Dillinger history

Wanted to post some 'on this day' with some Dillinger connections.

May 22, 1933 - Dillinger's step-mother is dying and he is released on parole from Michigan City Prison, thanks to a petition signed by 184 Mooresville, IN residents. By the time he arrives home his step-mother is already dead.

May 23, 1934 - Evelyn "Billie' Frechette is sentenced to 2 years in Federal prison for harboring Dillinger.

May 23, 1934 - Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are killed in an ambush on a county road in Louisiana. Texan prison officials hired a retired Texas police officer, Captain Frank Hamer, as a special investigator to track down Parker and Barrow. After a three-month search, Hamer traced the couple to Louisiana, where Henry Methvin's family lived. Before dawn, Hamer and a group of Louisiana and Texas lawmen hid in the bushes along a country road outside Sailes. When Parker and Barrow appeared, the officers opened fire, killing the couple instantly in a hail of bullets.

On a side note:

Today in 1701, Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy. At London's Execution Dock, British privateer William Kidd, popularly known as Captain Kidd, is hanged for piracy and murder. Suspicions that he had turned to piracy were apparently confirmed when he sailed to St. Mary's, Madagascar, an infamous pirate haven. From there, he traveled to the West Indies on the Quedagh Merchant, where he learned of the piracy charges against him. Intending to clear his name, he sailed to New York and delivered himself to the colonial authorities, claiming that the vessels he had attacked were lawful prizes. He was arrested and taken to London.

In 1701, he was tried on five charges of piracy and one charge of murdering a crewman. The Tories used the trial as a political opportunity to embarrass his Whig sponsors, and the latter chose to give up Kidd as a scapegoat rather than back his possibly correct claims to legitimacy. Convicted on all counts, he was executed by hanging on May 23, 1701. In later years, a colorful legend grew up around the story of William Kidd, including reports of lost buried treasure that fortune seekers have pursued for centuries.

Today in 1960, A tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Chile travels across the Pacific Ocean and kills 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii. The massive 8.5-magnitude quake had killed thousands in Chile the previous day.

The earthquake, involving a severe plate shift, caused a large displacement of water off the coast of southern Chile at 3:11 p.m. Traveling at speeds in excess of 400 miles per hour, the tsunami moved west and north. On the west coast of the United States, the waves caused an estimated $1 million in damages, but were not deadly.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning System, established in 1948 in response to another deadly tsunami, worked properly and warnings were issued to Hawaiians six hours before the wave’s expected arrival. Some people ignored the warnings, however, and others actually headed to the coast in order to view the wave. Arriving only a minute after predicted, the tsunami destroyed Hilo Bay on the island of Hawaii. Thirty-five-foot waves bent parking meters to the ground and wiped away most buildings. A 10-ton tractor was swept out to sea. Reports indicate that the 20-ton boulders making up the sea wall were moved 500 feet. Sixty-one people died in Hilo, the worst-hit area of the island chain.

The tsunami continued to race further west across the Pacific. Ten thousand miles away from the earthquake’s epicenter, Japan, despite ample warning time, was not able to warn the people in harm’s way. At about 6 p.m., more than a day after the earthquake, the tsunami struck the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. The crushing wave killed 180 people, left 50,000 more homeless and caused $400 million in damages. (This, I did not know nor remember anyone talking about it when Indonesia was hit by that massive tsunami in 2004)

Okay, I guess I need to actually do some work for my pay so I'll sign off for now.....