This Day In History

Dec 16
My father, Robert Aubrey was born. Happy Birthday, dad!



Dec 16 1920
In Kansu, China, an 8.6 earthquake kills 180,000 people, mostly from building collapses. But 20,000 froze later because they were unwilling to reoccupy housing during the winter.

Dec 16 1943
At Auschwitz, Dr. Horst Schumann was radiating genitals of Jewish men and women. After a time their genitals were removed and sent to Berlin. Records from his experiments do not survive intact, but the daysheet for today indicates 90 castrations. What were they doing with all those balls?

Dec 16 1950
To fight "world conquest by communist imperialism" in Korea, President Truman declares a state of National Emergency. The order is still in effect, one of four current states of national emergency granting extraordinary powers. We must be fools.

Dec 16 1954
In San Carlos, Venezuela, a hairy dwarf creature attacks residents, then flees into a hovering disk shaped UFO. The creatures escape.

Dec 16 1977
The pinnacle of the Disco era attained with the release of the polyester-clad film Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta.



Dec 16 1985
John Gotti has Gambino boss Paul Castellano whacked at Spark's Steak House in Manhattan.

New Arrests Made in Killing of Auschwitz Survivor

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two additional suspects in the strangulation of an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor were arrested Friday, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.

Aljulah Cutts, 27, and his brother Hasib, 30, were taken into custody in Manhattan in connection with the death last week of Guido Felix Brinkmann, the district attorney's office said.

A spokeswoman declined to specify what, if any, connection the men are suspected to have had to the victim or to a woman previously arrested in the case.

Police also would not say what charges the two might face.

The woman, Angela Murray, 30, of the Bronx, was arraigned Sunday on one count of murder in the second degree and three counts of robbery in the case.

Brinkmann was found dead in the bedroom of his apartment July 30, his hands tied behind his back, police said. A safe was missing from the apartment, and his car had been stolen.

Brinkmann, a native of Latvia, was held in the Mauthausen, Ebensee and Auschwitz camps during World War II.

After the war, he and his wife, who also survived Auschwitz, came to America.

In 1971, Brinkmann co-founded Adam's Apple disco in Manhattan, and later was the real estate manager of a mixed-use building in the Bronx, according to his son, Rick Brinkman, who uses a different spelling for his last name.

Brinkmann's wife died last year.