Random News and Notes 11 October

On this date:

• 1531 – The Catholics defeat the Protestants at Kappel during Switzerland’s second civil war.
• 1727 – George II of England crowned.
• 1775 – General William Howe is named the interim commander in chief of the British army in America on October 11, 1775, replacing Lieutenant General Thomas Gage.
• 1795 – In gratitude for putting down a rebellion in the streets of Paris, France’s National Convention appoints Napoleon Bonaparte second in command of the Army of the Interior.
• 1809 – Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of the morning after stopping for the night at Grinder’s Tavern along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.
• 1862 – The Confederate Congress in Richmond passes a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirms many southerners opinion that they are in a ‘rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.’
• 1877 – Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.
• 1899 – The South African Boer War begins between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
• 1906 – San Francisco school board orders the segregation of schoolchildren, inciting Japanese outrage.
• 1915 – Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov of Bulgaria issues a statement announcing his country’s entrance into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.
• 1942 – In the Battle of Cape Esperance, near the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeat a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter.

• 1945 – Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung break down. Nationalist and Communist troops are soon engaged in a civil war.
• 1950 – The Federal Communications Commission authorizes the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to begin commercial color TV broadcasts.
• 1962 – Pope John XXIII opens the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) with a call for Christian unity. This is the largest gathering of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in history; among delegate-observers are representatives of major Protestant denominations, in itself a sign of sweeping change.
• 1968 – Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched with astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr.; Donn F. Eisele; and Walter Cunningham aboard.
• 1972 – Race riot breaks out aboard carrier USS Kitty Hawk off Vietnam during Operation Linebacker.
• 1975 – Saturday Night Live comedy-variety show premiers on NBC, with guest host comedian George Carlin and special guests Janis Ian, Andy Kaufman and Billy Preston; at this writing (2013) the show is still running.
• 1976 – The so-called “Gang of Four,” Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s widow and three associates, are arrested in Peking, setting in motion an extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.
• 1991 – Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas begin.
• 2000 – NASA launches its 100th Space Shuttle mission.

We start the news in Yorkshire where a man jumped into a tiger enclosure at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. It ended much like you would expect. Mostly. The man died from his injuries, because tigers are tigers.

There is some good news however. According to zoo officials, Altai the tiger will not be euthanized for being a tiger. Altai, an endangered Amur tiger, arrived at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in England from Dyreparken Zoo in Norway in 2025 at the age of three.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

There is an alarming rise of antibiotic resistant shigella infections across the US. Shigella causes bloody diarrhea, cramps, fever, and vomiting. I’ll let you guess what demographics are most affected.

Shigella is spread through tiny amounts of fecal matter from anal or oral-anal contact. CDC data shows extensively drug-resistant strains jumped from 0% in 2011–2015 to 8.5% in 2023, mostly among adult men, while England reported 2,560 likely sexually transmitted cases in 2025. Experts note it’s endemic in networks of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, with sexual transmission growing faster than other routes

Prevention relies on handwashing, avoiding sex during diarrhea, and waiting two weeks after symptoms end.

On October 8, ICE agents shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck during a targeted arrest in Marble Hill, NYC, firing seven rounds after he allegedly accelerated his gray Honda CR-V toward officers. Federal officials describe Belgal, a Dominican national with prior convictions and alleged gang ties, as refusing orders and endangering agents. The usual suspects are up in arms.

It seems Belgal, a wanted felon, had his child in the car when he decided to try to run over ICE agents.