Browsing: February 11

A Brief History On February 11, 2001, the “Anna Kournikova Virus” was set loose by a Dutch computer troll, infecting the email of millions of users with a joke image of the eponymous tennis player along with a not so funny virus infecting their computers. Digging Deeper Anna, of course, had nothing to do with the computer plague that bears her name, and today we look at a few other unfortunately named items. Firstly, any disease or bad medical condition.  Examples would be Parkinson’s, Graves’, Alzheimer’s, Hodgkin’s, Crohn’s, or Down Syndrome. Sadism and Masochism are also both named after people!…

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A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 11th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 11, 1812, Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts, was accused of manipulating voting districts in a bizarre, uneven way in order to tailor voting demographics to suit his own political benefit. On February 11, 1823, a tragedy occurred at the Carnival celebration mass at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, in what was then the British Crown Colony…

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A Brief History On February 11, 1990, Iron Mike Tyson went into his match against James “Buster” Douglas as a 42 to 1 favorite.  Not only did Tyson, undefeated and undisputed as the Heavyweight Champion at the time, lose the fight, he was knocked out in the 10th round! Digging Deeper While Douglas’s surprise victory is largely considered the biggest upset in boxing history at any weight class, some of the other major heavyweight upsets include: James “The Cinderella Man” Braddock over Max Baer, 1935 Max Schmeling’s knockout of Joe Louis in 1936 Muhammad Ali’s knockout of Sonny Liston in…

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A Brief History On February 11, 2006, the sitting Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, accidentally shot his hunting buddy, Harry Whittington, while on a managed Quail hunt.  Although the birdshot loaded in Cheney’s shotgun is not particularly lethal to humans except at extremely close range, Whittington was grievously wounded when one of the tiny lead pellets went all the way to his heart, nearly killing him.  This shocking incident is but one of many accidental shootings that have happened over the years, sometimes embarrassing and sometimes deadly.  Today we look at a few of the accidental shootings…

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A Brief History On February 11, 1823, a tragedy occurred at the Carnival celebration mass at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, in what was then the British Crown Colony of Malta.  Also referred to as the Carnival Tragedy of 1823, 110 boys were crushed to death in a rush to leave the church after celebrating a Carnival related bread ceremony.  Previously we have discussed disasters and tragedies related to religious events or gatherings, and today we take a look back on the sad events on Malta in 1823. Digging Deeper The Island of Malta is an independent…

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