The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of more than 750 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella. A leading group of followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now known as Osho) had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. The incident was the first bioterrorism attack in the United States, and the single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history. The attack is one of only two confirmed terrorist uses of biological weapons to harm humans. Having previously gained political control of Antelope, Oregon, Rajneesh's followers based in nearby Rajneeshpuram sought election to two of the three seats on the Wasco County Circuit Court which were up for election in November 1984. Fearing they would not gain enough votes, Rajneeshpuram officials decided to incapacitate voters in The Dalles, the largest population center in Wasco County.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1798:
At the Battle of St. George's Caye, a small force of British settlers called Baymen defeated an invading force from Mexico who were attempting to claim what is now Belize for Spain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_St._George%27s_Caye
1897:
A peaceful labor demonstration made up of mostly Polish and Slovak anthracite coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA, was fired upon by a sheriff's posse comitatus in the Lattimer Massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre
1898:
In an act of "propaganda of the deed", Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni fatally stabbed Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva, Switzerland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bavaria
1945:
Mike the Headless Chicken was decapitated in a farm in Colorado; he survived another 18 months as part of sideshows before choking to death in Phoenix, Arizona. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
1977:
Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to be guillotined in France, the official method of execution in that country. France would later abolish the death penalty in 1981. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/guillotine
1990:
Pope John Paul II consecrated the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, one of the largest churches in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Peace_of_Yamoussoukro
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
toodeloo (interj): (UK) goodbye, farewell, see you soon http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/toodeloo
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher. --Charles Sanders Peirce http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce