Browsing: Crime

A Brief History On February 22, 1974, President Richard Nixon was the target of a failed assassination attempt.  Failed attempts at presidential assassinations are numerous, including the first, in 1835, when President Andrew Jackson beat the would be assassin senseless with his cane, after the assassin’s pistol misfired. Digging Deeper An assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt after he left the White House left the macho ex-president with a bullet in his chest for life, but that did not stop him from delivering his scheduled speech moments later.  In fact, the folded-up speech in TR’s pocket may have saved his life,…

A Brief History On February 8, 1983, a successful Irish racehorse, Shergar, was kidnapped for ransom, a crime that resulted in the killing of the swift steed that had been enjoying life as a stud. Digging Deeper Born, or foaled as they say in the horse world, in 1978, Shergar had a successful racing career that made him a prime candidate to become a stud horse, which he became in October of 1981, serving his time as a stud in Ireland rather than accepting a large contract to move to the US. Three armed gunmen invaded the home of Shergar’s…

A Brief History On January 25, 2019, the people of Brumadinho, Brazil, found out how dam failure can be a catastrophe when a mining dam broke and 270 people were killed.  The same mining company previously had a dam fail in 2015, at Mariana, Brazil, killing 19 people, far fewer than some other major dam failures. Digging Deeper In the US, the worst dam failure as far as human fatalities, was the South Fork Dam failure in Pennsylvania in 1889, an earthen dam overwhelmed by heavy rains that killed 2,208 people. This dam had failed before!  Another US earthen dam…

A Brief History On January 18, 1671, Welsh privateer and later the namesake of Captain Morgan Rum, Henry Morgan, began his expedition to Panama, also known historically as “The Sack of Panama.” Digging Deeper The assault on the Spanish city of Panama on the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Panama took place overland, with Morgan and his buccaneers marching from the Atlantic side cross country to seize the important Central American city.  Morgan first took over the Spanish Fort San Lorenzo on the East Coast before setting off for Panama City. With a total of about 1,800 men and…

A Brief History On January 17, 1977, an otherwise unremarkable murderer, Gary Gilmore, became famous when he was executed by firing squad by the State of Utah.  Gilmore, born Faye Robert Coffman, was the first person executed in the United States after nearly a decade long hiatus mandated by the US Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972 that held capital punishment as practiced in the US was “cruel and unusual.” Digging Deeper Gilmore was notable for insisting on being executed, and for demanding that he face a firing squad of five police officers armed with 30-30 caliber…