Random News and Notes 8 October

On this date:

• 876 – Charles the Bald is defeated at the Battle of Andernach.
• 1690 – Belgrade is retaken by the Turks.
• 1840 – King William I of Holland abdicates.
• 1840 – The Kingdom of Hawaii (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) adopts its first constitution, creating a formal government and granting all citizens of the independent nation equal rights, stating that “chiefs and people may enjoy protection under one and the same law.”
• 1855 – Arrow, a ship flying the British flag, is boarded by Chinese who arrest the crew, thus beginning the Second Chinese War.
• 1862 – The Union is victorious at the Battle of Perryville, the largest Civil War combat to take place in Kentucky.

• 1871 – The Peshtigo Fire, now considered the most devastating fire in United States history, burns in Wisconsin. Some 1,200 people lost their lives and 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Despite the massive scale of the blaze, it was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire, which began later that night about 250 miles away.
• 1871 – The Great Chicago Fire begins in southwest Chicago, possibly in a barn owned by Patrick and Katherine O’Leary. Fanned by strong southwesterly winds, the flames raged for more than 24 hours, eventually leveling three and a half square miles and wiping out one-third of the city. Approximately 250 people were killed in the fire; 98,500 people were left homeless; 17,450 buildings were destroyed.
• 1897 – Journalist Charles Henry Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, begins charting trends of stocks and bonds.
• 1912 – First Balkan War begins as Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
• 1918 – US Army corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest; promoted to sergeant and awarded US Medal of Honor and French Croix de Guerre.
• 1919 – The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives pass the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Bill.
• 1921 – First live radio broadcast of a football game; Harold W. Arlin was the announcer when KDKA of Pittsburgh broadcast live from Forbes Field as the University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia University 21–13.
• 1922 – Lilian Gatlin becomes the first woman pilot to fly across the United States.
• 1939 – Nazi Germany annexes Western Poland.
• 1945 – Raytheon Manufacturing Company filed a patent for what’s now a staple kitchen appliance in homes around the world: the microwave oven.
• 1956 – Southdale Mall, the nation’s first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall opens in a Minneapolis suburb.
• 1956 – Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitches the first perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

• 1967 – Guerrilla Che Guevara captured in Bolivia.
• 1968 – U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation SEALORDS (South East Asia Lake, Ocean, River and Delta Strategy), an attack on communist supply lines and base areas in and around the Mekong Delta.
• 1969 – The “Days of Rage” begin in Chicago; the Weathermen faction of the Students for a Democratic Society initiate 3 days of violent antiwar protests.
• 1970 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1978 – Ken Warby of Australia sets the world water speed record, 317.60 mph, at Blowering Dam in Australia; no other human has yet (2013) exceeded 300 mph on water and survived.
• 1991 – Croatia votes to sever its ties with Yugoslavia.
• 2001 – US President George W. Bush establishes the Office of Homeland Security.

We start the news in the Bronx where Police arrested 31-year-old Angel Carrasco on Wednesday, charging him with murder, attempted murder, and manslaughter in the death of 23-year-old Nathaly Ramirez. Carrasco allegedly shoved Ramirez and their 8 month old child off a balcony. The early Tuesday incident at Allerville Arms left Ramirez dead and their baby critically injured but now stable after treatment at Jacobi Hospital.

I think we need a bit more summary justice in this country.

This one is a bit odd. A New Jersey transit bus went out of control, hopped a curb, hit a vehicle parked in a driveway and then a house. The bus on the 166 line had just left the Oradell garage around 5:45 a.m. and was heading to its first stop when it lost control near Route 4, crossed a lawn, hit a parked car, and struck a home on Rockwood Place. Doorbell camera footage captured the crash.

The driver was hospitalized with unknown injuries, but no passengers were aboard and the former Airbnb house stood empty. Police are investigating the cause.

I don’t get it. Did the driver have some sort of medical event? Was there a steering and brake failure on the bus?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech while in Greece. The address took place at the Pnyx hill, site of ancient Athenian assemblies, with the Parthenon visible behind him, during a visit focused on US-Greece security, energy, and economic ties as NATO allies.

Rubio linked ancient Greek values like courage and ambition to current US policy priorities such as reindustrialization, border security, and defending Western civilization against decline. He warned that Europe was at an inflection point and urged the continent to “wake up from its long slumber”.

There is finally a hurricane in the Atlantic basin. Hurricane Isaias is predicted to his the Gulf Coast late Friday/early saturday as a cat 1 hurricane. Storm warnings are up from Jefferson/Plaquemines Parish Line, LA to west of Ocean Springs, MS
* East of Bay/Gulf County Line to Aucilla River, FL.

If you are in the cone, take heed and follow the instructions from local officials. Keep safe out there.