Flashback Friday

It's kind of an interesting day in history;

Jul 18, 1984: Twenty-one people are shot to death at McDonald's
James Oliver Huberty opens fire in a crowded McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others with several automatic weapons. Minutes earlier, Huberty had left home, telling his wife, "I'm going hunting... hunting for humans."
Bringing several guns, including a 9mm automatic pistol and semiautomatic rifle, into the McDonald's two miles from the Mexican border, Huberty demanded that the 45 patrons get on the floor. He then walked around the restaurant, calmly shooting people. He killed 20 in the first ten minutes, including four who tried to escape.

I remember when this happened. Because my boyfriend at the time was an LAPD dispatch cop, I listened with him to the recording of the calls to the 911 dispatch. It was horrible. I remember that I didn't listen to the whole thing...it was too much for me.

Jul 18, 1969: Incident on Chappaquiddick Island 
Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, received a two-month suspended sentence, and had his license suspended for a year.

That hardly seems like a severe enough punishment.

Jul 18, 64: Nero's Rome burns
The great fire of Rome breaks out and destroys much of the city on this day in the year 64. Despite the well-known stories, there is no evidence that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire or played the fiddle while it burned. Still, he did use the disaster to further his political agenda.


Jul 18, 1940: FDR nominated for unprecedented third term
On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America's 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms.

Man, can you imagine having the same president for FOUR terms??? I've liked a couple of the presidents in my life but not enough to want them to serve for 16 years! Whoa.