This Day In History

Aug 28 1985
Joseph DeCarlo III is born. BALLIN!! I love you, happy birthday baby.

Aug 28 1988
Three Italian fighter jets from the precision flight team Frecce Tricolori collide while attempting their "Pierced Heart" stunt during an air show at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. The wreckage of one plane tumbles into the crowd and explodes, killing 40 spectators and seriously injuring hundreds more. The death toll reaches 69 two months later.

This Day In History

Jul 27 1890
At the Chateau d'Auvers, Vincent van Gogh presses a revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger. Somehow the bullet misses the vital organs, and the painter manages to stumble over to a friend's house. The following night, Van Gogh dies of an infection in the arms of his brother Theo.

Jul 27 1996
During a celebration for the Atlanta Olympics, overfed security guard Richard Jewell notices a suspicious green knapsack in Centennial Park. He immediately alerts police and helps to clear people from the area shortly before the pipe bomb explodes.

For his trouble, Jewell becomes the FBI's preliminary suspect and news organizations run wild with the story. Because he didn't do it, numerous media outlets end up paying him large undisclosed settlements. Also, the FBI uses the event as an excuse to lobby for further clampdowns on civil liberties.

Jul 27 2002
A Sukhoi SU-27 fighter crashes and explodes at an air show in the Ukraine, killing 78 and injuring more than 100 others. It is the worst airshow crash in history. The two pilots ejected and survived.

This Day In History

Apr 26 1865
Discovered hiding in a farmer's tobacco shed, John Wilkes Booth is shot in the neck. Dying and paralyzed from the neck down, he whispers: "Tell my mother I did it for my country." As his hands are held up to his face, Booth mutters "useless... useless..." They are his last words.

Apr 26 1986
44 seconds into a late-night experiment at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, reactor number four sustains two large explosions. A plume of dangerous radioactivity looms three kilometers high, making it the worst catastrophe in the history of nuclear power. The Soviet news agency TASS holds off reporting the incident for almost 48 hours.

Hartford Circus Fire

A facebook friend of mine mentioned about the Hartford Circus Fire in 1944, and it's one more event added to the list of crazy things that I've some how missed knowing about.

I found this very good blog detailing all about it, and am posting a few pictures from it along with a few other good links.

I can't believe something so bad could happen in such a way- thousands of people, of families, enjoying their fun-filled afternoon of pleasure, turning so disastourous, so.. terrorfying. I can't imagine what it was like for the survivors... The parents who lost children, children who lost parents, siblings losing their brother or their sister...

And it pisses me off more so learning that it wasn't an accident that had caused such a loss of life, it was arson.

Read this in-depth blog here...

-Paranormal investigation at the site
-More photos
- Wikipedia entry

Investigation: Air France 296

On Sunday June 26, 1988, the airclub at the airfield of Mulhouse-Habsheim in Alsace/France had organized with Air France a low approach of a brand new Airbus A320 in landing configuration. Michel Asseline was the pilot in command of F-GFKC, Pierre Mazière was his first officer, when the aircraft overflew the airfield at 2 pm in wonderful sunny weather. Some seconds later the aircraft touched the tops of the trees behind the runway and crashed into a forest. 3 passengers died in the accident and about 50 were injured. The accident was filmed by a video amateur and has been shown dozens of times on TV. F-GFKC was the first of a couple of aircraft of this type to be lost in the next few years.

The Black Boxes were taken undamaged from the aircraft 2 hours after the crash, but unfortunately they have been out of control of justice for 10 days, and since May 1998 it is proven that the Flight Data Recorder was substituted during this period. The Lausanne Institute of Police Forensic Evidence and Criminology (IPSC) comes to the conclusion that the Black Boxes used in the trial to declare the pilot guilty are NOT the ones taken from the aircraft.

The aircraft was new, Airbus was waiting for commands, a lack of confidence in the highly computerized aircraft would have meant a commercial disaster - not only for the manufacturer, but also for the French administration, which has a share in the European Airbus consortium.

(rest of article here)