TODAY IN CRIME: February 17

1600: With his "tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words," philosopher Giordano Bruno was stripped, hung upside down, and burned at the stake for heresy at Campo de' Fiori in Rome. Bruno advocated the Copernican theory.

1634: A Star Chamber sentenced Puritan pamphleteer William Prynne to life in prison for publishing Histrio Mastix: The Players Scourge, or, Actors tragoedie, a denunciation of the theatre that was interpreted as a slam against Queen Henrietta Maria, an occasional actress. He was also fined £5,000, deprived of his Oxford degree, expelled from Lincoln's Inn, his ears cut off, and pilloried.

1838: Zulu forces killed hundreds of Voortrekkers (Dutch settlers) along the Bloukrans River, Natal, Africa, in the Weenen massacre.

1865: Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and Union forces moved in.

1880: Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt by the "Will of the People," a revolutionary terrorist organization. A workman planted dynamite under the dining room floor during a remodeling of the Winter Palace. The night of the planned assassination, a late guest caused dinner to be postponed, so when the timer detonated, the family was just leaving the drawing room and escaped unharmed. Eleven members of the Finnish Guard in the Guard Room below the dining room were killed, however. The explosion could be heard all over St. Petersburg.

1964: Military personal toppled Gabonese president Léon M'ba and installed his political rival Jean-Hilaire Aubame in his place. Three days later French forces restored the legitimate government.

1970: U.S. Army captain Jeffrey MacDonald murdered his pregnant wife and two small daughters in their Fort Bragg home.

1974: U.S. Army private Robert K. Preston, upset over his military career trajectory, buzzed the White House in a stolen helicopter. With Maryland State Police chasing him and White House security shooting at him, Preston landed on the South Lawn and he was taken into custody.

1992: Armenian troops massacred more than 20 Azerbaijani civilians during the Capture of Garadaghly.

1992: A Milwaukee judge sentenced serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to 15 consecutive life terms in prison. A fellow inmate killed him in 1994.

1995: A Nassau County judge convicted Colin Ferguson of six counts of murder and 19 counts of attempted murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings.

1998: A Texas jury convicted U.S. Naval Academy cadet Diane Zamora, 20, of capital murder for killing Adrianne Jessica Jones, a romantic rival. The victim's family requested prosecutors not to seek the death penalty and Zamora was sentenced to life in prison.

2012: The president of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigned over a corruption scandal. He was later acquitted of all charges.

2012: In a brazen daylight robbery, two thieves stole approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts from the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Greece.

TODAY IN CRIME: February 10

1306: Robert the Bruce and his followers stabbed to death Robert’s political rival, Scottish governor John Comyn, before the altar of Greyfriars Church at Dumfries in the First War of Scottish Independence. Robert seized the throne a few weeks later.

1355: The St. Scholastica Day riot broke out in Oxford, England, leaving nearly 100 people dead over two days. It started as a bar brawl and spread into the streets, pitting "town" vs. "gown."

1567: After an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, searchers could not find Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots and father of future King James VI. He was found strangled in a nearby orchard. Suspects included Queen Mary herself and her next husband, Lord Bothwell; James Douglas, Earl of Morton, was eventually executed for his part in it.

1676: Nashaway chief Monoco led 400 native Americans on a raid of Lancaster, Mass., setting fire to houses, stealing provisions, killing villagers, and taking them prisoner.

1837: Beloved Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin died from wounds received in a duel two days before. Russian Guard officer George d’Anthès had made advances to Pushkin’s wife Natalia, one of the most beautiful women in Russia.

1942: The SS Normandie, a former French liner, capsized in New York Harbor. The ship had caught fire the day before while it was being converted to a troopship. The mob claimed it sabotaged the liner to start a protection racket against the Navy.

1981: Troubled busboy Phillip Bruce Cline started the Las Vegas Hilton fire that left 8 people dead and 200 injured. Cline was convicted of arson and eight counts of murder.

1984: Kenyan security forces executed as many as 10,000 ethnic Somalis in the Wagalla massacre. In the years since, officials have resigned, condemnations made, and official probes ordered, but no one has yet been prosecuted.

1987: Philippine troops murdered 17 civilians in Lupao, claiming the unarmed men, women, and children were members of the New People's Army. All 24 soldiers were acquitted by a military court.

1992: An Indiana jury convicted fighter Mike Tyson of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, the previous summer.

1997: The U.S. Army suspended its top-ranking enlisted soldier, Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, following allegations of sexual misconduct. Although he was convicted of obstruction of justice, McKinney was acquitted of 18 counts alleging sexual harassment.

1998: Expelled student Richard Machado became the first person convicted of committing a hate crime in cyberspace. The ex-UC Irvine student had sent e-mails threatening Asian students.

1998: Maine voters repealed a 1997 gay rights law. Maine was the first state to annul legislation that protects homosexuals from discrimination.

2013: During the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, that attracted 30 million people, railway police attacked an unruly crowd at the train station, triggering a stampede that killed 36 people and injured 39.

2018: 19 people were killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturned. The driver, previously convicted of careless driving in another accident, faces 19 counts of manslaughter and 18 counts of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm.

2019: The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reported widespread sexual abuse in U.S. Southern Baptist churches. Nearly 400 church members were implicated with over 700 victims over a 20-year span.

TODAY IN CRIME: February 3

1377: Breton mercenaries commanded by Robert, Cardinal of Geneva, acting as the legate of Pope Gregory XI, executed between 2,500 and 5,000 people in Cesena, Italy, in a show of papal power. The next year, Cardinal Robert was elected (anti)Pope Clement VII.

1900: Newly elected Kentucky governor William Goebels died from an assassin's bullet wounds.

1904: American bank robber Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd was born in Georgia. He was pursued and killed by federal agents in 1934 several months after the FBI declared him "Public Enemy No. 1."

1916: Fire destroyed Centre Block, the main building of Canada's parliamentary complex in Ottawa. Seven people died. Officially, a carelessly left cigar caused the blaze—or was it a German arsonist?

1950: British authorities arrested nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs for passing top-secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

1953: Portuguese landowners and the colonial administration of Sao Tome Island in Central Africa massacred hundreds of native creoles to stop an alleged communist conspiracy.

1965: 105 U.S. Air Force Academy cadets resigned for cheating or for the theft and sale of exam papers.

1967: The Victorian government hanged Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia. He was convicted of the shooting murder of a prison guard during an escape.

1971: Drug dealer Edgar Echevarria shot NYPD officer Frank Serpico in the face as Serpico was attempting an arrest. A 1972 jury convicted Echevarria of attempted murder, possession of dangerous weapons, and grand larceny. Serpico survived and testified about widespread corruption in the NYPD.

1982: A California court ordered porn star John Holmes to stand trial for murder. (He was tried and acquitted.)

1992: The defense team of deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega opened its case in Miami, calling Noriega "our ally in war on drugs."

1998: Flying too low over an aerial tramway in Italy, a daredevil U.S. military pilot cut the cable supporting a gondola. It crashed to the ground, instantly killing the 20 people inside. A military court in the U.S. acquitted Captain Richard J. Ashby of 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide.

1998: Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker for the pickax killings of two people during a burglary in 1983. She was the first woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1984.

2012: U.S. federal prosecutors dropped their investigation of cycling superstar Lance Armstrong after a nearly two-year attempt to establish whether he and his teammates had used performance-enhancing drugs. He won the Tour de France seven times.

2014: 15-year-old Sergey Gordeyev took 29 students hostage and shot and killed a teacher and a police officer at his high school in Moscow, Russia.

2016: A High Court judge granted a death certificate in the case of Lord Lucan, 42 years after he disappeared following the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett.

Writers on Writing

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Safire (The New York Times) born December 17, 1929:

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

10 Quotes from Emily DIckinson, born December 10, 1830

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.

I dwell in Possibility…
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.
Truth is so rare, it is delightful to tell it.
Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.
There is not frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.
Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.
Beauty is not caused. It is.
If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Quotes from Joseph Conrad, born December 3, 1857

Here are some quotes from the author of Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness:

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

All roads are long which lead to one's heart's desire.

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.

You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.

If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything.

To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.--Chinese proverb
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.--Cicero
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.--Seneca
Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?--Saint Basil
Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.--Estonian proverb
Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.--American Indian saying
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.--Meister Eckhart
Many of our prayers were not answered, and for this we are now grateful.--William Feather
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.--Thornton Wilder
When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.--Willie Nelson
Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.--Oprah Winfrey