Friday, October 26, 2007
Strange but True
In this big world there are many things which seem strange to us. Here are some of the best ones that we have found. Most of these strange but true stories come from newspapers.
In 1572, a pig which had killed a child was dressed in human clothes and put on trial. It was found guilty of the crime and was sentenced to death.
Added : 10-21-2005
Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an
elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him she fainted. Hearing a
disturbance a neighbour came over and, finding what she thought were two
corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr Fen
kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled.
Added : 02-11-2005
Submitted by : Ronnie A
Two West German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car at a snail's pace near the center of the road. At the moment of impact
their heads were both out of the windows when they smacked together.
Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't scratched.
Added : 02-11-2005
A Essex man was fined £10 for careless bicycle riding. When he was arrested, he was riding without his hands on the handlebars reading a newspaper.
He told the court, 'this is the only chance I ever get to read a newspaper.
Added : 09-21-2003
TEN FIREMEN TO RESCUE 32-STONE MAN - It took ten firemen an hour to remove Tom Smith, an invalid who weighs thirty-two stone, when his house in New York caught fire. Window frames had to be taken out and a block and tackle was used to lower him to the ground, reports British United Press. He died of heart failure shortly after reaching hospital. - Evening paper
Added : 04-04-2003
NAPLES, August 5. Lieutenant J. B. Barnes, a U.S. Navy jet pilot, has absent-mindedly made aviation history - he flew a secret jet fighter over the Bay of Naples while its wings were folded. Lieutenant Barnes noticed the folded wings in mid-air when the aircraft failed to respond as it should. He had been practising folding and unfolding the wings of his aircraft just before take-off. Once airborne, he decided to stick with his machine. He flew out over Naples Bay to avoid hitting the densely built-up city if he crashed, but managed to learn how to control the aircraft and brought it back to Naples Capodichino Airport for a perfect landing - Reuter. Financial Times
Added : 04-04-2003
D U S S E L D O R F, Saturday - A British circus worker reported here that an elephant snatched his passport from his pocket with its trunk and ate it. The British Consul-General issued the man with a new one. - Reuter
Added : 04-04-2003
Mrs Marion Beatrice Kellett, of Johannesburg, South Africa, who died last month, left the interest from $3,930 for the care of seven lizards. As each lizard dies, the principal is to be paid over to Mrs Kellett's husband. - Mississippi paper
Added : 04-04-2003
An unnamed boy aged 13, in Washington D.C. used to turn in false fire alarms. He underwent psychiatric treatments to cure him of that, and he stopped doing it. Apparently he learned never to break the glass and pull the hook unless there actually was a fire. So - now he sets the house afire first, and has done it four times. - Baltimore Sun, quoted in Doubt
Costly Mistakes
Cheaky Thief - In 1975 a thief stole a radio from a shop in Ashton-underLyme. When he got home and turned it on, he found that it was defective. He then went back and demanded that it was repaired free of charge. Unable to produce a receipt, his request was turned down, so he went round to the police station and complained. During his interview with the duty sergeant he was charged with theft.
Added : 04-04-2003
Star Bucks - Back in 1972, a young unknown film director, George Lucas, developed was working on a project for a film to be called American Graffiti. The budget was only $700,000. United Artists decided to back it - and then withdrew after the script had been completed. Then AIP refused to back it, as it was `commercially unacceptable'. Universal decided to reject it too - then relented at the last moment. American Graffiti became one of the highest-grossing pictures of all time. Following the success of American Graffiti, Lucas decided that his next project would be a sci-fi movie tentatively titled Star War. In spite of the success of his first picture nobody seemed interested, not even Universal. After months, Twentieth Century Fox decided to gamble some development money. But Lucas had to raise most of the money himself - all the other established film companies having rejected the film. When the film was eventually completed, Lucas was flat broke and dispirited - though he, rather than Fox owned the picture and the rights to any sequels. In the first four months after its opening in May 1977 Star Wars grossed £134 million. Receipts for the first year exceeded $300 million. In the year after it opened the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, grossed a further $200 million.
Added : 04-04-2003
A Titanic Mistake - In 1910 the White Star Line, decided to construct a prestigious new flagship to carry passengers across the Atlantic ocean. It was decided that the mighty liner, which was to draw 46,300 tons, was to pioneer a brand new form of construction, a series of watertight bulkheads running vertically at intervals through her hull. "We believe the ship is unsinkable", declared the VicePresident of the Line as the luxury liner set out on her maiden voyage to New York, laden with celebrities and dignitaries. So confident, were the White Star Line that the liner was "unsinkable" they only put a token number of life-boats on the ship. The ship of course was the Titanic.
Added : 04-04-2003
Carpeted - One summer's day, English housewife Mrs. Dora Wilson looked out of her kitchen window in and saw a group of men loading her neighbors' priceless collection of Persian carpets into a large truck. `What are you doing?' she called, knowing her neighbors were on vacation. `We're taking them to be cleaned, Madam,' the men replied. Quick as a flash Mrs. Wilson decided to take advantage of the service they offered. `Will you please take mine too?'she asked. The men were more than happy to oblige. They were house robbers.
Added : 04-04-2003
Embarrassment On April 26th, 1981, British politician Richard Alexander called in the Bomb Squad to deal with an ominously ticking parcel which had been delivered to his local party office in Retford, Nottinghamshire. The parcel was carefully X-rayed. When the X-ray was examined, a timing mechanism could clearly be seen. Therefore, the Bomb Squad decided to blow up the parcel. After the parcel had been blown-up, the remains were examined. The "bomb" turned out to be the politician's spare pajamas, toothbrush, razor and a traveling clock, which was a gift from his wife. They had been sent on to him by a hotel where he had left them after a speaking engagement.
Added : 04-04-2003
Things go better with ... The owner of a half share in a small firm which made a soft drink sold it because he thought that it could never be a success because of the product's name. He had not, however, lost faith in the soft drinks business, so he invested the proceeds from the sale in a company he thought had more chance of succeeding - the Raspberry Cola Company. Have you guessed the name the name of the product which he thought would never be successful? That's right, it was Coca-Cola.
Added : 04-04-2003
Everyone gets it wrong occasionly. - A few years later the Coca-Cola Company, which had by then grown into a large and successful company, was offered a bankrupt soft drink company. Its then owner, Charles Guth of Loft Inc, was willing to let his subsidiary go for a mere $1000. But since Coca-Cola had a virtual monopoly of the soft drink business, they turned down the offer, and so missed the chance to takeover the business which would eventually become their arch rival, Pepsi-Cola.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived
1. The Marlboro Man
2. Big Brother
3. King Arthur
4. Santa Claus (St. Nick)
5. Hamlet
6. Dr. Frankenstein's Monster
7. Siegfried
8. Sherlock Holmes
9. Romeo and Juliet
10. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
11. Uncle Tom
12. Robin Hood
13. Jim Crow
14. Oedipus
15. Lady Chatterly
16. Ebenezer Scrooge
17. Don Quixote
18. Mickey Mouse
19. The American Cowboy
20. Prince Charming
21. Smokey Bear
22. Robinson Crusoe
23. Apollo and Dionysus
24. Odysseus
25. Nora Helmer
26. Cinderella
27. Shylock
28. Rosie the Riveter
29. Midas
30. Hester Prynne
31. The Little Engine That Could
32. Archie Bunker
33. Dracula
34. Alice in Wonderland
35. Citizen Kane
36. Faust
37. Figaro
38. Godzilla
39. Mary Richards
40. Don Juan
41. Bambi
42. William Tell
43. Barbie
44. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
45. Venus and Cupid
46. Prometheus
47. Pandora
48. G.I. Joe
49. Tarzan
50. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock
51. James Bond
52. Hansel and Gretel
53. Captain Ahab
54. Richard Blaine
55. The Ugly Duckling
56. Loch Ness Monster (Nessie)
57. Atticus Finch
58. Saint Valentine
59. Helen of Troy
60. Batman
61. Uncle Sam
62. Nancy Drew
63. J.R. Ewing
64. Superman
65. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
66. HAL 9000
67. Kermit the Frog
68. Sam Spade
69. The Pied Piper
70. Peter Pan
71. Hiawatha
72. Othello
73. The Little Tramp
74. King Kong
75. Norman Bates
76. Hercules (Herakles)
77. Dick Tracy
78. Joe Camel
79. The Cat in the Hat
80. Icarus
81. Mammy
82. Sindbad
83. Amos 'n' Andy
84. Buck Rogers
85. Luke Skywalker
86. Perry Mason
87. Dr. Strangelove
88. Pygmalion
89. Madame Butterfly
90. Hans Beckert
91. Dorothy Gale
92. The Wandering Jew
93. The Great Gatsby
94. Buck (Jack London, The Call of the Wild)
95. Willy Loman
96. Betty Boop
97. Ivanhoe
98. Elmer Gantry
99. Lilith
100. John Doe
101. Paul Bunyan
source: http://www.anvari.org
10 Things that were Discovered Accidentally
1. Viagra
Men being treated for erectile dysfunction should salute the working stiffs of Merthyr Tydfil, the Welsh hamlet where, in 1992 trials, the gravity-defying side effects of a new angina drug first popped up. Previously, the blue-collar town was known for producing a different kind of iron.
2. LSD
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann took the world's first acid hit in 1943, when he touched a smidge of lysergic acid diethylamide, a chemical he had researched for inducing childbirth. He later tried a bigger dose and made another discovery: the bad trip.
3. X-rays
Several 19th-century scientists toyed with the penetrating rays emitted when electrons strike a metal target. But the x-ray wasn't discovered until 1895, when German egghead Wilhelm R�ntgen tried sticking various objects in front of the radiation - and saw the bones of his hand projected on a wall.
4. Penicillin
Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming was researching the flu in 1928 when he noticed that a blue-green mold had infected one of his petri dishes - and killed the staphylococcus bacteria growing in it. All hail sloppy lab work!
5. Artificial sweeteners
Speaking of botched lab jobs, three leading pseudo-sugars reached human lips only because scientists forgot to wash their hands. Cyclamate (1937) and aspartame (1965) are byproducts of medical research, and saccharin (1879) appeared during a project on coal tar derivatives. Yummy.
6. Microwave ovens
Microwave emitters (or magnetrons) powered Allied radar in WWII. The leap from detecting Nazis to nuking nachos came in 1946, after a magnetron melted a candy bar in Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer's pocket.
7. Brandy
Medieval wine merchants used to boil the H20 out of wine so their delicate cargo would keep better and take up less space at sea. Before long, some intrepid soul - our money's on a sailor - decided to bypass the reconstitution stage, and brandy was born. Pass the Courvoisier!
8. Vulcanized rubber
Rubber rots badly and smells worse, unless it's vulcanized. Ancient Mesoamericans had their own version of the process, but Charles Goodyear rediscovered it in 1839 when he unintentionally (well, at least according to most accounts) dropped a rubber-sulfur compound onto a hot stove.
9. Silly Putty
In the early 1940s, General Electric scientist James Wright was working on artificial rubber for the war effort when he mixed boric acid and silicon oil. V-J Day didn't come any sooner, but comic strip image-stretching practically became a national pastime.
10. Potato chips
Chef George Crum concocted the perfect sandwich complement in 1853 when - to spite a customer who complained that his fries were cut too thick - he sliced a potato paper-thin and fried it to a crisp. Needless to say, the diner couldn't eat just one.
- Compiled by Lucas Graves
http://www.anvari.org
Fantastic Pencil Sculptures Of Jennifer Maestre
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, artist Jennifer Maestre shows off the depths of her fascination with the sea urchin and its undeniable texture by combining pencils, nails, and elaborate stitching, she creates a broad array of inspired yet prickly sculptures. She's having a solo show June 1st through July 6th at The Carnegie in Covington, Kentucky. Jennifer Maestre holds a long list of accolades and accomplishments with her unusual beading work. She is a graduate of Welsley College and holds a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. Jennifer has been teaching her offloom techniques for many years.
According to Jennifer Maestre, her sculptures were originally inspired by the form and function of the sea urchin. The spines of the urchin, so dangerous yet beautiful, serve as an explicit warning against contact. The alluring texture of the spines draws the touch in spite of the possible consequences. The tension unveiled, we feel push and pull, desire and repulsion. The sections of pencils present aspects of sharp and smooth for two very different textural and aesthetic experiences. Paradox and surprise are integral in her choice of materials. Quantities of industrially manufactured objects are used to create flexible forms reminiscent of the organic shapes of animals and nature. Pencils are common objects, here, these anonymous objects become the structure. There is true a fragility to the sometimes brutal aspect of the sculptures, vulnerability that is belied by the fearsome texture.
To make the pencil sculptures, she takes hundreds of pencils, cut them into 1-inch sections, drill a hole in each section, sharpen them all and sew them together.
Here are some more of her works 
Top 10 Amazing Animal Facts
The animal kingdom is a fascinating one, there’s no doubt about it. There are many amazing animals, some of which still remain uncovered. Amazing findings came up everyday. But here is a selection of the most amazing animal facts we found.
10. What can you find in a crocodile’s stomach?
Since it’s a big animal and has no time to exactly choose what it puts in, crocodile swallows almost everything from small fish, turtles to gazelles or lions. To defend their territory, they even swallow other fellow crocs. For most of these animals, it’s a bumpy ride since crocodiles swallow stones, scientists suggesting they used them as ballast in diving.
9. Baby whales on a fatty diet
For a whale, giving birth is difficult enough; its baby is a third of the mother’s length. To feed its offspring, the mother pumps milk with muscles around the mammary glands. Whale milk is half fat, the 10 times fatter than human milk. This is used for growing up at a fast step, almost 200 pounds per day.
8. Birds and road signs
If you’re on a long trip, you can’t make it through without road signs. Birds are better at this; they can fly thousands of miles without difficulties. The Arctic tern, make a 25,000 mile round-trip journey every year. Recently, it has been found that a female shorebird has flown 7,145 miles (11,500 kilometers) nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand—without taking a break for food or drink. Most birds use ferromagnetic to detect orientation, while pigeons use familiar landmarks to get home.
7. When do beavers sleep in winter?
In order to avoid cold winters and losing energy, beavers shut in during the cold season, living on the stored foot or fat from their tail. Since no light enters, they have no clue when it’s time to sleep. In response, they develop “free running circadian rhythm” of 29-hour days.
6. Are moles really blind?
Even though they have eyes, moles only use them for detecting changes in the air rather than seeing what’s ahead. African mole-rats have a sense of sigh, even though it is limited. When seeing a ray of light, they are warned about a predator breaking into their tunnel.
5. Does altruism exist in animals?
4. Fish and their unique mating habits
There are plenty of sea creatures we didn’t know about but this is by far one of the weirdest animal facts under the water. Some species of fishes such as sharks and rays are born one sex and stay that sex throughout life. But for other sex such as parrotfishes or the juvenile bluehead wrasse sex change is normal. This change is done in response to hormonal cycle or certain environmental changes such as pollution. Others simultaneously possess both male and female sex organs.
3. How giraffes compensate for height?
They may reach the foliage in high trees without difficulties, but this comes with its disadvantages. For the blood to reach the head, a heart twice as strong as normal is needed. Also, the blood vessel system should be complex so that the blood doesn’t rush to the head when the giraffe bents over. In addition, the skin of the legs must then be extremely tight to prevent blood from pooling at the hooves.
2. Elephants & their big brain
Weighing 11 pounds, elephants have the largest brain in the world. Intelligence in animals is measured via EQ (encephalization quotient), a ratio between brain size and the ability to go successfully through obstacles. EQ for elephants is 1.88, while humans have a maximum of 7.69 chimps 2.45 and pigs 0.27. Even though elephants often forget, they are definitely not dumb.
1. Parrots and Speech
For parrots, it’s not just squawking anymore; studies conducted over the past 3 decades have shown that they do more than just mimic the words they hear. Parrots can solve certain linguistic tasks as children aged 4 to 6, understanding concepts like “same” and “different”, “bigger” and “smaller”, “none” and numbers. A study conducted at the beginning of 2007 Language Sciences supported the idea of using patterns of parrot speech learning to develop artificial speech skills in robots.
source: LiveScience
The Coldest Place on Earth
The lowest temperature ever recorded on earth was -129F recorded in 1983 at the Russian Base Vostok in Antarctica. Antarctica, a continent owned by no one, covers the southern end of our globe. In addition to being the coldest place on earth, Anarctica is also the wettest and the driest place on earth. How is this possible?
The Wettest Place on Earth
Over ninety eight percent of Anarctica is covered by ice. Antactica contains seventy percent of the earth's fresh water and ninety percent of the earth's ice.
The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest sheet of ice on earth, with an average depth of 7,200 feet. According to NASA's Cold Facts, "the thickest ice found is in Wilkes Land, where it reaches a depth of 15,669 feet: about as deep as the highest of the Alps is high." If this ice cap were to melt the sea level would rise an average of 230 feet and would inundate most coastal cities, including New York, London, and Hong Kong.
The Driest Place on Earth
Antarctica is technically a dessert. It receives less than two inches of precipitation a year, about the same amount of precipitation as the Sahara Desert.
One interior region of the Antarctic is known as The Dry Valleys. These valleys have not seen rainfall in over two million years. With the exception of one valley, whose lakes are briefly filled with water by inland flowing rivers during the summer, the Dry Valleys contain no moisture (water, ice, or snow). The reason why the Dry Valleys exist are the 100 mph Katabatic down winds which evaporate all moisture. The freezing temperatures and the absence of water, plant life, and animal life simulate, to a degree, conditions on the Planet Mars. Consequently, the Dry Valleys are used as training grounds for astronauts who may one day make a voyage to our neighboring planet.
51 Amazing but useless facts
1) The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
2) Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
3) Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
4) What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
5) "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
6) "Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
7) In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child
8) A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!
9) Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
10) You can't kill yourself by holding your breath
11) There is a city called Rome on every continent.
12) It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland!
13) Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
14) Horatio Nelson, one of England's most illustrious admirals was throughout his life, never able to find a cure for his sea-sickness.
15) The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London
16) Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
17) Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
18) The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
19) One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
20) Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
21) The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667, when Jean-Baptiste, transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man
22) Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
23) Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
24) The present population of 5 billion plus people of the world is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080.
25) Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
26) Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only ONE testicle.
27) Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
28) Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
29) Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.
30) On average a hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
31) More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
32) The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
33) More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
34) Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
35) The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
36) The six official languages of the United Nations are: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
37) Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
38) It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
39) You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.
40) Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
41) Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
42) It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
43) The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!
44) The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
45) Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not
46) Slugs have 4 noses.
47) Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
48) A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
49) A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
50) The average person laughs 10 times a day!
51) An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
source: www.world-english.org
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Transparent TV
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the future of TV (from Sony)
source: http://strangepictures.blogspot.com
Most Unusual Buildings
You know that your looking at a real building right? The Crooked House was built in 2004 as an addition at a popular shopping center, and is a major tourist attraction in Sopot, Poland. We just wonder what happens when someone who's under a controlled substance sees this building for the first time in their life.
Take a journey into the unknown with a building called Wonder Works. Its central Florida's only upside down attraction. And an amusement park for your mind, and your stoner friends. This odd building has over 100 wacky interactive exhibits for your entire family to experience. But make sure you free your weed before coming.
The strange building is actually a brewery in Hamburg, Germany. The floors can move up or down on its skinny column core. As of now, the unique building has been destroyed. One of its more famous beer brands was recently bought by a big refreshment corporation. And that beer brand was called Astra.
We wonder what type of work goes on inside this kind of a building. The unofficial Triangle Building is just a wonder to look at and to ponder over. But, can this be one of the evil headquarters for Scientology or Starbucks? Does this building have triangle bathrooms? There's so many damn questions!
This hotel's unique design was directly inspired by the traditional temples in Japan. The Tokyo Sofitel has over 72 rooms, and 11 suites with 3 non-smoking floors. And 5 meeting rooms that includes high-tech boardrooms. Please realize that you have to sell your soul in order to step foot inside this amazing hotel.
This bizarre house really doesn't have an official name, but it does have a 135 degree angle. So that's what we're going to call it. Unfortunately, the only info we have about this house is that it was built in China or Japan. And that it has a silly pink roof. And if you look real close, you'll notice that its on a 135 degree damn angle.
This somewhat modernize building was actually built between 1971 and 1974. Its unique design gives the Wilson Hall a great sense of structure, and a prominent landmark for the skyline. The building provides big laboratories, offices, and supports space for over 1500 scientists. And it houses all kinds of strange experiments.
If you saw this picture for the first time, you'd probably thought that it was hit by a massive earthquake. But it wasn't. In true fashion of the Ripley Legacy, it was built to reflect the odd 1812 earthquake that measured 8.0 on the rick. The building has now become one of the most photographed in the world because of it.
The Bank of Asia is a very famous building in Bangkok. It was made way back in 1985, and its robotic appearance is just a symbol of the modernization of banking. It also has the ability to transform into a mega-robot. So, if Godzilla ever decided to show his green face in the land of Bangkok, they would have to fight!
Here's a building that should really get your attention when walking pass it. The Dancing House is considered as one of the more real controversial buildings in Prague. The DH was actually designed by a great architect from California, which only proves that he had done some type of hallucinogen while designing it.
source: http://www.wonderfulinfo.com
Dry cleaner hanger gorilla scupture
Sculpture of a gorilla made of dry cleaner hangers by artist David Mach.
source: http://weirdpicturearchive.com
Famous Firsts
Famous Firsts of the 1500's, 1600's, 1700's
Ivan IV (the Terrible)
1547 --- 1st Tsar of Russia.
Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary)
1553 --- 1st reigning queen of England.
Sofinisba Anguissola
1559 --- 1st woman artist to gain prominence as a painter.
Virginia Dare
1587 --- 1st child born in the American colonies, on August 18th, on what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
Anne Bradstreet
1650 --- 1st published American woman writer. The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
Benjamin Franklin
1753 --- appointed 1st Postmaster General in America (10th August 1753).
Ann Franklin
1762 --- 1st woman to hold the title of newspaper editor, "The Newport Mercury" in Newport, RI.
James Cook
1773 --- 1st person to cross Antarctic Circle.
Margaret Corbin
1779 --- 1st woman to be awarded a disability pension by US Congress. She fought in the Revolutionary War.
Marquis d'Arlandes
Pilatre de Rozier
1783 --- 1st humans to fly. They were airborne in a hot-air balloon for 20 minutes, in Paris, on Nov. 21.
John Jay
1789 --- 1st US Supreme Court chief justice.
Frederick Muhlenberg
1789 --- 1st Speaker Of the US House Of Representatives.
Edmund Randolph
1789 --- 1st US attorney general.
George Washington
1789 --- 1st US President (only unanimously elected US president.)
Martha Washington
1789 --- 1st US First Lady.
Samuel Hopkins
1790 --- holder of US Patent #1. Thousands of patents were issued before his, but his was the first when the numbering started. He patented a process for making potash and pearl ashes.
Henry Laurens - Charleston, South Carolina statesman
1792 --- 1st formal cremation in US. He left instructions in his will.
William Blount
1797 --- 1st person in theUS to be impeached by the House of Representatives, the first time it even exercised this power, and was simultaneously expelled from the US Senate on July 8. He was found guilty ‘of a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public trust and duty as a Senator,’ because he had been active in a plan to incite the Creek and Cherokee Indians to aid the British in conquering the Spanish territory of West Florida.
André-Jacques Garnerin
1797 --- 1st parachute jump. Dropped from a balloon, about 6,500 ft. over Monceau Park in Paris in a 23-ft.-diameter parachute made of white canvas with a basket attached (Oct. 22).
Benjamin Stoddert
1798 --- 1st Secretary of the US Navy
Count de Grisley
1799 --- 1st magician to perform the trick of sawing a woman in half .
Famous Firsts of the 1800's
Thomas Jefferson
1801 --- 1st US president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
Mary Kies
1809 --- 1st woman to be issued a US patent. She was granted a patent for the rights to a technique for weaving straw with silk and thread to make bonnets.
Sam Patch
1829 --- 1st first known person to survive the jump off of Niagara Falls.
Edward Smith
1831 --- 1st indicted bank robber in the US. He was sentenced to five years hard labor on the rock pile at Sing Sing Prison.
Mary Lyon
1837 --- founded 1st woman's college in US, Mt. Holyoke College.
Queen Victoria
1837 --- 1st English monarch to live in Buckingham Palace.
William Henry Harrison
1841 --- 1st US president to die in office. At 32 days, he also had the shortest term in office.
Tim Hyer
1841 --- 1st recognized boxing (fisticuffs) champion.
Antoinette de Correvont
1843 --- 1st professional woman photographer. In 1843 she opened a Daguerreotype studio in Munich.
Elizabeth Blackwell
1849 --- 1st woman to receive medical degree in US. (from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.)
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
1853 --- 1st American woman ordained a minister by a recognized denomination (Congregational.)
Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet
1859 --- 1st person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
Jules Leotard
1859 --- world's 1st flying trapeze circus act. Performed at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris, without safety nets.
William Carney
1863 --- 1st African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor (on July 18,1863 at Fort Wagner, S.C.)
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
1864 --- 1st African American woman to receive an M.D. degree in the US. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College.
Mary Walker
1865 --- 1st (and only) woman to receive the US Medal of Honor. She was a Civil War surgeon. Her medal was rescinded in 1916, however, when the Army purged its files to cut down on what they thought were "unwarranted" issues. It wasn't re-instated until 1976.
David Glasgow Farragut
1866 --- 1st Admiral in US Navy.
Frank, Simeon, and William
1866 --- Committed the first US train robbery. On October 6, 1866, the Reno brothers boarded an eastbound train in Indiana wearing masks and toting guns. After emptying one safe and tossing the other out the window, the robbers jumped off the train and made an easy getaway.
Sir John Alexander McDonald
1867 --- 1st Prime Minister of Canada.
Lucy Hobbs Taylor
1867 --- 1st woman in the US to become a certified dentist. She graduated from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.
Ebenezer D. Bassett
1869 ---1st African American U.S. diplomat, minister-resident to Haiti.
Arabella Mansfield
1869 --- 1st woman lawyer. A year later, Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school.
Jefferson Long
1870 --- 1st African American elected to U.S. House of Representatives, Georgia.
Hiram Revels
1870 --- 1st African American US Senator. He completed the term of Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, who had resigned to become president of the Confederacy.
Lucy Walker
1871 --- 1st woman to successfully climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Victoria Woodhall
1872 --- 1st woman to run for President of the US.
Herbert Hoover
1874 --- 1st US President born west of the Mississippi.
Louis De Geer
1874 --- 1st US Prime Minister of Sweden
Matthew Webb
1875 --- 1st known person to swim across the English Channel. (He drowned in 1883 after unsuccessfully trying to swim across the whirlpools and rapids beneath Niagara Falls.)
Mary Baker Eddy
1879 --- 1st and only American woman to found a lasting American-based religion- The Church of Christ (Scientist).
Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood
1879 --- 1st female lawyer to plead a case before the US Supreme Court.
Mary Mahoney
1879 --- 1st African American woman to study and work as a professionally trained nurse.
Moses Fleetwood Walker
1884 --- 1st African American baseball player in the major leagues.
Grover Cleveland
1886 --- 1st President married inside the White House.
Wilhelm Steinitz
1886 --- world's 1st chess champion.
Susanna M. Salter
1887 --- 1st woman US mayor. (Argonia, KS). She won by a two-thirds majority but didn't even know she was in the running until she went into the voting booth. Her name was submitted by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She died at the age of 101 in 1961.
Oscar Straus
1887 --- 1st Jewish ambassador from US. (Ambassador to Turkey.)
Norman Coleman
1889 --- 1st US Secretary of Agriculture.
Louise Blanchard Bethune
1890 --- 1st woman elected to full membership in the American Institute of Architects.
William Kemmler
1890 --- 1st criminal to be executed by electrocution (in Auburn Prison, Auburn, N.Y., Aug. 6)
Louis Henry Sullivan
1891 --- architect of 10 story Wainwright Building, the 1st skyscraper.
Grover Cleveland
1892 --- 1st (and only) US President to win election to nonconsecutive terms. He defeated Benjamin Harrison.
Myra Bradwell, (nee Colby)
1892 --- 1st female lawyer in US. She qualified for Illinois bar in 1869, but was prevented, due to gender, from being admitted to practice until 1892.
Annie Moore
1892 --- 1st immigrant to pass through Ellis Island. She was 15 years old and from County Cork, Ireland.
Queen Isabella of Spain
1893 --- 1st woman to appear on a US postage stamp.
Frankie Nelson
1896 --- winner of the 1st women's bicycling marathon, which took place on January 6-11, 1896 at Madison Square Garden in New York. She traveled 418 miles.
H.H.A. Beach
blank 1897 --- her "Gaelic Symphony" is the first symphony by a woman performed in the United States, and possibly the world.
John J. McDermott
1897 --- winner of the he 1st annual Boston Marathon - the first of its type in the US.
Famous Firsts of the 1900's
Edmund Barton
1900 --- 1st Prime Minister of Australia.
Charlotte Cooper
1900 --- 1st woman to win an Olympic Gold Medal (for tennis).
1st Nobel Prize winners:
1901 ---
Literature: Sully Prudhomme (Rene Francois Armand)
Peace: Jean Henri Dunant & Frederic Passy
Physics: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
Physiology & Medicine: Emil Adolf Von Behring
Chemistry: Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff
1969 ---
Economics: Ragnar Frisch & Jan Tinbergen
1st female Nobel Prize winners:
1903 ---
Physics: Marie Sklodowska Curie
1905 ---
Peace: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner
1909 ---
Literature: Selma Ottilia Lovisa LagerlØf
1911 ---
Chemistry: Marie Sklodowska Curie
1947 ---
Physiology & Medicine: Gerty Radnitz Cori
Annie Taylor
1901 --- 1st woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She was aged 64 years at the time.
Vida Goldstein
1902 --- 1st woman in the British Empire to run for a national office. She ran for the Australian Senate when women there got the right to vote in all federal elections.
Martha Washington
blank 1902 --- 1st woman to be pictured on a US postage stamp. The 8-cent stamp was issued in November 1902.
Maurice Garin
1903 --- 1st Tour de France winner.
Alexander Winton
1903 --- set the 1st land speed record in car racing. Set at Daytona Beach, his speed was 68.18 mph.
May Sutton Brandy
1904 --- 1st American woman to win the ladies singles tennis championship at Wimbledon.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
1905 --- 1st "actual" British prime minister. Until the 18th century, the monarch's most senior minister could hold any of a number of titles; usually either First Lord, Lord Chancellor, Lord Privy Seal, or one of the Secretaries of State. During the late 18th Century, the term "prime minister" came to be used. In 1905, the title was officially recognized by King Edward VII.
Theodore Roosevelt
1906 --- 1st American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was for helping mediate an end the Russo-Japanese War.
Ferenc Szisz
1906 --- Winner of the 1st Grand Prix held at Le Mans, France. The Romanian driver drove a Renault.
Charles Curtis
1907 --- 1st American Indian to become a US Senator. (Kansas) He resigned in March of 1929 to become President Herbert Hoover's Vice President.
Thomas E. Selfridge
1908 --- 1st airplane fatality. Selfridge, a Lt.in the US Army Signal Corps, was in a group evaluating the Wright plane at Fort Myer, Va. He was up 75 ft. with Orville Wright when the propeller hit a bracing wire and was broken, throwing the plane out of control, killing Selfridge and seriously injuring Wright (Sept. 17).
Baroness Raymonde de la Roche
1910 --- 1st licensed woman pilot. (of France, who learned to fly in 1909, received ticket No. 36 on March 8.)
Alice Wells
1910 --- 1st policewoman in the US. She was hired by the Los Angeles Police Department . She was allowed to design her own uniform and was active in propagating the need for policewomen elsewhere. As a result of her efforts seventeen departments in American were employing policewomen by 1916.
Roald Amundsen - Norwegian explorer
1911 --- 1st man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott.
Marie Sklodowska Curie
1911 --- 1st person ever to win two Nobel Prizes. Her first was in Physics (1903) and the second in Chemistry (1911.)
Ray Harroun
1911 --- 1st winner of the Indianapolis 500 car race. His average speed was 74.59 mph, he finished in 6 hours, 42 minutes, 8 seconds.
Alice Hyde
1911 --- 1st winner of the "Miss World" beauty pageant. She was 17.
Harriet Quimby
1911 --- 1st US woman pilot. (A magazine writer, got ticket No. 37, making her the second licensed female pilot in the world. She was also the 1st woman to fly across the English Channel. She flew from Dover, England and landed at Hardelot, France, in a Blériot monoplane(April 16). She was later killed in a flying accident over Dorchester Bay during a Harvard-Boston aviation meet on July 1, 1912. )
Arthur R. Eldred
1912 --- 1st boy to reach the rank of Eagle Scout -- the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America program. He was of Oceanside, NY.
Louis D. Brandeis
1916 --- 1st Jewish member of the US Supreme Court. (Appointed by President Wilson)
Jeannette Rankin
1916 --- 1st woman elected to US congress. (Montana) Only legislator to vote against both WW I and WW II.
Loretta Walsh
blank 1917 --- 1st female Yeoman (F) in the US Navy.
1st Pulitzer Winners
1917 ---
Biography: Laura E. Richards, H. Elliott, and Florence Hall
History: Jean Jules Jusserand
Reporting: Herbert B. Swope
1st female Pulitzer Winners:
1921 ---
Fiction: Edith Wharton for "The Age of Innocence."
1923 ---
Poetry: Edna St. Vincent Millay for "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver."
1983 ---
Music: Ellen Taafe Zwilich
Rosika Schwimmer
1918 --- the world's 1st woman ambassador. She was appointed the Hungarian ambassador to Switzerland.
Charles Hamilton Houston
blank 1919 --- 1st African American Editor of the Harvard Law Review
Lucy Slowe
1920 --- 1st African American woman tennis champion in the US. She won the women's singles title at a tournament in Baltimore.
Ethelda "Thel" Bleibtrey - swimmer
1920 --- 1st US woman to win a gold medal in the Olympics. (Margaret Abbott was awarded a porcelain bowl, not a gold medal, in 1900.)
Bessie Coleman
1921 --- 1st US African American female pilot, but earned her license in France. Was killed April 30, 1926, in a flying accident.
Margaret Gorman
1921 --- 1st Miss America. She was 16 and 30-25-32.
Henry Sullivan
1923 --- 1st American to swim across the English Channel.
Clifton Reginald Wharton, Sr.
1924 --- 1st African American to pass US Foreign Service exam.
Nellie Taylor Ross
1925 --- 1st female state governor. (Wyoming)
Gertrude Ederle
1926 --- 1st American woman to swim the English Channel. It took her 14 hours and 39 minutes. (She broke the existing men's record.)
Al Jolson
1927 --- lead role in the 1st talking motion picture, "The Jazz Singer."
Charles Lindbergh
1927 --- 1st man to fly solo across the Atlantic.
Norma Talmadge
1927 --- 1st footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater.)
Janet Gaynor
1928 --- 1st Oscar winner for Best Actress.
Emil Jannings
1928 --- 1st Oscar winner for Best Actor.
Ellen Church
1930 --- 1st airline hostess. She served passengers flying between San Francisco, California and Cheyenne, Wyoming on United Airlines.
Laura Ingalls
blank 1930 --- 1st woman to make a solo transcontinental flight across the United States.
Sinclair Lewis
1930 --- 1st American recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature.
Jane Addams
1931 --- 1st American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Jackie Mitchell - baseball pitcher
1931 --- 1st woman in organized baseball. She was signed by the Chattanooga Baseball Club at the age of 19.
Hattie Caraway
1932 --- 1st woman elected to US Senate.
Amelia Earhart
1932 --- 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman. (traveling from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Ireland in approximately 15 hours)
Frances Perkins
1933 --- 1st woman in US Presidential Cabinet. (Secretary of Labor under FDR.)
Marie, Cecile, Yvonne, Emilie and Annette Dionne
1934 --- 1st quintuplets to survive infancy. They were born near Callender, Ontario to Oliva and Elzire Dionne.
Horton Smith
1934 --- won the 1st Masters Golf Tournament under the magnolia trees of Augusta National in Georgia.
Lettie Pate Whitehead
1934 --- 1st American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company.
Wallis Warfield Simpson
1936 --- 1st Time magazine "Woman of the Year."
Jane Matilda Bolin
1939 --- 1st African American woman judge. (New York City)
Gene Cox
1939 --- 1st girl page in US House of Representatives.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1939 --- 1st US president to speak on television. (Spoke at the opening session of the New York World's Fair on April 30, 1939.)
Hattie McDaniel
1940 --- 1st African American actress to win an Oscar. She won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role as Mammy in "Gone with the Wind".
Booker T. Washington
1940 --- 1st African American to be pictured on a US postage stamp. His likeness was issued on a 10-cent stamp.
Annie G. Fox
1941 --- 1st woman to receive the US Purple Heart Medal. She was wounded while serving at Hickam Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7 1941.
Glenn Miller
1941 --- Received the 1st gold record ever awarded to a recording artist.
Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini
1946 --- Canonized by Pope Pius XII.. She is the first US citizen (she was born in Italy) to become a saint.
William Henry Hastie
blank 1946 --- 1st African American US Federal Judge.
Trygve Lie - Norwegian socialist
1946 --- 1st Secretary General of United Nations.
Chuck Yeager
1947 --- 1st person to break the sound barrier by flying faster than the speed of sound. (On October 14, 1947, he flew a Bell X-1 rocket at 670 mph in level flight.)
Dick Button
1948 --- 1st American to become World Figure Skating Champion.
Eugenia Anderson
1949 --- 1st US woman appointed ambassador to a foreign country. (Ambassador to Denmark)
Gwendolyn Brooks
1949 --- 1st African American woman to win a Pulitzer prize.
Ralph Bunche
1950 --- 1st African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Charles Cooper
1950 --- 1st African American player in NBA (Fort Wayne Indiana Celtics).
Florence Chadwick
1951 --- 1st woman to have swum across the English Channel in each direction.
George (Christine) Jorgenson
1952 --- recipient of the world's 1st sex-change operation.
Danish artist Einar Wegener underwent a sex change operation in Berlin March 5, 1930. He assumed the identity of Lili Elbe, and had ovaries implanted. It is speculated that Wegener was actually a hermaphrodite, and the credit for first sex change usually is given to Christine Jorgenson.
Patricia McCormick
1952 --- 1st professional woman bullfighter. She got herself two bulls in the contest held in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Lucille Ball
1953 --- appeared on the cover of the 1st TV Guide (April).
Jacqueline Cochrane
1953 --- 1st woman to fly faster than speed of sound. (She piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.)
Tenley Albright
1953 --- 1st American to win the Women's World Figure Skating Championship. She was 17-years old when she won the competition in Davos, Switzerland.
Elizabeth II
1953 --- 1st monarch to have a televised coronation.
Sir Edmund Hillary
1953 --- 1st recorded climb of Mt. Everest.
Sir Roger Bannister
1954 --- 1st person recorded to run a mile race in under four minutes. He broke the four minute barrier at Imey Road, Oxford on the 6 May. His time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr
1954 --- 1st first African American general in the US Air Force
Marian Anderson
1955 --- 1st African American singer at the Metropolitan Opera. She appeared as Ulrica in Verdi's "The Masked Ball."
Nat King Cole
blank 1955 --- 1st African American US Television host, "The Nat King Cole Show"
Don Larsen
blank 1956 --- pitched the 1st and only perfect game in a World Series, for the New York Yankees.
Althea Gibson
1957 --- 1st African American tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title.
Laika, the dog
1957 --- 1st living creature to orbit the earth. Aboard the Soviet satellite, Sputnik 2.
Julia Child
1958 --- 1st woman designated a full-fledged "Chef."
William O'Ree
1958 --- 1st African American hockey player in the NHL. (Boston Bruins)
Ruth Carol Taylor
1958 --- 1st African American woman to become a stewardess (now, flight attendant) by making her initial flight this day on Mohawk Airlines from Ithaca, NY to New York City.
Clifton R Wharton
1958 --- 1st African American US foreign minister. (Romania)
Hiram L. Fong
1959 --- 1st Chinese-American in US Senate. (Hawaii)
Daniel K. Inouye
1959 --- 1st Japanese-American in US House of Representatives. (Hawaii)
Sirimavo Bandaraneike
1960 --- 1st woman to be elected the head of state. She became the president of Sri Lanka. (Following her were Indira Gandhi of India in 1966 and Golda Meir of Israel in 1969.)
Harry Belafonte
1960 --- 1st African American performer to win a major Emmy award; he was awarded Best Performance in a Variety Show for his TV special "Tonight with Belafonte."
Oveta Culp Hobby
1960 --- 1st woman to serve as US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. She is also the first director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and the first woman to receive the US Army Distinguished Service Medal.
Wilma Rudolph
1960 --- 1st American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics, on September 7.
Antonio Abertondo
1961 --- 1st person to swim the English Channel non-stop in both directions.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
1961 --- 1st human in space, 1st human to orbit Earth.
Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr.
1961 --- 1st American in space; (Freedom 7). 2nd human in space; member of original Mercury 7.
Janet G. Travell
1961 --- 1st woman to hold the post of Personal Physician to the President. (Appointed by Kennedy)
Roy Claxton Acuff
1962 --- 1st living person admitted to Country Music Hall of Fame.
Joan Crawford
1962 --- 1st guest on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," October 1.
John Glenn
1962 --- 1st US astronaut to orbit earth.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
1963 --- 1st US President to wear contact lenses.
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova - Russian cosmonaut
1963 --- 1st woman in space.
Golda Meir
1964 --- 1st Jewish female prime minister, and 1st female prime minister of Israel.
Jerrie Mock
1964 --- 1st around-the-world solo flight by a woman.
Sidney Poitier
1964 --- 1st African American actor to win an Oscar in a major category. He earned the honor for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in the film, "Lilies of the Field".
Peter Sellers
1964 --- 1st male to appear on the cover of "Playboy" magazine.
Margaret Chase Smith
1964 --- 1st woman nominated for president of the US by a major political party, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
Patricia R Harris
1965---1st African American female US ambassador. (Luxembourg)
Alexei Arkhovich Leonov
1965 --- 1st human to walk in space.
Amber Dean Smith
1965---1st ever nude centrefold girl when in 1965 at the age of 19 years she was crowned 'Pet Of The Year' by Penthouse magazine.
Edward Higgins White, Jr.
1965 --- 1st American to walk in space.
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi
1966 --- 1st woman prime minister of India.
Constance Baker Motley
blank 1966 --- 1st femal African American US Federal Judge.
Robert C. Weaver
1966 --- 1st African American in US Presidential Cabinet (LBJ appointed him Secretary of HUD.)
Christiaan Barnard - heart surgeon
1967 --- performed the 1st human heart transplant.
Robert H. Lawrence, Jr.
blank 1967 --- 1st African American US astronaut. He died in a plane crash during a training flight and never made it into space.
John Lennon
1967 --- 1st artist on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (November 9, 1967.)
Thurgood Marshall
1967 --- 1st African American to become a Supreme Court justice.
Muriel Siebert
1967 --- 1st woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. She was also the nation's first- ever discount broker, and the first woman to serve as Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York.
Carl Stokes
1967 --- 1st African American elected as the mayor of a major city. (Cleveland, Ohio)
Louis Washkansky
1967 --- 1st human heart transplant recipient. He lived 18 days with the new heart.
Shirley Chisholm
1968 --- 1st African American woman elected to the US House of Representatives.
Ruth Eisemann-Schier
1968 --- 1st woman placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List (for kidnaping, extortion, and other crimes.)
Neil Armstrong
1969 --- 1st man to walk on the moon.
Barbara Jo Rubin
1969 --- 1st woman jockey to win a race in North America. She was riding Cohesian, at Charlestown Race Course in West Virginia.
Elizabeth P. Hoisington
1970 --- 1st female general in the US armed forces. She was appointed to the post of director of the Women's Army Corps.
Bella Savitsky Abzug
1971 --- 1st Jewish woman in Congress.
Satchel Paige
1971 --- 1st Negro-League player elected to Baseball Hall of Fame.
Fran Phillips
1971 --- 1st woman to set foot on the North Pole, on April 5th.
Berenice Gera
1972 --- 1st female umpire in pro baseball.
Billy Jean King
1972 --- named Sports Illustrated "Sportsperson of the Year," becoming the 1st woman to be so honored.
Sally Jean Priesand
1972 --- 1st ordained woman rabbi in the US.
Mark Spitz - US swimmer
1972 --- 1st athlete to win 7 Olympic gold medals.
Jean Westwood
1972 --- 1st woman to head the US Democratic Party.
Henry Kissinger
1973 --- 1st Jewish US Secretary of State. He was also the 1st naturalized citizen to hold this office.
Emily Warner
1973 --- 1st female commercial airline pilot in the US. (Frontier Airlines)
Mia Farrow
1974 --- appeared on the cover of the 1st People Magazine.
Richard Milhous Nixon
1974 --- 1st and only US president to resign from office.
Mary Louise Smith
1974 --- 1st woman to head the US Republican Party.
Ellen Burstyn
1975 --- 1st person to win an Oscar and a Tony in the same year. These awards were for her performances in the film "Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore" (1974) and the play "Same Time, Next Year."
George Carlin
1975 --- 1st guest host on "Saturday Night Live" which premiered on October 11.
Natalie Cole
1975 --- 1st African American to win the Best New Artist Grammy Award.
Ella Grasso
1975 --- 1st woman to become a governor of a state (Connecticut) without a husband preceding her in the governor's chair.
Janis Ian
1975 --- 1st musical guest on TV's "Saturday Night Live".
Junko Tabei
1975 --- 1st woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
Sarah Caldwell
1976 --- 1st woman to conduct the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Tom Waddell and Charles Deaton
1976 --- 1st gay men to be featured in the "Couples" section of People magazine.
Barbara Walters
1976 --- 1st female newscaster on a US TV network news program. She signed a $5 million (five year) contract with ABC television as the evening news anchorwoman on April 22, 1976.
Billy Crystal
1977 --- played 1st openly gay main character, Jodie Dallas, on network television on ABC's "Soap," which aired from 1977 to 1981.
Bette Davis
1977 --- 1st female motion picture performer to be honored with the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute (AFI), the highest honor given for a career in film. (Since the AFI established this award in 1973, only three other women have been honored since Davis: Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and Lillian Gish. )
Janet Guthrie
1977 --- 1st woman to qualify and race at the Indianapolis 500.
Jacqueline Means
1977 --- 1st woman to be an ordained Episcopal priest
Harvey Milk
1977 --- 1st · acknowledged homosexual elected to high local office (San Francisco Board of Supervisors)
Louise Brown
1978 --- 1st test tube baby. (Lancastershire, England)
Mary Hargrafen (Sister Mary Carl)
1978 --- 1st nun to become a captain in the US Air Force. (Sisters of St. Francis.)
John Paul the Second (Karol Wojtyla)
1978 --- 1st Pole to become pope.
1998 --- 1st pope to visit Cuba. (Jan. 21-25)
Diana Nyad
1979 --- 1st person to swim from the Bahamas to Florida.
Margaret Thatcher
1979 --- Britain's 1st female prime minister.
Sandra Day O'Connor
1981 -- 1st female US Supreme Court justice.
Barney Frank
1981 -- 1st openly gay U.S. Congressperson.
Barney Clark
1982 -- 1st recipient of a permanent artificial heart, on Dec. 2. He lived until March 23, 1983.
Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr. (Guy)
1983 --- 1st African American American in space.
Elizabeth Dole (Mary Elizabeth Hanford)
1983 --- 1st female US Secretary of Transportation.
Sally Kristen Ride
1983 --- 1st US woman in space.
Bruce Springsteen
1983 --- 1st US music CD artist - "Born in the USA" released March 1983
Vanessa Williams
1983 --- 1st African American Miss America. Williams relinquished her crown during her reign when nude pictures of her were published in "Penthouse" magazine.
Joan Benoit
1984 --- winner of the 1st women's Olympic marathon at the Summer Games, held in Los Angeles.
Geraldine Ferraro
1984 --- 1st woman vice-presidential nominee of a major US political party.
Kathryn Sullivan
1984 --- 1st female US astronaut to walk in space.
Penny Harrington
1985 --- 1st woman police chief of a major city. Head of the Portland, Oregon force of 940 officers and staff.
Libby Riddles
1985 --- 1st woman to win the Iditarod, Alaska's 1,135-mile Anchorage-to-Nome dog sled race. She completed the course in 18 days, twenty minutes and seventeen seconds.
Wilma Mankiller
1985 --- 1st woman to lead a major American Indian tribe. She was elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Corazon Aquino
1986 --- 1st woman President of the Philippines. She was later the 1st Philippine president not to seek a second term.
Mary Lund
1986 --- 1st female recipient of an artificial heart.
Christa Sharon McAuliffe
1986 --- 1st teacher selected for the NASA Teacher in Space program. She died, along with the rest of the crew, when the space shuttle Challenger blew up not long after launching.
Oprah Winfrey
1986 --- 1st African-American woman to own her own television production company.
Kofi Annan
1987 --- 1st black Secretary General of the United Nations.
Aretha Franklin
1987 --- 1st female artist inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Mary R. Stout
1987 --- 1st female president of a national veteran group, named by the Vietnam Veterans of America on August 2, 1987.
Clifton Reginald Wharton, Jr.
1987 --- 1st African American to become Chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company (TIAA-CREF).
Kurt Browning
1988 --- 1st figure skater to land a quadruple jump in competition.
Gertrude Belle Elion - pharmacologist
1988 --- 1st woman admitted to National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Justin Fashanu
1988 --- a top soccer player in Britain, reveals that he is gay. He is the 1st athlete in a team sport to come out during his athletic career.
Michael Jordan
1988 --- 1st basketball player pictured on a box of Wheaties cereal.
Penny Marshall
1988 --- 1st woman film director to have a film take in more than $100 million at the box office – "Big."
Mary Wilson
1988 --- 1st female rock star to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame.
Antonia Novello
1990 --- 1st woman and first Hispanic to be named Surgeon General of the US.
Barack Hussein Obama Jr.
blank 1990 --- 1st African American president of The Harvard Law Review in its 104-year history.
Douglas L. Wilder
1990 --- 1st elected African American US governor. (Virginia)
Nadine Strossen
1991 --- 1st female president of the ACLU.
Billy Crystal
1992 --- 1st guest on "The Tonight Show," when Jay Leno permanently replaced Johnny Carson as host.
Mae Carol Jemison
1992 --- 1st African American woman in space (on the Endeavor.)
Sidney Portier
1992 --- 1st African American motion picture performer to be honored with the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute (AFI), the highest honor given for a career in film.
Aileen Wuornos
1992 --- 1st female serial killer in America. In 1992 she was charged with the shooting of five middle-aged men she met on highways by hitch hiking. She confessed to shooting seven men in self-defence and was eventually executed on 9th October 2002. Lethal Intent, the Aileen 'Lee' Wuornos story
Madeleine Albright
1993 --- 1st female US Secretary of State. She is the first woman in this position as well as the highest-ranking woman in the United States government.
Maya Angelou
1993 --- 1st female poet to read a poem at a US presidential inauguration. She read "On the Pulse of Morning," at Clinton's inauguration.
Akebono (Chadwick Haheo Rowan)
1993 --- 1st non-Japanese yokozuna (sumo wrestler.)
Carol Elizabeth Moseley-Braun
1993 --- 1st African American woman in US Senate.
Kim Campbell
1993 --- 1st female Prime Minister of Canada.
Barbara Harmer
1993 --- 1st woman to pilot the Concorde (March 25th.)
Janet Reno
1993 --- 1st female US Attorney General.
Shiela Widnall
1993 --- 1st secretary of a branch of the US military (appointed to head the Air Force)
Eileen Marie Collins
1995 --- 1st female space shuttle pilot. She piloted the space shuttle Discovery during a mission to rendezvous with space station Mir.
Rebecca Elizabeth Marier
1995 --- 1st woman to graduate 'top of the class' at West Point, the US Military Academy. The rankings are based on academic, military and physical accomplishments.
Madeleine Albright
1996 --- 1st female US Secretary Of State.
Dolly, the lamb
1996 --- 1st cloned mammal.
Jennifer Daetz, Lieutenant
blank 1997 --- 1st woman to command a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship, the HMAS Shepparton.
Claudia Kennedy, US Army Major General
1997 --- 1st female US three-star general..
Anna Lelkes
1997 --- became the 1st official female member of the Vienna Philharmonic after the orchestra voted to end its all-male policy. She plays the harp.
McCaughey septuplets
Kenneth Robert, Alexis May, Natalie Sue, Kelsey Ann, Nathan Roy, Brandon James, and Joel Steven
1997 --- 1st surviving set of septuplets. Conceived as the result of fertility drugs, they were born in Des Moines, Iowa on November 19, 1997.
Craig Breedlove
1998 --- 1st person to break the sound barrier in a car, at Lake Bonneville, UT, with a trap speed of over 760 MPH.
Jane Henney
1998 --- 1st woman appointed Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA.)
Johnathan Lee Iverson
1998 --- 1st African American ringmaster in the 129-year history of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. (At age 22, also the youngest.)
Elizabeth Ann Oliver
1998 --- 1st woman to have her baby's birth broadcast live over the Internet. (June 16)
Carlos Santana
1998 --- 1st Hispanic to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Lt. Kendra Williams, USN
1998 --- 1st US female combat pilot to bomb an enemy target. On Dec. 16, bombed enemy targets over Iraq during Operation Desert Fox.
Eileen Collins
1999 --- 1st woman astronaut to command a space shuttle mission.
Nancy Ruth Mace
1999 --- 1st female cadet to graduate from the Citadel, the formerly all-male military school in South Carolina.
Cynthia M. Trudell
1999 --- 1st woman to head a US car company, Saturn Corp.
Abdurrahman Wahid
1999 --- 1st elected president of Indonesia (on October 20, 1999).
Famous Firsts of the 2000's
Hilary Rodham Clinton
blank 2000 --- elected to the US. Senate, becoming the 1st First Lady ever elected to national office.
Colin Powell
2000 --- 1st African American secretary of state.
Condoleezza Rice
2001 --- 1st woman to serve as US national security adviser.
Halle Berry
2002 --- 1st African American woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress.
Vonetta Flowers
2002 --- 1st African American female US athlete to win a gold medal in a Winter Olympics. She wins in the women's bobsleigh event on February 19th.
Steve Fossett
2002 --- 1st balloonist to fly solo around the world when he landed in Australia on 4th July 2002.
Tom Ridge
2003 --- 1st US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Gene Robinson
2003 --- 1st openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in US.
Condoleezza Rice
2005 --- 1st African American woman to serve as US secretary of state.
Anousheh Ansari
2006 --- 1st female "space tourist," on September 18, 2006, she paid $20 million to ride on the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 capsule.
also: 1st Iranian in space and 1st Muslim woman in space.
Effa Manley
blank 2006 --- co-owner of the Negro Leagues team Newark Eagles, becomes the 1st woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tony Dungy
2007 --- 1st African-American coach to win a Super Bowl.
Keith Ellison
2007 --- 1st Muslim member of US Congress (He took the ceremonial oath with a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson.)
Drew Gilpin Faust
blank 2007 --- 1st first woman president in Harvard University ’s 371-year history.
Nancy Pelosi
2007 --- 1st first female Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
source: http://www.corsinet.com
Bizarre Celebrity Suicides
In no way does this website or its creator condone, encourage or admire these methods. this is just a compilation of some of the more imaginative
Imaginative, unusual, creative ways to "end it all."
Johnny Ace (John Marshall Alexander, Jr.) - singer
1954 --- suicide playing Russian roulette.
Janet Elaine Adkins
1990 --- 1st suicide assisted by Jack Kevorkian.
Clara Blandick - actress (Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz)
1962 --- sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head. She was 81-years-old and suffering from crippling arthritis.
Ray Combs - talk show host (Family Feud)
1996 --- hanged himself on the night of June 2, 1996, with bed sheets in his hospital room at Glendale Adventist Hospital while on a 72-hour "suicide watch."
Hart Crane - poet
1932 --- suicide by drowning. On a steamship, he bid his fellow passengers farewell and jumped overboard. Last words.
Thich Quang Duc - Buddhist monk
1963 --- set himself on fire on the streets of Saigon to protest government persecution of Buddhists.
R. Budd Dwyer - politician (Pennsylvania)
1987 --- Convicted of bribery and conspiracy in federal court and about to be sentenced, he called a press conference; there, in front of spectators and TV cameras, he shot himself in the mouth.
Lillian Millicent Entwistle - actress
1932 --- suicide by jumping from the 'H' of the 'HOLLYWOOD(LAND)' sign.
Joseph Goebbels - Nazi politician
1945 --- with his wife, poisoned their five children, then committed suicide at Hitler's Berlin bunker.
Hermann Goering - Nazi politician
1946 --- poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
Donny Hathaway - singer
1979 --- suicide by jumping from his room on the 15th floor of New York's Essex House Hotel.
Rudolf Hess - Nazi politician
1987 --- last member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, strangled himself with an electrical cord at age 93, in Spandau Prison.
Chris Chubbuck - newscaster
1974 --- shot herself in the head during a prime time news broadcast on Florida TV station WXLT-TV. She died 14 hours later. Last words.
Michael Hutchence - rock musician (Inxs)
1997 --- hanged himself with a belt in his room in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in Sydney, Australia. (Perhaps auto-erotic asphyxiation.)
Eugene Izzi - writer
1997 --- hanged himself from an 11th-floor window on Michigan Ave., Chicago. Perhaps by accident while researching a scene for a book.
Jim Jones - leader of a religious cult known as the Peoples Temple
1978 --- killed himself after watching more than 900 of his followers die from the ingestion of Kool-Ade laced with cyanide.
Terry Kath - rock musician (Chicago)
1978 --- suicide playing Russian roulette. Last words.
Jesse William Lazear - US physician
1900 --- voluntarily infected with & died of yellow fever as part of Walter Reed's research.
Vachel Lindsay - poet
1931 --- suicide by drinking a bottle of lye (Lysol). Last words.
Kiyoko Matsumoto - 19 year old student
1933 --- suicide by jumping into the thousand foot crater of a volcano on the island of Oshima, Japan. This act started a bizarre fashion in Japan and in the ensuing months three hundred children did the same thing.
Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka) - Japanese writer
1970 --- suicide by disembowelment and decapitation (a ritual called seppuku or hara-kiri) as a protest of the Westernization of Japan. He killed himself in front of an assembly (which he himself called) of all of his students that he was teaching at a university at that time.
Francois Maurice Marie Mitterrand
1996 --- suicide by intentionally terminating treatment for prostate cancer.
Claudius Drusus Germanicus Nero - Roman emperor
68 AD --- suicide by stabbing himself with a sword.
Sylvia Plath - poet
1963 --- suicide by inhaling gas from her oven.
Margaret Mary Ray - celebrity stalker
1998 --- suicide by kneeling in front of an oncoming train.
Bobby Sands - IRA activists
1981 --- starved on the 66th day of his hunger strike.
Socrates - philosopher
399 BC --- required to drink hemlock to end his life after being found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens.
Vincent Willem van Gogh - painter
1890 --- shot himself; he died two days later.
Lupe Velez - actress
1944 --- overdose with sleeping pills; she was 4 months pregnant.
{There is a much-circulated, but undocumented story that she had dressed in her best outfit for the suicide and took her pills, washing them down with alcohol. Getting sick to her stomach, she rushed to the bathroom, but tripped and fell; drowning in the toilet.} Last words.
Horace Wells - pioneered the use of anesthesia in the 1840s
1848 --- arrested for spraying two women with sulfuric acid; he anaesthetized himself with chloroform and slashed open his thigh with a razor.
Virginia Woolf (Adeline Virginia Stephens Woolf) - writer
1941 -- committed suicide by drowning.
Gig Young (Byron Elsworth Barr) - actor
1978 --- shot and killed his wife of 3 weeks, Kim Schmidt, then shot himself.
source: http://www.corsinet.com
Unusual Celebrity Deaths
Duane Allman - musician
1971 --- motorcycle accident.
Sherwood Anderson - writer
1941 --- after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party he died of peritonitis on an ocean liner bound for Brazil.
John Jacob Astor
1912 --- drowned with the "unsinkable" Titanic.
Attila the Hun
453 AD --- bled to death from a nosebleed on his wedding night.
Alexander I of Greece - king of the Hellenes 1917–20
1920 --- died October 25, from blood poisoning after being bitten by his gardener's pet monkey.
Aleksandr II (Aleksandr Nikolaevich) - Czar of Russia 1855-81
1881 --- assassinated by a bomb which tore off his legs, ripped open his belly and mutilated his face.
Jane Austen
1817 --- Addison's disease.
Sir Francis Bacon
1626 --- pneumonia. He was experimenting with freezing a chicken by stuffing it with snow.
Lucille Desiree Ball
1989 --- died after undergoing heart surgery.
Velma (Margie) Barfield
1984 --- 1st woman executed in US since restoration of death penalty in 1967. (For poisoning her fiancée.)
Cheri Jo Bates
1966 --- 1st victim of the Zodiac killer. Murdered at Riverside Community College in California, her jugular and larynx were severed.)
Thomas a Becket - Archbishop of Canterbury
1170 --- murdered in the Canterbury cathedral by four knights, supposedly on orders by Henry II.
Ludwig van Beethoven
1827 --- cirrhosis of the liver.
John Belushi
1982 --- drug overdose.
Rainey Bethea
1936 --- the last publicly executed criminal in US. Executed by hanging. Little known lasts.
Kimberly Bergalis
1991 --- died of AIDS. She had contracted the disease from her dentist.
Bridget Bishop
1692 --- 1st of the witches hung in Salem, Massachusetts. She was executed on June 10.
(Salem witches: Almost 150 "witches" were arrested, but only 31 were tried in 1692. All 31, including 6 males, were sentenced to death. Nineteen were hanged, 2 died in jail, and 1 man was slowly pressed to death under heavy stones. None were burned.)
Amanda Blake (Beverly Neill) - actress (Miss Kitty on "Gunsmoke")
1989 --- AIDS contracted from her bisexual husband.
Anne Boleyn
1536 --- beheaded for adultery by request of Henry VIII.
Neil Bonnett - race car driver
1994 --- car crash, killed during practice at the Daytona International Speedway.
Salvatore "Sonny" Bono
1998 --- crashed into a tree while skiing.
Ray Brennan
1976 --- on July 27th - 1st person to die of "Legionnaire's Disease."
Charles Brooks, Jr.
1982 --- 1st criminal executed in US by lethal injection.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - poet
1861 --- acute bronchitis.
Jeff Buckley - musician
1997 --- drowned in the Mississippi River, near Mud Island Harbor, on May 29. His body wasn't found until June 4.
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
1824 --- died of malarial fever.
Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary)
1903 --- pneumonia following a bout of heavy drinking.
Al Capone - Chicago gangster
1947 --- syphilis.
Karen Carpenter - singer
1983 --- heart failure caused by anorexia nervosa, at age 32.
Jack Cassidy - actor
1976 --- died in a fire, while asleep on the couch in his apartment.
Catherine the Great - Empress of Russia
1796 --- a stroke, while going to the bathroom.
Nicolae Ceausescu - Romanian president
1989 --- executed by firing squad, on live television, along with his wife.
Anton Joseph Cermak - mayor of Chicago
1933 --- assassinated by accident when riding with Franklin Roosevelt in motorcade.
Sergei Chalibashvili - diver
1983 --- diving accident. Attempted a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position during the World University Games. On the way down, he smashed his head on the board and was knocked unconscious. He died after being in a coma for a week.
Raymond Johnson Chapman - Cleveland Indians baseball player
1920 --- died one day after being struck in head by baseball pitch, becoming the only player ever killed as result of major league baseball game.
Charles I - English king
1649 --- beheaded by order of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell on January 30.
Conor Clapton - son of musician Eric Clapton
1991 --- fell out of 53rd floor window at the age of 5.
Cleopatra
30 BC --- suicide by poison, supposedly from a venomous snake.
Nat "King" Cole - singer
1965 --- died of complications following surgery for lung cancer.
Christopher Columbus
1506 --- rheumatic heart disease.
Bob Crane - actor
1978 --- murdered in hotel room.
Jim Croce - singer
1973 ---plane crash. The plane crashed into a tree 200 yards past the end of the runway while taking off from Natchitoches, La. Municipal Airport. PlaneCrashInfo.com
Davy Crockett - US frontiersman
1836 --- killed defending the Alamo.
(Actually, Crockett survived the assault along with a few others, but was bayoneted to death by the Mexicans after they took the fort.)
Marie Curie - chemist, discovered Radium
1934 --- leukemia, caused by exposure to radiation.
Jeffrey Dahmer - mass murderer
1994 --- beaten to death with a broomstick by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institute.
James Dean (James Byron)
1955 --- car crash.
Albert Dekker - actor, California legislator
1968 --- suffocated, hanging from shower curtain rod, handcuffed, wearing women's lingerie.
John Denver (Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.) - singer
1997 --- plane crash in Monterey, CA.
Larry Desmedt - "Indian Larry" motorcyclist & daredevil
2004 --- died August 30 from injuries he suffered doing one of his signature stunts - standing up on his moving bike - at a show in Charlotte, N.C. on August 28th.
Edward Despard
1803 --- last executed criminal drawn & quartered in England.
John Dillinger - (1st number one criminal on FBI's most wanted list.)
1934 --- killed by FBI agent Melvin Purvis.
Jane Dornnacker - helicopter traffic reporter
1986 --- died doing a live traffic report for WNBC-AM NYC when her helicopter crashed.
Tommy Dorsey - Trombonist
1956 --- choked to death in his sleep, due to food that lodged in his windpipe.
Anthony J. Drexel III - philanthropist
1893 --- shot himself accidentally while showing off a new gun in his collection to his friends. Last words.
Jessica Dubroff - (age 7)
1996 --- plane crash - attempting to become the youngest pilot to fly cross-country. Last words.
Isadora Duncan - actress
1927 --- accidental strangulation when her scarf caught in car wheel. Last words.
Dominique Dunne - actress ("Poltergeist")
1982 --- choked by boyfriend, John Sweeny. She died after being in a coma for 5 days.
Amelia Earhart
1937 --- missing in an attempt to fly around the world. Last words.
Nelson Eddy - actor / singer
1965 --- suffered a stroke while entertaining on stage in Miami Beach. He died the next day.
Adolf Eichmann
1962 --- executed by hanging for "crimes against the Jewish people."
Andres Escobar - Colombian soccer player
1994 --- murdered by unknown thugs, apparently in anger over the accidental goal he had scored for US during World Cup Game.
Marty Feldman
1982 --- found dead in motel room in Mexico. Death from heart failure, either from climate change or from shellfish poisoning.
Francis Ferdinand - Archduke of Austria
1914 --- assassinated; the incident initiated World War I.
W. C. Fields (Claude William Dukenfield)
1946 --- stomach hemorrhage and cirrhosis of the liver.
Michael Findlay - horror film maker
1977 --- decapitated by helicopter blade.
Jim Fixx - made jogging popular
1984 --- died of a heart attack . . . while jogging.
Robert (Bobbie) Franks
1924 --- kidnapped and murdered by Leopold & Loeb.
Eric Fleming - actor ("Rawhide")
1966 --- drowned when his canoe capsized during the filming of a movie near the headwaters of the Amazon in the Haullaga River, Peru.
Dian Fossey - primatologist
1985 --- found hacked to death, presumably by poachers, in her Rwandan forest camp.
Sigmund Freud
1939 --- cancer of the jaw, palate, throat and tongue.
Bobby Fuller - musician
1966 --- his badly beaten body was discovered in a parked car in Los Angeles. His death was attributed to asphyxia through the forced inhalation of gasoline.
Rajiv Gandhi - prime minister of India from 1984 until 1989
1991 --- killed by a bomb, hidden in a bouquet of flowers, which exploded in his hand. Like his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.
Judy Garland (Frances Gumm)
1969 --- overdose of sleeping pills.
Marvin Gaye (Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.) - singer
1984 --- murdered on his birthday by his father.
Vitas Kevin Gerulaitis - tennis player
1994 --- died in his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning at the home of a friend.
Andy Gibb - singer
1988 --- heart infection.
Gary Mark Gilmore
1977 --- 1st American executed after restoration of US death penalty in 1976. (Executed by firing squad.) Last words.
John Glasscock - musician (Jethro Tull)
1979 --- heart infection caused by an abscessed tooth.
Olivia Goldsmith - author, "First Wives Club"
2004 --- complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery.
Sergei Grinkov - Russian figure skater
1995 --- died of heart attack during skating practice.
Henry Gunther
1918 --- last soldier killed in WWI. Little known lasts.
Alexander Hamilton - former US Treasury Secretary
1804 --- shot by US Vice President Aaron Burr in a pistol duel near Weehawken, New Jersey on July eleventh.
Mata Hari (Gertrud Margarete Zelle) - World War I spy
1917 --- executed by firing squad, she refused a blindfold and threw a kiss to the executioners.
William E. Harmon
1981 --- 1st BASE jumping fatality. He died in a jump from a 1000-foot antenna tower on April 11. BASE is an acronym for Building, Antennae, Span, Earth, and thus represents the fixed-objects from which BASE jumps are made.
William Henry Harrison
1841 --- 1st US President to die in office.
Leslie Harvey - musician
1972 --- lead guitarist of the Glasgow band Stone the Crows, died after being electrocuted onstage at Swansea's Top Rank Ballroom, May 3, 1972.
Owen Hart - WWF wrestler
1999 --- died while performing a stunt in the wrestling ring. He was being lowered into the ring by a cable, when he fell 70 ft. to his death, snapping his neck.
Elizabeth Hartman - actress
1987 --- fell to her death from a fifth floor window in a bizarre reflection of a character in her staring 1966 movie "The Group."
Frank Hayes - jockey
1923 --- heart attack during a race. His horse, Sweet Kiss, won the race, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.
Rita Hayworth (Margarita Carmen Cansino)
1987 -- Alzheimer's disease.
Phil Hartman (Philip Edward Hartmann)
1998 -- shot by his wife, who then committed suicide.
Les Harvey - musician (Stone the Crow)
1972 --- electrocuted on stage at a show in Swansea, Wales. He touched a poorly connected microphone and died a few hours later.
Ernest Miller Hemingway
1961 --- suicide with shotgun.
Margaux Hemingway (Margot Hemingway)
1996 --- suicide, overdose of a sedative. She was the fifth person in her family to commit suicide.
Jon-Erik Hexum - actor
1984 --- playfully shot himself with a blank-loaded pistol on the set of TV spy show "Cover Up." The concussion forced a chunk of his skull into his brain; he died six days later.
Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok)
1876 --- shot in the back of the head while playing poker.
Adolf Hitler
1945 --- suicide, cyanide and handgun.
Jimmy Hoffa (James Riddle Hoffa)
1975 --- disappeared from a Michigan restaurant on July 30th.
William Holden - actor
1981 --- found dead in his apartment. He had been drinking, and apparently fell, struck his head on an end table, and bled to death.
Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin Holley)
1959 --- died in airplane crash with Ritchie Valens & the Big Bopper on February 3, in Albert Juhl’s corn field about fifteen miles northwest of Mason City in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. link
John C. Holmes - porn film star
1988 --- complications of AIDS.
Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss) - magician
1926 --- ruptured appendix. He died on Halloween.
Leslie Howard (Leslie Stainer) - actor (Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind)
1943 --- his civilian plane was shot down by German fighter planes during WWII.
Rock Hudson (Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.)
1985 --- died of AIDS. He was the 1st major public figure to announce he had AIDS.
William Huskisson
1830 --- 1st person killed by a train. His death occurred when he was attending the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. As he stepped on the track to meet the Duke of Wellington, Stephenson's 'Rocket' hit him. He died later that day.
Hal Mark Irish
1991 --- was killed in a leap from a hot air balloon in what was believed to be the first US death from the thrill sport of Bungee jumping. Irish fell more than 60 feet to his death on October 29, 1991, after breaking loose from his bungee cord during a demonstration.
Steve Irwin "the Crocodile Hunter" - naturalist
2006 --- died when his heart was impaled by a short-tail stingray barb while filming a documentary entitled "Ocean's Deadliest" in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef. (September 4, 2006)
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson - Confederate General
1863 --- pneumonia, after accidentally being shot by his own troops. Last words.
Josef Jakobs - German spy
1941 --- last person to be executed in the Tower of London, England. Little known lasts.
Thomas Jefferson
1826 --- dysentery. He died on the 50th anniversary of signing of Declaration of Independence, and the same day as John Adams. Last words.
Knut Jensen - Olympic cyclist
1960 --- fractured skull during the 1960 Olympics in Rome. In the 93 degree heat, he collapsed from sunstroke and hit his head. He was one of only 2 athletes to die as a result of Olympic competition. (Francisco Lazaro was the other.)
Joan of Arc (Jeanne Darc)
1431 --- burned at the stake for heresy and witchcraft.
Gee Jon
1924 --- 1st person executed in US in the gas chamber. Nevada State Prison in Carson City on February 8. (Hydrocyanic gas was used; the procedure took 6 minutes.)
Brian Jones - musician, one-time Rolling Stone
1969 --- drowned in his swimming pool while drunk and on drugs.
Joselito (Jose Gomez) - Spanish bullfighter
1920 --- fatally gored fighting his last bull.
Florence Griffith Joyner - US Olympic sprinter
1998 --- an epileptic seizure triggered by a brain abnormality. She died in her sleep at the age of 38.
Michael LeMoyne Kennedy
1997 --- collided with a tree while playing ski football in Aspen, Colorado.
William Kemmler - convicted axe murderer
1890 --- 1st person executed in US in the electric chair. At Auburn State Prison in New York, on August 6. (The procedure took 8 minutes.)
Vladimir Komarov
1967 --- 1st cosmonaut to die in space. (Russian Soyuz 1)
Mary Jo Kopechne
1969 --- drowned when the car she was a passenger in, driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy, fell off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, MA.
David Koresh (Vernon Wayne Howell)
1993 --- killed by agents of FBI & Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms.
T. E. Lawrence (Thomas Edward Lawrence)
1935 --- killed in a motorcycle accident after swerving to avoid two boys.
Francisco Lazaro - Olympic runner
1912 --- sunstroke and heart trouble. Collapsed toward the end of the 1912 Olympic marathon in Stockholm. Lazaro was one of only two athletes to die as a result of Olympic competition. (Knut Jensen was the other.)
Brandon Lee - actor
1993 --- shot by a gun firing blanks, while filming the movie "The Crow." His missing scenes were later filled-in by computer animation.
Bruce Lee (Li Yuen Kam) - actor
1973 --- died suddenly from a swollen brain.
John Lennon
1980 --- shot to death by a mentally ill fan.
Liberace (Wladziu Valentino Liberace)
1987 --- AIDS.
Carole Lombard (Jane Alice Peters)
1942 --- plane crash.
Louis XVI - French king
1793 --- beheaded by French revolutionaries.
Malcolm X (Malcolm Little)
1965 --- murdered - shot 16 times by three assassins. Last words.
Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jayne Palmer) - actress
1967 --- car accident. Her wig flew off in the impact, starting rumors that she had been decapitated.
Mark Maples
1964 --- 1st person to be killed on a ride in Disneyland. He stood up while riding the Matterhorn Bobsleds and was thrown to his death. (There have been 7 deaths at Disneyland since its opening in 1955.)
Jean-Paul Marat
1793 --- knifed while taking a bath.
Pete Maravich - basketball player
1988 --- heart attack while playing a game of pick-up basketball.
Marie Antoinette
1793 --- beheaded by guillotine. Last words.
Bob Marley - musician
1981 --- brain tumor, at the age of 36.
Christopher Marlowe - author
1593 --- stabbed in a tavern brawl in Deptford, England.
Bill Masterton - hockey player for Minnesota North Stars
1968 --- head injury. He fell over backwards and hit his head on the ice after being checked during a game against the Oakland Seals. His is the only death in pro-hockey during the modern era.
Kenneth Allen McDuff
1998 --- thought to be the only person ever freed from death row and then returned after killing again. Executed by injection, November 17, 1998, in Huntsville, Texas.
William McKinley - 25th US President
1901 --- died of gangrene. He was shot by an assassin and his wounds were not properly dressed.
Butterfly McQueen (Thelma Lincoln McQueen)
1995 --- died of burns received when lighting kerosene heater in her apartment.
Glenn Miller - "big band" musician
1944 --- listed as Missing In Action, was serving as a Major in the Army Air Force Band when his plane went down over the English Channel.
Sal Mineo - actor
1976 --- stabbed to death in the street outside of his home.
Margaret Mitchell - author, Gone With the Wind
1949 --- On August 11, she was crossing an Atlanta street on her way to the theater when she was hit by a speeding cab. She died of her injuries five days later.
Russell Mockridge - cyclist
1958 --- vehicular accident. He was competing in the Tour of Gippsland in Melbourne when he was struck by a bus and killed instantly.
Luis Monge
1967 --- executed in gas chamber, Colorado State Penitentiary, Cannon City, CO, on June 2. He was the last US execution until 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated. (He had murdered his wife and 3 of his 10 children.)
Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker)
1962 --- drug overdose, probably suicide.
Davey Moore - American world champion boxer
1963 --- Moore faced Sugar Ramos in a nationally televised fight on March 21, 1963. Moore lost the fight by a knockout in the tenth round, and died two days later due to injuries received to his brain stem when his head hit the bottom rope when he was knocked out. wikipedia
Davey Moore - American world champion boxer
1988 --- One morning in early June 1988, as Moore was leaving his home, he stepped out of his car to open his garage door. He failed to put the car in park, leaving it in reverse. The car lurched backwards, pinning him against the door of his garage. He died at the scene. wikipedia
Thomas More
1535 --- beheaded for treason upon the order of Henry VIII.
Vic Morrow - actor
1982 --- helicopter accident on the set of "Twilight Zone - The Movie."
Jim Morrison - musician (the Doors)
1971 --- heart attack while in the bathtub.
Mary Ann Nicholls - prostitute
1888 --- fed poisoned grapes and disemboweled by Jack the Ripper.
Florence Nightingale
1910 --- heart failure after 53 years as an invalid.
Francis Russell O'Hara - US art critic
1966 --- died from being hit by taxicab.
Janet Parker - medical photographer
1978 --- last person to die of smallpox. Little known lasts.
Laura Patterson - professional bungee jumper
1996 --- killed during rehearsal for the Superbowl at the New Orleans Superdome on Jan. 23. She died of massive head injuries.
George S. Patton
1945 --- broke his neck in a car accident. He lived, incapacitated, for one more week.
Nicolas Jacques Pelletier - French highwayman
1792 --- 1st person beheaded with the guillotine.
River Phoenix - actor
1993 --- drug overdose on the sidewalk in front the Viper Club in Hollywood on Halloween.
Kenneth Pinyan
2005 --- perforated colon received during a videotaped sex act with a full sized stallion. His death prompted the passing of a bill in Washington State prohibiting both sex with animals and the videotaping of the same. (July 2, 2005)
Francisco Pizarro - Explorer and conquistador
1541 --- stabbed by countrymen in a feud over Incan riches.
Martha Place
1899 --- 1st woman executed in the electric chair, Sing Sing Prison, NY, on March 20. She had murdered her stepdaughter.
Edgar Allan Poe
1849 --- cerebral edema following a drinking binge.
(The September 1996 Maryland Medical Journal published a study that showed Poe's symptoms suggest rabies instead.)
Pope Johann XII
963 --- beaten to death , at age 18, by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with.
Elvis Presley
1977 --- accidental drug overdose. He died while sitting on the toilet.
Alexander Pushkin - Russian author
1837 --- killed in duel.
Grigory Rasputin
1916 --- assassinated: poisoned (cyanide), shot (3 times), and thrown into a river.
Keith Relf - musician (The Yardbirds)
1976 --- electrocuted playing guitar in the bathtub.
John Augustus Roebling - designer of the Brooklyn Bridge
1869 --- died of a tetanus infection after having his leg crushed by a ferryboat while working on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Rebecca Rolfe (Pocahontas)
1617 --- smallpox. She died in London.
Oscar Romero - archbishop of San Salvador
1980 --- murdered while saying mass at the Cathedral of San Salvador.
Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
1953 --- executed in electric chair on June 19. The 1st husband-and-wife team executed in the US. They had been charged with espionage and spying.
Ronald Ryan
1967 --- executed by hanging in Melbourne. He was the last man to be hanged in Australia.
Girolamo Savonarola - religious reformer
1498 --- hanged and burned for heresy.
Rebecca Schaffer - actress
1989 --- shot by a "celebrity stalker" fan.
Hugh Scrutton
1985 --- first confirmed Unabomber victim. On Dec. 11, the computer rental store owner opened a package which had been left outside his door.
Selena (Quintanilla Perez) - singer
1995 --- shot by the president of her fan club.
Thomas A. Selfridge
1908 --- 1st mortality in an airplane crash. He was the passenger when Wilbur Wright crashed a US War Department test plane.
Betty Shabazz, (Betty Sanders; Sister Betty X, Hajj Bahiyah) - widow of Malcom X
1997 --- complications from apartment fire started by her grandson.
Tupac Shakur - musician
1996 --- murdered in drive-by shooting.
Percy Bysshe Shelley - writer
1822 --- accidental drowning.
Eddie Slovik
1945 --- shot by an American firing squad in France for desertion. (The only US soldier since the Civil War to be executed as he was.)
Vladimir Smirnov - fencer
1982 --- brain damage. During a fencing match against Matthias Behr, Behr's foil snapped, pierced Smirnov's mask, penetrated his eyeball, and entered his brain. Smirnov died 9 days later.
Joseph Smith - founder of Mormon religion
1844 --- shot by an angry mob while he was jailed in Carthage, IL.
Diana Spencer - Princess of Wales
1997 --- car crash while eluding paparazzi.
Evelita Juanita Spinnelli
1941 --- 1st woman ever to be officially to be executed in California, on November 21st.
1941 --- 1st woman to be executed in the gas chamber
Jennifer Lea Strange - game show contestant
2007 --- died of water intoxication after taking part in a Sacramento, California, radio station's water-drinking contest. (January 12, 2007)
Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
1587 --- beheaded for treason.
Mary Surratt
1865 --- executed for being a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination. 1st woman ever executed by the United States government. Hung on July 7. Biography.
Yoshiuki Takada - actor
1985 --- The Sankai Juku Dance Company of Toyko had been performing The Dance Of Birth And Death on the side of Seattle's Mutual Life building when Takada's rope broke and he plunged six stories to his death. The film of his demise was shown on the nightly news. (September 10, 1985)
Sharon Tate
1969 --- murdered by Charles Manson and his followers.
Timothy Treadwell - envirnmentalist (and Amie Huguenard)
(2003) --- lived among the grizzly bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska for approximately 13 seasons. At the end of his thirteenth season in the park in 2003, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and partially eaten by a grizzly bear. An audio recording of the attack survived..
Leon Trotsky - Russian leader
1940 --- assassinated in Mexico with the pick of an ice axe, died the next day. Last words.
Tommy Tucker - musician
1982 --- carbon tetrachloride poisoning sustained while he was finishing floors in his home.
Kelton Rena Turner
1975 --- last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War. Little known lasts.
Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo di Valentina D'Antonguolla) - actor
1926 --- perforated gastric ulcer and ruptured appendix. Last words.
Mike Venezia - jockey
1988 --- died in 5th-race fall at Belmont Race Track, NY.
Gianni Versace - clothing designer
1997 --- murdered by serial killer.
Sir William Wallace - Scottish rebel
1305 --- executed by being hanged for a short time, taken down still breathing and having his bowels torn out and burned. His head was then struck off, and his body divided into quarters, the punishment known as 'hanged, drawn and quartered'. His head was placed on a pole on London Bridge, his right arm above the bridge in Newcastle, his left arm was sent to Berwick, his right foot and limb to Perth and his left quarter to Aberdeen where it was buried in what is now the wall at St. Machars Cathedral.
Karl Wallenda - aerialist
1978 --- fell to death at the age of 73 as he was walking a high wire strung between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Edward Higgins White, Jr.
1967 --- died in space capsule fire during rehearsal of scheduled Apollo 1 launch with Roger Chaffee & Gus Grissom.
Stanford White - Architect, designed Madison Square Garden
1906 --- shot atop Madison Square Garden by Evelyn Nesbit's jealous husband, Harry Thaw.
Oscar Wilde
1900 --- cerebral meningitis. Last words.
Tennessee Williams - writer
1983 --- choked to death on a on a nose spray bottle cap that accidentally dropped into his mouth while he was using the spray. He was 71.
Dennis Wilson - rock musician (The Beach Boys)
1983 --- drowned after diving from his yacht in the harbor at Marina Del Ray, California.
Jackie Wilson - entertainer
1967 --- collapsed of a stroke and a heart attack on stage, while singing his hit "Lonely Teardrops": He never regained consciousness and died eight years later.
Natalie Wood (Natasha Nikolaevna Gurdin)
1981 --- accidental drowning.
Alexander Woollcott - literary critic
1943 --- heart attack while appearing on the CBS radio program "People's Platform."
source: http://www.corsinet.com
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