The Tianjin Aircraft Carrier Hotel. The first aircraft carrier hotel in China, which lies in the Kiev aircraft carrier, the former Soviet Union's flagship of the Pacific Fleet, has completed the interior decoration of two presidential suites.
An attendent stands in the Presidential suite of Tianjin Aircraft Carrier Hotel in Tianjing on Aug. 8, 2011. The first aircraft carrier hotel in China, which lies in the Kiev aircraft carrier, the former Soviet Union's flagship of the Pacific Fleet, has completed the interior decoration of two presidential suites.
Two attendents clean the Presidential suite of Tianjin Aircraft Carrier Hotel in Tianjing on Aug. 8, 2011.
I don't get it.. do jets still take off from the carrier and if so, is all that loud noise all part of the hotel experience?
Prepared and Eaten Alive - JAPAN, CHINA, TAIWAN, KOREA
A great deal of you may already know about the customs of eating live food but for the rest of you:
I must warn you that if you have a weak stomach, or you are a vegetarian or just plain disgusted of even the thought of eating anything alive - I suggest you stop reading and go find something else on this blog to read because I for one could barely make this post, lol, since I'm so used to the western way of eating, you know, making sure it's good and dead before cooking and eating it. But as usual, since I'm so darn curious and is always interested in all aspects of cultures from around the world, I just had to add this!
Now, scientists claim the live fishes served feel no pain, but I've always wondered how they tested that theory... were they a fish once and lived to tell about it? Or was it because the fish didn't squeal like a banshee as they were being eaten alive? Anyways...
Us westerners 'distance' ourselves from our food sources a great deal. So much so that most of us don't even have a clue as to how the meats that eventually end up on the shelves of our local supermarkets came to be.
In all fairness, Japanese tradition holds that we should be grateful to the animals who gives us sustenance, and to acknowledge our relationship to them. Whether I agree with this ideology or not is really irrelevant (even though I'm still not sure how eating them alive acknowleges this), but showing respect to the way certain cultures do certain things is what it's all about. After all, I'm sure some of them are just as grossed out about our 'Big Macs' and 'Whopper' burgers and mcnuggets and God only knows what else.
I don't know if I can really eat food that stares right back at me, or twitches or flaps around.. I don't know. Maybe if I try not to make eye contact or something... As long as they don't start with cows or pigs.... I think I'll be ok...
Ikizukuri (Live sashimi), JAPAN
In Japanese cuisine, ikizukuri or ikezukuri(生き作り/活け造り, “prepared alive”) is the preparation of sashimi from a living sea animal such as fish, shrimp, lobster and octopus. Ikizukuri usually begins with the customer selecting from a tank in the restaurant, the animal they wish to eat. The chef, who is often a sashimi chef takes the animal out of the tank and filets it, but without killing the animal, which is served on a plate, sliced, with the heart still beating. Other variants of ikizukuri involve temporarily returning a filleted fish to an aquarium, to swim around until recovered for a second course of soup. Ikizukuri of fish consists of thin, sheet-like slices or finger-sized pieces sometimes garnished with lemon wedges, a decoration of ginger, or nori (seaweed). Squid and small octopus are usually wrapped around a chopstick and eaten whole.
Ikizukuri is a controversial method of preparing food, both in Japan and elsewhere.
Typically ikizukuri style is used with fish like carp or snapper, octopus, squid, lobster or shrimp. This is a very old technique, at least 2000 years old, first brought to the West a decade ago by Nobu Matsuhisa.
When restaurants in the West started serving it, ikezukuri experienced an inevitable backlash from animal rights groups. After a Japanese chef demonstrated the technique on a Los Angeles television station, he received hundreds of angry calls, including death threats.
Lobster Ikizukuri
Live Squid Sashimi
Drunken Shrimp and Ying Yang Fish, CHINA and TAIWAN
Drunken shrimp is a popular dish in portions of China based on fresh-water shrimp that are often eaten alive, but stunned in a strong liquor—baijiu (白酒)—to make consumption easier. Different parts of China have different recipes for it. For example, the shrimp are sometimes made drunk and then cooked in boiling water rather than served live, and in other recipes cooked shrimp are marinated in alcohol after they are boiled.
However, in some parts of China, for example, Shanghai, drunken shrimp is not only served raw -- it's alive. A bowl of live shrimp is served “swimming” in very strong rice wine.
The point of the rice wine serves many purposes apparently: it would sanitize the shrimp, mellow out the shrimp, eventually kill the shrimp and flavor the shrimp. This dish seems simple enough: Get shrimp, add alcohol. Wait a few minutes.. then eat.
The alcohol/rice wine is suppose to relax them. I've also read that it is best to start devouring your drunken shrimps once they seem a bit.. you know, drunk. The idea being they will be less resistant (even though I don't see why WE need anymore advantage over these things). However some enthusiasts say the taste is better the more active the shrimp is. The flavor is in the fight and so on and so on.
Ying Yang fish or Yin Yang fish (also called dead-and-alive fish) is a dish (mostly Ying Yang Fish and Carps) where the fish's body is deep-fried but still has a fresh and moving head. It is popular in China, but it originated in Taiwan where chefs use it to show customers how fresh the food is. Cooking of this dish is now prohibited in Taiwan.
Drunken Shrimp in Shangahi
Drunken Shrimp in Guilin
It involves serving LIVE shrimp doused in that strong Chinese liquor, baijiu.
Annual Chinese Competition
Demonstrates how to 'semi' cook and prepare a live fish (Ying Yang Fish) and snake.... The mouth of the fish has to still be moving when you eat it or the chef fails.
Sannakji, KOREA
Sannakji or sannakji hoe is a variety of hoe, or raw dish, in Korean cuisine. It consists of live nakji (hangul: 낙지, a small octopus) that has been cut into small pieces and served immediately, usually lightly seasoned with sesame and sesame oil. The nakji pieces are usually still squirming on the plate. It can also be served whole.
Because the suction cups on the arm pieces are still active when the dish is served, special care should be taken when eating sannakji. The active suction cups can cause swallowed pieces of arm to stick to the mouth or throat. This can also present a choking hazard for some people, particularly if they are intoxicated. One must thoroughly chew so that no piece is big enough to stick to one's throat. Some people like the feel of the pieces wriggling as swallowed, and so will not completely chew up the particles. Those who are new to eating sannakji should completely chew it up into tiny particles before swallowing.
Sannakji (live octopus) in Seoul, Korea
Try Eating a WHOLE Octopus all at once
Ok, I think I've seen enough 'live' food squirming around on a plate for one day. It's fascinating these different ways of eating... fascinating.
If any of you ever watched that show FEAR FACTOR, I'm sure you've seen episodes of westerners eating live worms.... uh, to win money of course but it shows maybe we can all do this "eating it raw and still moving" thing. Some of us also eat live oysters. So, I guess in a way, we are not so different from these cultures.
I was searching for a video documentary about 'captains of ships' on youtube when I came across this video! The 'captain' of this yacht almost collided with a boat but was skillful enough to miss it by mere inches!
Check it out!
So I got curious and started thinking... Are there are other 'near misses' videos on youtube? Folks, just check 'em out. As always, all videos I add are usually 2 mins. or less
Security cameras captured another lucky escape in Russia. A last moment jump saved a pedestrian's life as he was almost hit by an out of control car. In October a bus rampaged through the Russian city of Perm smashing everything in its path. As CCTV footage showed, one passer-by also escaped death under its wheels thanks only to miracle.
This one happened in Spain. A guy fell off the platform at Madrid's Puerta del Angel station. It looked like he was a goner, you know, doomed, until a brave man (who turned out to be an off-duty policeman) drags him off the tracks seconds before the train arrives, and
fortunately saves his life!!
This one is also in Russia. A young woman emerged unscathed when two cars swerved onto
the pavement she was walking along. A mini-van driving full-speed hit a Lada on
a crossroads. After colliding, both cars turned around and smashed into the
nearby building. The woman heard the sound of collision and rushed back just in
time to avoid the horrific blow: she literally jumped from under the wheels.
This one needs no explanation, the title says it all -
This is the Luckiest Idiot in the World.
This one was in Beijing, China where a bike rider, or more appropriately, a rickshaw rider narrowly escapes being hit.
And the ultimate near miss (or should I say 'misses') of all time? The George Bush shoe-dodging incident on his farewell visit to Iraq.
Zaidi, a reporter with the Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcasts from Cairo, was
immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the
room.
Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture.
After Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many
onlookers beat the statue's face with their soles.
Bush laughed off the
incident, saying: "It doesn't bother me. If you want the facts, it was a size 10
shoe that he threw".
Barbara Graham takes what may be
the last look at her son Tommy,
18 months old, in
Los Angeles Jail
On June 3rd, 1955, Barbara Graham was gassed at California’s San Quentin Prison, along with two confederates in the brutal murder of an elderly widow. Barbara Graham (June 26, 1923 – June 3, 1955) was an American criminal and convicted murderess. She was executed in the gas chamber on the same day as two convicted accomplices, Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins. Nicknamed "Bloody Babs" by the press, Graham was the third woman in California to die by gas.
Graham was born Barbara Elaine Wood in Oakland, California. When Barbara was two, her mother, who was a teenager, was sent to reform school. Barbara was raised by strangers and extended family, and had a limited education. As a teenager, she was arrested for vagrancy and was sentenced to serve time at Ventura State School for Girls the same reform school where her mother had been. Released from reform school in 1939, Barbara tried to make a new start for herself. She married and enrolled in a business college and soon had her first child. The marriage was not a success, and by 1941 she was divorced. Over the next several years, she was married twice more and had a second child, but each of these attempts at a normal life failed.
After this string of failures, Barbara is said to have become a prostitute, during World War II, she was a "seagull" working near the Oakland Army Base, Oakland Navy Supply Base and the Alameda Naval Air Station In 1942, she and some other "seagulls" flew down to Long Beach and San Diego. She was arrested on vice charges in these naval cities and in San Pedro.
Barbara liked nice things and also, perhaps surprisingly, was said to enjoy classical music but she also liked gambling and drugs.At 22, with her good looks, red hair and sex appeal she was working for a time in San Francisco for brothel madame Sally Stanford. She was soon involved in drugs and gambling and had a number of friends who were ex-convicts and career criminals. She served five years for perjury as an alibi witness for two petty criminals. She served her sentence at the California Department of Corrections, Womens State Prison at Tehachapi. After her stint in state prison, Barbara moved to Reno, Nevada and then Tonopah. In another attempt to live a decent life, she worked in a hospital and as a waitress. Barbara became bored and got on a bus for Los Angeles. She got a room on Hollywood Boulevard and returned to prostitution.
The Crime
In 1953, she married a bartender, Henry Graham, with whom she had a third child, named Tommy who was two years old at the time of her execution. Unfortunately, Graham was a hardened criminal and drug addict with low-life friends, and it was through him Barbara met his criminal friends Emmet Perkins and Jack Santo. She started an affair with Perkins, who told her about a 64-year-old widow, Mabel Monohan, who was rumored to keep a large amount of cash in her home in Burbank.
In March 1953, Barbara joined Perkins and Santo, as well as John True and Baxter Shorter (two of their associates), in robbing Monohan's home in Burbank. Barbara reportedly gained entry by asking to use her phone. Once Monohan opened the door for Graham, the three men burst in. The gang demanded money and the jewels from Monohan, but she refused to give them anything. At this point, Barbara reportedly pistol-whipped Monohan, cracking her skull. They then suffocated her with a pillow.
The robbery attempt was a futile effort; the gang found nothing of value in the house and left empty-handed. They later learned that they had missed about $15,000 in jewels and valuables stashed in a purse in the closet near where they had murdered Monohan.
Arrest and Conviction Eventually, some of the gang members were arrested and John True agreed to become a state witness in exchange for immunity from prosecution. In court, True testified against Graham, who continually protested her innocence. Graham apparently stood a good chance of being acquitted, but erred by offering another inmate $25,000 to hire a "friend" who would provide an alibi. When questioned about her actions at the trial, she said, "Oh, have you ever been desperate? Do you know what it means not to know what to do?" Graham was ultimately convicted.
Execution
Inside the California chamber are two identical metal chairs with perforated seats, marked "A" and "B." (The twin chairs were last used in a double execution in 1962).
Graham, Santo, and Perkins were all sentenced to death for the robbery and murder. Graham appealed against her sentence while serving time at the California Institute for Women in the city of Corona. Her appeals failed, and she was transferred to the death row at San Quentin State Prison to await execution. On June 3, 1955, she was scheduled to be executed at 10:00 a.m., but that was stayed by California governor Goodwin J. Knight until 10:45 a.m. At 10:43 a.m., the execution was stayed by Knight again until 11:30 a.m., and a weary Graham protested, "Why do they torture me? I was ready to go at ten o'clock." At 11:28 a.m., Graham was led from her cell to be strapped in the gas chamber. There, she requested a blindfold so she wouldn't have to look at the observers. Her last words were "Good people are always so sure they're right."
After Graham's death her life story was made into a movie called, "I Want to Live!" and starred Susan Hayward, who later won an Academy Award for playing Graham in the film.
Graham was also portrayed by actress Lindsay Wagner (above), in a 1983 TV version of I Want to Live!
The GAS CHAMBER!
While I was doing this story, I was also curious about this gas chamber in California. How do they actually get them ready for it? How does the gas affect them? Does it hurt or is it painless? The video above gave us great insight as to what really happened before and during execution. But I still was curious and wanted to know and understand better what it is I was really seeing.
Did you know?...
The Procedure
Two guards strap the prisoner into chair A, attaching straps across his upper and lower legs, arms, thighs and chest.
They affix a Bowles stethoscope to the person's chest so that a doctor on the outside can monitor the heartbeat and pronounce death.
Beneath the chair is a bowl filled with sulphuric acid mixed with distilled water to give a concentration of approximately 37%, with a pound of sodium cyanide pellets suspended in a gauze bag just above.
After the door is sealed, and when the warden gives the signal, the executioner in a separate room operates a lever that releases the cyanide into the liquid. This causes a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide gas, which rises through the holes in the chair.
When the reaction has finished the gas reaches a concentration of around 7,500 ppm.
Prisoners are advised to take deep breaths after the gas is released as this will considerably shorten their suffering. Easy for the Warden to say, no doubt, but much harder for the prisoner to intentionally inhale the gas designed to kill them even if they accept the logic of the advice they are given.
The Actual Process A typical witnesses view of gassing is as follows:
In medical terms, victims of cyanide gas die from hypoxia, which means the cut off of oxygen to the brain.
The initial result of this is spasms, as in an epileptic seizure. Because of the straps, however, involuntary body movements are restrained.
Seconds after the prisoner first inhales, he/she will feel himself unable to breathe, but will not lose consciousness immediately. "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety," according to Dr. Richard Traystman of JohnsHopkinsUniversity.
The pain begins immediately and is felt in the arms, shoulders, back, and chest.
The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." Traystman added: "We would not use asphyxiation, by cyanide gas or by any other substance, in our laboratory to kill animals that have been used in experiments."
Did You Know?... A study of the execution records of 113 prisoners executed at San Quentin showed that the average time taken to kill them was 9.3 minutes. The prisoner will usually lose consciousness between one and three minutes after the gas hits their face and the doctor will pronounce them dead in around 10 to 12 minutes. An exhaust fan then sucks the gas out of the chamber. Next, the corpse is sprayed with ammonia, which neutralises traces of the cyanide that may remain. After about half an hour, staff enter the chamber, wearing gas masks and rubber gloves. Their training manual advises them to ruffle the victim's hair to release and trapped cyanide gas before removing him.
also
Did You Know? For the month of
back in.....
1934, Jun 01, Nissan Motor Company Found. On this day in 1934, the Tokyo-based Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in English) takes on a new name: Nissan Motor Company.
1953, Jun 02, Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II is formally crowned monarch of the United Kingdom in a lavish ceremony steeped in traditions that date back a millennium. A thousand dignitaries and guests attended the coronation at London's Westminster Abbey, and hundreds of millions listened on radio and for the first time watched the proceedings on live television. After the ceremony, millions of rain-drenched spectators cheered the 27-year-old queen and her husband, the 30-year-old duke of Edinburgh, as they passed along a five-mile procession route in a gilded horse-drawn carriage.
1965, Jun 01, Coal Mine Explosion Killed 236 in Japan. Coal mine explosion kills 236 workers at the Yamano mine near Fukuoka, Japan, on this day. The tragic disaster might have been avoided if the operators of the mine had taken even the most basic safety precautions.
The sudden explosion, probably brought about by the ignition of a gas pocket, led to the collapse of many of the mine shafts and caused boulders to block the escape routes. For the next two days, thousands of relatives and friends waited outside the mine as the rescue effort got underway. But the wait was futile; no survivors were found. Yoshio Sakarauchi, the trade and industries minister of Japan, resigned in the aftermath of the disaster.
1968, Jun 01, Helen Keller Died. Helen Keller dies in Westport, Connecticut, at the age of 87. Blind and deaf from infancy, Keller circumvented her disabilities to become a world-renowned writer and lecturer.
1970, Jun 02, Race Car Driver and Designer Bruce McLaren Died in Crash. The 32-year-old race car driver Bruce McLaren dies in a crash while testing an experimental car of his own design at a track in Goodwood, England on this day in 1970. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, McLaren contracted a childhood hip disease that would keep him in hospitals for several years. By the age of 14, he had recovered fully. His father, a part-time mechanic with an interest in racing, helped young Bruce build his first car, and he entered his first competitive event, a hill climb, when he was 15.
1972, Jun 04, Trains Collided in Bangladesh. The collision of two trains in Jessore, Bangladesh, kills 76 people. This disaster resulted from one simple error by a train-station operator. An express train loaded far beyond capacity, as is common in Bangladesh, left the southern port city of Khulna heading north. It was passing through Jessore on June 4 at full speed when the stationmaster threw the wrong switch. With no other safeguards in place to protect it, the train was sent on local tracks straight into a train standing at the station.
1977, Jun 01, Soviets Charged Shcharansky with Treason. The Soviet government charged Anatoly Shcharansky - a 29-year-old computer expert and a leader among Jewish dissidents and human rights - with the crime of treason. After a perfunctory trial, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was finally released in February 1986, when he and four other prisoners were exchanged for four Soviet spies who had been held in the West.
1980, Jun 01, CNN Launched. CNN (Cable News Network), - the brainchild of Robert "Ted" Turner, aka the "Mouth of the South", made its debut on this day as the world's first 24-hour television news network. The network signed on at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN's launch, TV news was dominated by three major networks--ABC, CBS and NBC--and their nightly 30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes, today CNN is seen in more than 89 million American households and over 160 million homes internationally.In 1996, CNN merged with Time Warner, which merged with America Online four years later. Today, Ted Turner is an environmentalist and peace activist whose philanthropic efforts include a 1997 gift of $1 billion to the United Nations.
1985, Jun 02, Serial Killing Spree was Put to an End. Leonard Lake is arrested near San Francisco, California, ending one of the rare cases of serial killers working together. Lake and Charles Ng were responsible for a series of particularly brutal crimes against young women in California during the mid 1980s.Lake, who had been arrested in 1985 for his connection to a burglary committed by Ng, ingested a cyanide capsule while in custody, and killed himself. Ng escaped to Canada, where he successfully avoided extradition for almost six years. When he was finally returned to California for trial, he utilized other delaying tactics. By the time he was finally convicted, he had gone through multiple attorneys and judges. It was one of the longest homicide prosecutions in state history and one of the costliest, at approximately $11 million dollars. After a four-month trial, the jury convicted Ng and he was sentenced to death in 1999.
1986, Jun 04, Pollard Admitted to Selling Top-Secret Information to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top-secret U.S. military intelligence information to Israel. The former Navy intelligence analyst sold enough classified documents to fill a medium-sized room. Israel has stuck by Pollard. During peace negotiations mediated by President Clinton in the late 1990s, the nation made Pollard's release from prison a key point. Though Israel continues to work toward Pollard's release, the United States has declined to work out such a deal.
1989, Jun 04, Tiananmen Square Massacre Took Place. Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States.
2010, Jun 03, Van der Sloot Arrested for Murder in South America. On this day in 2010, Joran van der Sloot, (born in the Netherlands and raised in Aruba), a longtime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba, is arrested in Chile in connection with the slaying of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, in Lima, Peru. Flores was murdered on May 30, 2010, exactly five years after Holloway went missing while on a high school graduation trip to the Dutch-speaking Caribbean island.In March 2011, an attorney for Van der Sloot, who remains behind bars in Peru, announced his client intended to plead guilty to murdering Flores but would argue temporary insanity, a defense that could result in a much shorter sentence for the Dutchman if a Peruvian trial judge accepted it.
Pope John Paul II was the first Polish pope and the first non-Italian pope in 456 years? He was also the first Pope to be shot. His reign as pope of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted &000000000000002600000026 years and &0000000000000168000000168 days; only Pope Pius IX (1846–1878) who served 31 years, has reigned longer. Pope John Paul II is the only Slavic or Polish pope to date, and was the first non-Italian Pope since Dutch Pope Adrian VI (1522–1523).
Pope John Paul II in 1993 pic by Wik user Gumruch
Born Karol Józef Wojtyła, (18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005), he has been acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. It is widely held that he was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe.
Since his death on 2 April 2005, many thousands of people have been supporting the case for beatifying and canonizing the late Pope John Paul II as a saint. His formal beatification ceremony took place on 1 May 2011.
Fluent in seven modern languages and Latin, he was one of the most-travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate and who also had little fear of going out in public.
On May 13, 1981, near the start of his weekly general audience in Rome's St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded while passing through the square in an open car. The assailant, 23-year-old escaped Turkish murderer Mehmet Ali Agca, fired four shots, one of which hit the pontiff in the abdomen, narrowly missing vital organs, and another that hit the pope's left hand. A third bullet struck 60-year-old American Ann Odre in the chest, seriously wounding her, and the fourth hit 21-year-old Jamaican Rose Hill in the arm. Agca's weapon was knocked out of his hand by bystanders, and he was detained until his arrest by police. The pope was rushed by ambulance to Rome's Gemelli Hospital, where he underwent more than five hours of surgery and was listed in critical but stable condition. The pontiff spent three weeks in the hospital before being released fully recovered from his wounds.
On May 9, 1981, Agca took a plane from Majorca to Milan and entered Italy under an assumed name. He took a room in a hotel near the Vatican and on May 13 walked into St. Peter's Square and shot the pope with a 9mm Browning automatic. A handwritten note was found in his pocket that read: "I am killing the pope as a protest against the imperialism of the Soviet Union and the United States and against the genocide that is being carried out in Salvador and Afghanistan." He pleaded guilty, saying he acted alone, and in July 1981 was sentenced to life in prison.
In 1982, Agca announced that his assassination attempt was actually part of a conspiracy involving the Bulgarian intelligence services, which was known to act on behalf of the KGB.
Monument to Pope John Paul II
in Rome
Further interrogations of Agca led to the arrest of three Bulgarians and three Turks, who went on trial in 1985. As the trial opened, the case against the Bulgarian and Turkish defendants collapsed when Agca, the state's key witness, described himself as Jesus Christ and predicted the imminent end of the world. He explained that the Bulgarian scenario was concocted by Western intelligence officials, and that God had in fact led him to shoot John Paul II. The attack, he explained, was "tied to the Third Secret of the Madonna of Fatima." The secrets of Fatima were three messages that Catholic tradition says the Virgin Mary imparted to three Portuguese shepherd children in an apparition in 1917. The first message allegedly predicted World War II, the second the rise (and fall) of the Soviet Union, and the third was still a Vatican secret in 1985. In 1986, the Bulgarian and Turkish defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence.
In the late 1990s, Pope John Paul II expressed his hope that the Italian government would pardon Mehmet in 2000. The pontiff had made 2000 a holy "Jubilee" year, of which forgiveness was to be a cornerstone. On May 13, 2000, the 19th anniversary of the attempt on his life, the pope visited Fatima, Portugal. The same day, the Third Secret of Fatima was announced by Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano. Sodano described the secret as a "prophetic vision" in which "a bishop clothed in white...falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire." The Vatican interpreted this as a prediction of the attempt on John Paul II's life. Mehmet Ali Agca, who had guessed the alleged Fatima-assassination connection in 1985, was pardoned by Italian President Carolo Ciampi on June 14, 2000.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem
In March 2000, John Paul II visited Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial in Israel, and later made history by touching one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, placing a letter inside it (in which he prayed for forgiveness for the actions against Jews). In part of his address he said: "I assure the Jewish people the Catholic Church ... is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place", he added that there were "no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust".
Israeli cabinet minister Rabbi Michael Melchior, who hosted the Pope's visit, said he was "very moved" by the Pope's gesture.
In February 2005, Pope John Paul II was hospitalized with complications from the flu. He died two months later, on April 2, 2005, at his home in the Vatican. Six days later two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral--said to be the biggest funeral in history.
also...
Did You Know? For the month of
back in.....
1940, Germany invaded Holland and Belgium, as Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain. On May 10, 1940, Hitler begins his Western offensive with the radio code word "Danzig," sending his forces into Holland and Belgium. On this same day, having lost the support of the Labour Party, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns; Winston Churchill accedes to the office, becoming defense minister as well.
1950, Flash floods in Nebraska killed 23. In Nebraska on May 8,1950, a flood caused by 14 inches of rain kills 23 people. Most of the victims drowned after being trapped in their vehicles by flash flooding.
In southeastern Nebraska, cornfields dominate the landscape. It is the rainiest region of the state, getting approximately 35 inches annually. The spring and summer of 1950 far exceeded that total. The deadly flash flooding was part of a series of floods to hit the area near Lincoln, Nebraska, where the Big Blue River feeds into the Kansas River, between May and July of that year because of a spate of thunderstorm activity.
1960, FDA aprroved the pill. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world's first commercially produced birth-control bill--Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois, on May 9, 1960.
1963, Sean Connery starred in his first Bond movie, Dr. No. With the release of Dr. No, moviegoers got their first look--down the barrel of a gun--at the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery.
1963, Bob Dylan walked out on the Ed Sullivan Show. Bob Dylan had secured what would surely be his big break with an invitation to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. That appearance never happened. On May 12, 1963, the young and unknown Bob Dylan walked off the set of the country's highest-rated variety show after network censors rejected the song - "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", he planned on performing. Rather than choose a new number to perform or change his song's lyrics—as the Rolling Stones and the Doors would famously do in the years to come—Dylan stormed off the set in angry protest.
1964, An unlikely challenger ended the Beatles' reign atop the U.S. pop charts. Following the ascension of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to #1 in early February, the Beatles held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for three and a half solid months—longer than any popular artist before or since. Over the course of those months, the Fab Four earned three consecutive #1 singles (a record); held all five spots in the top five in early April (a record); and had a total of 14 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-April (yet another record). But just when it seemed that no homegrown act would ever stand up to the British invaders, one of least likely American stars imaginable proved himself equal to the task. On May 9, 1964, the great Louis Armstrong, age 63, broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the U.S. pop charts with the #1 hit "Hello Dolly."
1972, Fire broke out at a club in Japan. On May 13, 1972, a fire breaks out at the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan, that kills 118 people. Only 48 people at the trendy nightclub survived the horrific blaze because safety equipment was faulty and safety procedures were not followed. The fire exits were hidden by drapes and almost no one in the club found them. Twenty people did locate the emergency chute, but it collapsed as they made their way to the ground and all of them were killed.
Other people sought to escape the smoke and flames by jumping to the roof of a nearby building, but it was too far and all who tried were killed.
The cast of Welcome Back, Kotter
1976, "Welcome Back Kotter" became the #1 song in America. On May 8, 1976, the theme song "Welcome Back, Kotter" became the #1 song in America. In 1975, John Sebastian, former member of the beloved 60s pop group the Lovin' Spoonful, was asked to write and record the theme song for a brand-new ABC television show with the working title Kotter. As any songwriter would, Sebastian first tried working that title into his song, but somehow the rhymes he came up with for "Kotter"—otter, water, daughter, slaughter—didn't really lend themselves to a show about a middle-aged schoolteacher returning to his scrappy Brooklyn neighborhood to teach remedial students at his own former high school. So Sebastian took a more thoughtful approach to the task at hand and came up with a song about finding your true calling in a life you thought you'd left behind. That song, "Welcome Back," not only went on to become a #1 pop single on this day in 1976, but it also led the show's producers to change its title to Welcome Back, Kotter.
1978, Aldo Moro found dead. On May 9, 1978, the body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is found, riddled by bullets, in the back of a car in the center of historic Rome. He was kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists on March 16 after a bloody shoot-out near his suburban home. The Italian government refused to negotiate with the extreme left-wing group, which, after numerous threats, executed Moro on May 9. He was a five-time prime minister of Italy and considered a front-runner for the presidency of Italy in elections due in December.
Bob Marley live in concert, 1980
1981, Bob Marley died. In what would prove to be the next to the last concert of his tragically short life, Bob Marley shared the bill at Madison Square Garden with the hugely popular American funk band The Commodores. With no costumes, no choreography and no set design to speak of, "The reggae star had the majority of his listeners on their feet and in the palm of his hand," according to New York Times critic Robert Palmer. "After this show of strength, and Mr. Marley's intense singing and electric stage presence, the Commodores were a letdown." Only days after his triumphant shows in New York City, Bob Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park and later received a grim diagnosis: a cancerous growth on an old soccer injury on his big toe had metastasized and spread to Marley's brain, liver and lungs. Less than eight months later, on May 11, 1981, the Jamaican-born Bob Marley, the soul and international face of reggae music, died in a Miami, Florida, hospital. He was only 36 years old.
1987, Forest Fire swept across China.Firefighters finally contained a giant fire that swept eastward across China on May 12, 1987, but not before 193 people were killed.The fateful fire began on May 6 in Mohe County of the Heilongjiang Province. From the outset, authorities mishandled the blaze, failing to contain it while the size was still manageable. It spread quickly and within two days, 2,000 square miles had burned and 100 people were dead. Firefighters also had to contend with a separate large forest fire that had broken out near China's border with the Soviet Union that threatened to join the initial blaze.
1988, Woman convicted for tampering with Excedrin. Stella Nickell is convicted on two counts of murder by a Seattle, Washington, jury. She was the first person to be found guilty of violating the Federal Anti-Tampering Act after putting cyanide in Excedrin capsules in an effort to kill her husband.
Stella and Bruce Nickell married in 1976, shortly after seven people were killed in Chicago, Illinois, from poisoned Tylenol pills. According to Stella's daughter from a previous marriage, Stella had begun planning Bruce's murder almost from the honeymoon. The Chicago Tylenol incident (which was never solved) had a lasting impact on Stella, who decided that cyanide would be a good method of murder.
1996, Death on Mount Everest. Eight climbers die on Mount Everest during a storm on May 10, 1996. It was the worst loss of life ever on the mountain on a single day. Author Jon Krakauer, who himself attempted to climb the peak that year, wrote a best-selling book about the incident, Into Thin Air, which was published in 1997. A total of 15 people perished during the spring 1996 climbing season at Everest. Between 1980 and 2002, 91 climbers died during the attempt.
2001, Soccer fans trampled n Ghana. On May 9, 2001, during a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, an encounter between police and rowdy fans results in a stampede that kills 126 people. This tragedy was the worst-ever sports-related disaster in Africa's history to that time.
The Accra Hearts of Oak, playing at home, were leading in their match against archrival Asante Kotoko of Kumasi when Asante fans began tearing up seats and throwing them on the field. Police on the field responded by firing tear gas into the crowd. The crowd, estimated at many thousands above the stated stadium capacity of 45,000, fled for the gates. However, the gates were locked and people at the exits were crushed to death by the masses behind them also trying to leave.
In the months leading to the incident, there had been several other disasters at soccer matches in Africa. On April 11, 43 fans lost their lives in South Africa and on April 29, a stampede in the Congo killed eight people. In fact, the previous 10 years of soccer in Africa had seen one disaster after another. Most of them were caused by the overcrowding of stadiums because of rampant corruption among ticket takers, the locking of security gates, under-training of security forces and the indiscriminate use of tear gas. In Nigeria at the time of the Accra disaster, tear gas was used on soccer crowds on a weekly basis.
