Deaths
which occurred on a 26 October:
2003 US Army Pfc. Steven Acosta, 19, of
Calexico CA, serving in C Company, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment,
4th Infantry Division, in Baqubah, Iraq, from a “non-hostile”
gunshot wound.
2003 US Army Pfc. Rachel K. Bosveld, 19,
of Waupun WI, who was serving in the 527th Military Police Company, V Corps
of the US Army, after being injured during a mortar attack on the police
station in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
2003 US Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring,
40, of Fayetteville NC, after being injured during a rocket-propelled grenade
attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, which served as the US Army
Central Command forward Headquarters, to which he belonged.
2003 US Army Staff Sgt. Jamie L. Huggins,
26, of Hume MO; and Pvt. Joseph R Guerrera, 20, of Dunn
NC, both serving in C Company, 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment,
82nd Airborne Division, while on patrol is Baghdad, Iraq, when their vehicle
is hit by an improvised explosive device.
2002::
Movsar Barayev, 49 of his Chechen terrorists,
and 117 of the 870 or so hostages which they held for 58 hours
since 21:05 on 23 October, die during and after a 05:45 (01:45 UT) Russian
Spetznaz and Interior Ministry Alpha special forces assault on Moscow's
House of Culture, preceded by the pumping in of a disabling gas, which causes
the death of 116 hostages (one man dies from gunfire during the rescue)
and of some of the terrorists (others are deliberately shot in the head
while unconscious) and poisoning injuries to the surviving hostages, of
which 646 would remain hospitalized the next day, 150 of them in intensive
care. Dawn today was the deadline the Chechens had given to the Russian
government to comply with their demands of showing intention of withdrawing
the Russian aggressor and occupation troops from Chechnya. Otherwise they
threatened killing themselves and all of the hostages, of which they had
already killed one woman when she tried to escape on 23 October. They had
released some 100 hostages on 24 October and 30 on 25 October. Three of
the terrorists survive and are arrested. 18 of the dead terrorists are women,
including 3 widows of guerrilla leaders. Among the dead hostages are Fyodor
Ramtsov, about 50, a trumpet player at the theater; Leonid
Bochkov; and, among the 71 foreign hostages, Natalja Zjirov
of the Netherlands, and Sammy Brooks, 49, of Oklahoma..
2002 Two brothers and three middle-aged men, by
gunshots and machetes, in the evening, by Colombian rebels of the FARC (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), near Alban, Colombia.
2001
Gregory Glenn Biggs, White homeless man born on 16 August 1964,
by bleeding to death stuck in the windshield of the car of Chante Jawan
Mallard, Black woman born on 22 June 1976, during perhaps two hours since
she accidentally hit him at 03:00, in Fort Worth, Texas, then drove home
and parked in her garage. She ignored his pleas for help. His head and shoulders
went through the windshield on the passenger side and his legs were broken
so that he was unable to extricate himself. Clete Denel Jackson, a friend
of Mallard, and his cousin Herbert Tyrone Cleveland would remove Biggs'
dead body and dump it in Cobb Park where it would be found on 27 October
2001. In exchange for their testimony against Mallard, the two would be
allowed to plead guilty only to tampering with evidence; they would be sentenced
to prison: Jackson 10 years and Cleveland 9 years. On 26 June 2003, Mallard
would be convicted of murder and on 27 June 2003 sentenced to 50 years in
prison. Since Biggs was a teenager, he had suffered from mental illness
(at various times manic depression and schizophrenia were diagnosed). But
he married, had a son (Brandon Biggs, born in 1982) and held jobs throughout
his life. At the time of his death, he was living in a shelter and working
construction jobs as a mason. He had also been a school bus driver. He kept
in touch with his family intermittently.
2001 Abdul Haq and
a companion, hanged at Rishkore barracks near Kabul by the Taliban
who had captured them earlier in the day. Haq was a hero of the Afphan resistance
against the USSR. He was living in exile and had returned to Afghanistan
six days earlier to try to convince Afghan tribal leaders to support a US-backed
plan under which former king Mohammad Zaher Shah would convene a grand council
of all Afghan factions to organize a new government to replace the ruling
Taliban..
1998 José Cardoso Pires, novelista y matemático
portugués.
1987 Head of Salvadoran Human Rights
Comm assassinated by death squads
1984 Mark
Kac, mathematician
1983 Alfred
Tarski, mathematician
1979 Park Chung-hee
South Korean President is assassinated
1975 Joseph Fernand
Lacasse, Belgian painter born on 06 August 1894. — more
with links to two images.
1968 Vietnam:
8 US soldiers and uncounted North Viet attackers
The 1st Infantry Division troops are
attacked in Binh Long Province (III Corps), 100 km north of Saigon
near the Cambodian border. Communist forces launched a mortar, rocket,
and ground attack against Fire Support Base (FSB) Julie, 13 km west
of An Loc. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry, manned the FSB.
US B-52s conducted 22 strikes over the area in an effort to disperse
a reported massing of North Vietnamese forces. The defenders were
successful in fending off the Communist attack but eight US soldiers
were killed and 33 were wounded. |
1968 Sergi
Bernstein, mathematician
1966: 43 sailors in fire on
US aircraft carrier
A fire breaks out on board the 42'000-ton US aircraft carrier Oriskany
in the Gulf of Tonkin. The accident occurred when a locker filled
with night illumination magnesium flares burst into flame. The fire
spread quickly through most of the ship, resulting in 35 officers
and eight enlisted men killed and a further 16 injured. The loss of
life would have been much higher except for the valor of crewmen who
pushed overboard three hundred 500-pound, 1,000-pound, and 2,000-pound
bombs that lay within reach of the flames on the hangar deck. The
fire destroyed four fighter-bombers and two helicopters, but it was
brought under control after three hours. The fallen were returned
to the United States for burial. Also on this day: President Lyndon
Johnson flies to South Vietnam after attending a meeting in Manila
for a surprise two-and-a-half-hour visit with US troops at Cam Ranh.
|
1945 Aleksei
Krylov, mathematician
1942 Aircraft carrier USS
Hornet
The last US carrier manufactured before America's entry into World
War II, the CV-8 Hornet, is damaged so extensively by Japanese
war planes in the Battle of Santa Cruz that it must be abandoned.
The battle for Guadalcanal was the first American offensive against
the Japanese, an attempt to prevent the Axis power from taking yet
another island in the Solomon chain and gaining more ground in its
race for Australia.
On this
day, in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz Islands, two American naval
task forces had to stop a superior Japanese fleet, which was on its
way to Guadalcanal with reinforcements. As was the case in the Battle
of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the engagement at Santa Cruz was fought
exclusively by aircraft taking off from carriers of the respective
forces; the ships themselves were not in range to fire at one another.
Japanese aerial fire damaged the USS Enterprise, the battleship South
Dakota, and finally the Hornet. In fact, the explosions wrought by
the Japanese bombs that rained down on the Hornet were so great that
two of the Japanese bombers were themselves crippled by the blasts,
and the pilots chose to dive-bomb their planes into the deck of the
American carrier, which was finally abandoned and left to burn.
The Hornet, which displaced
20'000 tons, had seen battle during the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (its
commander at the time, Marc Mitscher, was promoted to admiral and
would be a significant player in the victory over Japan) and the battle
of Midway. While the United States losses at Santa Cruz were heavy,
the cost in aircraft to the Japanese was so extensive--more than 100,
including 25 of the 27 bombers that attacked the Hornet--that they
were unable finally to reinforce their troops at Guadalcanal, paving
the way for an American victory.
Another Hornet, the CV-12, would be launched August 30, 1943,
and spend 52 days under Japanese attack in many battles in the Pacific,
with no appreciable damage, until June 1945 when it was damaged by
a typhoon. |
1923 Ruggero Panerai, Italian artist born on 19 March 1862.
1909 Prince Ito Hirobumi, born on 02 September 1841, president
of the senate, retired general who had been the 1st, 5th, 7th, and 10th
Prime Minister of Japan (22Dec1885-30Apr1888, 08Aug1892-31Aug1896, 12Jan1898-30Jun1898,
18Oct1900-10May1901), assassinated by Korean Ahn Jung Guhn (or An
Joong-Gun) [1879 – 26 Mar 1910], in the Harbin train station,
where Ito was arriving for a meeting with Russian envoy General Kokotseff.
An Joong-Gun was avenging the 04 September 1909 treaty by which Japan gave
to China the Korean territory of Kondo, in return for the
right to build a branch line to the Southern Manchurian Railway to exploit
the mineral resources of Manchuria; and the 19 November 1905 secret Protectorate
Treaty, by which the Korean government had accepted Japanese occupation
headed by Ito.
1902 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, US abolitionist and women's
rights activist, born on 12 November 1815.
1881 Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury,
and Billy Clanton, in gunfight near the OK Corral
A vacant lot near the O.K. Corral
in Tombstone, Arizona territory, is scene of the most notorious gunfight
in the history of the American West. Tombstone was a rough mining
town that had sprung up out of the Arizona desert in 1877 after a
prospector named Ed Schieffelin discovered silver in the wilds of
Arizona's Goose Flats. In the Old West, mining prosperity walked hand-in-hand
with drunkenness, gambling, and gang rivalry, and Tombstone was no
exception.
By 1881, a dangerous
rivalry had developed between two groups: the Earp brothers, featuring
US deputy marshal Virgil Earp and his two hot-headed brothers, Wyatt
and Morgan, and the Clanton-McLaury gang, a group of rustlers and
horse thieves. After Wyatt's horse was stolen, and the Earps began
associating with John "Doc" Holliday, a drunken dentist and feared
gunman who verbally abused the Clanton-McLaury gang and cheated two
Clanton boys at cards, the tension came to a head.
In the afternoon of 26 October Ike and Billy Clanton, Billy Clairborne,
and Tom and Frank McLaury gather on the corner of Fremont Street up
the block from the O.K. Corral. All of the gang except Ike and Frank
are clearly armed, ignoring the city ordinance banning firearms within
city limits. Virgil Earp, watching from down the street, deputizes
his two brothers and Doc Holliday, and together they march up the
street to confront their rivals. After Virgil demands that they give
up their guns, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton reach for their pistols,
and Wyatt opens fire at Frank, whom he regards as a deadly shot. A
split-second later Billy starts firing at Wyatt, and a moment after
that, everyone is shooting. When the smoke clears less than a minute
later, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton are dead, Virgil
Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday are injured--shot in the calf,
shoulder, and thigh respectively--and Wyatt Earp is untouched. Ike
Clanton, who turned and ran to the O.K. Corral when the shooting commenced,
is also unscathed. The Earps and Holliday are called to court, but
they are protected by their deputy status and the shooting is deemed
justified. |
1868 B F Randolph SC state senator, assassinated
1868 White terrorists kill several blacks in St Bernard
Parish La
1864 "Bloody Bill" Anderson,
Reb guerilla, in ambush.
Notorious Confederate guerrilla leader William "Bloody Bill" Anderson
is killed in Missouri in an ambush. Born in Kentucky in 1839, Anderson
grew up in Missouri and moved to Kansas in 1857. Arriving to settle
on his father's land claim east of Council Grove, he was soon enmeshed
in the bitter fight over slavery that gave the area the nickname "Bleeding
Kansas." Before the war, he trafficked stolen horses and escorted
wagon trains along the Santa Fe Trail. When the war broke out, Anderson
joined an antislavery, pro-Union band of guerillas known as "Jayhawkers."
He soon switched sides and joined a band of pro-Confederate "Bushwhackers."
In the partisan warfare of Kansas and Missouri, these groups were
often more interested in robbery, looting, and personal gain than
advancement of a political cause.
Anderson's father was killed in a dispute in 1862. Anderson and his
brother Jim gunned down the killer and then moved the family back
to western Missouri. Anderson became the head of a band ranging from
30 to 40 guerillas, and his activities cast a shadow of suspicion
over the rest of his family. The Union commander along the border,
General Thomas Ewing, arrested several wives and sisters of a notorious
band, led by William Quantrill, that was terrorizing and murdering
Union sympathizers. While Anderson commanded his own band, he often
collaborated with Quantrill's larger force. As a result, the group
Ewing arrested also included three of Anderson's sisters, who were
imprisoned in a temporary Union jail in Kansas City. On August 14,
the structure collapsed, killing Anderson's 14-year-old sister Josephine
and injuring his two other sisters. Quantrill assembled 450 men to
exact revenge against the abolitionist community of Lawrence, Kansas.
On August 21, the band killed 150 residents and burned much of the
town. Anderson was credited with 14 murders that day.
Anderson went to Texas that winter, got married, and returned to Missouri
in 1864 with a band of about 50 fighters. Anderson embarked on a summer
of violence, leading his group on a campaign that killed hundreds
and caused extensive damage. The climax came on September 27 when
Anderson's gang joined with several others to pillage the town of
Centralia, Missouri. When more than 100 Union soldiers pursued them,
the guerillas ambushed and massacred the entire detachment. Just a
month later, Anderson's band was caught in a Union ambush outside
of Albany, Missouri, and Anderson was killed by two bullets to his
head. The body of the "blood-drenched savage," as he became known
in the area, was placed on public display. Anderson kept a rope to
record his killings, and there were 54 knots in it at the time of
his death. |
1817 Aida,
mathematician.
1811 Georg Karl Urlaub, German artist
born on 03 October 1749.
1764 William Hogarth, British painter and etcher born on
10 November. — MORE
ON HOGARTH AT ART “4” OCTOBER
with links to images.
1700 Armand Jean Bouthillier de Rancé, religioso
francés, fundador de la Orden de la Trapa.
1676 Nathaniel
Bacon,
in rebellion against governor Berkeley of colonial Virginia, abruptly
dies of the "Bloodie Flux" and "Lousey Disease" (body lice).
1608
Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Spanish painter born in 1553. — more
with links to images.
1440 Gilles de
Rais, 36 ans, étranglé par justice au dessus des ponts
de Nantes.
Le maréchal
Gilles de Rais (ou de Retz) est pendu et brûlé. Ce riche et puissant
seigneur de la région de Nantes né vers 1404 a accompagné Jeanne d'Arc
dans la lutte contre les Anglais. Au sacre de Charles VII à Reims,
il a figuré à la gauche du roi, Jeanne étant à sa droite. Le soir
du sacre, il a été nommé maréchal de France. Disgrâcié après l'échec
du siège de Paris, Gilles de Rais s'est enfermé dans ses terres de
Machecoul et Tiffauges. Dilapidant sa fortune et assouvissant ses
pulsions sado-pédérastiques, il commet des meurtres horribles sur
environ 140 garçonnets de sa région. Confondu suite à la plainte de
certains débiteurs, il est jugé et exécuté avec deux complices. Gilles
de Rais a inspiré la légende de Barbe Bleue.
Anatole France dans Les
sept femmes de la Barbe-Bleue et autres contes merveilleux:
"il faut rappeler qu'un savant
bibliothécaire d'Agen, Jean-Baptiste Pérès, démontra, en 1817, d'une
façon très spécieuse, que Napoléon n'avait jamais existé et que l'histoire
de ce prétendu grand capitaine n'était qu'un mythe solaire. En dépit
des jeux d'esprit les plus ingénieux, on ne saurait douter que la
Barbe-Bleue et Napoléon n'aient réellement existé.
Une hypothèse qui n'est pas mieux fondée
consiste à identifier cette Barbe-Bleue avec le maréchal de Rais,
.... Sans rechercher avec M. Salomon Reinach si le maréchal commit
tous les crimes pour lesquels il fut condamné ou si ses richesses,
convoitées par un prince avide, ne contribuèrent point à sa perte,
rien dans sa vie ne ressemble à ce qu'on trouve dans celle de la Barbe-Bleue
; c'en est assez pour ne pas les confondre et pour ne pas faire de
l'un et de l'autre un seul personnage.” |
0901 King Alfred the Great |
On
a 26 October: 
