Mar 09, 2006 09:18
Today in Rotten History
Mar 9 1170
In Essex, a UFO is spotted over St. Ostwyth, manifesting itself as a "wonderfully large dragon ... borne up from the Earth through the air". The craft kindled the air and destroyed a house.
Mar 9 1556
David Rizzio, the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, stabbed 56 times by a gaggle of Scottish nobles. Her husband Henry Lord Darnley had orchestrated the murder with Mary witnessing, hoping to precipitate a miscarriage.
Mar 9 1967
Josef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, walks into the U.S. Embassy at New Delhi and asks to defect.
Mar 9 1989
Photographer/homosexual Robert Mapplethorpe dead from AIDS. His bullwhip will be missed.
Mar 9 1995
Jon Schmitz (straight) kills Scott Amedure (gay) three days after an appearance on the trashy Jenny Jones TV talk show, where Amedure admitted having a crush on Schmitz. Allegedly the two men had an affair that evening after the show, but the backlash from their rural community was going to be so severe that Schmitz panicked to defend his manlihood, filling his admirer with buckshot. Amedure's famly later sued the Jenny Jones show for $50M.
Mar 9 1997
Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) killed in a drive-by outside the Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles. The murder has never been officialy solved, though an ongoing feud with Death Row Records may have had something to do with it.
It is also National Panic Day
Don't let me die with that silly look in my eyes.