Centenaries - whole and half

[Mayerling]

Yes as I recall Jeff, Richeson either tried to castrate or emasculate himself with the lid of a tin can. I don't remember if he totally seceded.

Hi Stan,

Yes that was what he did. Rather disgusting and gruesome as I said.

I think it was also the year that the Ocea Snead Case (is that how you spell it), involving a series of murders by the three sisters in Black occured.

Jeff

[sdreid]

400 years ago - 1610 December 30 - Authorities in Hungary arrest Countess Elizabeth Bathory in her castle and begin finding the first of many young female murder victims. The Countess, who had a fetish for blood, was sentenced to be walled up in a small room of her residence where she died in 1614.

[Mayerling]

Before we leave 2010...

Since you brought up the activities of the notorious Countess Bathory four hundred years ago, we might also note a political murder and an exploration tragedy.

1) King Henri IV of France (the first of the Bourbon line) was stabbed to death in a carriage on a Paris Street by Francois Ravaillac, a Catholic fanatic, who did not trust the King even though Henri converted to Catholicism to become King ("Paris is worth a mass", he is supposed to have said). There is a mystery if Ravaillac acted on his own or supported by several conspirators including the Queen of France, Marie de Medici. In any case Ravaillac's execution was quite hideous, involving tearing off flesh and pouring molten lead into his body.

2) In May 1610 sea captain and explorer Henry Hudson and his son and four sailors were set adrift with barely any supplies in Hudson's Bay by his mutinous crew. Hudson, exploring for England this time (unlike in 1607 when he discovered the New York river named for him for the Dutch) had found the huge bay when looking for the Northwest Passage, and the crew began to panic as supplies dwindled. No trace of Hudson, except for some possible ruins of a cabin , were ever found, but it is pleasing to report that most of the mutineers were either the victims of scurvy and starvation, or that they were killed in fights they started with the Inuits.

Jeff

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1910 December 31 - Leon Beron is last seen alive out with Steinie Morrison. He was discovered slain the next day with some apparent lettering carved into his face. Morrison was convicted of the murder and sentenced to a meeting with the English hangman, however his condemnation was reduced to life in prison because there was doubt regarding his guilt. Morrison died incarcerated in 1921 due, at least in part, to one of his hunger strikes.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 January 3 - In East London, police shoot it out with a group of anarchist criminals in what became known as the Siege of Sidney Street. When the gun-play stopped, all that remained were two dead gangsters. One of the band, Peter "The Painter" Piaktow escaped and was never captured or that's the general belief. Some think that "The Painter" was actually Yakov Peters who was caught but acquitted. Seven of the gang were captured in total but none received a standing conviction.

[sdreid]

200 years ago - 1811 January 8 - Gilbert Andre, the son of a plantation owner, is murdered by revolting slaves in the Territory of Orleans which is now the state of Louisiana. After two days and the slaying of another white man, the uprising was crushed. During the suppression and its aftermath, about 95 blacks lost their lives.

[Zodiac]

Hi Stan,

I love this thread, its always the first one I check whenever I visit Casebook, so a big thanks go out to you mate!!!

I'm sure that you have got these covered and I am certainly not trying to steal you thunder, these are just my couple of notables for January, that I find sometimes seem to "slip under the radar".

Jan. 17th. 1911. Attempted assassination of French Prime Minister Aristide Briand in the French Chamber of Deputies. He escaped unharmed, though a Messr. Mirmam, the Director of Public Relief, was injured.

Jan. 24th. 1911. Murder/Assassination of David Graham Phillips, a prominent American novelist and journalist of his day and author of "The Treason of the Senate". He was seen as being both a "Progressive" and a muckraker, and thus he made many and powerful enemies for himself!!! In 1992 Daniel D. Victor wrote a novel, "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh Bullet". It features an aging Sherlock Holmes and the good Dr. Watson, coming out of a comfortable semi-retirement to make the long and arduous journey to the US, so as to investigate the murder of David Graham Phillips. The book was still available through Amazon the last time I checked.

Thanks again Stan for both posting and maintaining this thread.

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[sdreid]

Thanks Zodiac. I did have that second one lined up although the book I have says the shooting was January 23. It could be wrong or perhaps the victim lived a short while and died on the 24th or that's when it made the papers. No trial was necessary at least.

I had one for the 17th but not that one.

[Zodiac]

Thanks Zodiac. I did have that second one lined up although the book I have says the shooting was January 23. It could be wrong or perhaps the victim lived a short while and died on the 24th or that's when it made the papers. No trial was necessary at least.

I had one for the 17th but not that one.

Hi Stan,

Yes sir, you are are indeed correct!!! He was shot on the 23rd, and died one day later, in Bellevue Hospital, on the 24th. His killer blew his own brains out, with the murder weapon, immediately after shooting Phillips!!! So no trial!!!
See!!! What did I say??? I knew you were ahead of the game, as always!!!

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Mayerling]

Hi Stan,

I love this thread, its always the first one I check whenever I visit Casebook, so a big thanks go out to you mate!!!

Jan. 24th. 1911. Murder/Assassination of David Graham Phillips, a prominent American novelist and journalist of his day and author of "The Treason of the Senate". He was seen as being both a "Progressive" and a muckraker, and thus he made many and powerful enemies for himself!!! In 1992 Daniel D. Victor wrote a novel, "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh Bullet". It features an aging Sherlock Holmes and the good Dr. Watson, coming out of a comfortable semi-retirement to make the long and arduous journey to the US, so as to investigate the murder of David Graham Phillips. The book was still available through Amazon the last time I checked.

Thanks again Stan for both posting and maintaining this thread.

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

David Graham Philips is best recalled for his last (best?) novel, SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE, and the above mentioned THE TREASON OF THE SENATE, which helped lead to the amendment to the Constitution for direct election of U. S. Senators (prior to 1913 they were elected by State Legislatures) SUSAN LENOX was made into a film in 1932 of that name with Greta Garbo in the lead role and Clark Gable.

But he wrote a novel called THE FASHIONABLE LIFE OF JOSHUA CRAIG (1907),
and it had a character in it who was a flighty socialite woman. This came to the attention of an eccentric violinist from Philadelphia named Fitzhugh Coyle
Goldsborough (grandson of the American Civil War Admirel Louis M. Goldsborough). Our violinist felt that the character in the novel was a veiled spoof or attack on his older, beloved sister. So he vowed to get even with the novelist.

Philips lived at Gramercy Park, and when he left his apartment home on that January day in 1911 he heard his name called. He turned and saw Goldsborough with a gun, yelling, "Here you go!" Philips was shot seven times, and was still alive as help ran over to him. As for Goldsborough, he turned the gun up to his own head and yelled, "Here I go!" and killed himself.
Philips died after surgery at the hospital the next day. He insisted it was the last (the seventh bullet) that killed him.

Jeff

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 January 17 - Patrice Lumumba, the former Prime Minister of The Peoples Republic of the Congo, is executed by firing squad along with two compatriots. He had been deposed in September. The executioners were Belgians according to reports and conjecture was that the CIA might have been involved.

[Mayerling]

David Graham Philips is best recalled for his last (best?) novel, SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE, and the above mentioned THE TREASON OF THE SENATE, which helped lead to the amendment to the Constitution for direct election of U. S. Senators (prior to 1913 they were elected by State Legislatures) SUSAN LENOX was made into a film in 1932 of that name with Greta Garbo in the lead role and Clark Gable.

But he wrote a novel called THE FASHIONABLE LIFE OF JOSHUA CRAIG (1907),
and it had a character in it who was a flighty socialite woman. This came to the attention of an eccentric violinist from Philadelphia named Fitzhugh Coyle
Goldsborough (grandson of the American Civil War Admirel Louis M. Goldsborough). Our violinist felt that the character in the novel was a veiled spoof or attack on his older, beloved sister. So he vowed to get even with the novelist.

Philips lived at Gramercy Park, and when he left his apartment home on that January day in 1911 he heard his name called. He turned and saw Goldsborough with a gun, yelling, "Here you go!" Philips was shot seven times, and was still alive as help ran over to him. As for Goldsborough, he turned the gun up to his own head and yelled, "Here I go!" and killed himself.
Philips died after surgery at the hospital the next day. He insisted it was the last (the seventh bullet) that killed him.

Jeff

In the Book Review Section of today's Sunday New York Times was an essay ironically entitled "Character Assassination". It deals with the killing a century ago of Phillips by Goldsborough, and the details of it. But I see that the writer was shot six times and insisted that had it been only two bullets he would have been made it, but that six bullets were just too many. There was no seventh bullet.

Jeff

[sdreid]

Thanks for that information Jeff.

Anyway, I wrote a book several years ago that gave an account of the murders that happened on each day of the year including February 29 but the literary agents and publishers all thought it was too much of a niche book. It makes a good reference for me though so 3000 hours of work and a quarter million words didn't go to waste.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 January 23 - David Graham Phillips, an author, is gunned down in New York by Fitzhugh Coyl Goldsborough, a wealthy eccentric. Goldsborough had a strange paranoid attachment to his own sister and thought that Phillips had patterned a character in one of his books after her. He shot himself right after attacking Graham. The latter succumbed the next day and Goldsborough died shortly after.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 January 24 - The head caretaker at Lancaster Castle in England, William Bingham, dies after a sudden illness. His daughter, Annie, had also passed away mysteriously in the previous November. Later this year, more of his children, Margaret and James, will also succumb. This finally aroused suspicions and arsenic was found in the remains of the last three to die. If Annie was slain, it was apparently by some other means. Daughter and sister of the victims, Edith Bingham was charged with murder but was found not guilty. In 1914, she was sent to an asylum where she died in 1945. Officially, the case is unsolved.