Almanac for March 20th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 20th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-20-Vernal-Equinox-J3J4JN5BV

Today's Observance: First Day of Spring (Northern Hemisphere); First Day of Autumn (Southern Hemisphere)

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Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Ovid

Artist Birthdays: Maggie Estep and Henrik Ibsen

• The Chapel Hill Weekly (N.C.), February 19, 1926

Beatles Trivia
March 20, 1969: As chronicled in “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in the then-British territory of Gibraltar, near Spain.

Bummer March 20th

March 20, 1760: The Great Boston Fire of 1760 destroys 349 buildings, leaving 220 families homeless.

March 20, 1964: Poet, novelist, and folk hero Brendan Behan, considered one of the all-time greatest Irish literary talents, dies at the age of 41 after collapsing into a diabetic coma in the street.

March 20, 1995: Hoping to overthrow the Japanese government and hasten the end of the world, doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo releases toxic gas onto three subway lines during rush hour. They sicken more than 5,000 people and kill 12.

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Almanac for March 19th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 19th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-19-Lithograph-E1E7JJJ9I

Artist Birthday: William Allingham

The March 19, 1926 Milwaukee Leader

Bummer March 19th

March 19, 1958: A fire at the Monarch Underwear Company in Manhattan, New York City, kills 24 people and injures 15. The garment factory did not have fire sprinklers or fireproof partitions, and workers did not practice fire drills.

March 19, 1965: Chicago Cubs radio play-by-play sportscaster Jack Quinlan, age 38, is killed in a car accident on his way home from a golf game.

March 19, 1982: In a stunning act of bad judgment, Ozzy Osbourne’s tour bus driver Andrew Aycock borrows a private plane without permission. He takes guitarist Randy Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood aboard; Rhoads wants to take some aerial photos for his mother. 

Unwisely, Aycock attempts to “buzz” the tour bus with the small plane. The plane’s wing clips the top of the bus and snaps in two, causing Aycock to lose control of the plane. The heads of Rhoads and Youngblood are forced through the plane’s windshield. The plane crashes into a pine tree and then into the garage of a nearby home, killing all three people aboard.

March 19, 1990: 24-year-old Andrew Wood, an independent rock musician whose sound was formative to the Seattle grunge scene, is taken off life support and dies in the hospital. He’s been found unresponsive on March 16th after an apparently accidental heroin overdose.

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Almanac for March 18th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 18th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-18-Sense-and-Sensibility-and-Sea-Monsters-R6R8JJI8A

Bummer March 18th

March 18, 1937: The accidental ignition of natural gas used for heating causes the New London elementary school in New London, Texas, to explode. Approximately 300 teachers and students are killed. An equal number suffer non-fatal injuries.

March 18, 1996: Fire breaks out inside the Ozone Disco club in Quezon City, Philippines, which is filled to over-capacity with many young people celebrating the end of the school year. 95 people are injured and 162 people die. The emergency exit is blocked by the newly-built building next door to the club. 

March 18, 2009: Actor Natasha Richardson dies of injuries she has sustained in a fall while taking a beginner ski lesson in Quebec. She is 45 years old.

March 18, 2018: The first human being to be killed by a self-driving car, Elaine Herzberg, is struck by a self-driving car with a human safety monitor sitting in the passenger seat. Herzberg had been walking her bicycle across the street when the car struck her. The safety monitor was charged with negligent homicide since she was not looking at the road until seconds before the collision and did not have her hands near the steering wheel ready to take control. 

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Almanac for March 17th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 17th: https://ko-fi.com/Post/March-17-St-Patricks-Day-P5P51C8INM

Today's Observance: St. Patrick's Day

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Harps
Vintage St. Paddy's Day at Aurora's Gin Joint blog: https://aurorasginjoint.com/2017/03/17/friday-foto-follies-vintage-st-paddys-day/

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Bummer March 17th

March 17, 1997: Musician Jermaine Stewart, who had a top 10 pop hit in the U.S. with “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off,” dies at the age of 39 from AIDS-related liver cancer.

March 17, 2010: Musician Alex Chilton dies of a heart attack. He has been feeling unwell for about two weeks, but decides not to seek medical attention since he doesn’t have health insurance. He’s 59 years old. 

March 17, 2018: 38-year-old aerialist Yann Arnaud falls to his death while performing in a Cirque de Soleil show. His approximately 20-foot fall is witnessed by the audience.

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Almanac for March 16th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 16th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-16-Men-Without-Hats-U7U5JJ95F

Bummer March 16th

March 16, 1926: 66-year-old Henry Kraft of Milwaukee dies of his injuries after being crushed by the elevator he had been oiling. 

March 16, 1970: Mary Ann Ganser, one of the original members of the girl group The Shangri-Las, dies of a drug overdose at the age of 22.

March 16, 2009: Nicholas Hughes, the 46-year-old son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, dies by suicide. According to his sister Frieda, Hughes struggled with depression. Frieda was two years old and Nicholas one year old when their mother died by suicide. 

March 16, 1926 Washington (D.C.) Evening Star

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Almanac for March 15th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 15th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-15-Beware-the-Ides-of-March-A0A2JIAMG

Today's Observance: The Ides of March

Bummer March 15th

March 15, 1937: H.P. Lovecraft dies of cancer of the small intestine at age 46.

March 15, 1982: A man from Scotland becomes obsessed with American actress Theresa Saldana after seeing her in Raging Bull. He calls the actress’s mother to obtain Saldana’s personal address, posing as a casting agent. After doing so he arrives at the actress’s home in West Hollywood and attacks her with a hunting knife, stabbing her in the chest and puncturing her lung. Saldana survives the attack and becomes an advocate for other crime victims.

March 15, 1999: 25-year-old Charemon Jonovich, who is dating actor Robert Pastorelli (the two have a daughter together), dies of a gunshot wound to the head at the actor’s home in Hollywood. Pastorelli is questioned and testifies that while he and Jonovich were arguing, she pulled a gun from her handbag and shot herself. 

At the time of Pastorelli’s death of a morphine overdose in 2004, Jonovich’s death was classified as a homicide and investigators were planning to re-interview him about the circumstances of her shooting. It remains unclear whether she died by suicide, manslaughter, or accident.

On the same day, Ferris State University (Michigan) student Stephen Petz dies of alcohol intoxication after a Knights of College Leadership fraternity event in which Petz consumes 27 shots of alcoholic drinks.

Almanac for March 14th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 14th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-14-Pi-Day-3-14-M4M5JHOIZ

Today's Observance: Pi Day (3.14)

Bummer March 14th

March 14, 1977: Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, age 59, dies of breast cancer complicated by hypertension. Earlier in her life, Hamer had been forcibly sterilized without her knowledge or consent as part of a racist eugenics movement.

March 14, 1989: University of Texas at Austin student Mark James Kilroy, age 21, is kidnapped from Tamaulipas, Mexico, where he had gone for spring break. His abductors, led by Adolfo Constanzo and Sara Aldrete, belonged to an occult group that believed human sacrifice would grant them protection against law enforcement pursuing them for their drug trafficking activities. Kilroy is tortured for hours before being killed with a machete. 

His body is recovered along with the remains of 14 other young men who were similarly victims of human sacrifice. Although widely reported in the U.S. media as a “Satanic” murder, the group was not self-identified with the Christian conception of Satan, but rather a combination of a criminal gang with loose associations to folk religions of the Americas, including Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Caribbean religion familiar to Constanzo through his Cuban heritage.

March 14, 1991: Composer Howard Ashman, age 40, dies of complication of AIDS. He had been working on the music for the Disney animated movie The Little Mermaid and did not live to see the completed version of the film.

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