On this day in history: 1315 – The Battle of Morgarten is fought along Morgarten Pass in Switzerland. Old Swiss Confederacy casualties and losses are unknown; an estimated 1,500 Habsburg soldiers are killed. 1705 – The Battle of Zsibó is fought in Zsibó, Transylvania (what is now Jibou, Romania) during Rákóczis War of Independence. An estimated 400 fights from the Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of France are killed and an estimated 450 fighters from the Habsburg Empire, Kingdom of Denmark, and the Vojvodian Serbs are killed. 1761 – British ship Auguste sinks after grounding in a gale at Aspy Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, while carrying exiles from the fall of New France. Of the 121 aboard, only seven survive. 1908 – James Deckard barricades himself into his house in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and opens fire on the sheriff, policeman, and deputies coming after him. He kills eight and injures 10 before being shot and setting fire to his own house. 1922 – Over 1,000 are massacred during a general strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador. 1928 – The RNLI lifeboat Mary Stanford capsizes in Rye Harbour in England with the loss of the entire 17-man crew. 1943 – Heinrich Himmler makes public an order that Gypsies and those of mixed Gypsy blood are to be put on “the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.” Estimates of the death toll of Romani in World War II range from 220,000 to 1,500,000. 1944 – Japanese escort aircraft carrier Akitsu Maru is torpedoed off the entrance to Manila Bay by a US submarine and sinks, killing 2,300 people. 1951 – Greek resistance leader Nikos Beloyannis, along with 11 resistance members, is sentenced to death. 1957 – In a long and rambling interview with an American reporter, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claims that the Soviet Union has missile superiority over the United States and challenges America to a missile “shooting match” to prove his assertion. The interview further fuels fears in the United States that the nation is falling perilously behind the Soviets in the arms race. 1959 – The murder of the Clutter family—the inspiration for In Cold Blood, which arguably kickstarts the true crime book genre—takes place in Holcomb, Kansas. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, two parolees from the Kansas State Penitentiary, decide to rob Herbert Clutter, a successful farmer, after hearing a rumor that he kept a cash-filled safe in his home. The two men arrive at the Clutter farmhouse and after discovering there is no safe, they slit Herbert Clutter’s throat and shoot him in the head. Perry Smith then shoots Clutter’s wife Bonnie and his two teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon. Hickock and Smith are captured by police over a month later in Las Vegas. 1976 – A bus is swept away by flash flood at the Tsoaing River, Thaba Pechela, Mafeteng, Lesotho, killing at least 90 people. 1978 – Two buses filled with miners going to work plunge into the River Jezioro Żywieckie near Żywiec, Poland, killing 30 miners, one woman, and two drivers. 1978 – Loftleiðir HF LL 001, a charter flight, crashes on approach just short of the runway at the airport of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The crash kills eight of the 13 Icelandic crew members, five reserve crew members, and 170 (mostly Indonesian) Muslim pilgrims from South Borneo, out of a total of 262 passengers and crew. 1983 – The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded and is recognized only by Turkey. 1984 – “Baby Fae,” a month-old infant who had received a baboon-heart transplant, dies at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California. 1985 – A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes. 1986 – During the night from November 15 to November 16, a German teacher identified only as Robert Kerby K. kills two people and wounds 5-10 others with a wooden plank at the Mulleriyawa psychiatric hospital in Angoda, Sri Laka. He is later captured by police naked and shouting on a highway near the capital. 1987 – Continental Airlines Flight 1713 crashes in a snowstorm at Denver’s Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 on board. 1988 – Barend Strydom shoots and kills seven black people and wounded 15 more, in and around Strijdom Square, South Africa. He declared that he was the leader of the White Wolves organization, which proves to be a figment of his imagination. 2000 – A car bomb explodes in an avenue in the center of Cali, Colombia, injuring one woman and killing one man. 2000 – A chartered Antonov An-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola, killing more than 40 people. 2003 – Two trucks carrying bombs slam into the Bet Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, and explode. The explosions devastate the synagogues and kill 27 people, most of them Turkish citizens, and injure more than 300 others. 2003 – A grenade attack from a motorcycle kills two and injures 70 in the Bogotá Beer Company, a popular pub in Bogotá, Colombia. 2007 – Ninety-nine people are killed and 46 wounded when a bus collides head-on with a truck in Boromo, Burkina Faso. The bus catches on fire and most victims are burned alive. 2007 – Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the worlds largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans. 2008 – A bus catches on fire in Balé Province, Burkina Faso, killing 67. 2010 – A high-rise apartment fire in Shanghai, China, kills 58 people. 2012 – Four people are killed and 16 others are injured in the Midland train wreck after a Union Pacific train struck a parade float in Midland, Texas.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 12:55:00 +0000
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