This day in history

History is pretty cool, Eugene. I think I'm going to like this thread a lot. Thanks

February 15, 1933

The death penalty--then and now
Giuseppe Zangara shoots Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, in Miami, Florida. Zangara's shots missed President-elect Franklin Roosevelt, who was with Cermak at the time. Cermak was seriously wounded and died on March 6.

Immediately after Mayor Cermak died from the gunshot wounds, Zangara was indicted and arraigned for murder. He pled guilty and died in the electric chair on March 20, only two weeks after Cermak died. Today such a swift outcome would be practically unheard of, particularly where the death penalty is concerned.

Changes began in the 1950s. In the most notable case, Caryl Chessman spent almost 12 years on California's death row before going to the gas chamber in 1960 for kidnapping. His appeals kept him alive while he wrote three published books and caught the attention of Hollywood and the international community, who lobbied publicly on his behalf. The Chessman battle did more than any other case to politicize the death penalty; some credit it with bringing Ronald Reagan (who fiercely opposed commuting Chessman's sentence) to office as California's governor. Chessman was one of the last Americans to be executed for committing a crime other than murder.

Such cases have become commonplace in modern times. Jerry Joe Bird met his demise through a lethal injection in Texas in 1991, after 17 years on death row. In 1999, two inmates who had been on death row for 20 years appealed to the Supreme Court that the long delay itself was cruel and unusual punishment. The Court declined to hear their appeal, ruling that the prisoners had caused the delay themselves.

What's it like in other countries? Then and now?

February 16
1998 - Mr Jefferson, Virginia, 1st cloned calf

February 18
1516 Mary Tudor, the queen of England popularly known as "Bloody Mary," was born in Greenwich Palace.

1933 - Yoko Ono
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1DHm7p1sm4
1954 - John Travolta, Englewood NJ, actor
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/279477/john_travolta_cool_dance/( John Travolta & Uma Thurman)
1960 Cybill Shepherd, actress

February 19
1473 The astronomer Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Thanks, Eugene. Good stuff.

February 20
Gloria Laura Morgan Vanderbilt (born , 1924) is an American artist, actress, heiress, and socialite most noted as an early developer of designer blue jeans. She is a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family of New York and mother of CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Don't my jeans look great, poor little rich girl ".
1966 - Cindy Crawford, Dekalb Ill, super model (Sports Illustrated Swimsuit)

1967 - Kurt Cobain, rock vocalist (Nirvana)/husband of Courtney Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZpgLNkcQE4

Thanks, Eugene. I wish you could have told him to keep passing the open windows.

AD
February 21 (Birthday on this Day)
1927 - Hubert de Givenchy, Beauvais France, fashion designer (Audrey Hepburn)

Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself. (Hubert de Givenchy)

Audrey Hepburn, wearing a gown designed by Hubert de Givenchy
Sabrina, 1954

February 22 (Birthday on this day)
1944 - Jonathan Demme, Baldwin NY, actor/director (Caged Heat, Swing Shift)

I only work with actors who take full responsibility for their characters.
Jonathan Demme
When Silence of the Lambs did well commercially it was more than anything. My partner Ed Saxon and I were just so relieved that finally we had made a movie that had made some money!
Jonathan Demme

Happy Birthday!!

February 25

1943 - George Harrison was born



PS
1751 - 1st performing monkey exhibited in America, NYC (admission 1 cent)
1998 - Switzerland's 1st legal brothel opens in Zurich

Didn't know this about Switzerland... legal?

February 25, 1983
Tennessee Williams, American playwright, died.

Great playwright! I love his plays.

Claudia wrote:Didn't know this about Switzerland... legal?

1st legal .....

Claudia wrote:February 25, 1983
Tennessee Williams, American playwright, died.

Great playwright! I love his plays.

Me too. I would love to be able to write like him.

March 5
1558 - Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes


Spanish explorers in Mexico found the Aztecs smoking crushed tobacco leaves in corn husks. Tobacco reached the European continent at least as early as 1558, when a Spanish physician named Francisco Fernandes, sent to the New World by King Philip II to report on its products, brought back some plants and seeds. The following year, Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal, sent tobacco seeds to the French court of Catherine de Medici. The queen reported that tobacco cured her of crippling headaches, and she immortalized Nicot by proclaiming the new plant Nicotiana, a name recognizable in our word for tobacco’s most baleful element, nicotine.


1953 - Josef V Stalin, soviet leader responsible for 11M murders, dies at 73

Eugene wrote:

1953 - Josef V Stalin, soviet leader responsible for 11M murders, dies at 73

Yep, but the weed lives on and is responsible for how many deaths...

March 10.
Born: 1958 - Sharon Stone, Meadville Pa, actress (Basic Instinct, Sliver, Casino)

March 22
1903-Niagera Falls runs out of water because of a drought

March 23
1839 - 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] (Boston's Morning Post)


Okay, OK, O.K., Oh Kay, Oki (Doki), Okey (Dokey), Oky (Doky), Kay, Mk, or simply K

Gotcha. Roger, Wilco, and out.

Over, Read, Copy...

March 29

1798 - Republic of Switzerland forms

1986 - Beatle records officially go on sale in USSR ( Yeah, it's true! never too late)