January
1: Senior Hamas military commander Nizar Rayan is killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. Also: 61 people die in a nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand.
9: The Illinois House of Representatives votes to impeach the very odd and strange-looking Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich.
14: Osama bin Laden releases an audio message urging Muslims to wage jihad against Israel for her offensive on the Gaza Strip.
15: U.S. Airways Flight 1549 lands in the Hudson River after striking a flock of Canada geese and losing engine thrust. Everyone on board survives; the crew will later be awarded the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigator's Master Medal for their performance in the crisis. Also: NASA announces that methane gas in the atmosphere of Mars might signal life on the Red Planet. Also: The U.S. Senate confirms Blagojevich appointee Roland Burris as Barack Obama's replacement, notwithstanding the scandal surrounding Burris' appointment.
20: Barack Obama is inaugurated President.
21: Hillary Clinton is confirmed as Secretary of State. Also: Barack Obama orders prosecutors to ask for a 120-day adjournment of trials of Guantanamo terrorists.
22: Pope Benedict announces the rescission of the excommunications of the four surviving SSPX bishops. The excommunications will be rescinded on the 24th of January.
26: Murder spree, Portland, Oregon: shooter kills 2 and wounds 7 before turning the gun on himself and critically wounding himself. Also: Live octuplets are born to a woman who had herself implanted with numerous embryos.
27: The International Institute for Strategic Studies predicts that by year's end, Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Also: Murder spree, Wilmington, California: a man murders his wife and five children, then commits suicide.
28: The House of Representatives passes the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," which dwarfs last year's First Armageddon Avoidance Act. Meanwhile, Boeing announces that it will cut 10,000 jobs during 2009.
29: The Illinois legislature votes unanimously to boot Governor Rod Blagojevich and bar him from all elected office in the state.
Deaths: Rocky the Striper Puss (cat extraordinaire); Fr. Richard John Neuhaus; Msgr. John Donoghue; Pat Hingle (movie and television actor); Olga San Juan (actress and dancer, the "Puerto Rican Pepperpot"); Patrick McGoohan; Harry Endo (forensic genius Che Fong on Hawaii Five-O); Billy Powell (Lynard Skynard keyboardist); John Updike; Sir John Mortimer (creator of Rumpole of the Bailey); Ricardo Montalban.
9: The Illinois House of Representatives votes to impeach the very odd and strange-looking Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich.
14: Osama bin Laden releases an audio message urging Muslims to wage jihad against Israel for her offensive on the Gaza Strip.
15: U.S. Airways Flight 1549 lands in the Hudson River after striking a flock of Canada geese and losing engine thrust. Everyone on board survives; the crew will later be awarded the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigator's Master Medal for their performance in the crisis. Also: NASA announces that methane gas in the atmosphere of Mars might signal life on the Red Planet. Also: The U.S. Senate confirms Blagojevich appointee Roland Burris as Barack Obama's replacement, notwithstanding the scandal surrounding Burris' appointment.
20: Barack Obama is inaugurated President.
21: Hillary Clinton is confirmed as Secretary of State. Also: Barack Obama orders prosecutors to ask for a 120-day adjournment of trials of Guantanamo terrorists.
22: Pope Benedict announces the rescission of the excommunications of the four surviving SSPX bishops. The excommunications will be rescinded on the 24th of January.
26: Murder spree, Portland, Oregon: shooter kills 2 and wounds 7 before turning the gun on himself and critically wounding himself. Also: Live octuplets are born to a woman who had herself implanted with numerous embryos.
27: The International Institute for Strategic Studies predicts that by year's end, Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Also: Murder spree, Wilmington, California: a man murders his wife and five children, then commits suicide.
28: The House of Representatives passes the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," which dwarfs last year's First Armageddon Avoidance Act. Meanwhile, Boeing announces that it will cut 10,000 jobs during 2009.
29: The Illinois legislature votes unanimously to boot Governor Rod Blagojevich and bar him from all elected office in the state.
February
1: The Pittsburg Steelers win Superbowl XLIII. Also: American deep-sea explorers announce the discovery the previous May of the H.M.S. Victory, which sank in the English Channel in 1744 during a severe storm.
3: Iran launches its first home-made satellite. Also: California officially goes broke.
5: It is announced that first-time unemployment claims in the United States top 600,000, the greatest number since 1982. Also: Michael Phelps is suspended from competition for three months after a photo is published of him huffing on a pot pipe.
7-9: Bushfires in Victoria, Australia leave hundreds dead and hundreds more homeless.
9: Archaeologists announce the discovery in Saqqara, Egypt, of 30 mummies in a 2,600-year-old tomb.
10: GM announces it will cut 10,000 salaried jobs.
17: President Obama signs the Second Armageddon Avoidance Act of 2009 into law.
18: Iran announces the construction of an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of traveling 620 miles.
22: The 81st Academy Awards. I could have cared less.
23: Pope Benedict XVI names Archbishop Timothy Dolan to head the Archdiocese of New York.
25: My mother celebrates her [CENSORED]th birthday.
Deaths: Paul Harvey, veteran radio commentator; Wendy Richard (British actress, Are You Being Served?); Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. (American publisher); James Whitmore.
2: A federal judge rules that enemy combatants held in Bagram, Afghanistan, have a right to contest their incarceration in U.S. courts.
3: Iowa's Supreme Court "legalizes" same sex "marriage."
7: A federal judge throws out Sen. Ted Stevens' criminal convictions, citing the worst prosecutorial misconduct he had ever seen in 25 years.
8: Murder spree, Temecula, California: one person is killed and four injured at a religious retreat house.
9: CIA director Leon Panetta announces the worldwide decommissioning of "black sites," used to detain terrorism suspects.
13: The Obama administration announces the loosening of travel restrictions to Cuba.
15: 500 Tea Party tax protests are held all over the country. Also: Pitcairn Island, home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, abolishes a 200-year-old ban on the sale of achohol.
25: North Korea, which cannot feed its people, announces that it is reprocessing spent fuel rods at its nuclear research facility, a possible step toward creating weapons-grade plutonium.
26: The United States declares a public health emergency over swine flu.
27: Mexico reports 149 swine flu deaths.
30: Chrysler goes into Chapter 11.
Deaths: Theodore Heck, OSB (world's oldest Benedictine monk, aged 108); Bea Arthur; Alex Lees (one of the British planners of the Great Escape).
6: The state of Maine legalizes same-sex "marriage."
8: Pope Benedict begins his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he will be blamed for everything from the Holocaust to Muslim violence.
12: The United States gets a seat on the utterly worthless United Nations Human Rights Council, where it will rub shoulders with human rights giants like China and Saudi Arabia.
26: California's Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, which bans same-sex "marriage" in the state, and which was approved by 52.24% of California's voters.
29: Record producer and all-around freak Phil Spector gets 19 years for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
31: Late-term abortionist George Tiller is shot to death while ushering at his church.
Deaths: Dom DeLuise; Jack Kemp; Millvina Dean (last survivor of the Titanic disaster); Mickey Carroll (one of the last surviving muchkins from The Wizard of Oz).
1: Air France's deadliest disaster: Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean, with 216 passengers and 12 crew members. Also: Government Motors files for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.
3: New Hampshire legalizes same-sex "marriage."
6: 40 die in a day-care center fire in Hermosillo, Mexico.
8: Two American reporters receive a sentence of 12 years of penal servitude for illegally entering North Korea. They will be pardoned and released in August, with Bill Clinton taking the credit for it.
10: An elderly white supremacist opens fire at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard.
15: A clash begins between police and protesters in Iran over that country's fraudulent "election," in which the Pipsqeak Potentate Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is allegedly returned to power.
18: North Korea threatens a missile attack on Hawaii. Liberals turn over in bed.
21: Greenland assumes self-rule.
22: French President Nicolas Sarkozy announces his support for banning the burqa from France.
28: Leftist President Zelaya of Honduras is removed from office after trying to change the Constitution of Honduras.
29: Pope Benedict XVI announces that tests confirm the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls contains the remains of St. Paul. Also: a freight train derails in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy, resulting in nearly two dozen deaths.
30: The Supreme Court of Minnesota orders Al Franken certified as the winner of the U.S. Senate race; Republican candidate Norm Coleman concedes defeat.
Deaths: Michael Jackson; Farrah Fawcett; Ed McMahon; Huey Long (of the Inkspots -- age 105); Kenny Rankin (singer/songwriter); David Carradine; Billy Mays (Oxy-clean pitchman); Gale Storm.
3: Sarah Palin announces that she will resign as governor of Alaska, effective July 26th.
5: An explosion outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Cotabato City, Mindanao, the Philippines, killing five and injuring at least 55 more.
6: Murder spree, Miami, Florida: three gunman storm a birthday party and open fire, killing one and wounding 11 more. Also: police shoot and kill Patrick Tracy Burris, known as the Cherokee County, South Carolina serial killer, responsible for at least five murders between June 27th and July 6th.
7: Pope Benedict XVI publishes his much-anticipated third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.
16: The Sears Tower is renamed the Willis Tower. The name change goes over like a fart in church.
17: Islamic terrorists murder seven people in bombing attacks on two hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia. Also: Pope Benedict XVI fractures his wrist in a fall, but does not slow down his busy schedule.
21: Astronomers detect the mark of a giant impact on Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the Comet Shoemaker-Levy impact.
22: The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century takes place over parts of Asia and the Pacific.
26: Sarah Palin resigns as governor of Alaska.
Deaths: Robert McNamara; Karl Malden; Mollie Sugden (Mrs. Slocombe in Are You Being Served?); Henry Allingham (last surviving veteran of the World War I Battle of Jutland, age 113); Harry Patch ("the Last Fighting Tommy," age 111, the last surviving veteran to have fought in the trenches); Walter Cronkite; Gordon Waller (Peter and Gordon); Reverend Ike.
2: Java, in Indonesia, suffers a 7.3 magnitude earthquake. Also: archaeologists discover a 3,700 year old wall in east Jerusalem, part of an ancient fortification.
7: For reasons passing understanding, after a century of driving on the right side of the road, Samoa switches to left-hand traffic.
8: The founder of this blog celebrates her TRIPLE-DOG CENSORED!!!th birthday.
9: Rep. Joe Wilson (R.-S.C.) heckles President Obama during the latter's snake-oil sales pitch for Obamacare in front of a joint session of Congress, shouting "you lie!"
24: An enormous trove of Anglo-Saxon treasure is discovered buried in a field in Staffordshire, England.
26: Pope Benedict XVI begins a three-day visit to the Czech Republic.
27: 31 years after skipping out on his sentencing on charges resulting from raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl, Roman Polanski is arrested on his way to a film festival in Zurich. The aging degenerate still does not understand what he did wrong.
30: An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale wreaks devastation on the island Sumatra in Indonesia.
Deaths: Mary Travers (Peter, Paul and Mary); Henry Gibson; Patrick Swayze; Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H writer); Susan Atkins (murderess and Manson Family member); William Safire.
3: Iran launches its first home-made satellite. Also: California officially goes broke.
5: It is announced that first-time unemployment claims in the United States top 600,000, the greatest number since 1982. Also: Michael Phelps is suspended from competition for three months after a photo is published of him huffing on a pot pipe.
7-9: Bushfires in Victoria, Australia leave hundreds dead and hundreds more homeless.
9: Archaeologists announce the discovery in Saqqara, Egypt, of 30 mummies in a 2,600-year-old tomb.
10: GM announces it will cut 10,000 salaried jobs.
17: President Obama signs the Second Armageddon Avoidance Act of 2009 into law.
18: Iran announces the construction of an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of traveling 620 miles.
22: The 81st Academy Awards. I could have cared less.
23: Pope Benedict XVI names Archbishop Timothy Dolan to head the Archdiocese of New York.
25: My mother celebrates her [CENSORED]th birthday.
Deaths: Paul Harvey, veteran radio commentator; Wendy Richard (British actress, Are You Being Served?); Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. (American publisher); James Whitmore.
March
1: China's first moon probe, Chang'e 1, crashes into the Moon. Mission over.
6: NASA launches Kepler, a space telescope whose mission is to search for earth-like planets revolving around other stars.
8: Barack Obama announces that U.S. troops are not winning in Afghanistan.
9: Barack Obama lifts President Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem sell research.
13: The Redoubtable Marcus Magnus celebrates his CENSOREDth birthday.
13: The Redoubtable Marcus Magnus celebrates his CENSOREDth birthday.
17: Luxembourg observes St. Patrick's Day by legalizing euthanasia.
18: Pope Benedict repudiates condoms as a solution to AIDS in Africa. The world goes nuts.
20: Scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory discover a new subatomic particle.
27: Dale Hausner, one of two men charged with being the "Serial Shooter" who randomly targeted pedestrians for shooting in Phoenix, Arizona from 2005-2006, receives six death sentences.
Deaths: Dan Seals (England Dan and John Ford Coley); Natasha Richardson; Ron Silver.
April
2: A federal judge rules that enemy combatants held in Bagram, Afghanistan, have a right to contest their incarceration in U.S. courts.
3: Iowa's Supreme Court "legalizes" same sex "marriage."
7: A federal judge throws out Sen. Ted Stevens' criminal convictions, citing the worst prosecutorial misconduct he had ever seen in 25 years.
8: Murder spree, Temecula, California: one person is killed and four injured at a religious retreat house.
9: CIA director Leon Panetta announces the worldwide decommissioning of "black sites," used to detain terrorism suspects.
13: The Obama administration announces the loosening of travel restrictions to Cuba.
15: 500 Tea Party tax protests are held all over the country. Also: Pitcairn Island, home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, abolishes a 200-year-old ban on the sale of achohol.
25: North Korea, which cannot feed its people, announces that it is reprocessing spent fuel rods at its nuclear research facility, a possible step toward creating weapons-grade plutonium.
26: The United States declares a public health emergency over swine flu.
27: Mexico reports 149 swine flu deaths.
30: Chrysler goes into Chapter 11.
Deaths: Theodore Heck, OSB (world's oldest Benedictine monk, aged 108); Bea Arthur; Alex Lees (one of the British planners of the Great Escape).
May
1: Supreme Court Justice David Souter chooses an appropriate day to announce his forthcoming retirement.6: The state of Maine legalizes same-sex "marriage."
8: Pope Benedict begins his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he will be blamed for everything from the Holocaust to Muslim violence.
12: The United States gets a seat on the utterly worthless United Nations Human Rights Council, where it will rub shoulders with human rights giants like China and Saudi Arabia.
26: California's Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, which bans same-sex "marriage" in the state, and which was approved by 52.24% of California's voters.
29: Record producer and all-around freak Phil Spector gets 19 years for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
31: Late-term abortionist George Tiller is shot to death while ushering at his church.
Deaths: Dom DeLuise; Jack Kemp; Millvina Dean (last survivor of the Titanic disaster); Mickey Carroll (one of the last surviving muchkins from The Wizard of Oz).
June
1: Air France's deadliest disaster: Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean, with 216 passengers and 12 crew members. Also: Government Motors files for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.
3: New Hampshire legalizes same-sex "marriage."
6: 40 die in a day-care center fire in Hermosillo, Mexico.
8: Two American reporters receive a sentence of 12 years of penal servitude for illegally entering North Korea. They will be pardoned and released in August, with Bill Clinton taking the credit for it.
10: An elderly white supremacist opens fire at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard.
15: A clash begins between police and protesters in Iran over that country's fraudulent "election," in which the Pipsqeak Potentate Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is allegedly returned to power.
18: North Korea threatens a missile attack on Hawaii. Liberals turn over in bed.
21: Greenland assumes self-rule.
22: French President Nicolas Sarkozy announces his support for banning the burqa from France.
28: Leftist President Zelaya of Honduras is removed from office after trying to change the Constitution of Honduras.
29: Pope Benedict XVI announces that tests confirm the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls contains the remains of St. Paul. Also: a freight train derails in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy, resulting in nearly two dozen deaths.
30: The Supreme Court of Minnesota orders Al Franken certified as the winner of the U.S. Senate race; Republican candidate Norm Coleman concedes defeat.
Deaths: Michael Jackson; Farrah Fawcett; Ed McMahon; Huey Long (of the Inkspots -- age 105); Kenny Rankin (singer/songwriter); David Carradine; Billy Mays (Oxy-clean pitchman); Gale Storm.
July
3: Sarah Palin announces that she will resign as governor of Alaska, effective July 26th.
5: An explosion outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Cotabato City, Mindanao, the Philippines, killing five and injuring at least 55 more.
6: Murder spree, Miami, Florida: three gunman storm a birthday party and open fire, killing one and wounding 11 more. Also: police shoot and kill Patrick Tracy Burris, known as the Cherokee County, South Carolina serial killer, responsible for at least five murders between June 27th and July 6th.
7: Pope Benedict XVI publishes his much-anticipated third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.
16: The Sears Tower is renamed the Willis Tower. The name change goes over like a fart in church.
17: Islamic terrorists murder seven people in bombing attacks on two hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia. Also: Pope Benedict XVI fractures his wrist in a fall, but does not slow down his busy schedule.
21: Astronomers detect the mark of a giant impact on Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the Comet Shoemaker-Levy impact.
22: The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century takes place over parts of Asia and the Pacific.
26: Sarah Palin resigns as governor of Alaska.
Deaths: Robert McNamara; Karl Malden; Mollie Sugden (Mrs. Slocombe in Are You Being Served?); Henry Allingham (last surviving veteran of the World War I Battle of Jutland, age 113); Harry Patch ("the Last Fighting Tommy," age 111, the last surviving veteran to have fought in the trenches); Walter Cronkite; Gordon Waller (Peter and Gordon); Reverend Ike.
August
1: Punjab, Pakistan: Muslims murder six Christians over an alleged desecration of the Koran.
2: After 18 years, the remains of Scott Speicher, first American casualty in the Gulf War, are found.
4: North Korea frees American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Bill Clinton takes the credit.
6: On the 64th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
14: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, former Manson Family member, is paroled after 34 years in prison (including a 15-month consecutive sentence for escaping in 1987).
20: The feds announce the end of the idiotic "Cash for Clunkers" program. Also: Scotland releases the Lockerbie bomber on the grounds that he only has three months left to live. In December, he will still be alive, out of the hospital and living at his family's villa.
21: Claims that a 34-year-old Tunisian woman was pregnant with 12 babies turns out to be false.
25: It is announced that the U.S. budget deficit will hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2009. Liberals continue to push for socialized medicine.
Deaths: Corazon Aquino; Les Paul (electric guitar innovator); Eunice Kennedy Shriver; John Hughes (movie director); Don Hewitt (creator of 60 Minutes); Robert Novak; Ted Kennedy; Dominick Dunne; Robert Schindler (father of Terry Schiavo).
2: After 18 years, the remains of Scott Speicher, first American casualty in the Gulf War, are found.
4: North Korea frees American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Bill Clinton takes the credit.
6: On the 64th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
14: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, former Manson Family member, is paroled after 34 years in prison (including a 15-month consecutive sentence for escaping in 1987).
20: The feds announce the end of the idiotic "Cash for Clunkers" program. Also: Scotland releases the Lockerbie bomber on the grounds that he only has three months left to live. In December, he will still be alive, out of the hospital and living at his family's villa.
21: Claims that a 34-year-old Tunisian woman was pregnant with 12 babies turns out to be false.
25: It is announced that the U.S. budget deficit will hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2009. Liberals continue to push for socialized medicine.
Deaths: Corazon Aquino; Les Paul (electric guitar innovator); Eunice Kennedy Shriver; John Hughes (movie director); Don Hewitt (creator of 60 Minutes); Robert Novak; Ted Kennedy; Dominick Dunne; Robert Schindler (father of Terry Schiavo).
September
2: Java, in Indonesia, suffers a 7.3 magnitude earthquake. Also: archaeologists discover a 3,700 year old wall in east Jerusalem, part of an ancient fortification.
7: For reasons passing understanding, after a century of driving on the right side of the road, Samoa switches to left-hand traffic.
8: The founder of this blog celebrates her TRIPLE-DOG CENSORED!!!th birthday.
9: Rep. Joe Wilson (R.-S.C.) heckles President Obama during the latter's snake-oil sales pitch for Obamacare in front of a joint session of Congress, shouting "you lie!"
24: An enormous trove of Anglo-Saxon treasure is discovered buried in a field in Staffordshire, England.
26: Pope Benedict XVI begins a three-day visit to the Czech Republic.
27: 31 years after skipping out on his sentencing on charges resulting from raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl, Roman Polanski is arrested on his way to a film festival in Zurich. The aging degenerate still does not understand what he did wrong.
30: An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale wreaks devastation on the island Sumatra in Indonesia.
Deaths: Mary Travers (Peter, Paul and Mary); Henry Gibson; Patrick Swayze; Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H writer); Susan Atkins (murderess and Manson Family member); William Safire.
October
7: Astronomers announce the discovery of a new ring (the "Phoebe Ring") around Saturn.
9: Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, having done absolutely nothing whatsoever to deserve it.
10: Barack Obama announces that he will end the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
11: Pope Benedict XVI canonizes five new saints, including St. Francisco Coll Guitart, O.P., and St. Damien of Molokai. Also: Fr. Michael Sinnott, an Irish priest, is kidnapped by gunmen from a convent in Pagadian City, Mindanao, the Philippines. The kidnappers later demand a $2 million ransom. Fr. Sinnott will be released in a month.
15: The "balloon boy" hoax: publicity-hungry parents send the authorities on a wild goose chase for a homemade balloon in which they falsely claim their six-year-old son is trapped. As part of a plea agreement, the father will later plead guilty to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony.
20: Pope Benedict opens the door for Anglicans to return en masse to unity with the Catholic Church.
Deaths: Norton Buffalo (Steve Miller Band); Soupy Sales; "Captain" Lou Albano (professional wrestler/manager); Collin Wilcox (Mayella Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird).
November
3: Czech President Václav Klaus signs the Lisbon Treaty.
4: Elections: Republican Chris Christie wins the governor's race in New Jersey. Republicans sweep Virginia from the top of the ticket to the bottom. Maine voters reject same-sex "marriage."
5: A Muslim army psychiatrist opens fire in a medical facility at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas, murdering 13 fellow soldiers and wounding 30 more before being taken down by a civilian female police sergeant. Although the shooter was the spiritual student of a radical imam, had a history of publicly advocating jihad, and shouted "Allahu akbar" while murdering his comrades-in-arms, Barack Obama urges us not to leap to conclusions about his motives.
6: Murder spree, Orlando, Florida: a shooter opens fire in an office building, killing one and wounding five.
10: John Allen Muhammad, the elder of the two Beltway Snipers, is executed in Virginia.
13: Rep. William J. Jefferson (D.-Louisiana), having been convicted of 11 counts of corruption, is sentenced to 13 years.
14: Rabid anti-Catholic "evangelist" Tony Alamo is sentenced to 175 years for 10 counts of Interstate Transportation of Minors for Illegal Sexual Purposes, Rape, Sexual Assault and Contributing to the Delinquency of Minors.
19: In one of modern television's rare moments worth celebrating, Oprah Winfrey announces the forthcoming end of her show. Also: hackers leak 13 years' worth of emails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia demonstrating a conspiracy to exaggerate human influence on the earth's climate.
25: A crew of British yachtsmen participating in a yacht race in the Persian Gulf are arrested and detained by the Iranian Navy. They will be released on December 2nd.
27: Tiger Woods is involved in a car crash that leads to a maelstrom of media hoopla over allegations of driving under the influence, domestic violence and marital infidelity. Also: murder spree, Jupiter, Florida: a man murders five of his relatives, including a six-year-old girl, a pregnant mother and her unborn baby, at a Thanksgiving party.
29: Murder spree, Parkland, Washington: four police officers are murdered in a coffee shop by a gunman with a history of violent crime who is out on bond in a pending case of child rape/assault on police officer. The shooter himself will be shot to death two days later during a confrontation with another police officer.
25: A crew of British yachtsmen participating in a yacht race in the Persian Gulf are arrested and detained by the Iranian Navy. They will be released on December 2nd.
27: Tiger Woods is involved in a car crash that leads to a maelstrom of media hoopla over allegations of driving under the influence, domestic violence and marital infidelity. Also: murder spree, Jupiter, Florida: a man murders five of his relatives, including a six-year-old girl, a pregnant mother and her unborn baby, at a Thanksgiving party.
29: Murder spree, Parkland, Washington: four police officers are murdered in a coffee shop by a gunman with a history of violent crime who is out on bond in a pending case of child rape/assault on police officer. The shooter himself will be shot to death two days later during a confrontation with another police officer.
Deaths: Edward Woodward; John Jay O'Connor (husband of former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor); Fr. Robert Fox (founder, Fatima Family Apostolate).
1: The Treat of Lisbon takes effect.
7: The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, at which Barack Obama is destined to make an ass of himself, opens (appropriately) on Pearl Harbor Day.
9: The Russians misfire a rocket, creating a really cool spiral light show over Northern Norway.
15: Mount Mayon on the Philippine island of Luzon begins to ooze lava after an explosion of ash, prompting evacuations in the province of Albay.
18: Former Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, whose highly publicized antics included attempted marriage, illicit ordinations and defecting to the Moonies, is dismissed from the clerical state. Also: the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign over the gate of Auschwitz is stolen. It will be found two days later, cut into three pieces.
19: Pope Benedict XVI declares as Venerable Pope John Paul II (no surprise there) and Pope Pius XII (big, but welcome surprise there).
24: A mentally deranged woman jumps a barrier and knocks Pope Benedict over while he is processing into St. Peter's Basilica for Midnight Mass. The Pope is able to get up and continue on, but Roger Cardinal Etchegaray, age 87, suffers a broken leg in the attack.
25: A Muslim terrorist tries to blow up a commercial airliner over Detroit by means of a bomb in his crotch. The detonator malfunctions, and a passenger subdues the terrorist. The Obama administration announces that all this proves "the system works."
28: The first gay "marriage" takes place in Argentina.
30: Eight Americans are killed by a suicide bomber at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, Afghanistan. Also: Rush Limbaugh is hospitalized with chest pains in Honolulu.
Deaths: Jennifer Jones (starred in The Song of Bernadette); Oral Roberts; Moyra Fraser (Penny in As Time Goes By); Brittany Murphy (voice of Luann in King of the Hill); Fr. Edouard Schillebeeckx.
And this is only a microscopic fraction of all the drama of 2009. May 2010 be a damn sight better.
December
1: The Treat of Lisbon takes effect.
7: The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, at which Barack Obama is destined to make an ass of himself, opens (appropriately) on Pearl Harbor Day.
9: The Russians misfire a rocket, creating a really cool spiral light show over Northern Norway.
15: Mount Mayon on the Philippine island of Luzon begins to ooze lava after an explosion of ash, prompting evacuations in the province of Albay.
18: Former Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, whose highly publicized antics included attempted marriage, illicit ordinations and defecting to the Moonies, is dismissed from the clerical state. Also: the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign over the gate of Auschwitz is stolen. It will be found two days later, cut into three pieces.
19: Pope Benedict XVI declares as Venerable Pope John Paul II (no surprise there) and Pope Pius XII (big, but welcome surprise there).
24: A mentally deranged woman jumps a barrier and knocks Pope Benedict over while he is processing into St. Peter's Basilica for Midnight Mass. The Pope is able to get up and continue on, but Roger Cardinal Etchegaray, age 87, suffers a broken leg in the attack.
25: A Muslim terrorist tries to blow up a commercial airliner over Detroit by means of a bomb in his crotch. The detonator malfunctions, and a passenger subdues the terrorist. The Obama administration announces that all this proves "the system works."
28: The first gay "marriage" takes place in Argentina.
30: Eight Americans are killed by a suicide bomber at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, Afghanistan. Also: Rush Limbaugh is hospitalized with chest pains in Honolulu.
Deaths: Jennifer Jones (starred in The Song of Bernadette); Oral Roberts; Moyra Fraser (Penny in As Time Goes By); Brittany Murphy (voice of Luann in King of the Hill); Fr. Edouard Schillebeeckx.
And this is only a microscopic fraction of all the drama of 2009. May 2010 be a damn sight better.
