Aging dictator of Cuba, one of the few remaining Communist countries
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Martin Scorsese
Finally wins an Oscar for Best Director after directing among others:
- The Departed
- The Aviator
- Gangs of New York
- Casino
- Cape Fear
- Goodfellas
- Last Temptation of Christ
- The Color of Money
- Raging Bull
- The Last Waltz
- Taxi Driver
Camilla Parker Bowles
Prince Charles long-time partner, now his second wife. Considering to be one of the reasons for the breakup of his marriage to Princess Diana
Lisa Marie Nowak
American astronaut and captain in the United States Navy. She became an astronaut for NASA in 1996 and qualified as a mission specialist in robotics. Nowak flew her first mission into space onboard the Space Shuttle during mission STS-121 in July 2006. She was responsible for operating the robotic arms of the shuttle and the International Space Station.
On February 5, 2007 Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Florida and subsequently charged with the attempted murder of U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak was released on bail, pleaded "not guilty" to the charges and requested a trial by jury.
The Orlando Police said Nowak had disguised herself during the assault by wearing a hooded tan trench coat and black wig and, along with the BB gun, was carrying a four-inch folding buck knife, a new steel mallet, black gloves, rubber tubing, plastic garbage bags and about US$600 in cash. In her statement to police, Nowak said she wanted to talk to Shipman and discuss their relationships with Oefelein. When asked if she thought the pepper spray was going to help her talking with Shipman, she replied, "That was stupid." During a search of Nowak's car parked at a motel, the police found a letter written by Nowak which they said "indicated how much Mrs. Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein," along with latex gloves, opened packages for both a buck knife and pepper spray, an unused BB cartridge, handwritten directions to Shipman's house, copies of e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, and diapers.[13] The astronaut explained she had used the latter during the 900-mile (1400-km) drive from her home in Houston, Texas to Orlando so she did not have to stop to urinate (U.S. shuttle astronauts wear specially designed diapers during launch and re-entry).
Anna Nicole Smith
Smith began her show business career as an exotic dancer/stripper in Houston, Texas. She first gained nationwide attention when she appeared on the cover of the March 1992 issue of Playboy magazine wearing a low-cut white evening gown. She then gained immense popularity as Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year.
Her highly publicized marriage to oil business executive and billionaire J. Howard Marshall, 63 years her senior, resulted in speculation that she married the octogenarian for his money, which she denied. Following his death, she began a lengthy legal battle over a share of his estate; her case, Marshall v. Marshall, reached the U.S. Supreme Court on a question of federal jurisdiction.
Vietnam Protests
Vietnam Bhuddhist monks protest the Vietnam War in Saigon
Self-immolation, whilst not tolerated in anything but extraordinary circumstances by Buddhism and Hinduism, was practiced by religious or philosophical monks, especially in India, throughout the ages, for various reasons, including political protest, devotion, renouncement, etc.
Vietnam Photo - Pulitzer Prize
Huynh Cong Út, also known as Nick Ut (born March 29, 1951) is a photographer for the Associated Press (AP) who works out of Los Angeles. Perhaps his best known photo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, who was photographed as a naked 9 year old girl running toward the camera to flee a napalm attack near Trang Bang during the Vietnam War.
Babe Ruth
Most famous baseball player of its early years.
The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition cited, often jokingly, as a reason for the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series after they sold Babe Ruth, sometimes called The Bambino, to the New York Yankees. The flip side of the curse was New York's success—after the sale, the once-lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports. While some fans took the Curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
John Riggins
Riggins played in Super Bowl XVII and Super Bowl XVIII for the Redskins, in tandem with quarterback Joe Theismann and Washington's legendary offensive line known collectively as "The Hogs." He had 38 carries for 166 yards and a touchdown along with a 15-yard reception in Super Bowl XVII, becoming the game MVP.
The key play in the game featured Riggins at his best. With 10 minutes remaining in Super Bowl XVII and the Redskins trailing the Miami Dolphins 17-13, Riggins took a handoff on 4th-and-inches, broke an attempted tackle by Dolphin cornerback Don McNeal and rumbled down the left sideline, and past a stunned Dolphins' bench, for a 43-yard touchdown that gave Washington a 20-17 lead. The Redskins would tack on another score late in the game to clinch a 27-17 triumph, the Redskins' first world championship since 1942.
Oklahoma City Bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a U.S. government office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In the carnage 168 people died and over 800 were injured. It is the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States and was the deadliest act of terrorism within U.S. borders until September 11, 2001.
Nuremberg
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1946, at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
Ironically, this is the city I would love to take all of you to during December.
Munich
On 5 September Palestinian terrorists from the Black September terrorist group held 9 Israeli athletes hostage and killed 2 other athletes in their apartment. A subsequent siege of the building in the Olympic village lasted for almost 18 hours. During a failed rescue attempt at the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck all the Israeli hostages were massacred by their captors and all but three of the terrorists were killed. All Olympic events were briefly suspended but Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president, decided that "the Games must go on" and they were continued a day later. The events of the Munich massacre were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September, and a fictional account of the aftermath was dramatized in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich.
Marian Anderson
In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The District of Columbia Board of Education declined a request to use the auditorium of a white public high school. As a result of the furor which followed, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned.
At the suggestion of Walter White, then the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes organized an open air concert for Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert, commencing with a dignified and stirring rendition of "America" attracted a crowd of more 75,000 of all colours and was a sensation with a national radio audience.
MacArthur Returns
MacArthur reached Mindanao on March 13, and boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber three days later; on 17 March, he arrived at Batchelor Airfield in Australia's Northern Territory, and took the Ghan railway through the Australian outback to Adelaide. His famous speech, in which he said "I came out of Bataan and I shall return", was made at Terowie, South Australia on March 20.
Allied forces under MacArthur's command landed at Leyte Island , on October 20, 1944, fulfilling MacArthur's vow to return to the Philippines.
Kennedy Funeral
Daughter Caroline, wife Jackie, and son John Jr. "John John"; in the back row is Ted Kennedy (currently U.S. Senator from MA) to the left and Robert Kennedy (later assassinated while running for President) to the right; November 1963
Jim Ryan
In 1966, at age nineteen, Jim Ryun set the world record in both the mile and the half-mile runs, and received Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award, as well as the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete and was vote Track & Field New’s Athlete of the Year as the world’s best track & field athlete.
Established the high school and US open mile record 3:55.3 as a senior in 1965, a record that stood as the high school record for 36 years until broken by Alan Webb’s (from South Lakes High School) 3:53.43 in 2001.
James Meredith
On October 1, 1962, he became the first black student at the University of Mississippi after being barred from entering on September 20. His enrollment, opposed by Governor Ross Barnett, sparked riots on the Oxford campus, which required federal troops and U.S. Marshals, which were sent by President John F. Kennedy. The riots led to a violent clash which left two people dead, 48 soldiers injured and 30 U.S. Marshals with gun wounds. His actions are regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of civil rights. He graduated on August 18, 1963.
He led a civil rights march, the March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi in 1966 and was wounded by sniper Aubrey James Norvell on June 6. The photograph of Meredith after being shot won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1967.
Day the Music Died
In the early morning of February 3, 1959, after a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the small four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza took off from the Mason City airport during a blinding snow storm and crashed into Albert Juhl’s corn field several miles after takeoff at 1:05 a.m. Richardson got the ticket from Waylon Jennings who was supposed to have that seat. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. In his 1971 hit song "American Pie," Don McLean referred to this event as "The Day the Music Died". The label has stuck.
Greensboro (NC) Sit-ins
(following from Wikipedia) - On February 1, 1960, four African American students (Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain) from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College sat down at a segregated lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter, sparking off sit-ins and economic boycotts that were a landmark of the American civil rights movement.As they sat at the counter they were spit on, had drinks poured on them, and worst of all they were beaten. In just two months the sit-in movement spread to 54 cities in 9 states. Six months after the sit-ins began, the original four protesters were served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Sit-ins would be effective throughout the South in integrating other public facilities.
Winston Churchill
British Prime Minister during WW II - kept up morale as London was heavily bombed by Germany
Olympics Protest
Tommie Smith and John Carlos protest to bring attention to civil rights issues - Summer Olympics, Mexico, 1968
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