A Brief History On July 23, 1943, an English lad of 19 had enough of his disabled dad’s abuse and blew up the 47 year old in his bath chair.  The incident, famous in Britain as the Rayleigh Bath Chair Murder, has to be one of the first and perhaps only incident where someone killed their dad with an anti-tank bomb, thereby arguably meriting a ranking on our list of unusual deaths! Digging Deeper Archibald Brown lost the use of his legs at age 24 due to a motorcycle wreck and was confined to a wheeled “bath chair.”  Although he was…

A Brief History On July 22, 2011, a deranged Norwegian right-wing Islamophobic paranoid schizophrenic conducted a bombing and a mass shooting, Norway’s worst attacks since World War II.  A total of 77 people were killed, and over 300 wounded. Digging Deeper Anders Breivik, a 32 year old extremist had been plotting a terrorist event for years, and was a regular visitor on right wing extreme websites, notably some emanating from the US.  He had gone to Prague to buy guns, even though he already owned a shot gun and a rifle, but failed to purchase any there.  He returned to…

A Brief History On July 22, 2014, Franka Potente celebrated her 40th birthday. This German actress, probably unknown to most American movie viewers, has appeared in a few relatively significant English-speaking roles. Digging Deeper The following article will also name other relative unknowns as well as great movie stars in a concise reference list. The glue that binds them together is the fact that they were all born German-speaking in either Germany, Austria or Switzerland and later starred in English or American movies. For the purposes of this article, neither American actresses born to German parents, such as Kirsten Dunst…

A Brief History On July 19th, 1966, Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow wed. As many had predicted, they ended up having a short and unhappy marriage. Their relationship with each other as divorcés, however, was exceptionally amicable, as brought to light 45 years later. On the basis of three different examples, this article will look at couples who experienced, or in one case, are still experiencing, an amicable post-divorce period. Digging Deeper Amicable is derived from French and basically means “friendly” or “agreeable”. The term amicable divorce is usually one given to divorcing couples who manage to avoid a type…

A Brief History On July 16, 1439, the Parliament of King Henry VI of England issued a proclamation banning kissing. Digging Deeper This ban of something we now think of as being so personal was in response to yet another outbreak of plague. This particular plague was probably not the bubonic plague which caused an epidemic known as the Black Death in which entire populations were wiped out. In those years, the word “plague” was a general term used to describe any infectious malady that spread rampantly. So, was the Government getting involved in the personal matter of affection between…