38th year - N° 358 Sunday, 24 December 2023

BIRTH(+)FACT(᙮)DEATH(-)
38th year - N° 358 Sunday, 24 December 2023

24 December / Today's 32 Events:

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(-) 499 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1524 Explorer Vasco da Gama dies of malaria at the age of 64 in Kochi, Kerala, India.

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(+) 342 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1681 Composer Georg Philipp Telemann is born in Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

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(+) 214 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1809 Frontiersman, fur trapper and wilderness guide Kit Christopher Houston Carson is born in Richmond, Kentucky, United States.

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(+) 199 years ago Friday 24th of December 1824 Serial poisoner Lydia Sherman aka The Derby Poisoner is born in Burlington, New Jersey, United States.

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(-) 138 years ago She Was Reduced to Twelve Pounds Thursday 24th of December 1885 Mrs. Patrick Rooney dies of Spontaneous Human Combustion in Seneca, Illinois, United States. Mrs. Rooney's formerly one-hundred and sixty pound body had been reduced to just twelve pounds worth of remains. Nothing else in the kitchen was damaged by fire directly, but most of the house's interior walls and furniture were coated with a "dirty, greasy, sooty substance." It was further stated that her husband had been asphyxiated by the fumes rising from his wife's burning body while sleeping.

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(+) 137 years ago Friday 24th of December 1886 Aristocrat and patient of Sigmund Freud Sergei Konstantinovitch Pankejeff aka Der Wolfsmann is born in Odessa, Odessa Oblast, Ukraine.

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(x) 135 years ago He Gave it to Rachel Monday 24th of December 1888 35-year-old Impressionist painter Vincent Willem van Gogh cuts off the lobe of his left ear in Rue du Bout d'Aeles, Arles, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. Van Gogh supposedly gave it to a prostitute named Rachel. He was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital where Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training, treated him. The ear was delivered to the hospital but Rey did not attempt to reattach it as too much time had passed.

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(+) 118 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1905 Business magnate, aviator, aerospace engineer, film director and eccentric Howard Robard Hughes is born in Houston, Texas, United States.

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(+) 110 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1913 Abstract expressionist painter Ad Adolph Frederick Reinhardt is born in Buffalo, New York, United States.

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(+) 101 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1922 Actress Ava Lavinia Gardner is born in Smithfield, North Carolina, United States.

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(+) 89 years ago Monday 24th of December 1934 Music teacher and victim of the Manson Family Gary Allen Hinman is born in Grand Junction, Colorado, United States.

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(-) 88 years ago Tuesday 24th of December 1935 Composer Alban Maria Johannes Berg dies from blood poisoning apparently caused by an insect-sting-induced carbuncle on his back at the age of 50 in Wien, Wien, Austria.

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(+) 84 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1939 Serial killer Dean Arnold Corll aka The Candyman is born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States.

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(+) 82 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1941 Double murderer Robert Lee Massie is born in Virginia, United States. Massie was born to a 15-year-old woman and a man who had married her only to avoid a charge of statutory rape.

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(x) 70 years ago Thursday 24th of December 1953 151 die in Wellington-Auckland express passenger train derailment in Whangaehu River Bridge, Tangiwai, North Island, New Zealand. One of the bridge piers was destroyed by a mudflow minutes before the train approched.

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(+) 62 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1961 Serial killer Charles Chi-Tat Ng is born in Hong Kong, China.

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(-) 60 years ago Tuesday 24th of December 1963 Dada artist Tristan Tzara, originally Samuel or Samy Rosenstock dies of unknown causes at the age of 67 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

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(-) 57 years ago Saturday 24th of December 1966 Janina Kozielska is slashed dead by serial killer Łucjan Staniak aka The Red Spider of Katowice in Warszawa, Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland. Kozielska was found on the night-train from Krakow to Warsaw.

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(+) 54 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1969 Serial killer Stephen Shaun Griffiths aka The Crossbow Cannibal is born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

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(-) 49 years ago Tuesday 24th of December 1974 Ernst Dorf is beaten to death by serial killer Kurt-Friedhelm Steinwegs aka Die Bestie vom Niederrhein in Gifhorn, Sachsen, Germany.

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(x) 48 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1975 22-year-old Serial killer David Richard Berkowitz, originally Richard David Falco aka Son of Sam attacks Michelle Forman and another unidentified girl with a knife in New York City, New York, United States. They both survived.

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(-) 48 years ago He Took His Last Taxi Wednesday 24th of December 1975 Composer Bernard Herrmann, originally Max Herman dies of cardiovascular disease at the age of 64 in Los Angeles, California, United States. Herrmann's last work he completed the day before his death was his sombre score for 'Taxi Driver'.

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(-) 45 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1978 Andrew Robinson is stabbed to death by serial killer Kurt-Friedhelm Steinwegs aka Die Bestie vom Niederrhein in Gifhorn, Sachsen, Germany.

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(-) 44 years ago Monday 24th of December 1979 Student leader Rudi Alfred Willi Dutschke aka Rote Rudi dies of drowning after an epileptic seizure while in his bathtub at the age of 39 in Århus, Midtjylland, Denmark. Because of massive brain damage from an assassination attempt on 11 april 1968 Dutschke continued to suffer health problems which finally led to his death.

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(-) 43 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 1980 Commander of the Kriegsmarine and successor of the Führer Karl Dönitz dies of a heart attack at the age of 89 in Aumühle, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

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(-) 41 years ago Friday 24th of December 1982 Poet and writer Louis Aragon, originally Louis Andrieux dies of unknown causes at the age of 85 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

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(x) 28 years ago Sunday 24th of December 1995 36-year-old Serial killer Anatoly Yuriyovych Onoprienko aka The Terminator aka Citizen O kills the forestry teacher Zaichenko, his wife and two children with a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun during a robbery in Gamarnya, Zhitomirskaya Oblast, Ukraine. Afterwards Onoprienko set the house on fire.

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24 years ago The Eyes had it Friday 24th of December 1999 A homeless person spending Christmas Eve in front of the shop of a gas station in Taling Chan, Central Thailand, Thailand.

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24 years ago The Eyes had it Friday 24th of December 1999 An evening stroll through Chinatown with intriguing foodstalls selling flattened duck and pig heads in Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand.

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(-) 23 years ago Sunday 24th of December 2000 Victim of John Wayne Gacy aka The Killer Clown Jeffrey Rignall dies of AIDS at the age of 49 in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. Rignall survived an attack by serial killer John Wayne Gacy on 22 March 1978.

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(-) 15 years ago Wednesday 24th of December 2008 Writer and playwright Harold Pinter dies of liver cancer at the age of 78 in Hammersmith Hospital, Hammersmith, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

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(-) 12 years ago Saturday 24th of December 2011 Chimpanzee Cheetah-Mike aka Org known from Tarzan movies dies of kidney failure at the age of 80 in Suncoast Primate Sanctuary, 4600 U.S. 19 Alt, Palm Harbor, Florida, United States.

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