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[GermanStar]

Jul 2 1881
President James A. Garfield is shot in a train station by Charles Julius Guiteau, a lunatic trying to become ambassador either to Austria or France. Garfield lingers for three months before finally dying.

Jul 2 1937
Attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane, Amelia Earhart disappears over the Pacific with her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Jul 2 1942
On page six, the New York Times reports Germany's mass extermination of 700,000 Jews, by use of poison gas.

Jul 2 1947
Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot witness a "large glowing object" zoom across the sky at 400 or 500 miles per hour. The next day, Mac Brazel discovers the wreckage of a flying saucer -- not fragments of an experimental balloon composed of neoprene -- on a remote pasture outside Roswell, New Mexico.

Jul 2 1961
In the tile-covered foyer of his home in Ketchum, Idaho, novelist Ernest Hemingway commits suicide with his favorite shotgun. When the body was later found, "only his chin, mouth, and vestigial scraps of his cheeks were still connected to his body."

Jul 2 1982
UC Berkeley electrical engineering professor Diogenes Angelakos picks up an unattended package in Cory Hall. The pipe bomb hidden inside the parcel explodes, shredding the man's right hand. Coincidentally, Angelakos is present three years later, when the Unabomber claims a second victim in the computer science department, John Hauser.

Jul 2 1982
Vietnam vet Larry Walters climbs aboard an aluminum lawn chair in Southern California, equipped with 42 weather balloons, a CB radio, a parachute, and a pellet gun. During his two-hour voyage from San Pedro to Long Beach, Walters reaches an altitude of 16,000 feet and eventually becomes tangled in some power lines. Walters survives, but receives a $1,500 fine from the FAA.

Jul 2 1990
In Mecca, 1,426 Muslim pilgrims are suffocated and/or crushed to death when panic erupts in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel. Saudi Arabia opts to bury the victims in a mass grave.

Jul 2 1994
Colombian soccer star Andres Escobar is shot twelve times outside a bar in Bogota, and dies on the spot. Only ten days prior, Escobar had inadvertently scored a goal for the American team in the 1994 World Cup playoffs, resulting in a first-round elimination for Colombia.

Jul 2 1997
The Russian minister of Justice, Valentin Kovalyov, is fired after grainy black-and-white photos of him appear in the tabloid Sovershenno Sekretno. The government official had been secretly filmed in a nightclub sauna with a bevy of young women. No one was wearing clothes.

Jul 2 1998
The eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which has burned continuously since 1921 to commemorate the dead of World War I, is extinguished by an intoxicated soccer fan with his beer-enriched urine. Mexican national Rodrigo Rafael Ortega is arrested and charged with public drunkenness and offending the dead.

Jul 2 1999
Former U.S. Treasury undersecretary Ron Noble, the man who oversaw his department's inquiry into the Waco siege, is chosen to lead Interpol.

[GermanStar]

Jul 3 1905
Russian troops kill 6,000 in Odessa to break a general strike.

Jul 3 1963
Two former secretaries of the Nation of Islam file paternity suits against the head of their church, the honorable Elijah Muhammad. They claimed the prophet had fathered their four children. The allegations eventually cause Malcolm X to quit the NOI.

Jul 3 1971
Jim Morrison is found dead of an apparent heart attack in his Paris apartment bathtub. That's what he wants us to think, anyway.

Jul 3 1987
Vladimir Nikolayev is sentenced to death for killing and eating two people in Novocheboksary, Chuvashia. When police arrested Nikolayev the previous year, they found human meat roasting on the stove, more in the oven, and body parts stashed on his balcony packed in snow.

Jul 3 1988
Mistaking it for a F-14 fighter plane, the American warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air flight 655, killing all 290 people aboard. Despite his country's having recklessly downed a passenger airliner while operating inside Iran's territorial waters, Vice President George Bush declares a month later: "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."

Jul 3 1989
Television actor Jim Backus, known to millions as Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's island, dies in Los Angeles of Parkinson's disease.

[GermanStar]

Jul 4 1054
A supernova suddenly appears in the constellation Taurus. It is so bright that for the first 23 days it is visible during the day. Then it gradually fades away, finally disappearing after a year or so. Today the remnants of this star are the Crab Nebula.

Jul 4 1826
A comatose Thomas Jefferson dies on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, only a few hours before John Adams also expires.

Jul 4 1961
In the North Atlantic, a leaky pipe drains all of the coolant from the starboard reactor aboard the Soviet submarine K-19. 22 sailors are killed in the resulting nuclear accident.

Jul 4 1976
After receiving an especially bloody beating at the hands of her husband Ike, Tina Turner sneaks out of the Dallas hotel they're staying at while he is asleep. She walks away from their 16-year relationship with only 36 cents in her pocket.

Jul 4 1984
For the first time, Nancy Reagan utters the immortal words: "Just say no."

Jul 4 1987
A court in Lyon, France convicts Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, for the deportation of Jews, torture of resistance fighters, and crimes against humanity during World War II. Barbie spends the rest of his life in prison.

[GermanStar]

Jul 5 1946
Louis Reard's latest swimsuit creation, the two-piece Bikini, goes on sale in Paris.

Jul 5 1948
The body of 29-year-old actress Carole Landis is discovered in her home in Brentwood Heights, California. Landis, whose film career had recently stalled, overdosed on Seconal and left behind a suicide note addressed to her mother.

Jul 5 1963
The Catholic Church finally sanctions cremation as an acceptable means of remains disposal. (Code of Canon Law, Can. 1176)

Jul 5 1984
In deciding United States v. Leon, the Supreme Court permits "good faith" exceptions the exclusionary rule. Illegal evidence is now admissible if obtained by the police in "good faith." Justice William Brennan writes, "The Court's victory over the Fourth Amendment is complete."

[GermanStar]

Jul 6 1415
Jan Hus is burned at the stake for various heresies by the Council of Constance. Among other things, Hus had incited the citizens of Prague to protest against antipope John XXIII and his policy of granting indulgences.

Jul 6 1535
Sir Thomas More, an English politician, is sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. King Henry VIII takes pity on him and changes the sentence to beheading. Said head is hung on display from London Bridge before being rescued by his daughter a month later.

Jul 6 1944
Fire breaks out at a matinee performance of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Baily Circus burning 168 people to death, and injuring an additional 250. The main tent had been waterproofed with wax thinned by gasoline. Said one of the Flying Wallendas, "I can never look down at a crowd again without smelling the flames and the burning flesh."

Jul 6 1945
The Joint Chiefs of Staff approve Operation OVERCAST, intended to "exploit ... chosen rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use." The directive authorizes the immigration of up to 350 German and Austrian specialists, primarily experts in rocketry. Operation OVERCAST is later renamed Project PAPERCLIP.

Jul 6 1988
The Piper Alpha oil platform catches fire, explodes killing 167 men. The workers were faced with the choice of choking on smoke, being burned to death or leaping 150 feet into 57-degree water.

[GermanStar]

Jul 7 1348
The Black Death makes its first appearance in England.

Jul 7 1665
King Charles II and his entourage flee London, a city suffering the ravages of the black plague. At this point, about 2,000 Londoners are dying weekly.

Jul 7 1942
Himmler gives the go-ahead for sterilization experiments at Auschwitz.

Jul 7 1970
46 people are shot dead in the downtown area during a five-day race riot in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

[GermanStar]

Jul 8 1932
Tod Browning's groundbreaking horror movie Freaks, featuring genuine carnival sideshow performers, premieres at the Rialto theater in New York. The film opens to critical outrage, and is later banned by the British government for 30 years.

Jul 8 1976
Former President Richard M. Nixon is disbarred by the New York Bar Association. Nixon attempted to resign voluntarily, as he had from the California and U.S. Supreme Court bars, but New York refused to accept his resignation unless he acknowledged that he had obstructed justice during the Watergate coverup.

Jul 8 1987
Kitty Dukakis, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Governor Michael Dukakis, reveals that she was formerly addicted to amphetamines. Kitty waits until after the November election to acknowledge her raging alcoholism, however.

Jul 8 1997
Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, publicly apologizes to his children's babysitter, with whom he had a five year relationship starting when she was age 14. The local district attorney declines to press charges, but Kennedy winds up dead in an apparent skiing accident five months later.

[GermanStar]

Jul 9 1952
Musical genius and all-around renaissance man John Tesh is born in Garden City, New York.

Jul 9 1980
Seven faithful are trampled in a stampede during a papal visit to Brazil by Pope John Paul II. Way to go!

Jul 9 1982
Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she is asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carry on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehends him.

Jul 9 1986
After spending one year and half a million dollars, the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography releases their two-volume, 1960-page final report. In contrast to the 1970 Presidential Commission on Pornography, the report finds that porn causes violent sex crimes and other antisocial activities. Afterwards, one impartial commission member admits: "I, for one, have no hesitation in condemning nearly every specimen of pornography that we have examined in the course of our deliberations as tasteless, offensive, lewd and indecent. According to my values, these materials are themselves immoral, and to the extent that they encourage immoral behavior they exert a corrupting influence on the family and the moral fabric of society."

Jul 9 1995
Disgruntled postal worker William Clark kills his supervisor, in the City of Industry, California.

Jul 9 1997
Mike Tyson banned from boxing for one year, and fined $3M for biting Evander Holyfield's ear off in a mysterious cajun ritual.

Jul 9 1997
Attempting to spring him from the Arizona state prison at Florence, Rebecca Thornton meets her husband Floyd at the perimeter fence with a rifle. There the escape plan goes haywire, and Rebecca shoots her death-row husband after he instructs her: "Shoot me! I'm sorry things went wrong. Shoot me! Shoot me!" Then they are both gunned down by the guards.

[GermanStar]

Jul 10 1856
Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla is born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia.

Jul 10 1923
Hailstones as heavy as two pounds kill 23 people in Rostov, Russia.

Jul 10 1972
A herd of angry, startled elephants emerges from India's Chandka Forest, and tramples five villages, killing 24 inhabitants.

Jul 10 1984
British customs officials in London open a large wooden crate marked "diplomatic baggage" because of its extremely odd odor. Inside they discover Alhaji Umaru Dikko, Nigeria's former Minister of Transport and Aviation. He had been abducted, drugged, and bound for Nigeria to face trial for embezzlement.

Jul 10 1985
Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is blown up by in Auckland Harbor, killing a photographer. After the New Zealand government determines that French secret agents were responsible, the French Defense Minister resigns and the agents are jailed.

Jul 10 1992
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega sentenced to 40 years in prison for eight counts of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.

[GermanStar]

Jul 11 1804
Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton is shot in the liver and dies the next day. Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory.

Jul 11 1812
The United States invades Canada, in what is actually America's involvement in the Napoleonic world war. (Yes, there were two World Wars before WWI.)

Jul 11 1945
For the first time, Napalm powder is mixed with gasoline and sprayed on live human beings. This feat is achieved by U.S. Army forces against the Japanese on Luzon in the Philippines.

Jul 11 1979
The derelict space station Skylab finally returns to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That is, except for the ones which crash into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia. Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephones the prime minister of that country to apologize for scattering NASA litter on his nation.

Jul 11 1994
In the garage of her home in Universal City, California, Shannon Michelle Wilsey commits suicide with a .40 caliber Beretta. Wilsey -- better known as porn superstar Savannah -- had made lots of enemies during her career. Her obituary in Screw magazine runs beneath the headline DING DONG THE BITCH IS DEAD.

Jul 11 1997
Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman is arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.

[GermanStar]

Jul 12 1843
Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy. The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.

Jul 12 1979
Bonanno boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", is whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn. Galante dies with a cigar still in his mouth. Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno, and Santo Trafficante.

Jul 12 1979
It is "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brings along a disco record for the bonfire. During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs fly onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit.

Jul 12 1996
Combative TV talk show host Morton Downey Jr., a former board member of the National Smokers Alliance who unfailingly smoked on the air, undergoes lung cancer surgery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, Downey begins a nationwide anti-smoking crusade.

Jul 12 1997
Having secured his homemade bungee cord to the Lake Accotink Park train trestle in Springfield, Virginia, fast-food worker Eric A. Barcia leaps into the 70 foot drop. A couple of seconds later, he hits the pavement full-force and dies on the spot. During assembly, Barcia had carefully measured the equipment and made certain it was somewhat shorter than 70 feet, yet he neglected to consider the elasticity of his creation.

[GermanStar]

Jul 13 1793
French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.

Jul 13 1917
The first appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. A later apparition that year was witnessed by 70,000 people in some manner of mass hallucination. The B.V.M. entrusted the children with three prophecies of the coming apocalypse, the third of which the Vatican retains in a locked wooden box, refusing to reveal it until after 1960. (They don't get around to it until 2000.)

Jul 13 1946
Cheech Marin's birthday. He's actually (gasp) Iranian, and his name is Richard.

Jul 13 1985
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon.

Jul 13 1994
Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, is sentenced in Portland, Oregon, to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. He serves six months.

[GermanStar]

Jul 14 1789
A mob of 20,000 people storms Bastille Prison in Paris, killing its personnel and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, a nobleman jailed for incest, and an insane Irishman. The warden is decapitated and his head carried around on a pike. So begins the French Revolution.

Jul 14 1881
In the Sumner, New Mexico home of his friend Pete Maxwell, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid steps into a darkened bedroom and is shot dead by sheriff Pat Garrett. Billy's last words are "¿Quién es?" (Who is it?)

Jul 14 1902
One day after workmen noticed a large crack in the structure, the Belltower of St. Mark's collapses into a hill of white dust. Ten years later, the city of Venice erects an exact duplicate of the tower on the same spot.

Jul 14 1960
After a religious statue topples onto a shelf of votive candles in a Guatemalan insane asylum, the resulting blaze sweeps through the facility, killing 225 inmates and seriously injuring another 300. 50 lunatics manage to escape during the commotion, and only two are ever recaptured.

Jul 14 1966
Richard Speck slaughters eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital.

Jul 14 1969
El Salvador's defeat of the Honduras soccer team in Mexico City inflamed passions between the two countries to such an extent that the countries began warring with each other on this date. 2,000 people died during four days of hostilities known as the "Futbol War".

Jul 14 1997
Catherine Sheehan, a Beverly Hills whore, files suit against Jack Nicholson, alleging that the actor did not cough up the $1000 he owed her for sexual acts she performed with him the night of October 12, 1996. The complaint alleged assault, battery, and emotional distress; punitive damages were requested.

Jul 14 1997
Actor/nudist Brad Pitt receives his wish for a court order requiring Playgirl magazine to remove the "Brad Pitt Nude" issue from the newsstands.

Jul 14 2006
Rapper Eminem remarries Kim Mathers, the subject of many of his rap songs, and 82 days later files for his second divorce from her. Eminem's best man, Proof, is later shot to death in a Detroit club.

[GermanStar]

Jul 15 1205
In a letter to the French clergy, Pope Innocent III declares that the Jews are consigned to continual subjugation just for crucifying our Lord and Savior. In the words of the Pope, the Jews "shall not dare raise their neck, bowed under the yoke of perpetual slavery."

Jul 15 1857
During an uprising, the group of British women and children being held by rebels in Chawnpore, India are cut to pieces with knives and hatchets. Then their remains are tossed into a well. When British forces finally retake Chawnpore, the captured rebels are taken back to the house where the slaughter took place. Then they are forced to lick the floors clean, after which they are hanged.

Jul 15 1864
A train containing hundreds of Confederate prisoners through Shohola, PA crashes head on with a coal train. The trains were off schedule because of an escape attempt. 74 people, mostly prisoners, died.

Jul 15 1869
During war with Prussia, French ruler Napoleon III commissions Hippolye Mege Mouries to find a butter substitute. A patent for margarine is issued, it being based on beef fat instead of milk fat. But even with the tactically superior spread, the war is still lost.

Jul 15 1974
During a live broadcast of the Sarasota, Florida morning news program Suncoast Digest, newscaster Chris Chubbuck tells the audience: "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: an attempted suicide." Then she blows her brains out with a .38 revolver.

Jul 15 1997
Fashion designer/fabulous homosexual Gianni Versace is assassinated outside his Miami Beach home by a crazed male prostitute.

[GermanStar]

Jul 16 1054
The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rival claims of universal pre-eminence. (In 1965, 911 years later, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I met to declare an end to the schism.)

Jul 16 1860
A decree from Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, dissolves the United States of America.

Jul 16 1917
The Bolsheviks execute the Czar, Czarina, and their children. Contrary to popular mythos, Anastasia did not escape. DNA tests in the 1990's conclude that the woman who was posing as Anastasia was instead a batty old woman.

Jul 16 1927
Industrialist Henry Ford settles a $1 million libel suit brought by labor organizer Aaron Sapiro. Ford's newsweekly, The Dearborn Independent, had accused Sapiro of being part of a conspiracy of "Jewish bankers" to seize control of national wheat production and hand it over to the Communists.

Jul 16 1945
First Atomic Bomb is exploded at Trinity, Alamagordo New Mexico. The explosion yields the equivalent 18,000 tons of TNT.

Jul 16 1964
In 1964, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Jul 16 1973
During the Senate's Watergate hearings, former White House aide Alexander Butterfield reveals that President Nixon has a secret tape recording system with lavalier microphones hidden throughout the Oval Office.

Jul 16 1998
An inattentive deputy sheriff in Lafayette, IN, drives his automobile into the stolen tombstone of actor James Dean. The 400 pound tombstone, which was stolen two days prior from Dean's gravesite at Park Cemetery (and later abandoned on a country road), rips the transmission out of the deputy's vehicle.

[GermanStar]

Jul 17 1793
In return for attempting to obviate civil war, Charlotte Corday is publicly executed. Four days prior, she had assassinated influential French radical Jean-Paul Marat by stabbing him in the bathtub. Immediately after slicing it off, the executioner lifts Corday's head out of the guillotine's basket and slaps it on both cheeks.

Jul 17 1917
Britain's King George V issues a royal proclamation changing his family's surname from Hanover to Windsor. Thus, everyone is fooled into believing that a bunch of inbred krauts are really English. Which is convenient, because England just so happens to be at war with Germany.

Jul 17 1918
With counter-revolutionary forces advancing steadily on the city, the Bolsheviks holding captive Czar Nicholas II invite him and his family into the basement for a portrait. The Romanovs and their servants, expecting a photography session, wind up on the business end of a firing squad. Their bodies are dragged outside and buried in an unmarked mass grave.

Jul 17 1936
General Francisco Franco seizes control of the Canary Islands, signaling the start of the three-year Spanish Civil War.

Jul 17 1944
At 10:18 pm, the merchant ship SS E.A. Bryan, packed with 4,606 tons of ammunition, suddenly explodes at the Port Chicago naval base north of Oakland, California. The apocalyptic blast breaks windows in San Francisco, 48 miles away, and the seismic shock is felt as far as Boulder City, Nevada. All 320 personnel on duty, most of them negro ordnance loaders, are killed instantly.

Jul 17 1952
David Hasselhoff's birthday! Yay for David! Yay for Germany! (credits: Revenge of the Cheerleaders)

Jul 17 1955
Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California. In the words of Walt Disney, "That place is my baby, and I would prostitute myself for it."

Jul 17 1968
Premiere of the drug-induced, Big Blue Meanie-infested cartoon Beatle film Yellow Submarine, at the London Pavilion.

Jul 17 1992
Axl Rose is arrested for assault in St Louis, Missouri.

Jul 17 1996
TWA flight 800 explodes off Long Island NY, killing 230 passengers. The explosion, whose cause was not terrorist related, is used as an excuse by the FBI to ask for restrictions on civil liberties.

[GermanStar]

Jul 18 64
Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

Jul 18 1290
After having imprisoned and ransomed 3,000 of them in 1287, King Edward I issues an edict expelling all Jews from England. The nation's Jewry, which financed the crusade against the Saracens, had by this time outlived their usefulness as bankers and were given until the end of October to emigrate.

Jul 18 1870
At the end of Vatican I, Catholic popes are proclaimed infallible by chapter four of the papal bull Pastor Aeternus. His declarations on matters of faith are protected from error by the Holy Spirit. In a nutshell: whatever he says, goes. This is an interesting doctrine, considering how often St. Peter is himself contradicted by the Gospels.

Jul 18 1925
Max Amann publishes Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), the book Adolf Hitler had dictated while under house arrest. The work happens to be just as tedious as its original title, Four and Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.

Jul 18 1966
In Los Angeles, the beaten corpse of Bobby Fuller is found sprawled across the front seat of his mother's Oldsmobile. Fuller, whose band The Bobby Fuller Four released the hit "I Fought The Law," is found to have died from "forced inhalation of gasoline." Technically, Fuller died from huffing... although circumstances point to murder.

Jul 18 1969
Driving home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy's car goes over the side of Dike Bridge and flips over into a pond. Kennedy manages to free himself from the automobile, but his passenger, one Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns. For some reason, Kennedy tells no one about the accident for at least an hour, and waits until the following morning to notify local police.

Jul 18 1984
James Oliver Huberty walks into a crowded McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California and starts shooting. Carrying an Uzi carbine, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a Browning 9mm pistol, Huberty guns down 40 people. 21 of them, mostly children, die from their wounds. A San Diego police sniper finally solves the situation more than an hour later. Ultimately, the McDonald's Corporation opts to bulldoze the franchise and build a community park there.

Jul 18 1988
Rock and Roll performer / heroin addict Nico wipes out on her bicycle on Ibiza and dies from a brain hemorrage combined with a lack of medical treatment.

[GermanStar]

Jul 19 1692
Five Salem witches are hanged for the crime of witchcraft, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched. Eventually, the village executes a total of 20 witches.

Jul 19 1937
The Nazis open "Entartete Kunst," the Degenerate Art show, in Munich. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject. The German youth are not admitted, lest they become tainted.

Jul 19 1952
During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force is prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these are all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."

Jul 19 1957
Michael Landon stars in his first film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf. He must have been so proud.

Jul 19 1966
Frank Sinatra marries Mia Farrow in Las Vegas. Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: "Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!"

Jul 19 1991
Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson rapes Desiree Washington, one of the Miss Black America contestants, after a pageant rehearsal. The illicit nookie lands Tyson in prison for three years.

Jul 19 1993
President Clinton unveils the universally-unpopular "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule. One person summarizes the policy: "the military now permits gays to remain in the military, provided they don't act like fairies."

[GermanStar]

Jul 20 1923
While driving his 1919 Dodge, retired revolutionary Pancho Villa is ambushed and assassinated. But even with 16 gunshot wounds he still manages to kill one of his attackers. Curiously, Villa's head is stolen from his grave three years later and never recovered. Despite persistent rumors, Yale's secret society Skull and Bones denies they possess the artifact.

Jul 20 1944
In an attempt on Hitler's life, a timebomb explodes in the situation room of the Wolf's Lair, killing four Nazi officers but only wounding the Fuhrer. After his close call, Hitler becomes even more paranoid. A massive purge is to follow, resulting in the execution of thousands of officers.

Jul 20 1951
In Jerusalem at the al-Aqsa Mosque, King Abdullah of Jordan is shot three times in the head and chest by Mustapha Shukri Usho, a Palestinian opposed to peace with Israel. Abdullah dies on the spot.

Jul 20 1969
On live television, the world watches as Neil Armstrong steps foot on the Moon. That is, unless it was faked.

Jul 20 1973
In Hong Kong, martial artist Bruce Lee drops into a coma and dies of cerebral edema. He had been experiencing brain problems beginning in May, which included sporadic loss of consciousness. Lee's death transpires shortly before the release of Enter the Dragon, his most successful film.

Jul 20 1994
O.J. Simpson offers a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Real Killers. To this day progress remains elusive, although Simpson's golf score has improved somewhat.

Jul 20 2005
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) changes the rating of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from mature to adults only forcing a recall. The game had been distributed with a hidden sex game made unlockable by a clever hacker's modification titled Hot Coffee. The recall cost Rockstar Games millions of dollars although the incident generated lots of free publicity.

[GermanStar]

Jul 21 365
Earthquake destroys the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, causing the sea to recede and then re-enter the city with tremendous force. Many of those not killed by collapsing buildings were drowned. Fifty thousand die.

Jul 21 1913
Thirty-five negro inmates roast in their cells when the Oakley Prison Farm in Jackson, Mississippi catches fire.

Jul 21 1919
Two passengers, a mechanic and 10 bank employees are killed in Chicago when a Goodyear blimp, the Winged Foot Express, catches fire and crashes through the roof of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank.

Jul 21 1925
John Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school. The jury fines him $100.

Jul 21 1972
In Milwaukee, George Carlin is arrested for obscenity and disorderly conduct for performing his "Seven Dirty Words" routine in front of a group of wheelchair-bound children. He is released after posting $150 bail.

Jul 21 1981
Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years in prison for the shooting of John Lennon. His only response is to read a passage from a J.D. Salinger novel. Chapman currently works as a janitor in Attica State Prison.