⅏Did You Know: Sandra Smith - The Last Woman to be Hanged in South Africa (along with boyfriend Yassiem Harris)

Did You Know...

On June 2nd, 1989,
Sandra Smith was the last woman to be hanged in South Africa (along with her boyfriend Yassiem Harris). 
Sandra Smith was a 22 year old coloured woman (official South African designation during the apartheid era) who was married to a trawler man called Philip and had two small children. Philip spent long periods at sea and sent money back for Sandra and the children. She began having an affair with Yassiem Harris, who was three years her junior:

One day in September or October 1983, Harris received a note and some money from Smith. The note said that she wanted to meet him in a park. At the subsequent meeting she told him how much she 'admired' him. “She also asked if I wanted to sleep over because her husband had left with the ship,” Harris said. “The first night I got into bed with her and that's how the relationship started.” Yassiem Harris was almost 17-years-old when he met Sandra Smith. He smoked dagga (a type of cannabis, relatively nontoxic South African herb smoked like tobacco), took mandrax (a sedative-hypnotic drug that is similar in effect to barbiturates), and had been a juvenile delinquent since the age of 13. He had left school at fifteen while in Standard 6 (Grade 8), in order to get a job to supplement the family income. His first job was working alongside his father at a car-sound specialist in Claremont, Cape Town, but he was dismissed after six months when it was discovered that he had stolen R 10 000 (almost US$1,500) in cash, and cheques totalling R26,000 (almost US$4,000). He was convicted and received six cuts with the cane. The hiding, his father claimed, 'made no impression on him'.

After they had been seeing each other for about six months, their relationship faced its first crisis when Phillip Smith, Sandra's husband, returned from sea and learnt of his wife's affair from some neighbours. He responded by getting help from three of his friends to beat Harris up, but no sooner had he gone back to sea than Harris and his wife were together again. Even though the two of them were virtually living as man and wife, this did not prevent Harris from pursuing other women. Some mornings he used to loiter outside local high schools before school started, chatting to the school girls and making dates for the afternoon. This was how he got to know Jermaine Abrahams and learnt where she lived.

The affair between Harris and Smith continued for over two-and-a-half years. When Sandra's husband was ashore, they would stop seeing each other and then resume the relationship when he left for sea again. In 1985, Smith became pregnant for a third time and was uncertain whether the father was her husband's or Harris's.

In March 1986 when Phillip Smith returned home to find his wife and Harris together again. Harris fled to avoid being beaten and Sandra followed him - abandoning her children in the process. As far as Phillip Smith was concerned, the marriage was over and so was the free supply of money he had been providing.

For a time after the break-up of her marriage, Sandra stayed with friends in Grassy Park then, with Harris' help, she found lodgings in Mitchell's Plain. But within a few months all her money had gone and things were becoming desperate.

To make ends meet, they tried renting video recorders from shops and then selling them but this didn't net them any real money. Harris, who was unemployed, also spent time hanging about outside a girl's school and got to know some of the girls, including Jermaine Abrahams as previously mentioned. He soon found out where she lived and from his conversations with Jermaine, he concluded that her family were quite wealthy.

They hatched a plan to break into the Abrahams’ family home and steal her mother's jewellery and anything else of value. Harris had also found out that her parents left for work at 7.00 a.m. in the morning and she left for school about 7.40 a.m.

The Crime

Smith and Harris arrived at the house about 7.30 a.m. on September the 1st, 1986, and Harris was let in by Jermaine on the pretext of him wanting to use the telephone. They tied Jermaine up but were disturbed by someone knocking at the door. She started to shout for help and struggle so they then tried to strangle her with a dish cloth. Harris now fetched a knife from the kitchen and repeatedly stabbed Jermaine in the neck. Amazingly, she didn't die from her injuries and managed to get to her feet and stagger a few paces before collapsing. Harris carried Jermaine to her parents bedroom and made her show him where the jewellery and valuables were kept. He wrapped the poor girl in a duvet and then cut her throat, leaving her to bleed to death. He and Smith collected up what they wanted and then left the house.
Two weeks later, while Smith was being questioned by the police regarding the video scam, she surprised the interviewing officer by confessing to the killing of Jermaine. "I wouldn’t have been able to live with it," she said. In her statement she told the police, "He pulled the scarf tight across her mouth and then cut her throat."

 

The Trial

The trial of Sandra Smith and Yassiem Harris began at the Cape Town Supreme Court on 1 December 1986. Both were accused of murdering and robbing Jermaine Abrahams. During the trial, both Smith and Harris attempted to shift the onus of blame on to the other. Smith maintained that Harris had done the actual killing and Harris claimed to have been dominated by Smith. Neither denied being party to the murder. However, when the exact nature of their relationship was examined, it was found that neither Harris nor Smith dominated the other. In other words, they were both equally responsible for their actions. During the trial, some love letters, which the accused had written to each other were read out in court - a fact which seemed to embarrass Mrs Smith more than the accusation of murder laid against her. In one letter in particular, she had referred to their sexually-satisfying relationship and said: 'I will never sleep with another man, not even with my own husband because during five years he could not please me. That is why I felt so sad this morning when you said you were pleased no one was waiting for you. What about me? Where do I really stand with you? I love you and I don't want to lose you. Yassiem, please tell me I must wait for you. I want you to believe that we will be together because I do. The way our sex has been, I don't believe I will ever again get a man who can please me so. That is why I am going to wait till you come out.'

Harris said in a letter: 'I want to tell you to forget me because I don't no [sic] if it will be the same when I come out one day. I love you very much Sandra you no it, but I don't no what's qoinq to happen in such a long time.'

On 11 December 1986, both Smith and Harris were convicted of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances. During his two-hour summing-up the Judge-President, Mr Justice Munnik, described Harris, who had tried to put the blame on Smith by saying he had acted on her instructions, as 'an appalling witness'. It was clear, the Judge maintained, that Harris had wielded the knife throughout and his parrot like repetition of 'I don't know' when repeatedly asked why he killed the girl was merely a ploy. It was equally obvious that Harris had killed the girl to prevent her identifying them. Furthermore, his claim to have been dominated by Smith was refuted by the psychiatrist. Smith was demanding but not dominant, and there was no evidence to indicate that she pressurized Harris into committing any crimes that he would not normally commit. Indeed, the judge concluded, both Smith and Harris helped each other throughout and were equally responsible for what followed.

The Execution

On 22 December, Smith and Harris were sentenced to hang because they had jointly planned and ruthlessly executed the murder of Jermaine Abrahams. (Harris was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for robbery with aggravating circumstances. Smith was sentenced to 7 years.) When the death sentence was handed down, Smith became hysterical and had to be taken struggling and wailing to the cells.

At 6.50 a.m. on that morning, Smith was taken to meet Harris for the first time in over two and a half years. Together with two other men who had been convicted of murder, they were led the 52 steps to the pre-execution room next to the gallows. The death warrants were read to them and they were given the opportunity to say their last words. Their hands were handcuffed behind them and white hoods placed over their heads, these having a flap at the front which was left up until the last moment.

A look from below the trap 
doors. The chain hoist is used
 for raising and closing
the trap doors.

They were now led forward by warders into the large and brightly lit execution room. It was some 40 feet long with white painted walls. They would have seen the gallows beam running the length of the room and the seven large metal eyes from which the four nooses dangled. (Seven prisoners could and often were hanged at once on this gallows.) The picture shows very much what Smith and Harris would have seen as they were led to the gallows. The chain hoist on the middle metal eye is used for raising the trapdoors after an execution.

They were positioned side by side, on painted footprints over the divide of the trap and held by warders while the hangman placed the nooses around their necks. He then turned down the hood flaps and when all was ready, pulled the lever plummeting them through the huge trapdoors.

They were left to hang for 15 minutes before being stripped and examined by a doctor in the room below. Once death had been certified, the bodies were washed off with a hose and the water allowed to drain into a large gully in the floor. A warder put a rope around each of their bodies and with a pulley lifted them to allow the rope to be taken off. They were then lowered onto a stretcher and placed directly into their coffins before taken to a public cemetery for burial.

Although executions in South Africa were held in private, the procedure was described in detail by the then hangman, Chris Barnard, in an interview before he died. He officiated at over 1,500 hangings there.

Sandra Smith and Yassiem Harris were executed on June 2nd, 1989, at the Pretoria Central Prison.

Did You Know?..

South Africa hanged 1,123 people at Pretoria Central prison between 1980 and 1989, Solomon Ngobeni being the last on November 14th, 1989. Surprisingly perhaps, almost all of these were for "ordinary" murders rather than politically motivated crimes and most attracted very little publicity.
According to the South African Department of Correctional Services, two other coloured women were hanged for murder in the years 1969 to 1989, Gertie Fourie, on the 20th of May 1969 and Roos de Vos, on the 12th of December 1986. A total of 14 women were executed between 1959 & 1989, out of a total of 2,949 hangings.
President De Klerk ordered a moratorium on executions in 1990 and capital punishment was abolished altogether by the incoming black government of Nelson Mandela on the 7th of June 1995  which was greeted with cheering in Pretoria Central Prison. Some 453 people were still on Death Row. Their sentences were commuted to life.
 

also

Did You Know?  For the month of

back in.....

• 0632, June 08, Founder of Islam Died.  In Medina, located in present-day Saudi Arabia, Muhammad, one of the most influential religious and political leaders in history, dies in the arms of Aishah, his third and favorite wife.  Born in Mecca of humble origins, Muhammad married a wealthy widow at 25 years old and lived the next 15 years as an unremarkable merchant. In 610, in a cave in Mount Hira north of Mecca, he had a vision in which he heard God, speaking through the angel Gabriel, command him to become the Arab prophet of the "true religion." Thus began a lifetime of religious revelations, which he and others collected as the Qur'an.
• 1692, Jun 07, Earthquake Destroyed Jamaican Pirate Haven.  On this day in 1692, a massive earthquake devastates the infamous town of Port Royal in Jamaica, killing thousands. The strong tremors, soil liquefaction and a tsunami brought on by the earthquake combined to destroy the entire town. In the 17th century, Port Royal was known throughout the New World as a headquarters for piracy, smuggling and debauchery. It was described as "most wicked and sinful city in the world" and "one of the lewdest in the Christian world." 
  

In the morning on June 7, three powerful quakes struck Jamaica. A large tsunami hit soon after, putting half of Port Royal under 40 feet of water. The HMS Swan was carried from the harbor and deposited on top of a building on the island. It turned out to be a refuge for survivors.

Residents also soon discovered that the island of Port Royal was not made of bedrock. The relatively loosely packed soil turned almost to liquid during the quake. Many buildings literally sank into the ground.  Corpses from the cemetery floated in the harbor alongside recent victims of the disaster.

On the main island, Spanish Town was also demolished. Even the north side of the island experienced great tragedy. Fifty people were killed in a landslide. In all, about 3,000 people lost their lives on June 7. There was little respite in the aftermath--widespread looting began that evening and thousands more died in the following weeks due to sickness and injury. Aftershocks discouraged the survivors from rebuilding Port Royal. Instead, the city of Kingston was built and remains to this day the largest city in Jamaica.

• 1692, June 10, First Salem Witch Hanging.  In Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft.  Thirteen more women and five men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows, and one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing.

• 1870, Jun 05, Constantinople Burned.  A huge section of the city of Constantinople, Turkey, is set ablaze on this day in 1870. When the smoke finally cleared, 3,000 homes were destroyed and 900 people were dead. 
• 1913, Jun 08, Forensic Evidence Captured a Murderous Father.  Two farmers walking near a quarry outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, find two small, dead bodies floating in the water, tied together. Although the bodies were so waterlogged that authorities could barely confirm that they were human, Sydney Smith, the century's first "Quincy," was able to use forensics to help solve the crime.  The first thing he noticed about the body was the presence of adipocere, a white and hard type of fat. The level of adipocere in the bodies, which takes months to form inside the human body when exposed to water, led Smith to believe that they had been in the quarry somewhere between 18 to 24 months.The adipocere had preserved the stomachs of the bodies and Smith saw that the children had eaten peas, barley, potatoes, and leeks approximately an hour before they died.  Given the seasonal nature of the vegetables, Smith figured that the kids had died at the end of 1911. Most importantly, Smith found an indication that one of the children's shirts had come from the Dysart poorhouse.
  With this information, law enforcement officials quickly found the killer. Patrick Higgins, a widower and drunk who was arrested and eventually hanged on October 2, 1913. 
• 1933, Jun 06, First Drive-in Movie Theater Opened.  On this day in 1933, eager motorists park their automobiles on the grounds of Park-In Theaters, the first-ever drive-in movie theater, located on Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey. 

Did You Know?  Richard Milton Hollingshead, Jr. (February 25, 1900 - May 13, 1975) was the inventor of the drive-in theater.

Pic by Mary Bellis

In the early 1930s, he was working as a sales manager in his father's auto parts company, Whiz Auto Products. According to one story, his mother was a large woman who was uncomfortable sitting in a regular movie theater. So he began experimenting at his home in Camden, New Jersey, using his car, a 1928 Kodak movie projector, and two sheets nailed between two trees for a screen. Eventually, he came up with a ramp in each parking space, so that patrons could elevate the front of their cars to see the screen without being blocked by other vehicles. He applied for a patent on August 6, 1932 and was granted number 1,909,537 on May 16, 1933.
The first movie shown was Wives Beware, starring Adolphe Menjou. The charge was $0.25 per person and $0.25 per automobile, with a maximum cost of $1. Hollingshead sold the theatre in 1935 and opened another one.

• 1948, Jun 8, First Porsche Completed.   On this day in 1948, a hand-built aluminum prototype labeled "No. 1" becomes the first vehicle to bear the name of one of the world's leading luxury car manufacturers:  Porsche.  The Austrian automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche debuted his first design at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900. The electric vehicle set several Austrian land-speed records, reaching more than 35 mph and earning international acclaim for the young engineer. 
• 1962, Jun 11, Alcatraz Proved Escapable for Three Men.  John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Lee Morris attempt to escape from Alcatraz federal prison. The three men were never seen again, and although some believe that theirs was the only successful getaway from what was known as "The Rock," it is far more likely that they drowned in the chilly water. Four days after their escape, a bag containing photos, which belonged to Clarence Anglin, was found in San Francisco Bay. Escape From Alcatraz, both a J. Campbell Bruce book and a Clint Eastwood movie, later dramatized the incident.
• 1968, Jun 05, Bobby Kennedy was Assassinated.  At 12:50 a.m. PDT, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate, is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. The shooter, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrestled from his grip and was promptly arrested. Kennedy, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital, where he fought for his life for the next 24 hours. On the morning of June 6, he died. He was 42 years old. On June 8, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, also the final resting place of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy.
• 1991, Jun 10, Evacuations Saved Lives in the Philippines.  On this day in 1991 at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, 14,500 personnel are evacuated in anticipation of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Over the next several days, the eruptions killed hundreds of people and sent tons of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. 

  

  The eruption column of
  Mount Pinatubo
   on June 12, 1991, three days
   before the climactic eruption.
  Pic by wiki user Hike 395

  Evacuation of the surrounding area began on June 7. On the morning of June 12, the first major explosion occurred, blasting ash 62,000 feet in the air and destroying part of the mountain's dome. The eruption continued on and off for the next day and then, on the afternoon of June 14, another big blast spread gas and ash miles away. The final eruption took place the following morning, spewing 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the air. Approximately 350 people were killed by the toxic emissions. The early warning and preparations saved thousands of lives.
  The mountain lost nearly 1,000 feet in the eruptions—it now stands at just 4,800 feet high.
• 2002, Jun 10, Doughnut Truck Thief Arrested.  On this day in 2002, Clint Messina, 21, of Lacombe, Louisiana, is arrested and charged in the attempted murder of a police officer after driving into a patrol car while attempting to flee from sheriff’s deputies. Soon after, police discovered that he was already a wanted man.  On March 27, Messina and an associate, Rose Houk, 31, stole a Krispy Kreme doughnuts delivery truck in Slidell, Louisiana. The Krispy Kreme deliveryman had left the engine of the truck running and its rear doors open while he went into a convenience store to make a delivery. Upon returning to find the truck and the hundreds of doughnuts inside missing, the deliveryman called police, who pursued and caught up to the vehicle.  Messina and Houk then led police on a 15-mile chase, leaving a trail of doughnuts behind them as they fled. The incident was the subject of nationwide media attention and, as it involved cops and doughnuts, kept late-night comedians busy for several days.
  Eventually, Messina and Houk abandoned the vehicle and attempted to get away on foot. Houk didn’t make it and was arrested, but Messina, who was driving, managed to escape.
• 2004, Jun 05, Ronald Reagan Died. On this day in 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s and helping to defeat communism.

Resources: 
wikipedia, executedtoday.com, capitalpunishmentuk.org, africacrime-mystery.com, history.com, daylife.com, various magazines, onthisday.com, skcentral.com

⅏Did You Know - Lincoln Dreamt About a Presidential Assassination?

Did You Know...

Lincoln dreamt about a presidential assassination..

A photograph of the President and Thomas (Tad) made by Mathew B. Brady on February 9, 1864



According to the recollection of one of his friends, Ward Hill Lamon, President Abraham Lincoln dreams on the night of April 4, 1865 of "the subdued sobs of mourners" and a corpse lying on a catafalque in the White House East Room. In the dream, Lincoln asked a soldier standing guard "Who is dead in the White House?" to which the soldier replied, "The President.  He was killed by an assassin." Lincoln woke up at that point. On April 11, he told Lamon that the dream had "strangely annoyed" him ever since. Ten days after having the dream, Lincoln was shot dead by an assassin while attending the theater.

Did You Know?  For the month of

back in.....

• 1824, Lord Byron died in Greece.  George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, dies in what is now Greece, where he had traveled to support the Greek struggle for independence from Turkey. Even today, he is considered a Greek national hero.
• 1912. RMS Titanic hit iceberg.  Just before midnight in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic fails to divert its course from an iceberg, ruptures its hull, and begins to sink. Because of a shortage of lifeboats and the lack of satisfactory emergency procedures, more than 1,500 people went down in the sinking ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the approximately 700 survivors were women and children. A number of notable American and British citizens died in the tragedy, including the noted British journalist William Thomas Stead and heirs to the Straus, Astor, and Guggenheim fortunes. The announcement of details of the disaster led to outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. The sinking of the Titanic did have some positive effects, however, as more stringent safety regulations were adopted on public ships, and regular patrols were initiated to trace the locations of deadly Atlantic icebergs.
• 1944, Explosion on cargo ship rocks Bombay, India.  The cargo ship Fort Stikine explodes in a berth in the docks of Bombay, India, killing 1,300 people and injuring another 3,000 on this day in 1944. As it occurred during World War II, some initially claimed that the massive explosion was caused by Japanese sabotage; in fact, it was a tragic accident. The Fort Stikine was a Canadian-built steamship weighing 8,000 tons. It left Birkenhead, England, on February 24 and stopped in Karachi, Pakistan, before docking at Bombay. The ship was carrying hundreds of cotton bales, gold bullion and, most notably, 300 tons of trinitrotoluene, better known as TNT or dynamite. Inexplicably, the cotton was stored one level below the dynamite, despite the well-known fact that cotton bales were prone to combustion.
• 1946, Arthur Chevrolet committed suicide.  Arthur Chevrolet, an auto racer and the brother of Chevrolet auto namesake Louis Chevrolet, commits suicide in Slidell, Louisiana. Louis Chevrolet was born in Switzerland in 1878, while Arthur's birth year has been listed as 1884 and 1886. By the early 1900s, Louis and Arthur, along with their younger brother Gaston, had left Europe and moved to America, where they became involved in auto racing. In 1905, Louis defeated racing legend Barney Oldfield at an event in New York. Louis Chevrolet's racing prowess eventually caught the attention of William C. Durant, who in 1908, founded General Motors (GM). Chevrolet began competing and designing cars for GM's Buick racing team. In 1911, Chevrolet teamed up with William Durant to produce the first Chevrolet car. The two men clashed about what type of car they wanted, with Durant arguing for a low-cost vehicle to compete with Henry Ford's Model T and Chevrolet pushing for something more high-end. In 1915, Chevrolet sold his interest in the company to Durant and the following year the Chevrolet Motor Company became part of General Motors.
• 1967, GM celebrated its 100 millionth U.S.-made car.  On April 21, 1967, General Motors (GM) celebrates the manufacture of its 100 millionth American-made car. At the time, GM was the world's largest automaker.  General Motors was established in 1908 in Flint, Michigan, by horse-drawn carriage mogul William Durant. In 1904, Durant invested in the Buick Motor Company, which was started in 1903 by Scottish-born inventor David Dunbar Buick. Within a few years of forming his company, Buick lost control of it and sold his stock, which would later be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. (In 1929, Buick died at age 74 in relative obscurity and modest circumstances). Durant made Buick Motors the cornerstone of his new holding company, General Motors, then acquired Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Reliance Motor Company, among other auto and truck makers.
• 1973, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" topped the U.S. pop charts and created a cultural phenomenon.  The yellow ribbon— has long been a symbol of support for absent or missing loved ones. There are some who believe that the tradition of the yellow ribbon dates back as far as the Civil War era, when a yellow ribbon in a woman's hair indicated that she was "taken" by a man who was absent due to service in the United States Army Cavalry. But research by professional folklorists has found no evidence to support that story. The Library of Congress itself traces the cultural ubiquity of this powerful symbol to the well-known song by Tony Orlando and Dawn: "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree," which topped the U.S. pop charts on April 21,1973.

• 1993, Branch Davidian compound burned.  At Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launches a tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound, ending a tense 51-day standoff between the federal government and an armed religious cult. By the end of the day, the compound was burned to the ground, and some 80 Branch Davidians, including 22 children, had perished in the inferno.
• 1995, Truck bomb exploded in Oklahoma City.  Just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast collapsed the north face of the nine-story building, instantly killing more than 100 people and trapping dozens more in the rubble. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma City from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later the death toll stood at 168 people killed, including 19 young children who were in the building's day-care center at the time of the blast.  On April 21, the massive manhunt for suspects in the worst terrorist attack ever committed on U.S. soil by an American resulted in the capture of Timothy McVeigh, a 27-year-old former U.S. Army soldier.
• 1999, A massacre at Columbine High School.  Two teenage gunmen kill 13 people in a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, south of Denver. At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold, 18, and Eric Harris, 17, dressed in trench coats, began shooting students outside the school before moving inside to continue their rampage. By 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded another 23 people. Shortly after noon, the two teens turned their guns on themselves and committed suicide.

  The crime was the worst school shooting in U.S. history (until 33 people, including the gunman, were killed in the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007) and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the teen gunmen.
• 2007, Massacre at Virginia Tech left 32 dead.  On April 16, 2007, in one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, 32 students and teachers die after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University by Seung Hui Cho, a student at the school who later dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.   In the aftermath of the massacre, authorities found no evidence that Cho, who was born in South Korea and moved to America with his family in 1992, had specifically targeted any of his victims. The public soon learned that Cho, described by ex-classmates as a loner who rarely spoke to anyone, had a history of mental-health problems. It was also revealed that angry, violent writings Cho made for certain class assignments had raised concern among some of his former professors and fellow students well before the events of April 16.
  
  
  

Resources: history.com, various magazines

⅏Did You Know - These Random Facts? #14 - March

Did You Know?  For the month of

back in.....

• 1900, Congress made gold the monetary standard for U.S. currency.  They set its value at $20.67 an ounce.  This same month back in 2008, gold futures hit an all-time high, topping $1,000 an ounce!
• 1906, A powerful earthquake and a full day of aftershocks rock Taiwan killing over 1,200 people. This terrifying day of tremors destroyed several towns and caused millions of dollars in damages.
• 1937, Nearly 300 students at The Consolidated School of New London, Texas were killed by an explosion of natural gas at their school.
• 1944, Britain announces that all travel between Ireland and the United Kingdom is suspended, the result of the Irish government's refusal to expel Axis-power diplomats within its borders.
• 1959, Barbie dolls arrived in stores.  Today, there are more Barbie dolls than people in the United States!
• 1964, Elizabeth Taylor married her fourth husband, Richard Burton.  Filmdom's most famous co-stars had met on the set of Cleopatra a year earlier.  They divorced in 1974 and remarried in 1975, but the second marriage only lasted one year.  Taylor split from her eighth husband, Larry Frotensky, in 1996, and has not remarried - yet!
• 1971, An earthquake set off by a series of calamities—a landslide, flood and avalanche-- resulted in the destruction of the town of Chungar, Peru, and the death of 600 of its inhabitants.
• 1972, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather.  It was the first of a trilogy based on Mario Puzo's novel about a crime family.  It won three Oscars.  A few years ago, a hat Al Pacino wore in the movie sold at an auction for $16,100!

• 1989, Exxon Valdez runs aground.  The worst oil spill in U.S. territory begins when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water. Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and animals were adversely affected by the environmental disaster.
• 1992, A 6.8-magnitude earthquake near Erzincan, Turkey, and an unusually powerful aftershock two days later kill at least 500 people and leave 50,000 people homeless. Erzincan was a provincial capital city of 90,000 people 600 miles east of Istanbul in Central Turkey. The people of the area were no strangers to earthquakes--deadly quakes had struck the area in 1047, 1547, 1583, 1666, 1784 and 1939. It was a Friday evening during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when the 1992 earthquake struck; most people in Erzincan and the surrounding area were sitting down for their evening meal. Seventeen seconds of powerful jolts and rocking began at 7:19 p.m., bringing down buildings and all electricity in the region.
  One casualty of the quake was the minaret on top of the Demirkent Mosque—it toppled and fell, killing 27 people.
• 2003, The United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiated war on Iraq.
 

Resources: history.com, various magazines

⅏Did You Know - These Random Facts? #13 - March

Did You Know?  For the month of

back in.....

• 0045, The ides of March:  Julius Caesar is murdered.  (Well I kind of knew about this one, lol) Julius Caesar, the "dictator for life" of the Roman Empire, is murdered by his own senators at a meeting in a hall next to Pompey's Theatre. The conspiracy against Caesar encompassed as many as sixty noblemen, including Caesar's own protege, Marcus Brutus.
• 1669, Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily in modern-day Italy, began to rumble. Multiple eruptions over the next few weeks killed more than 20,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Most of the victims could have saved themselves by fleeing, but stayed, in a vain attempt to save their city.
• 1864, Congress ordered that the motto "In God We Trust" be placed on American currency.  The phrase replaced "E Pluribus Unum" as the "official" motto of the United States in 1956.
• 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.  The Scottish-born Bell worked in London with his father, Melville Bell, who developed Visible Speech, a written system used to teach speaking to the deaf. In the 1870s, the Bells moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where the younger Bell found work as a teacher at the Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf.  Three days after filing the patent, the telephone carried its first intelligible message--the famous "Mr. Watson, come here, I need you"--from Bell to his assistant.

• 1899, Bayer patents Aspirin.  The Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co.  Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found in the bark of willow trees.  In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffman found a way to create a stable form of the drug that was easier and more pleasant to take. (Some evidence shows that Hoffman's work was really done by a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun, whose contributions were covered up during the Nazi era.) After obtaining the patent rights, Bayer began distributing aspirin in powder form to physicians to give to their patients one gram at a time. The brand name came from "a" for acetyl, "spir" from the spirea plant (a source of salicin) and the suffix "in," commonly used for medications. It quickly became the number-one drug worldwide.
• 1906, Mine explosion kills 1,060 in France.  A devastating mine disaster kills over 1,000 workers in Courrieres, France.  An underground fire sparked a massive explosion that virtually destroyed a vast maze of mines. 
  The Courrieres Colliery in northern France was a complex series of mines near the Pas-de-Calais Mountains. Tunnels into the mines issued forth from several towns in the area and more than 2,000 men and boys worked the mines, digging for coal that was used mostly in the manufacture of gas. 
  At about 3 p.m. on the afternoon of March 9, a fire began 270 meters underground in what was known as the Cecil pit. Unable to immediately extinguish it, workers decided to close the pit's outlets and starve the fire of air. The following morning, with 1,795 workers inside the mine's deep tunnels, a huge explosion issued forth from the Cecil pit. Apparently, fissures in the pit's walls had allowed in flammable gases that were then sparked by the still-smoldering fire. It was 7 a.m. when debris rocketed out of the tunnels' openings. Several people on the surface were killed by the blast and the roof a mine office was blown right off the building.

  

  Elvis Presley

  
• 1956, A 21-year old singer named Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut to poor reviews.  He wouldn't return to a Las Vegas stage for another 13 years!
• 1959, The first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City.  Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.
• 1981, Japanese power plant leaked radioactive waste.  A nuclear accident at a Japan Atomic Power Company plant in Tsuruga, Japan, exposed 59 workers to radiation.   On March 9, a worker forgot to shut a critical valve, causing a radioactive sludge tank to overflow. Fifty-six workers were sent in to mop up the radioactive sludge before the leak could escape the disposal building, but the plan was not successful and 16 tons of waste spilled into Wakasa Bay.  In May 1981, the president and chairman of the Japan Atomic Power Company resigned.
• 1985, The Coca-Cola Company announced that it was overhauling its secret formula after 99 years to create a sweeter "new" coke.  People were so upset, the company was forced to reintroduce classic Coke less than three months later.  The news was considered so significant that ABC news anchor Peter Jennings interrupted regular programming to share it with viewers!
• 1987, Sloppy safety procedures lead to ferry sinking. A British ferry, Herald of Free Enterprise, leaving Zeebrugge, Belgium, capsized, drowning 188 people.   Shockingly poor safety procedures led directly to this deadly disaster. Lord Justice Barry Sheen, an investigator of the accident, later said of it, from top to bottom, the body corporate was affected with the disease of sloppiness.
• 1988, Hail causes stampede at soccer match in Nepal.   A sudden hail storm prompts fans at a soccer match in Katmandu, Nepal, to flee. The resulting stampede killed at least 70 people and injured hundreds more. Approximately 30,000 people were watching the game between the Nepalese home team, Janakpur, and Muktijodha, of Bangladesh, at the National Stadium. A storm approached quickly and hail stones began pelting the spectators. When the fans panicked and rushed to the exits, they found the gates locked, apparently to keep people without tickets from entering the stadium. As fans continued to push forward toward the exits, there was no space for them to go. The victims of the stampede, unable to breathe, were literally crushed to death.
• 1992, Quake rocks Turkey.   A 6.8-magnitude earthquake near Erzincan, Turkey, and an unusually powerful aftershock two days later kill at least 500 people and leave 50,000 people homeless.  Erzincan was a provincial capital city of 90,000 people 600 miles east of Istanbul in Central Turkey. The people of the area were no strangers to earthquakes--deadly quakes had struck the area in 1047, 1547, 1583, 1666, 1784 and 1939. It was a Friday evening during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when the 1992 earthquake struck; most people in Erzincan and the surrounding area were sitting down for their evening meal. Seventeen seconds of powerful jolts and rocking began at 7:19 p.m., bringing down buildings and all electricity in the region.
  One casualty of the quake was the minaret on top of the Demirkent Mosque—it toppled and fell, killing 27 people.
• 1996, The legendary cigar-chomping performer George Burns died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, just weeks after celebrating his 100th birthday.
• 1997, Rapper Notorious B.I.G. is killed in Los Angeles.  Christopher Wallace, a.k.a Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G., is shot to death at a stoplight in Los Angeles. The murder was thought to be the culmination of an ongoing feud between rap music artists from the East and West coasts. Just six months earlier, rapper Tupac Shakur was killed when he was shot while in his car in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Ironically, Wallace's death came only weeks before his new album, titled Life After Death, was scheduled to be released.
• 2004, Terrorists bomb trains in Madrid.  191 people are killed and nearly 2,000 are injured when 10 bombs explode on four trains in three Madrid-area train stations during a busy morning rush hour. The bombs were later found to have been detonated by mobile phones.
  The attacks, the deadliest against civilians on European soil since the 1988 Lockerbie airplane bombing, were initially suspected to be the work of the Basque separatist militant group ETA. This was soon proved incorrect as evidence mounted against an extreme Islamist militant group loosely tied to, but thought to be working in the name of, al-Qaida.
• 2008, Racecar driver Danica Patrick became the first woman to win an IndyCar race.  She captured the Indy Japan 300 in her 50th career start!
 

 Resources: history.com, various magazines

✈Worlwide Wednesdays: Weird Sports/Events - Part 2

Cockroach Races - Australia

...As the story goes the Story Bridge Hotel Cockroach Races were started when two old punters sat in the bar arguing over which suburb had the biggest and fastest roaches.

They decided to race some roaches the next day and history was made.

The races have now been held at the Story Bridge Hotel for over 28 years...

Racing is simple....the races are held in a circular track and roaches are then let go from an upturned bucket in the middle...first to the edge is a winner. Things are made a little more difficult in the steeplechase events where a circular fence (garden hose) is used to enhance the spectacle and test the roach talent.

There is no betting as such on the races . Instead punters pay $5 to buy a roach and $5 to enter it or their own in a race.....all roaches are numbered (not an easy job), with first second and third receiving prizes..First gets a pack from the race sponsor and a trophy, second and third get a cash prize.
We do supply Cockroaches, we buy them and fly them up from Melbourne (true..believe it or not), but this is often not enough, so patrons are be encouraged to BYO roach.Rules:

Races are only open to entrants registered and weighed in by the stewards prior to event.

1. It is the job of the stewards to catch the first 3 cockies across the line. Their decision is final.
2. After each event, entrants may be re-entered in further events (if you can catch them). Best wishes and good luck  to any of the entrants which evade capture.....we hope to see you next year.
3. Flying will not be tolerated, entrants thought to have gained an unfair air-born advantage will be disqualified. If disqualified entrants may be banned from competing in future events.
4. Ownership of entrants ceases after each race.
5. Only stewards are permitted on 'The Olde Canvasse'. Pitch invaders are liable to a $100,000,000.00 fine.
6. The cost of entering a 'Roach is $5.00. Prizes are as follows; 1st place - Sponsors Prize & Trophy.  2nd place -  $25 Cash!!. 3rd place $15.00. Scientifically bred Cockroaches (of the highest calibre) can be purchased from the  Stewards.
7. As outlined by the governing bodies, entrants may be tested for performance enhancing substances at any time.  Penalties are severe! Owners are  advised that stewards will also be scanning for so called "natural" enhancers  e.g. coffee, white sugar, and red cordial to name a few.
8. The Cockroach Races are first and foremost a fun event. All funds raised in this event from the buying or entering of 'Roaches go to Variety. Therefore anyone who disagrees with the official  rules,  the running of the event or decisions made by the Stewards, will be considered to be  "Wowsers of the highest  order" and not very Australian at all.

Source:  cockroachraces.com/au

Toe Wrestling - UK

Toe wrestling is a sport gaining popularity in the UK. World championships started in Wetton in the 1970s and are now held at the Bentley Brook Inn in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Top players include Paul "Toeminator" Beech and Alan "Nasty" Nash, who is the current world champion.

Rules:

Toe wrestling is similar to arm wrestling. To play, Players must take off their shoes and socks, as the game is played bare feet. It is common courtesy for each player to remove the other players shoes and socks. Players must link toes and each players feet must touch flat on the other person's feet. Typically, after a short starting chant which varies by region (for example, "one, two, three, four, I declare a toe war."), the opponents proceed to attempt to pin (capture or trap) their opponent's feet for three seconds, while avoiding the same. Pinning is accomplished by placing one foot on the same foot of the opponent (for example, 'Jack swings his foot right, trapping Harry's feet underneath for 3 seconds).

Source: Wikipedia


Oil Wrestling - Turkey

Oil wrestling (Turkish: yağlı güreş) is the Turkish national sport. It is known sometimes as grease wrestling because the wrestlers douse themselves with olive oil. It is related to Uzbek kurash, Tuvan khuresh and Tatar köräş. The wrestlers, known as pehlivan (from Persian پهلوان or pehlevān, meaning "hero" or "champion") wear a type of hand-stitched lederhosen called a kisbet (sometimes kispet), which are traditionally made of water buffalo hide, and most recently have been made of calfskin.

Unlike Olympic wrestling, oil wrestling matches may be won by achieving an effective hold of the kisbet. Thus, the pehlivan aims to control his opponent by putting his arm through the latter's kisbet. To win by this move is called paça kazık. Originally, matches had no set duration and could go on for one or two days, until one man was able to establish superiority, but in 1975 the duration was capped at 40 minutes for the baspehlivan and 30 minutes for the pehlivan category. If no winner is determined, another 15 minutes—10 minutes for the pehlivan category—of wrestling ensues, wherein scores are kept to determine the victor.


Source:  Wikipedia


Running of the Nudes - Spain

In 2002, approximately 25 naked streakers ran through Pamplona’s winding streets to promote an alternative to the Running of the Bulls. Subsequent events saw a steady increase in the numbers of runners with an estimated 1000 nude or semi-nude runners taking part in the event in 2006.


The annual Running of the Nudes in Pamplona - 2007
by Wiki user Melissa Karpel


The Running of the Nudes, like the well-known Running of the Bulls, occurs two days before the Running of the Bulls, just before the start of the nine-day festival of San Fermín. The event is supported by animal welfare groups, including PETA, who object to the Running of the Bulls, claiming that the event is cruel and glorifies bullfighting, which the groups oppose. In the Running of the Nudes, naked humans, many wearing only plastic horns and red scarves, follow the same route taken by the Running of the Bulls, from the Santo Domingo corrals through the town’s streets, ending at the Plaza de Toros. The length of the run is some 800 meters (about half a mile) and the event takes about one hour.


Source:  Wikipedia