No offense to the always affable Hugh Jackman, who turns 44 today, but October 12 has some pretty grim history.
Maybe it’s because the first insane asylum in the U.S. opened today in 1773 in Virginia. Or that the Salem Witch Trials ended today in 1692. Or that a guy making $29 million dollars a year doesn’t start in his team’s biggest game of the year in 2012.
Today in 1960 Nikita Khrushchev infamously pounded his shoe on the table in front of him while berating people at a United Nations General Assembly. The Cold War wasn’t getting any warmer. How many movie bad guys were any scarier than Khrushchev? The shoe below is doctored in, as no pictures exist of the actual event.
Last night’s VP debate was certainly a more heated affair then last week’s Presidential one, but you’ll have to excuse Japanese viewers for yawning.
The very same night as Khrushchev’s meltdown at the U.N., a debate in Japan kind of went off the rails. Inejiro Asanuma, the leader of Japan’s Socialist Party, was in the middle of a debate when a 17-year old right wing extremist charged the stage and ran a samurai sword right through his abdomen, killing him in front of millions on live television.
“Forget social security, what’s your take on debate security?”
As long as we’re talking about samurai swords, The Big Dipper (oh yes he was), Wilt Chamberlain died today in 1999 at 63 years old. Wilt died two years to the day after John Denver, died at 53 years old, crashing his small airplane.
As tragic as those deaths were, the senseless death of Matthew Shepard in 1998 was much worse. Sheppard was a 21-year old at the University of Wyoming who was beaten by two men and hung to die because he was a homosexual. Found by a cyclist 18 hours after the beating, the unconscious Shepard was brought to a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, but never came to.
It was today in 1969 when the “Paul is Dead” urban legend grew legs when a caller to Detroit radio station WKNR told the disc jockey about the rumor and all it’s clues.
“Lady Sings the Blues” was released today in 1972. The movie was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for best actress. It told the sad tale of Billie Holiday, whose rise to fame as a jazz singer was riddled with drugs and alcohol until her death at just 44 years old.
Ross lost the Oscar to Liza Minelli
It was today in 1978 that Sid Vicious was arrested for killing his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Vicious died of a heroin overdose at a party thrown by friends after he made bail. Supposedly clean at the time, Vicious took heroin obtained by his mother at the party. He was just 21.
Today in 1989 the Minnesota Vikings traded five players, three 1st round picks, 3 second round picks, a third round pick and a few more picks to the Dallas Cowboys for Herschel Walker. Among the players drafted with those picks were Emmitt Smith, Alvin Harper, Darren Woodsen and Russell Maryland. The Cowboys would win three Super Bowls in the years after the trade.
Today in 2006 country superstar Sara Evans quit “Dancing With the Stars” for personal reasons. She had filed for divorce earlier in the day. Nothing more than a reason to post a picture of Sara Evans.
— Bill Hubbell