Browsing: December 30

A Brief History On December 30, 2006, former dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was hanged in a gruesome execution that nearly severed his head from his body.  In the aftermath of the terror attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the US alleged Iraqi involvement with those attacks and by 2003 the US led a coalition of nations in an invasion of Iraq, eventually arresting Hussein in December of 2003, with the newly installed Iraqi government executing the reviled dictator 3 years later.  Many national leaders have been executed throughout history, usually by their own people.  Today, we…

A Brief History On December 30, 1970, former heavyweight boxing champion Charles L. “Sonny” Liston lay dead on the bedroom floor of his Las Vegas home.  There he would stay until his wife found his dead body on January 5, 1971, almost a week later.  Officially, the Coroner said heart failure (your heart always fails when you die, just sayin’) and lung congestion.  The body was already somewhat decomposed, making definitive analysis of cause of death difficult, and rumors started almost immediately. Digging Deeper Liston had won the heavyweight championship by beating Floyd Patterson in 1962 at the age of…

A Brief History On December 30, 1999, 56 year old former Beatle George Harrison was attacked in his own home by a stranger, later identified as Michael Abram, age 36.  Harrison was stabbed more than 40 times in the head and body, and suffered a punctured lung.  All that kept Harrison from being killed was his heroic wife, Olivia, who disabled Abram by beating him with a poker and a lamp. Digging Deeper Harrison had already been diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997, and later died of lung and brain cancer in 2001, something he attributed to his long habit…

A Brief History On December 30, 1813, during the War of 1812, arson-happy British troops set the small city of Buffalo, New York ablaze as a means of punishing the upstart Americans.  Less than a year later, the British also ignited Washington D.C., the nation’s capital. Digging Deeper In fact, the British threated to burn towns down in an effort to extract ransoms from the townsfolk in exchange for not torching the buildings.  In this case, however, perhaps the British ire was somewhat justified because it was the U.S. that had declared war on Great Britain in the first place.  Of course, there…

A Brief History On December 30, 1977, serial killer Ted Bundy escaped from jail and went on to continue his killing spree. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find this murderous psychopath had actually escaped once before!  In June of 1977, having been jailed for assault and kidnapping (getting a sentence of only 1 to 15 years) Bundy was facing a murder charge and escaped from a window at the courthouse in Aspen, Colorado, running free for 6 days before being recaptured. The second escape was from an actual jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado despite possibly only having to serve a…