent scrutiny of his claims enabled this fraud to persist for over forty years.
Piltdown Man should be a warning against a consensus view of science, and also that science often gets things wrong, and has, especially of late, proven itself to be a captured institution.
This day in history: American scout, cowboy, soldier, range detective, and Pinkerton agent Tom Horn was executed by hanging on this day in 1903. “Killing is my specialty,” Horn reportedly once said. “I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.”
"He was an unusually skilled rifleman, an ability that may have later encouraged him to gravitate towards a career as a professional killer. That his father was a violent man, who severely beat his son, might also explain how Horn came to be such a remorseless killer." Source
Horn is most notorious for being hired by numerous cattle companies as a cowboy and hired gun to watch over their cattle and kill any suspected rustlers. Horn developed his own means to fight thieves: "I would simply take the calf and such things as that stopped the stealing. I had more faith in getting the calf than in courts". If he thought a man were guilty of stealing cattle and had been fairly warned, Horn said that he would shoot the thief and would not feel "one shred of remorse".
Horn often gave a warning first to those he suspected of rustling and was said to have been a "tremendous presence" whenever he was in the vicinity. Fergie Mitchell, a rancher on the North Laramie River, described Horn's reputation: "I saw him ride by. He didn't stop, but went straight on up the creek in plain sight of everyone. All he wanted was to be seen, as his reputation was so great that his presence in a community had the desired effect. Within a week, three settlers in the neighborhood sold their holdings and moved out. That was the end of cattle rustling on the North Laramie".
Horn’s reign of murder ended in 1903 when he was hanged for killing a 14-year-old boy.
This Day in History: Communist Leader Vladimir Lenin attended the funeral for Laura Marx (Lafargue) on this day in 1911, the daughter of Karl Marx, who died in a suicide pact with her husband.
Laura was not the only child of Karl Marx to commit suicide.
The man that Karl Marx was is summed up nicely by Connor Tomlinson:
"Marx was an alcoholic who never washed. Boils covered his body, preventing him from sitting down.
He refused to work, and drove his family to destitution -- causing the deaths of his two sons from exposure and illness.
He raped his unpaid maid, and had Engels subsidize their illegitimate child.
He wrote poetry romanticizing the ingesting of poison -- the method by which two of his daughters would later commit suicide.
One of those daughters Marx disowned for marrying a Cuban man, who Marx insulted as ‘Negrillo’ and ‘The Gorilla’.
Marx was also explicitly genocidal -- calling for ‘revolutionary terror’, theft, and murder against the ill-defined 'bourgeoisie'.
He said ‘the next attempt of the French revolution’ should be so bloody that ‘beside [it] the French Revolution [would be] child’s play’.
He forecast a dictatorship would inevitably arise from this bloody revolution, and require absolute power to collectivize and redistribute property to achieve communism.
He idolized Mephistopheles from Faust, insisting that ‘Everything that exists deserves to perish.’
No wonder every experiment with Marxism produces mass murder, privation, starvation, tyranny, and Hell on Earth.
Long after his death, Marx's specter of contempt for existence itself haunts our civilization.
This day in history: The National Review published its first issue on this day in 1955.
Wikipedia has this to say about the National Review: "Since its founding, the magazine has played a significant role in the development of conservatism in the United States, helping to define its boundaries and promoting fusionism while establishing itself as a leading voice on the American right."
However, Conservatives, and the Right don't particularly like the National Review. From Conservapedia: "The National Review is a formerly influential political newsmagazine, created by William F. Buckley in 1955 and currently edited by Rich Lowry. Along with the the American Spectator and the now-defunct Weekly Standard, it was once regarded as one of the 'Big Three' of conservative magazines. Neither the National Review nor the (now-defunct) Weekly Standard have been particularly conservative on social issues."
However, I have to give credit where credit is due. The National Review has an article on its site entitled: "National Review Is Irrelevant." Here is an excerpt: "When I grew up, National Review took risks. Where’s the National Review that’s willing to put people’s noses out of joint? Instead, National Review’s writers are universally admired in the liberal press. Their writers are celebrated as heroes among the woke and given boundless respect, even in outlets that had opposed them for decades."
This day in history: Roman Catholics in the United States would no longer be required to abstain from meat on Fridays, as a national conference of Roman Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops voted in Washington to revoke a requirement of abstinence that had been in effect for 11 centuries, on this day in 1966. As part of the recognition of Friday as a day of penance, Pope Nicholas I had decreed in the 9th century that adherents to Roman Catholic faith would be required to abstain from the eating of meat, although the consumption of fish on Fridays was permitted. Friday, December 2, 1966, would mark the first day that 45,000,000 American Roman Catholics could consume beef, chicken, pork, or other meats without violating Church doctrine. Philip Hannan, Archbishop of New Orleans, and Clarence George Issenmann, the Bishop of Cleveland, jointly made the announcement at a press conference.
George Carlin once joked: "It's not even a sin anymore to eat meat on Friday, but I'll bet there are still guys in hell doing time on a meat rap."
However, according to the National Catholic Register, "Contrary to common misconception, abstinence from meat on Fridays throughout the year has never been abolished from Roman law. It was not abolished by Vatican II. It was not abolished by Pope Paul VI or Pope St. John Paul II. It was not abolished by the 1983 Code of Canon Law. It remains the universal law of the Latin Church — even if not everyone has to obey it." Source
This day in history: On this day in 1969, the fully clothed body of a white female was located in a dense bushland off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, California by a 15-year-old boy who had been birdwatching. The victim had died of multiple stab wounds—predominantly inflicted to her neck—approximately two days before her body was discovered dumped in the ravine at the side of the drive. A tree branch had prevented her body from rolling fully down the ravine and into a 699-foot-deep canyon, and her body lay against this branch just 15 ft down the ravine.
In total, the victim had been stabbed 157 times.
The body had been informally known as "Sherry Doe" and officially as "Jane Doe 59."
In June 2015, the body had finally been identified as Reet Silvia Jurvetson, a Swedish-born Estonian-Canadian woman.
This day in history: U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew took aim at the news media on this day in 1969. Agnew took the unprecedented step of accusing the three American television networks (whose affiliate stations' broadcast rights were licensed by the United States government) of letting their newscasters and commentators of abusing "a concentration of power over American public opinion, unknown in history" and hinting that "perhaps it is time that the networks were made more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve".
"The speech was unprecedented - and it was more effective than even the Nixon White House could have possibly imagined. What Spiro Agnew accomplished with that speech in Des Moines was to quite openly and publicly turn the tables on the mainstream media by casting doubt on their ability to tell the truth in an unbiased fashion. From that moment on, the media - television networks and newspapers and magazines all - found their credibility increasingly under assault. This before Fox News and talk radio - and the Media Research Center - were even a gleam in the conservative eye." Source
This day in history: The immigration processing center Ellis Island ceased operations on this day in 1954.
While immigrants were processed at Ellis Island, that largely stopped in 1924 after Calvin Coolidge signed the ultra-restrictionist Immigration Act of 1924 on the commonsense grounds that America should severely slow migration flows after historic immigration waves in order to allow for proper assimilation.
"The endlessly repeated argument that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants ignores the fact that most Americans are NOT the descendants of ILLEGAL immigrants. Millions of immigrants from Europe had to stop at Ellis Island, and had to meet medical and other criteria before being allowed to go any further." Thomas Sowell
This day in history: There are many significant events in German history that are connected to 9 November. A few of them are:
On November 9 in 1848, Robert Blum, one of the leading figures of the democrats in the Frankfurt Parliament and in the German revolutions, was executed. The execution can be seen as a symbolic event or forecast of the ultimate crushing of the German March Revolution in April and May 1849.
On November 9 in 1918, Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor abdicated his throne in response to the November revolution at the end of World War I.
On November 9 in 1923, Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch landed him in jail, but also saw an early emergence of his NSDAP party.
On November 9 in 1938 Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) occurred.
On November 9 in 1967 saw the Hamburg University protest.
On November 9 in 1989 saw the biggest event in German history, the fall of the Berlin Wall. East Germany opened checkpoints on this day which allowed people to cross into West Germany.
This day in history: The world's first Internet murder happened on this day in 1999. Bruce Miller was found dead at his junkyard in Mt. Morris, Michigan on November 8, 1999, killed by a 20 gauge shotgun. His wife Sharee Miller, convinced her online lover Jerry Cassaday to kill him (before later killing himself) was convicted of the crime.
The trial made national headlines; Miller's life was profiled on A&E American Justice, Investigation Discovery's Deadly Women and on the Oxygen Channel's true crime series Snapped. The case was the subject of a book, Fatal Error, by Kansas City Star reporter Mark Morris and Paul Janczewski. A television movie produced by Lifetime Television titled Fatal Desire, starring Eric Roberts and Anne Heche, was based on the case. There also was an episode on Forensic Files about this case ("Web of Seduction", season 8, episode 24). The case was covered in a 2017 episode of Murderous Affairs titled "Dead Silence." Miller also admitted her crimes to the show "2020" in February 2022. This case was also covered in an episode of Murder, Mystery & Makeup by Bailey Sarian.
This day in history: On this day in 2007, the Jokela school shooting in Jokela, Tuusula, Finland, took place, resulting in the death of nine people.
It is often said that America has the worst rate of gun murder and gun crime of any of the civilized countries of the world. According to the New York Times’s editorial page, “the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns.”
However, this is not true.
From Dana Loesch: "The combined murder and suicide rate in the United States is lower than in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Russia. In many of those cases, our rate is far, far smaller than the rate in European countries. For example, our suicide rate is 43 percent of Finland’s, and our murder rate is 25 percent of Russia’s.
Other continents have even worse crime. The murder rate in the United States is lower than the murder rate in 'most of Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, all but one South American nation, and all of Central America and Mexico.' Additionally, among the world’s nations, there’s no correlation between fewer guns and less crime. To the contrary, among developed countries, the countries that have the fewest guns (like Turkey, Chile, and Estonia) often have the most crime. On the other hand, Switzerland, which has more guns per capita than all but two other countries in the world, has a far lower murder rate than countries that heavily restrict guns, like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Even the Washington Post—in a rare moment of lucidity—has had to admit that 'countries with the most guns don’t necessarily have the most gun-related homicides.'"
"Although 192 countries report total homicides, only 116 of them report firearm homicides. Among countries that don't release firearm homicide data, their combined homicide rate is 11.1 per 100,000. This is far above both the US rate and the global average. If these high-homicide countries were to report their firearm homicide rates, they would almost surely outrank the US." Gun Control Myths by John R. Lott Jr.
This day in history: Rap Artist King Von (Dayvon Bennett) was shot and killed in Atlanta on this day in 2020. Many believe that being a rapper may be America's deadliest profession.
"A 2015 study found jazz and blues singers have the longest lifespans, into their 60s, while male rap and hip-hop artists have the shortest life expectancy—under 30. When it comes to cause of death, more than 50% of the deaths of hip hop artists and rappers were due to homicide, compared to under 6% for metal, country, blues and jazz artists." Source
What sets King Von/Bennett out from the other rappers is that he is also accused of being a serial killer. In April 2023, over 2 years after Bennett's death, a four-hour long documentary titled King Von: Rap's First Serial Killer was released on YouTube by the YouTuber Trap Lore Ross, in which it was alleged that Bennett had been a serial killer who was involved in at least ten murders, including the murders of P5, Modell, Malcolm Stuckey, and Gakirah "K.I." Barnes; Bennett had been acquitted for the murder of Stuckey while he was alive and was concluded by Chicago authorities to be responsible for the murder of Barnes in 2021. In addition to the ten murders he was alleged to be the perpetrator of, he was also documented as the mandator to several other gang-related murders. According to the documentary, Bennett's primary motive to commit murder initially was a result of gang disputes, but later were done simply for thrill. The documentary was praised by many, but was soon taken down from YouTube following backlash from family and fans of Bennett.The documentary was later re-uploaded.
This day in history: The Gunpowder Plot happened on this day in 1605.
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution against Catholics.
The plot was to assassinate King James I of England and the whole of Protestant Parliament by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the opening session of Parliament. This would have created a power vacuum, supposedly allowing the Catholic Church to seize power. A more likely reason for the plot is that it was an effort by Catholics to try and fight back against the strong anti-Catholic movement in the British government in the period of time around the Protestant Revolution. Fawkes was caught before he could put this plan into action. He was interrogated through torture. Torture was normally forbidden but James I permitted it with the words: "if he will not other wayes confesse, the gentler tortours are to be first usid unto him et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur [and so on step by step to the most severe] and so god spede youre goode worke." Fawkes was ultimately put to death along with his co-conspirators for treason and attempted murder. He died on January 31, 1606, by being hung, drawn and quartered.
His death is celebrated in Great Britain every year on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5 with fireworks and bonfires. This festival originated in the 17th century as a celebration of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, and an expression of anger at the conspirators (by burning Guy Fawkes in effigy), and was associated with English patriotism and anti-Catholic sentiments. Nowadays it has lost these connotations and is often known simply as "Bonfire Night". Traditionally a stuffed dummy or scarecrow, called a 'Guy', is put on the bonfire before it is lit.
A famous rhyme concerning Guy Fawkes goes as follows:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!
The rhyme is often shortened to the first four lines.
This day in history: On this day in 1970, social workers in Los Angeles took custody of a 13-year-old victim of child abuse identified in studies by the pseudonym "Genie". She had been kept in confinement to one room by her father since her birth, until her mother finally took her from the home in October. Though her rescue was not publicized at the time, the case of "Genie", who had not learned how to communicate, would become a landmark in the study of linguistics, psychology and education of a feral child.
In October 1970, when Genie was approximately 13 years and 6 months old, her parents had a violent argument in which her mother threatened to walk out if she could not call her own parents. Her husband eventually relented, and later that day she left with Genie when he was out of the house to go to her parents' house in Monterey Park; Genie's brother, by then 18, had already run away from home and was living with friends. Around three weeks later, on November 4, their mother decided to apply for disability benefits for the blind in nearby Temple City, California, and brought Genie with her, but on account of her near-blindness, she accidentally entered the general social services office next door. The social worker who greeted them instantly sensed something was wrong when she saw Genie, and was shocked to learn her true age, having estimated from her appearance and demeanor that she was around six or seven and possibly autistic, and after she and her supervisor questioned Genie's mother and confirmed Genie's age they immediately contacted the police. Her parents were arrested and she became a ward of the court; due to her physical condition and near-total unsocialized state, a court order was immediately issued for her to be taken to the Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
This day in history: Gary Anderson was killed by a tape measure on this day in 2014. Anderson, 58, of New Jersey was delivering drywall to a construction site and leaned his head into the car of a co-worker while having a conversation. As he pulled his head out, a worker accidentally dropped a 1-pound (0.45 kg) tape measure which plummeted 50 stories, or approximately 500 feet (150 m), when it ricocheted off a piece of metal 10 feet (3.0 m) off the ground and smashed into Anderson's head. He was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center where he suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 9:52 a.m. Hard hats were mandatory at the site, and it is unclear why Anderson was not wearing one when he was killed.
This day in history: American mechanical and chemical engineer Thomas Midgley Jr., died on this day in 1944. In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio, which left him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. In 1944, he became entangled in the device and died of strangulation.
Alexander Bogdanov also died during a medical experiment. Bogdanov (1873–1928) was a Russian polymath, Bolshevik revolutionary and pioneer haemotologist who founded the first Institute of Blood Transfusion in 1926. He died from acute hemolytic transfusion reaction after carrying out an experimental mutual blood transfusion between himself and a 21-year-old student with an inactive case of tuberculosis. Bogdanov's hypotheses were that the younger man's blood would rejuvenate his own aging body, and that his own blood, which he believed was resistant to tuberculosis, would treat the student's disease.
This day in history: On this day in 1970, a fire killed 146 people at a dance hall outside of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont in France. Firefighters discovered upon arrival that the management of Club Cinq Sept had kept the emergency exits padlocked in order to keep people from entering the building without paying. At 1:45 in the morning, when the fire broke out, there were about 150 dancers still in the building who had paid to hear a performance by the rock group "The Storm". The dance hall was decorated with "paper and plastic psychedelic decorations" which caused the fire to spread rapidly, and firefighters in Saint-Laurent were only notified after two young men ran nearly a mile to the town to sound the alert. Witnesses told investigators that the fire had started after a patron had lit a cigarette and then tossed the burning match aside rather than extinguishing it.
In June 1971, one of the managers, Gilbert Bas, was charged with, and found guilty of, manslaughter in relation to the deaths. He received a two-year suspended sentence. Two other managers died in the fire. The mayor and three building contractors were found guilty of causing injury through negligence, and received short suspended sentences.
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