On this day in history: 1455 – The Romanus Pontifex is written. Along with encouraging the seizure of the lands of Saracen Turks and non-Christians, it repeats an earlier bulls permission for the enslavement of such peoples. The bulls primary purpose is to forbid other Christian nations from infringing the King of Portugals rights of trade and colonization in these regions. 1642 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei dies in Italy at age 77. 1697 – The last execution for blasphemy in Britain takes place; Thomas Aikenhead, a student, is executed in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1780 – An earthquake in Tabriz, Iran, kills approximately 200,000 people. 1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana. Having suppressed the insurrection, the planters and government officials continue to search for slaves who had escaped. Those captured are interrogated. Officials conduct two sets of trials, one at Destrehan Plantation and one in New Orleans. The Destréhan trial, run by the parish court under French law without appeal, results in the execution of 18 slaves, whose heads are put on pikes. The plantation displays the bodies of the dead rebels to intimidate other slaves. The trials in New Orleans, also in the parish court, result in the conviction and summary executions of 11 more slaves. Three of these are publicly hanged in the Place dArmes, now Jackson Square, and their heads were put up to decorate the citys gates. Whites kill about a total of 95 slaves at the time of the insurrection, and by execution after trials as a result of this revolt. 1815 – The Battle of New Orleans is fought in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the War of 1812. Fifty-five US soldiers are killed, 185 wounded, and 93 are missing; 386 British soldiers are killed, 1,521 wounded, and 553 missing. 1862 – Eduard Rodewald kills his wife and five children in Sobrusan, Austrian Empire, with an axe, hammer, knife, and rope. He is arrested, sentenced to death, and executed. The victims are Josefa Rodewald, his wife; M. Anna Widon, 16, his stepdaughter; Eduard Rodewald, 7, his son; Josefa Rodewald, 6, his daughter; Gustav Rodewald, 2, his son; and Maria Rodewald, 1, his daughter. 1863 – The Second Battle of Springfield is fought in Springfield, Missouri, during the American Civil War. Thirty Union soldiers are killed, 195 wounded, and six missing; approximately 290 Confederate soldiers are killed, wounded, or missing. 1902 – In New York City, a stopped New Haven express train is rear-ended in the Park Avenue tunnel by a New York Central White Plains local, due to smoke and snow-obscuring signals. Seventeen people are killed and 36 injured. It is the worst rail accident in New York City history. 1906 – A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people. 1935 – George M. Collett fatally shoots seven people and wounds an eighth in Mount Vernon, Kentucky, before committing suicide. Victims include his wife Stella, 28; his father-in-law William, 64; his mother-in-law Lucy, 63; his brother-in-law Howard, 32; his sister-in-law Solonia, 41; Julian Bordes, 53; and Julian’s wife Helen, 54. His brother-in-law Carlos Helton is wounded. 1945 – The China Clipper, a Pan Am Martin M-130 flying boat operating as Flight 161, crashes in Port of Spain, Trinidad, killing all 25 on board. 1956 – Five US missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them. 1959 – Southeast Airlines Flight 308 crashes into the Holston Mountain, Tennessee, on approach to the Tri-Cities Regional Airport killing all ten people on board. 1962 – The Harmelen train disaster—the worst railway accident in the history of the Netherlands—takes place in at a railway junction in Harmelen. A near head-on collision between two trains causes six coaches of a Rotterdam to Amsterdam train and three on a Utrecht to Rotterdam express train to be destroyed. Of approximately 500 people aboard the trains, 93 lose their lives, including the drivers of both trains. 1965 – Twin brothers Antonio and Jose Toling use a knife and scissors to kill eight people and wound seven others on a train near Santa Rosa City, Philippines. Four more people die by jumping out of the train. The Tolings are both sentenced to death. 1975 – In Docello, Colombia, 30 people are killed when a SATENA flight crashes. 1977 – A bomb is detonated on a Moscow Metro train as it rolls into Kurskaya station. Seven people die and 33 are seriously injured in the incident, attributed to Armenian terrorists. 1979 – The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland. The explosion and resulting fire claim the lives of 50 people. Only 27 bodies are recovered. 1989 – British Midland Flight 92 crashes near Kegworth, England, after one of its engines loses a fan blade and fails. Forty-seven people are killed. 1991 – Fifteen-year-old Jeremy Wade Delle commits suicide in front of his class of about 30 students at Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas. The incident inspires the Pearl Jam song “Jeremy.” 1993 – Seven people are murdered at the Brown’s Chicken and Pasta in Palatine, Illinois. 1994 – In Nadi, Fiji, Ram Chandar uses a cane knife to slash the necks of his 33-year old wife Suruj Lata and son Soni Ram, 14; daughter Rajni Lata, 13; daughter Roshni Lata, 11; daughter Roselyn Lata aged 15 months; and two month old son Shalvin Vikash Ram. Afterward he cleans the knife and turns himself in at the police station. 1994 – The Morris J. Berman oil spill occurred on January 7, 1994, when the Morris J. Berman, a single-hull 302-foot-long barge, with the capacity to carry more than 3 million gallons of oil, collided with a coral reef near San Juan, Puerto Rico,[1] causing the release of 750,000 gallons of heavy grade oil.[1] The spill affected the tourism and fishing industries as well as wildlife along the shores of Puerto Rico, Isla Culebrita, and Isla de Viques. The spill had major long-lasting impacts on the biological and natural resources of the entire Puerto Rican area. 1996 – An overloaded Antonov An-32 aborts takeoff and overruns into a market in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing somewhere between 225 and 350 people and injuring another 500. 1999 – Seventeen-year-old Jeff Miller fatally shoots his girlfriend, 15-year-old Andrea Garrett, and then kills himself in a suicide pact at Central High School in Carrollton, Georgia. Garrett’s parents forbade her to see Miller, and this may have played a role in their choosing a suicide pact. 2003 – Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes on takeoff from Charlotte, North Carolina; all 19 passengers and two pilots are killed. 2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashes during its final approach to land at Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey, in extensive fog. All of the five crew and 70 of the 75 passengers are killed. 2005 – A suicide car bomb detonates by a gas station in southern Baghdad, Iraq, killing four and wounding 19. 2006 – Two buses collide and crash near Churute, Ecuador, in an incident caused by both buses speeding excessively. Fourteen people are killed; another 30 are injured. 2008 – A non-cabinet Minister of Nation Building and a Member of Parliament of Sri Lanka dies of injuries sustained in a roadside bomb attack in Ja-Ela, along with one of his bodyguard. The attack injures 10 others. LTTE are blamed for this assassination. 2008 – Thirteen-year-old student Ian Chimenko stabs three of his classmates in a classroom at Antietam Middle-Senior High School, in Lower Alsace, Pennsylvania. Chimenko holds faculty members at bay with a blowtorch before being subdued. 2009 – One person is killed and two others injured in a bombing in Balochistan, Pakistan. 2009 – An earthquake in northern Costa Rica leaves 34 dead, 91 injured, and 64 missing. 2010 – A Police Service of Northern Ireland officer is wounded when a bomb explodes underneath his car in Randalstown, Northern Ireland. 2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attack the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three. 2011 – In Tucson, Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner attacks a group of people outside a supermarket with the intention of murdering US Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He kills six people and wounds 19, including Giffords. 2011 – Members of al-Qaeda in Yemen kill 12 soldiers and wound eight in an ambush in the town of Lawdar. The same day militants attack a checkpoint in the city of Lahj, killing four soldiers; six militants are also wounded. 2012 – Four members of the Russian Army and four suspected militants are killed after an intense firefight in the southeastern Vedensky District of the Chechen Republic. Sixteen soldiers are wounded during the clash.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:45:01 +0000