Remember when....

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John Lennon Assassinated - December 8, 1980

ESPN looks back at the announcement made by Howard Cosell on John Lennon's murder.

An ESPN "Outside The Lines" report on Beatles band member John Lennon, murdered on December 8th, 1980 in New York City. His shocking death was initially announced to a nationwide American audience on ABC's Monday Night Football.

These two videos gives an in depth look at the event from eyewitnesses and former sportscasters involved.

Originally Aired 12-5-2010

     

     

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The Virginia Tech Massacre - April 16, 2007

The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, before committing suicide (another 6 people were injured escaping from classroom windows). The massacre is the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history. It was the worst act of mass murder of college students since Syracuse University lost 35 students in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and the second-deadliest act of mass murder at a school campus in the United States, behind the Bath School bombing of 1927.

Cho, a senior English major at Virginia Tech, had previously been diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder. During much of his middle school and high school years, he received therapy and special education support. After graduating from high school, Cho enrolled at Virginia Tech. Because of federal privacy laws, Virginia Tech was unaware of Cho's previous diagnosis or the accommodations he had been granted at school. In 2005, Cho was accused of stalking two female students. After an investigation, a Virginia special justice declared Cho mentally ill and ordered him to attend treatment. Lucinda Roy, a professor and former chairwoman of the English department, had also asked Cho to seek counseling. Cho's mother also turned to her church for help.

The attacks received international media coverage and drew widespread criticism of U.S. laws and culture. It sparked intense debate about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health issues, the perpetrator's state of mind, the responsibility of college administrations, privacy laws, journalism ethics, and other issues. Television news organizations that aired portions of the killer's multimedia manifesto were criticized by victims' families, Virginia law enforcement officials, and the American Psychiatric Association.

The massacre prompted the state of Virginia to close legal loopholes that had previously allowed Cho, an individual adjudicated as mentally unsound, to purchase handguns without detection by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It also led to passage of the first major federal gun control measure in more than 13 years. The law strengthening the NICS was signed by President George W. Bush on January 5, 2008.

The Virginia Tech Review Panel, a state-appointed body assigned to review the incident, criticized Virginia Tech administrators for failing to take action that might have reduced the number of casualties. The panel's report also reviewed gun laws and pointed out gaps in mental health care as well as privacy laws that left Cho's deteriorating condition in college untreated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

         

         

         

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James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as Wild Bill Hickok

He was a folk hero of the American Old West. His skills as a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the basis for his fame, although some of his reported exploits are fictionalized.

Hickok came to the West as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach driver, before he became a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War, and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler. Between his law-enforcement duties and gambling, which easily overlapped, Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts. He was shot and killed while playing poker in the Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok


James Butler Hickok was a folk hero of the American Old West. His skills as
a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the
basis for his fame, although some of his exploits are fictionalized.
         

The death sequence from Walter Hill's bizarre 1995 film "Wild Bill", starring
Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, David Arquette (as the coward Jack McCall) and
John Hurt.
         

Johnny Cash Singing:  "The Last Gunfighter"
         

[Warph]

It was one of my favorite rituals every year.

One evening after dinner... a few weeks after Thanksgiving... my father and I would shop for a Christmas tree.

My father wore his rattiest coat as he prepared to do battle with strangers who would attempt to part him from precious family resources.

He instructed me to remain silent as he executed his negotiation strategy... one he'd refined and perfected over the years.... for good reason.

When I was 7 and he was on the hunt for my first bicycle, he'd found a beauty by accident.  As he worked his cunning on the unsuspecting flea-market guy, I raved about the bike... how I couldn't wait to get it home!

I screwed up the deal royally, of course, and my dad was steamed.  The flea-market guy wouldn't budge off the price and we walked away bikeless.

Over the next few years, I learned to keep my yap shut when my father displayed his cunning.

As the cold December air froze our bones.... as a hot fire raged in an old steel barrel to keep the tree-lot guys warm... my father would almost go into a trance.

We'd hit no fewer than four Christmas tree lots every year... among Kiwanis Club, Knights of Columbus, VFW, Elks Club and American Legion lots.

We'd search high and low, pulling out a variety of trees and assessing them.  When we found a real beauty at each lot, we'd set it aside.

Then my father would shift into high gear.

"That's a sweet tree you found there, mister," one tree-lot guy would eventually say.  "Want me to ring you up?"

"You call this a Douglas Fir," my dad would say, as though he'd earned a doctorate in horticulture.  "This tree is dry and weak and will probably burn my house down!"

It'd take 90 minutes or more, but my father would soon pit the Kiwanis Club guy against the Knights of Columbus guy, the Elks Club guy against the VFW guy, then the American Legion guy against all of them.

He'd pound them so hard on the poor quality of their product that one would soon break, giving my father a massive discount so long as he'd leave the lot as soon as possible.

I had no idea at the time, but my father taught me many valuable lessons... lessons he'd wished his father, who died in the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 in Parsons, KS when my dad was only 5, had been able to teach him.

In the most basic sense, he taught me the value of money... how hard it is to earn and how much harder it is to save.

He taught me that strangers don't generally care about my interests so much as they do their own.... that, like it or not, you have to hold your ground against people who likely don't care a whit about what is best for you.

He taught me how much he loved his family and put their needs before his own.  He didn't enjoy fighting with strangers to save every dollar, but he knew that money was needed to provide for his children.  From the day he and my mother married as young people in the 1930s, they had to pinch every penny... woe to anyone who tried to take food out of the mouths of their children.

If I could make one Christmas wish this year... a year in which more than 40 percent of children in the U.S. are born to single mothers.... it would be that all children would be blessed with a father like mine and would spend these next few weeks shopping for Christmas trees with their dads.

[Warph]

Paris... I love this city
and this song...
ah... the memories.


Elle n'en sort plus de ta mémoire
Elle danse derrière les brouillards
Et moi j'ai vécu la même histoire
Depuis je compte les jours...
Depuis je compte les jours...
Depuis je compte les jours...

She not something that goes out of your memory,
She dances behind fogs.
And me I lived the same history
Since I count the days... 
Since I count thedays... 
Since I count the days... [/font] [/size]

[Warph]

Incredible Historical Pictures

The Last Jew in Vinnitsa [Ukraine, 1941]


This was found in the personal album of an Einsatzgruppen soldier. It was labelled on the back "The last Jew of Vinnitsa". All 28,000 of the Jews living there were killed at the time.

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V-J Day [New York, 1945]


This is one of the most famous photographs from the Second World War. The soldier and the nurse are unknown but people have come forward to claim the fame. Apparently the nurse slapped the soldier immediately after. The event was the celebration of the end of the war and it was taken in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

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Soviet Flag raised above the Reichstag [Berlin, 1945]


Soviet Union soldiers Raqymzhan Qoshqarbaev, and Georgij Bulatov raising the flag on the roof of Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany in May, 1945. The photograph was taken by Yevgeny Khaldei.



Vatican II Begins [Vatican City, 1960]


This is a photograph of Pope John XXIII signing the document that officially started the Second Vatican Council. After his death, Pope Paul VI continued the council which was to change the Catholic Church so much that has become barely a reflection of what it was before. On his deathbed, John XXIII is rumoured to have said "Stop the council!"



The Body of Che Guevara [Bolivia, 1967]


After capturing and killing Guevara (Marxist revolutionary), the Bolivian army showed this photograph to prove that he was dead. His death dealt a death blow to the socialist revolutionary movement in Latin America and the Third World.

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Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla [Vietnam, 1968]


Photographer Eddie Adams took this photograph of Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief executing this Viet Cong captain. Adams later said that he regretted that the world did not see Loan as a hero for his actions in Vietnam.



Footprint on the Moon [Lunar, 1969]


On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong put his left foot on the rocky Moon. It was the first human footprint on the Moon. They had taken TV cameras with them. The first footprints on the Moon will be there for a million years. This photograph was taken by Buzz Aldrin.



Phan Th? Kim Phúc [Vietnam, 1972]


The girl in the centre of this photograph is 9 year olf Kim Phúc. She is running from a napalm attack which caused serious burns on her back. The boy is her older brother. Both survived. This photo (by Huynh Cong Ut) became one of the most published of the Vietnam war. On the right is her today, with her child.




Tiananmen Square [China, 1989]


Probably the most famous image from the student uprising in China in 1989, this photograph shows a single person blocking the tanks that were emerging on the square. The man survived but shortly after the square was filled with innocent blood.

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