On this day in history: 395 – The Battle of Canhe Slope is fought in Baoding, Hebei, China. Approximately 60,000 members of Later Yan’s forces are killed or injured. Northern Wei casualties and losses are unknown, but are believed to be low. 1432 – The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town of Oszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War. 1596 – Luis de Carabajal the younger, one of the first Jewish authors in the Americas, dies in an auto-da-fé during the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico City, Mexico. 1794 – The Great New Orleans Fire destroys 212 structures in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the area now known as the French Quarter. 1812 – An earthquake in Wrightwood, California, kills 40 people. 1863 – A fire at the Church of the Company of Jesus in Santiago, Chile, kills between 2,000 and 3,000 people, probably the most people to die in an accidental fire in any one building anywhere in the world. The big hoop skirts worn at the time make escape very difficult if not impossible, causing the people at the front to fall down and be trampled by the ones behind. Very soon the main entrance is blocked by a human wall of bodies, impeding both the exit of the ones trapped inside and entry of rescuers. The cleanup of the bodies takes about 10 days, and since most of the bodies are burned beyond recognition, they are placed in a mass grave at the Cementerio General de Santiago. 1881 – A fire at the Ring Theater in Vienna, Austria, kills at least 620 people and injures hundreds more. 1914 – German armored cruiser SMS Gneisenau is sunk in action during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, with the loss of 598 lives. 1914 – German armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst is sunk in action during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, with the loss of 860 lives. 1928 – An Indian weaver uses a sword to kill his wife, his mother, and his four sons, aged 3-11 years, with a sword in Delbhog, a village near Sreenagar, British Raj. The man next kills his cow and a goat and sets fire to his house, but is eventually overpowered by other villagers. He is then arrested. 1941 – Japanese forces simultaneously invade Malaya (68 British and Australian troops killed, 360 wounded, 37 missing; 320 Japanese troops killed, 538 wounded), Thailand, Hong Kong (lasts until December 25; 2,113 British and Canadian troops killed or missing, 2,300 wounded, 10,000 captured; 1,996 Japanese troops killed and 6,000 wounded; 4,000 civilians killed, 3,000 civilians severely wounded), the Philippines (lasts until May 8, 1942; 25,000 American and Philippine troops killed, 21,000 wounded, 100,000 captured; 9,000 Japanese troops killed, 500 missing, 13,200 wounded), and the Dutch East Indies (lasts until March 9, 1942; 2,383 Dutch, British, American, Australian, and New Zealand troops killed, 59,733 captured; 671 Japanese troops killed) during World War II. 1942 – A fire at the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum in Seacliff, New Zealand, kills 37 female patients. 1953 – Twenty-six-year-old track coach George Marich is stabbed to death by 17-year-old student James Gipson in a hallway of Aledo High School in Aledo, Illinois. The stabbing occurs after Marich removes Gipson and two other seniors from a study hall for creating a disturbance. 1957 – Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 670 crashes near Bolívar, Argentina, killing 61 people. 1961 – A fire at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, started by discarded cigarette ash dropping down a trash chute, takes the lives of 16 individuals—including patients, visitors, nurses, employees, and one physician—and changes fire codes and building regulations for hospitals nationwide. 1963 – Pan Am Flight 214 is struck by lightning and crashes at Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people. 1966 – The SS Heraklion, a Greek car ferry, capsizes and sinks in the Aegean Sea, killing over 200 people. 1967 – A Faucett flight crashes at Blanca, Peru, killing 72 people. 1969 – Olympic Airways Flight 954 crashes at Keratea, Greece, killing 90 people. 1971 – British frigate INS Khukri is sunk off the coast of Diu, Gujarat, India, by a Pakistan submarine, with the loss of 194 lives. 1971 – The Indian Navy launches an attack on West Pakistan’s port city of Karachi during the Indo-Pakistani War. An estimated 200 Pakistani sailors are injured and 1,790 killed. 1972 – United Airlines Flight 553 crashes after aborting its landing attempt at Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 45 people. The crash is the first-ever loss of a Boeing 737. 1980 – John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in New York City. 1982 – In Suriname, several opponents of the military government are killed. 1987 – Frank Vitkovic shoots and kills eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, Australia, before jumping to his death. Five others are wounded. 1987 – A Peruvian Navy Fokker F27-400M chartered by Peruvian football club Alianza Lima plunges into the Pacific Ocean six miles short of its destination, off the Ventanilla District of the city of Callao, Peru. On board the flight are a total of 44 players, managers, staff, cheerleaders, and crewmembers, of whom only the pilot survived the accident. 1987 – An Israeli army tank transporter kills four Palestinian refugees and injures seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the Israel–Gaza Strip border, sparking the First Intifada. 1988 – A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing five people and injuring 50 others. 1994 – Dennis Venturina, a Sigma Rhoan, is beaten to death by members of Scintilla Juris, a rival fraternity, on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, Philippines. 1995 – A black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owns a retail property in Manhattan, asks Fred Harari, a Jewish tenant who operates Freddies Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a black-owned record store called The Record Shack. Al Sharpton leads a protest in Harlem against the planned eviction of The Record Shack, telling the protesters, “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Roland J. Smith Jr., one of the protesters, enters Harari’s store with a gun and flammable liquid, shoots several customers, and sets the store on fire. The gunman fatally shoots himself and seven store employees die of smoke inhalation. Fire Department officials discover that the store’s sprinkler had been shut down, in violation of the local fire code. 1995 – Headmaster Philip Lawrence is stabbed to death outside the gates of his school by 15-year-old Learco Chindamo at St Georges Roman Catholic Secondary School in Maida Vale, London, England. 1998 – Eighty-one people are killed by armed groups in the mountain villages of Bouhamed and Ayachiche, Algeria. The manner of killing is reported to be notably sadistic, mutilating victims and burning corpses; CNN quotes a survivor as saying that “attackers slashed the throats of children, cutting the arms and legs off one of them and throwing the body in a boiling pot.” In addition, 20 women (eight according to initial reports) are kidnapped. Another seven people had been killed in the area on the previous night. 2000 – A lone gunman, Abbas al-Baqir Abbas, opens fire on a mosque in Jarafa, Sudan, with a Kalashnikov assault rifle during evening prayers, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 30 others, before he is shot dead by police. 2000 – Three people are killed and 30 injured when two car bombs explode near a market in Pyatigorsk, Russia. Forty-eight buildings are also damaged in the blast. 2005 – A suicide bomber detonates inside a passenger bus in southern Baghdad, Iraq, killing 30 passengers and wounding 40. 2005 – A gas explosion kills 54 miners and traps 22 in the Liuguantun Mine in Tangshan Kaiping District, China. 2007 – Three unidentified gunmen storm an office of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party in Balochistan, Pakistan. Three PPP supporters are killed. 2009 – A motorcycle bomb explodes in a crowded market in Narathiwat, Thailand, killing two and injuring nine, just before a visit by Malaysian and Thai premiers. 2009 – A series of bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kill at least 127 people and injure 448 others. 2009 – Suicide attackers raid an ISI office in Multan, Pakistan; 12 people are killed and 25 injured. 2010 – A fire at San Miguel prison in Santiago, Chile, kills 81 inmates, making it the country’s deadliest prison incident. 2012 – Suspected AQAP militants ambush a military patrol inspecting a damaged oil pipeline in central Yemen, killing 17 soldiers. Among the dead is Major-General Nasser Mahdi Farid, chief of staff for Yemens central military region.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 13:00:00 +0000
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