William Henry Bury (1859–1889) was suspected of being the notorious
serial killer Jack the Ripper. Hanged for the murder of his wife Ellen,
he was the last person executed in Dundee, Scotland. Orphaned at an
early age, he was dismissed from a clerk job for theft, and became a
street peddler. In 1887, he was married in London; in January 1889, they
moved to Dundee. The following month, he strangled his wife with a rope,
stabbed her dead body with a penknife, and hid the corpse in a box in
their room. A few days later, he presented himself to the local police
and was arrested for her murder. This was shortly after the height of
the London Whitechapel murders, which were attributed to the
unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper. Bury's previous abode near
Whitechapel and the similarities between the Ripper's crimes and Bury's
led the press and executioner James Berry to suggest that Bury was the
Ripper. He protested his innocence in the Ripper crimes, and the police
discounted him as a suspect. Later authors have built on the earlier
accusations, but the idea that Bury was the Ripper is not widely
accepted.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Bury>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1388:
During the Battle of Buir Lake, General Lan Yu led a Chinese
army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Toghus Temur, the Khan of
Northern Yuan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buir_Lake>
1869:
One day after surrendering at the Battle of Hakodate, Enomoto
Takeaki turned over Goryōkaku to Japanese forces, signaling the
collapse of the Republic of Ezo.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo>
1927:
Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off a
series of explosives in the Bath Consolidated School, killing 44 people
in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster>
1965:
Eli Cohen, a spy who is credited with gathering significant
intelligence for Israel in the Six-Day War against Syria, was publicly
hanged after having been captured four months earlier.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Cohen>
1974:
India conducted its first nuclear test explosion at Pokhran,
the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiling_Buddha>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
under the weather:
1. (idiomatic) Somewhat ill or gloomy.
2. (idiomatic) Somewhat intoxicated or suffering from a hangover.
3. (idiomatic, obsolete) Experiencing adversity.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/under_the_weather>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social
superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no
social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine
that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
--Unpopular Essays
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Unpopular_Essays>