Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1966 November 12 - In a Mesa, Arizona beauty salon, Robert Benjamin Smith, 18, orders the 5 women and two children to lie on the floor then shoots them in the back of the head. Five of the seven individuals die as a result. He was asked why he did it and he claimed that it was because he wanted to be famous; possibly inspired by the Richard Speck killings. He eventually wound up in prison after a death sentence was commuted.

[sdreid]

I've not heard of this case before, but apparently it has been recently solved, according to the author of a book about it;

http://www.getbucks.co.uk/news/local...-cold-11325318

Thanks-I saw that and I suppose the guy is as good a suspect as any but I wasn't too convinced.

[Joshua Rogan]

I've not heard of this case before, but apparently it has been recently solved, according to the author of a book about it;

http://www.getbucks.co.uk/news/local-news/50-year-old-amersham-cold-11325318

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1966 November 9 - During a nature walk through an English woods, Dr. Helen Davidson is battered to death with a tree limb. The middle aged physician's murder was never solved.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1916 November 5 - In Everett, Washington, IWW Union members who've come to the city on two ships to support striking shingle workers, are ordered not to leave the boats by Sheriff Donald McRae who is backed by his posse. In addition to the men with the Sheriff on the dock, another detachment is aboard a tugboat just off the shore. A gun battle ensues in which a reported 7 to 14+ men are killed. Union leader Thomas Tracy and a number of his men are arrested for murder relating to the pair of men killed on the Sheriff's side but he is acquitted at trial and the charges against the rest of the men are dropped.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1966 November 4 - Diane Olkwitz, 19, is stabbed more than 100 times in the Wisconsin factory where she's employed. The prime suspect in her murder is Michael Lee Herrington but he was only convicted of two other killings and sent to prison for life.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1966 November 3 - In California, Mary Brinker Arden dies after being given a massive dose of insulin by her husband William Dale Archerd. He was also suspected of murdering five others, including two earlier wives, two "friends" and a teenage nephew. Archerd was sent to prison for life and died there in 1977.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1966 October 30 - After disabling her car this evening, someone murders Cheri Jo Bates with stabs to the throat. The 18-year-old Riverside City College co-ed was just leaving the school's library. After a few weeks, several people, including Cheri's father, began to receive taunting letters from an individual believed to be the murderer. Her slaying was never solved and some think she was an early victim of California's Zodiac Killer.

[sdreid]

200 years ago - 1816 October 29 - In Ireland, the Wildgoose Lodge is set ablaze my a mob of men, killing all eight occupants inside. A secret society that was active in the area was blamed and 18 men, some of whom were probably innocent, were executed for the murders.

50 years ago - 1966 October 29 - While her husband is at work, Anita Taylor, 20, is beaten, stomped and raped in her Ohio home. Her infant son was also savagely beaten but eventally recovered. Anita's murder was never solved.

[Ginger]

Not even in England, apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hubert

That he managed to start the fire even before arriving in England amply illustrates the depths of his malice and cunning.

[Mayerling]

Not even in England, apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hubert

The fire was obviously started by Sir Christopher Wren, to drum up work.

Interesting story (tragic, of course, for Hubert, who was a convenient scapegoat). I took the trouble of checking out "Pudding Lane", a small street in London that (interestingly enough*) still exists. Because I read that it was begun in a fire in a bakery, I always assumed the name "Pudding" referred to the desert, like in "Plum Pudding". It has quite a more disgusting origin from medieval times connected to dung.

[*The reason that I was amazed that the named street still exists is that, due to it's connection to such a cataclysmic occurrence, I would have thought they'd have buried it's name long ago to forget about what happened there.
Brooklyn, New York has a similar tragedy that altered a street name: In 1919 the worst subway disaster in New York City's history occurred on "Malbone Street" when a temporary engineer (there was a strike going on) fell asleep at the control, and the first two cars smashed into a culvert because they were travelling too fast at that point. Ninety people died as a result. The street's name was changed to "Empire Blvd." to help forget the tragedy - but twenty years ago I read a book on this occurrence, and it turned out a small segment of the old "Malbone Street" is still in existence in Brooklyn, and kept that name.]

Jeff

[Robert]

Not even in England, apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hubert

The fire was obviously started by Sir Christopher Wren, to drum up work.

[Mayerling]

350 years ago - 1666 October 27 - Robert Hubert is hanged, on dubious evidence, for starting the Great London Fire. At least six individuals, and probably a lot more, died in or as a result of the blaze. A number of other people, described as immigrants, were also lynched by vigilante mobs.

All I know is that it supposedly started in a bakery shop on Pudding Lane, and that the original St. Paul's Cathedral was one of thousands of structures that were destroyed (but that Sir Christopher Wren would replace.

Jeff

[sdreid]

350 years ago - 1666 October 27 - Robert Hubert is hanged, on dubious evidence, for starting the Great London Fire. At least six individuals, and probably a lot more, died in or as a result of the blaze. A number of other people, described as immigrants, were also lynched by vigilante mobs.

[GUT]

It scares me how many of the half century ones I actually remember.