UNUSUAL DEATHS OF THE 20TH CENTURY

20th century

• 1912: Franz Reichelt, tailor, fell to his death off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower while testing his invention, the coat parachute. It was his first ever attempt with the parachute and he had told the authorities in advance he would test it first with a dummy.^[38]
• 1916: Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, was reportedly poisoned while dining with a political enemy, shot in the head, shot three more times, bludgeoned, and then thrown into a frozen river. When his body washed ashore, an autopsy showed the cause of death to be hypothermia. However, there is now some doubt about the credibility of this account.^[39]
• 1918: Gustav Kobbé, writer and musicologist, was killed when the sailboat he was on was struck by a landing seaplane off Long Island, N.Y.^[40]
• 1919: In the Boston Molasses Disaster, 21 people were killed and 150 were injured when a tank containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) of Molasses exploded, sending a wave traveling at approximately 35 mph (56 km/h) through part of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Most fatalities and injuries were caused by the concussive force of the blast or by asphyxiation as victims failed to swim free of the viscous molasses and drowned. ^[41]
• 1923: Martha Mansfield, an American film actress, died after sustaining severe burns on the set of the film The Warrens of Virginia after a smoker's match, tossed by a cast member, ignited her Civil War costume of hoopskirts and ruffles.^[42]
• 1923: George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, became the first to die from the alleged King Tut's Curse after a mosquito bite on his face became seriously infected with erysipelas, which he cut while shaving, leading to blood poisoning and eventually pneumonia.^[43][44]
• 1925: Zishe (Siegmund) Breitbart, a circus strongman and Jewish folklore hero, died as a result of a demonstration in which he drove a spike through five one-inch thick oak boards using only his bare hands. He accidentally pierced his knee. The spike was rusted and caused an infection which led to fatal blood poisoning. He was the subject of the Werner Herzog film, Invincible.^[45]
• 1927: J.G. Parry-Thomas, a Welsh racing driver, was decapitated by his car's drive chain which, under stress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own land speed record which he had set the previous year. Despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph.^[46]
• 1927: Isadora Duncan, dancer, died of accidental strangulation and broken neck when one of the long scarves she was known for caught on the wheel of a car in which she was a passenger.^[47]
• 1928: Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician, died following one of his experiments, in which the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, L. I. Koldomasov, was given to him in a transfusion.^[48]
• 1932: Eben Byers died of radiation poisoning after having consumed large quantities of a popular patent medicine containing radium.^[49]
• 1932: Peg Entwistle, actress, leapt to her death from the “H” of the Hollywood Sign, following her perceived rejection from the industry for which the sign stood. The day after her death, a letter arrived from the Beverly Hills Playhouse, in which she was offered the lead role in a play about a woman driven to suicide.^[50]
• 1933: Michael Malloy, a homeless man, was murdered by gassing after surviving multiple poisonings, intentional exposure, and being struck by a car. Malloy was murdered by five men in a plot to collect on life insurance policies they had purchased.^[51]
• 1935: Baseball player Len Koenecke was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by the crew of an aircraft he had chartered, after provoking a fight with the pilot while the plane was in the air.^[52]
• 1939: Finnish actress Sirkka Sari died when she fell down a chimney. She was at a cast party celebrating the completion of a movie, her third and last. She mistook a chimney for a balcony and fell into a heating boiler, dying instantly.^[53][54]
• 1940: Marcus Garvey died after suffering either a cerebral hemorrhage or heart attack while reading his own obituary, which stated in part that he died "broke, alone and unpopular".^[55]
• 1941: Sherwood Anderson, writer, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis.^[56]
• 1943: Critic Alexander Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack during an on-air discussion about Adolf Hitler.^[57]
• 1944: Inventor and chemist Thomas Midgley, Jr. accidentally strangled himself with the cord of a pulley-operated mechanical bed of his own design.^[58]
• 1945: Scientist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. accidentally dropped a brick of tungsten carbide onto a sphere of plutonium while working on the Manhattan Project. This caused the plutonium to come to criticality; Daghlian died of radiation poisoning, becoming the first person to die in a criticality accident.^[59]
• 1946: Louis Slotin, chemist and physicist, died of radiation poisoning after being exposed to lethal amounts of ionizing radiation. He died in a very similar way as Harry K. Daghlian, Jr., from dropping a block of material on the same sphere of plutonium by accident. The sphere of plutonium was nicknamed the Demon core^[60]
• 1947: The Collyer brothers, extreme cases of compulsive hoarders, were found dead in their home in New York. The younger brother, Langley, died by falling victim to a booby trap he had set up, causing a mountain of objects, books, and newspapers to fall on him crushing him to death. His blind brother, Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later. Their bodies were recovered after massive efforts in removing many tons of debris from their home.^[61]
• 1955: Margo Jones, theater director, was killed by exposure to carbon tetrachloride fumes from her newly cleaned carpet.^[62]
• 1956: Nina Hamnett, artist, died from complications after falling out her apartment window and being impaled on the fence forty feet below.^[63]
• 1958: Gareth Jones, actor, collapsed and died while in make-up between scenes of a live television play, Underground, at the studios of Associated British Corporation in Manchester. Director Ted Kotcheff continued the play to its conclusion, improvising around Jones's absence.^[64]
• 1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia and three by unexplained fatal injuries. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, one victim had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures (comparable in force to a car accident), and one was missing her tongue. The victims' clothing also contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.^[65]
• 1960: In the Nedelin disaster, over 100 Soviet missile technicians and officials died when a switch was turned on unintentionally igniting the rocket, including Red Army Marshal Nedelin who was seated in a deck chair just 40 meters away overseeing launch preparations. The events were filmed by automatic cameras.^[66]
• 1960: Inejiro Asanuma, 61, the head of the Japanese Socialist Party, was stabbed to death with a wakizashi sword by extreme rightist Otoya Yamaguchi during a televised parliamentary debate. Yamaguchi was immediately arrested and later committed suicide.^[67]
• 1961: Valentin Bondarenko, a Soviet cosmonaut trainee, died from shock after suffering third-degree burns over much of his body due to a flash fire in the pure oxygen environment of a training simulator. This incident was not revealed outside of the Soviet Union until the 1980s.^[68]
• 1963: Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon, covered himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire, burning himself to death. Đức was protesting President Ngô Đình Diệm's administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion.^[69]
• 1966: Worth Bingham, son of Barry Bingham, Sr., died when the surfboard lying atop the back of his convertible hit a parked car, swung around, and broke his neck.^[70]
• 1967: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee, NASA astronauts, died when a flash fire began in their pure oxygen environment during a training exercise inside the unlaunched Apollo 1 spacecraft. The door to the capsule could not be opened during the fire because of its particular design.^[71]
• 1967: Vladimir Komarov became the first person to die during a space mission after the parachute of his capsule failed to deploy following re-entry.^[72]
• 1970: Yukio Mishima, award-winning Japanese playwright and novelist, committed seppuku after failing to inspire a coup d'état at the headquarters of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces in Tokyo.^[73]
• 1971: Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show. According to urban legend, when he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?"^[74]. Cavett says this is incorrect; the initial response was fellow guest Pete Hamill saying in a low voice to Cavett, "This looks bad."^[75] The show was never broadcast.
• 1972: Leslie Harvey, guitarist of Stone the Crows, was electrocuted on stage by a live microphone.^[76]
• 1973: Bruce Lee, a martial arts actor, is thought to have died by a severe allergic reaction to Equagesic. His brain had swollen about 13%. His autopsy was written as "death by misadventure."^[77]
• 1974: Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter, committed suicide during a live broadcast on 15 July. At 9:38 AM, 8 minutes into her talk show, on WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, she drew out a revolver and shot herself in the head.^[78]
• 1974: Deborah Gail Stone, 18, an employee at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, was crushed to death between a moving wall and a stationary wall inside of the revolving America Sings attraction. ^[79]
• 1975: Physicist and businessman Kip Siegel died of a stroke while testifying before a US Congressional subcommittee.^[80]
• 1975: Bandō Mitsugorō VIII, a Japanese kabuki actor, died of severe poisoning when he ate four fugu livers (also known as pufferfish). The liver is considered one of the most poisonous parts of the fish, but Mitsugorō claimed to be immune to the poison. The fugu chef felt he could not refuse Mitsugorō and lost his license as a result.^[81]
• 1976: Keith Relf, former singer for British rhythm and blues band The Yardbirds, died while practicing his electric guitar. He was electrocuted because the amplifier was not properly grounded.^[82]
• 1977: Tom Pryce (Formula One driver) and Jansen Van Vuuren (a track marshal) both died at the 1977 South African Grand Prix after Van Vuuren ran across the track beyond a blind brow to attend to another car which had caught fire and was struck by Pryce's car at approximately 170mph. Pryce was struck in the face by the marshal's fire extinguisher and was killed instantly.^[83]
• 1978: Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated in London with a specially modified umbrella that fired a metal pellet with a small cavity full of ricin into his calf.
• 1978: Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, died of smallpox in 1978, ten months after the disease was eradicated in the wild, when a researcher at the laboratory Parker worked at accidentally released some virus into the air of the building. She is believed to be the last smallpox fatality in history.^[84]
• 1978: Claude François, a French pop singer, was electrocuted when he tried to change a light bulb while standing in his bathtub which was full of water at the time.^[85]
• 1978: Kurt Gödel, the Austrian/American mathematician, died of starvation when his wife was hospitalized. Gödel suffered from extreme paranoia and refused to eat food prepared by anyone else. He was 65 pounds (approx. 30 kg) when he died. His death certificate reported that he died of "malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance" in Princeton Hospital on 14 January 1978.^[86]
• 1979: Robert Williams, a worker at a Ford Motor Co. plant, was the first known man to be killed by a robot.^[87]
• 1981: Carl McCunn paid a bush pilot to drop him at a remote lake near the Coleen River in Alaska in March 1981 to photograph wildlife, but failed to confirm arrangements for the pilot to pick him up again in August. Rather than starve, McCunn shot himself in the head. His body was found in February 1982.^[88]
• 1981: Boris Sagal, a film director, died while shooting the TV miniseries World War III when he walked into the tail rotor blade of a helicopter and was decapitated. ^[89]
• 1981: Jeff Dailey, a 19-year-old gamer, became the first known person to die while playing video games. After achieving a score of 16,660 in the arcade game Berzerk, he succumbed to a massive heart attack. A year later, an 18-year-old gamer died after achieving high scores in the same game.^[90]
• 1981: Kenji Urada - Was killed by a malfunctioning robot he was working on at a Kawasaki plant in Japan. The robot's arm pushed him into a grinding machine, killing him.^[91]
• 1982: Vic Morrow, actor, was decapitated by a helicopter blade during filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Two child actors, Myca Dinh Le (who was decapitated) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (who was crushed), also died.^[92]
• 1982: Vladimir Smirnov, an Olympic champion fencer, died of brain damage nine days after his opponent's foil snapped during a match, penetrated his mask, pierced his eyeball and entered his brain.^[93]

• 1983: Richard Wertheim, a linesman at the boys' singles finals in the US open, was struck by a ball hit by a young Stefan Edberg. He toppled backwards off his chair fracturing his skull as he hit the ground. ^[94]
• 1983: Four divers and a tender were killed on the Byford Dolphin semi-submersible, when a decompression chamber explosively decompressed from 9 atm to 1 atm in a fraction of a second. The diver nearest the chamber opening literally exploded just before his remains were ejected through a 24in (60cm) opening. The other divers' remains showed signs of boiled blood, unusually strong rigor mortis, large amounts of gas in the blood vessels, and scattered hemorrhages in the soft tissues.^[95]
• 1983: Sergei Chalibashvili, a professional diver, died after a diving accident during the 1983 Summer Universiade in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. When he attempted a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position from the ten meter platform, he smashed his head on the platform and was knocked unconscious. He died after being in a coma for a week.^[96]
• 1983: Author Tennessee Williams died when he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye. Williams' lack of gag response may have been due to the effects of drugs and alcohol abuse.^[97]
• 1984: Jon-Erik Hexum, an American television actor, died after he shot himself in the head with a prop gun during a break in filming, playing Russian Roulette using a revolver loaded with a single blank cartridge . Hexum apparently was not informed that blanks too have gun powder that explodes into gas with enough force to cause severe injury or death if the weapon is fired as contact shot. This is the principle which gives a powerhead its lethality.
• 1987: Budd Dwyer, the State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, committed suicide during a televised press conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the mouth with a revolver.
• 1992: Christopher McCandless died of starvation near Denali National Park after a few months trying to live off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. His life and death were researched by Jon Krakauer, who then wrote the novel Into the Wild which was later turned into a movie.
• 1993: Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by Michael Massee using a prop .44 Magnum gun while filming the movie The Crow. A cartridge with only a primer and a bullet was fired in the pistol prior to the fatal scene; this caused a squib load, in which the primer provided enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver, where it became stuck. The malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was used again later to shoot the death scene. His death was not instantly recognized by the crew or other actors; they believed he was still acting.^[98]
• 1993: Garry Hoy, a Toronto lawyer, fell to his death after he threw himself through the glass wall on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in order to prove the glass was unbreakable. The pane didn't break, but instead popped out of its frame.^[99]
• 1993: Michael A. Shingledecker Jr. was killed almost instantly when he and a friend were struck by a pickup truck while lying flat on the yellow dividing line of a two-lane highway in Polk, Pennsylvania. They were copying a daredevil stunt from the movie The Program. Marco Birkhimer died of a similar accident while performing the same stunt in Route 206 of Bordentown, New Jersey. ^[100]
• 1994: Gloria Ramirez was admitted to Riverside General Hospital for complications of advanced cervical cancer. Before she died, her body mysteriously emitted toxic fumes that made several emergency room workers very ill. She has been dubbed as the "toxic lady" by the media. ^[101]
• 1996: Sharon Lopatka, an Internet entrepreneur from Maryland, allegedly solicited a man via the Internet to torture and kill her for the purpose of sexual gratification. Her killer, Robert Fredrick Glass, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the homicide.
• 1998: Tom and Eileen Lonergan were stranded while scuba diving with a group of divers off Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The group's boat accidentally abandoned them due to an incorrect head count taken by the dive boat crew. Their bodies were never recovered. The incident inspired the film Open Water and an episode of 20/20.^[102]
• 1998: Daniel V. Jones committed suicide on a freeway carpool lane near Los Angeles, California by shooting himself through the chin with a shotgun, which was accidentally televised by journalists monitoring the incident on helicopters. Jones, a former hotel maintenance worker, had killed himself partly due to his frustration over treatment by his HMO.^[103]
• 1998: Every player on the visiting soccer team at a game in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was struck by a fork bolt of lightning, killing them all instantly.^[104]
• 1999: Owen Hart, a professional wrestler for WWF, died during a pay-per-view event when performing a stunt. It was planned to have Owen come down from the rafters of Kemper Arena on a safety harness tied to a rope to make his ring entrance. The safety latch was released and Owen dropped 78 feet, bouncing chest-first off the top rope resulting in a severed aorta, which caused his lungs to fill with blood.^[105]
• 2000: Jonathan Burton stormed the cockpit door of a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City. The 19-year-old was subdued by eight other passengers with such force that he died of asphyxiation.^[106]

[edit] 21st century

• 2001: Bernd-Jürgen Brandes from Germany was voluntarily stabbed repeatedly and then partly eaten by Armin Meiwes (who was later called the Cannibal of Rothenburg). Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten.^[107]
• 2001: Gregory Biggs, a homeless man in Fort Worth, Texas, was struck by a car being driven by Chante Jawan Mallard, who had been drinking and taking drugs that night. Biggs' torso became lodged in Mallard's windshield with severe but not immediately fatal injuries. Mallard drove home and left the car in her garage with Biggs still lodged in her car's windshield. She repeatedly visited Biggs and even apologized for hitting him. Biggs died of his injuries several hours later.^[108]Chante Mallard was tried and convicted for murder in this case and received a 50 year prison sentence. The film Stuck is loosely based on this unusual death.^[109]
• 2002: Brittanie Cecil, an American 13-year-old hockey fan, died two days after being struck in the head by a hockey puck at a game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Calgary Flames at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. ^[110]
• 2003: Doug McKay was killed at the Island county fair amusement park when his arm was caught as he sprayed lubricant on a Super Loop 2 circular roller coaster. The ride was in operation at the time and he was pulled 40 feet in the air before falling and landing on a fence.^[111]
• 2003: Brian Douglas Wells, a pizza delivery man in Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed by a time bomb that was fastened around his neck. He was apprehended by the police after robbing a bank, and claimed he had been forced to do it by three people who had put the bomb around his neck and would kill him if he refused. The bomb later exploded, killing him. In 2007, police alleged Wells was involved in the robbery plot along with two other conspirators.^[112]
• 2003: Brandon Vedas died of a drug overdose while engaged in an Internet chat, as shown on his webcam.^[113]
• 2003: Timothy Treadwell, an American environmentalist who had lived in the wilderness among bears for thirteen summers in a remote region in Alaska, and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and partially consumed by a bear. An audio recording of their deaths was captured on a video camera which had been turned on at the beginning of the incident. Werner Herzog's documentary film, Grizzly Man, discusses Treadwell and his death, including the audio clip.^[114]
• 2005: Kenneth Pinyan ('Mr. Hands') of Gig Harbor, Washington died of acute peritonitis after seeking out and receiving anal intercourse from a stallion, an act he had engaged in previously. Pinyan delayed his visit to the hospital for several hours out of reluctance to explain the circumstances of his injury to doctors. The case led to the criminalization of bestiality in Washington.^[115] His story was recounted in the award winning 2007 documentary film Zoo.
• 2005: Lee Seung Seop, a 28-year-old South Korean, collapsed of fatigue and died after playing the online videogame StarCraft for almost 50 consecutive hours in an Internet cafe.^[116]
• 2006: Steve Irwin, a television personality and naturalist known as The Crocodile Hunter, died when his heart was impaled by a short-tail stingray barb while filming a documentary entitled "Ocean's Deadliest" in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef. ^[117]
• 2006: Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian State security service, and later a Russian dissident and writer, suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized in London. He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome.
• 2007: Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old woman from Sacramento, died of water intoxication while trying to win a Wii console in a KDND 107.9 "The End" radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest, which involved drinking large quantities of water without urinating.^[118][119]
• 2007: Kevin Whitrick, a 42-year-old man, committed suicide by hanging himself live on a webcam during an internet chat session.^[120]
• 2007: Surinder Singh Bajwa, the Deputy Mayor of Delhi, India, was kicked by a Rhesus Macaque monkey at his home and fell from a first floor balcony, suffering serious head injuries. He later died from his injuries.^[121]
• 2008: Abigail Taylor, age 6, died nine months after several of her internal organs were partially sucked out of her lower body while she sat on an excessively powerful swimming pool drain. Surgery following the incident returned the organs to the inside of her body, however she still died due to the incident. ^[122]
• 2008: Gerald Mellin, a U.K. businessman, committed suicide by tying one end of a rope around his neck and the other to a tree. He then hopped into his Aston Martin DB7 and drove down a main road in Swansea until the rope decapitated him. He supposedly did this as an act of revenge against his ex-wife for leaving him.^[123]
• 2008: David Phyall, 50, the last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, Hampshire, UK, cut his own head off with a chainsaw to highlight the 'injustice' of being asked to move out.^[124]

DANGEROUS GANGS

The word gang has taken on many meanings throughout the years. Originally, the word was just used to express a group or band of people. You probably have heard someone talk about the local gang of boys or something of that sort. In older times, the word gang didn’t have such the negative tone that comes along with it today. As time has gone on, the word gang has grown to be a word that many worry about when they hear it. It seems a “gang” has evolved from just being a group of people to a group of people that associate for some criminal or other antisocial purpose.

Depending on where you live, you have probably heard about gang crimes. If you don’t live too close to a big city, it is sure that you have read or watched the news and heard about some sort of gang activity. Gangs exist all over the world, not just in your own country. Here are the top 10 of the most dangerous gangs that you definitely don’t want to come into contact with.

Aryan Brotherhood (AB, The Brand)

Another jailhouse gang for you. Even though they are not one of the biggest prison gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood is known to have murdered many prisoners in jail. The gang only makes up about 1% of prison populations, but size doesn’t matter to the AB. In fact, this gang is known for at least 26% of the murders that occur in prisons around the U.S. The AB is split into two groups, usually those in federal prisons and other members that are located in some of the smaller state prisons, especially those in California. In order to join the Aryan Brotherhood, one has to kill or assault another prisoner. This is known as blood in, blood out. Any who try to leave the gang are generally assaulted or murdered by a member. The AB is known for organized crime, extortion, inmate prostitution, drug trafficking, and murder-for-hire.

Mexican Mafia (La eMe)

The Mexican Mafia is a gang that has its strongholds in many prisons throughout the U.S. The gang was started in the 1950s in Tracy California. La eMe is well known for its drug trafficking, extortion, and murder. Closely knit with the Aryan Brotherhood, La eMe has made many contracts with ally gangs in order to kill other gang members from rivals. The gang doesn’t have many rules for its members: no exposing the gang, no homosexual acts, and no cowardice. Mexican Mafia gang members also cannot practice the Christian religion. Once your join the Mexican Mafia and are released from jail, members are expected to send some of their earnings to those lead gang members who are still in jail. The gang isn’t known to kill random civilians.

The Mungiki (Kenyan Mafia)

This gang isn’t one that you’ll find in the U.S. The Mungiki is mostly found in poor parts of Kenya, especially Nairobi, which is one of Kenya’s largest cities. The gang was formed during the 1980s and has since grown, but not much. The gang is known to work in “cells,” each of them consisting of about 50 members that get involved with racketeering. The Mungiki are extremely against Christianity as well as any type of Westernization. The gang believes in forced female genital cutting, beheading, and mutilation. As many as 50 people have been killed because of clashes with the Mungiki, two of these people being Kenyan police offers who were beheaded. The gang is said to have some ties in the U.S., but this has never been concretely proven.

Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)

A Brazilian gang, Primeiro Comando da Capital comes in at #7. This gang is one of the newest Brazilian prison gangs to be formed. Founded in 1993 by eight prisoners, PCC is one of the smallest prison gangs around today. Primeiro Comando da Capital is extremely against government establishments like police stations, justice forums, and even buses. Since the middle of 2006, the gang is known to have carried out about 300 attacks, all of them being against public establishments. The gang is mostly funded by its members. All members have to pay a monthly fee to be in the gang, which is about $27 if the member is in jail, and $270 if the member is out of a prison. Most of the money is used to buy weapons as well as drugs. Some of the money is put towards bailing out members. In order to become part of the Primeiro Comando da Capital, you have to be introduced by a regular member of the gang. An oath must also be accepted.

Black Guerrilla Family (Black Family, Black Vanguard)

Founded in 1966 by a man named George Jackson, located in Marin County, California, the Black Guerrilla family is one of the many gangs that is associated with the African-American race. The gang was established in order to maintain Black dignity in prison as well as planning to overthrow the U.S. government. Standing as one of the most politically influenced gangs, the Black Guerrilla Family has very strong emotions towards Marxism. Today, the Black Family has about 50,000 gang members, many of which who are associated with other gangs. In order to join the gang, one must be black, and must be nominated by an already existing member. Recently it has been said that the gang is experiencing internal conflicts between old and new members.

La Nuestra Familia

La Nuestra Familia is a Mexican American prison gang that originated in Northern California. The gang has been around since 1968 and has always been a rival of the Mexican Mafia. Many speculate that the gang was created just to deliver a blow to their rival gang. The gang puts a high focus on protecting as well as preserving the Chicano culture, especially while living in a society that is dominated by so many different races. La Nuestra Familia is known to control intra-prison drug and sex trades. From the prison, high-up gang members call to those outside of the prison to prefer hits. The gang is known to kill anyone, sometimes members of the gang. Members of La Nuestra Familia are known to be serious criminals because the gang requires a two year time period to join. La Nuestra Familia requires that all gang members put the gang above family, money, drugs, and women. Women cannot join the gang but are sometimes used for running drugs.

Texas Syndicate (Texas 7)

Texas Syndicate is a California State Prison gang that was created in response to other Californian gangs like the Mexican Mafia and the Aryan Brotherhood. Because these gangs were preying on inmates, especially those in Texas, prisoners saw a need to have a rival gang to protect these Texas prisoners as a means for self-protection. The Texas 7 doesn’t allow any members that are outside of the Hispanic race. Caucasian members are extremely frowned upon. The gang is made up generally of Mexican immigrant prisoners, not Mexicans who were born and raised in the U.S. In 2000, the gang was said to have about 1,000 members in jail, and about 830 outside of jail. Texas Syndicate is known for contract murder, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and drug trafficking. Many of the gang’s leaders are imprisoned due to drug charges.

Crips

The Crips was started in 1969 by a 16-year-olds Stanley Williams and Raymond Washington. The two started the gang as a playoff of the Black Panthers. The gang started off small and was a loosely connected network of individual gangs. Since its origination, the gang has grown to be one of the largest as well as one of the most powerful gangs that exist in the U.S. Today, the gang is said to have over 300,000 gang members both inside and outside of jail. The Crips are known for wearing the color blue. The gang is known to carry out murders, robberies, as well as drug deals. The Crips are extremely bitter rivals towards the Bloods as well as many different Hispanic street gangs. The gang is known to be extremely violent and sometimes brawls and fights explode within the gang, which usually end up in deaths of Crips members. While fighting other gangs, the Crips also fights against itself. This gang is so big that it has even spread to other countries like Canada.

Bloods

The Bloods is a Los Angeles based gang that is known mainly for its rivalry with the Crips as well as for wearing the color red. The gang started in 1972 and grew slowly by taking over territory that was controlled by other L.A. street gangs. Because the Bloods were so fearless, many of the gang members that they encountered decided to band together and join the Bloods. The gang is separated into “sets,” which have their own tactics, especially when it comes to recruiting. The gang overall is known to recruit members through those who volunteer while the Bloods’ sets are known to send threats to people to join the gang. Bloods members often combine with other gangs in order to carry out criminal activity, especially drug trafficking.

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

Mara Salvatrucha makes all of these other gangs seem like foolish people selling drugs. MS-13 is in fact the deadliest gang that anyone will ever come into contact with. The gang mainly consists of Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and other Central Americans and was started in the 1980s to protect immigrants from other big gangs. The gang has been able to spread beyond Central America into Spain, U.S., Great Britain, Germany, and even Canada. MS-13 is well known for drug smuggling, black market gun sales, theft, contract killing, human trafficking, and assault, especially on law enforcement. In the U.S. alone, the gang has 10,000 members. This gang has no remorse for killing anyone. Mara Salvatrucha is known for hunting down and killing anyone who speaks to law enforcement about the gang. MS-13 is known for its extremely violent crimes, especially against innocents. The gang has gone as far to set a bus full of children and women on fire which ended in 28 deaths.

10 CRAZIEST PARKING TICKETS

Think that you’ve been hard done to by the parking authorities? Well, wait until you have read these extraordinary tales…

1. Trucking ridiculous

It was a normal day for truck driver Michael Collins, who was on his way to collect a skip in London’s Belsize Park. But then, without warning, his truck lurched as the road beneath him collapsed. Unbeknown to Michael, a burst water main had caused the road to give way, creating a deep hole where the front wheels of his 17-tonne truck became stuck.

While he was waiting for his lorry to be rescued, a passing parking attendant appeared. To the astonishment of nearby residents and despite Michael’s protests, she stood on tiptoe and whacked a parking ticket on the trucks windscreen, uttering the immortal words, “You can appeal”. (See picture above).

2. Bad news comes in trees

If a tree fell on your car and you escaped death by mere inches, you might think that you would get some sympathy from your local council. Sadly, no such compassion was forthcoming when one family suffered just such a fate under the parking Taliban of Wychavon District Council

Nicky Clegg from Stoulton, near Pershore, was driving along the Bromwich Road with her 82-year-old mother and her 11-year-old son when without warning a tree crashed on her car. Miraculously they escaped death but the car ended up with a crushed bonnet, smashed windscreen and broken wing mirrors.

Police dragged the wrecked car to the side of the road and told Nicky that it was fine to leave it there and she could pick it up the following day. But when Nicky came back the next day, she was astonished to find a parking ticket on the window.

3. Feeling run down?

Think that being badly injured is an excuse to park illegally? Think again. When Nadhim Zahawi of South London was thrown from his scooter and left lying in the road with a broken leg, a heartless warden from Lambeth Council slapped a £100 ticket on his bike.

4. Horse play

You leave your horse in the street and what do you expect to find when you get back? A small pile of manure perhaps, but not a parking ticket. Amazingly, however, this is exactly what happened to Robert McFarland, a retired blacksmith from Yorkshire when he left his trusty steed, Charlie Boy, for a few brief moments. On the ticket, the over-zealous warden had written the vehicle description as “brown horse”.

5. Daylight robbery

It started off just like any other day for Fred Holt when he went to his local bank. But the ordinary day turned extraordinary when two masked men burst into the bank brandishing an axe and a machete. In the terrifying raid, the robbers held a young cashier hostage with an axe to her throat. Customers were forced to lie on the floor as staff were made to hand over cash.

If being a victim of this horrifying event wasn’t bad enough, 77 year old Mr Holt had parked his car nearby, and by the time he had given a statement to police officers, his car had been there for 20 minutes longer than allowed.

Mr. Holt was not worried because the police officers who interviewed him said that traffic wardens had been told about the raid and asked not to issue tickets. But when Mr Holt got back to his car he was astounded to find a £30 parking ticket pinned to his windscreen – the reason: overstaying his allowed time in the street.

6. Bloody ridiculous

“Do Something Amazing Today” runs the slogan of the National Blood Service. In Sutton, a traffic warden did just that, though not along the lines of “Save a life. Give Blood” that the advert intended.

For four years, a mobile National Blood Service truck has visited Sutton, parking at the same spot outside a group of offices, so volunteers can give blood. But seeing the good citizens of the town turn up and exchange a pint of the red stuff in return for a cup of tea and a biscuit was too much of a temptation for one parking attendant. Whilst those inside were giving blood, the parking attendant gave in his own unique way – in the form of a parking ticket.

Sutton council eventually waived the fine, saying the parking attendant had made a simple error of judgment. Or to put it more aptly, a rush of blood to the head.

7. Bus(ted)

Picture the situation. You’re a bus driver. You’re driving your bus. You see a queue of people waiting for you at a bus stop. You pull over to pick them up. So far, so good. But wait, not everyone wants to buy a ticket. This chap in the queue wants to give you one instead…

This was the extraordinary scene that greeted Manchester bus driver Chris O’Mahony, when he stopped his number 77 bus to let people on. He and his passengers looked on in absolute disbelief as the Manchester City Council parking attendant joined the queue to prepare the parking ticket, deposited the £40 notice and then walked away. The bus driver’s crime? Parking in a restricted area.

The attendant said he'd been told to issue tickets to buses that park. Manchester City Council bosses cancelled the ticket and ordered the warden to be retrained. Hopefully, as something other than a warden.

8. Heart attack

Whilst David Holmes was driving along he felt chest pains. So he immediately drove himself to hospital. When he arrived he was forced to park on the road and was treated for a heart attack. A kind nurse left a note on the windscreen saying it was an emergency and that David's daughter would pick the car up later. Despite the note, a pitiless parking attendant slapped a parking ticket on David’s car.

Despite an appeal to the local council, the £40 fine was not cancelled.

9. Welcome to Warwickshire

Warwick is a beautiful part of England but it had no appeal for one man who received a parking ticket from the local Council.

Krister Nylander was dismayed to receive a parking ticket in the post for parking in Warwick. But he knew the parking ticket was wrong because he lives in Sweden and had not visited England since he was 16. The offending vehicle was his 20-ton snowmobile which had barely ever left his barn, let alone Sweden.

How did it get the ticket? We’ve absolutely no Ikea.

10. Driving you crazy

Driving instructors are used to the trials and tribulations of teaching people to drive. Three point turns, as we all know, can be very tricky to learn. So spare a thought for the driving instructor who got a CCTV parking ticket when his pupil stalled whilst attempting a three-point turn and could not restart the car. The offence? Parking more than 50 centimetres from the kerb.

20 HISTORICAL FACTS YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW

1. Before the Boston Tea Party, the British actually lowered tea taxes, not raised them.

2. England’s King George I was actually German.

3. Abel Tasman “discovered” Tasmania, New Zealand and Fiji, on his first voyage, but managed to completely miss mainland Australia!

4. Ethnic Irishman Bernardo O’Higgins was the first president of the Republic of Chile.

5. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day - the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

6. When the American Civil War started, Confederate Robert E. Lee owned no slaves. Union general U.S. Grant did.

7. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II and George V were all grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

8. Karl Marx was once a correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.

9. Josef Stalin once studied to be a priest.

10. Henry Kissinger and Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize. Gandhi never did.

11. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America banned the slave trade.

12. The Finnish capital of Helsinki was founded by a Swedish king in 1550.

13. The “D” in D-Day stands for “Day” - “Day-Day”

14. There was a New Australia in Paraguay in the 1890s.

15. A New Orleans man hired a pirate to rescue Napoleon from his prison on St. Helena.

16. Like Dracula (Vlad Tepes), there really was a King Macbeth. He ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057.

17. In 1839, the U.S. and Canada fought the bloodless “War of Pork and Beans”.

18. Despite the reputation, Mussolini never made the trains run on time.

19. The world powers officially outlawed war under the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact.

20. Ancient Egypt produced at least six types of beer.

DAUGHTER DESERVED TO DIE

'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how 17-year-old student Rand Abdel-Qader was beaten to death by her father after becoming infatuated with a British soldier in Basra. In this remarkable interview, Abdel-Qader Ali explains why he is unrepentant - and how police backed his actions. Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies report

• Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies
• The Observer,
• Sunday May 11 2008
• Article history

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This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 11 2008 on p8 of the News section. It was last updated at 18:26 on May 12 2008.

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said.

Sitting on a chair by his front door and surrounded by the gerberas and white daisies he had planted in the family garden, Abel-Qader attempted to justify his actions.

'I don't have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign solider, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman. 'People from western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies.

'I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,' he said, his voice swelling with pride. 'My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.'

Abdel-Qader, a Shia, says he was released from the police station 'because everyone knows that honour killings sometimes are impossible not to commit'. Chillingly, he said: 'The officers were by my side during all the time I was there, congratulating me on what I had done.' It's a statement that, if true, provides an insight into how vast the gulf remains between cultures in Iraq and between the Basra police the British army that trains them.

Sources have indicated that Abdel-Qader, who works in the health department, has been asked to leave because of the bad publicity, yet he will continue to draw a salary.

And it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support by a local politician to enable him to 'disappear' to Jordan for a few weeks, 'until the story has been forgotten' - the usual practice in the 30-plus cases of 'honour' killings that have been registered since January alone.

Such treatment seems common in Basra, where militias have partial control, especially in the districts on the outskirts where Abdel-Qader lives.

While government security forces and British troops have control over the centre, around the fringes militants can still be seen everywhere on the streets or at the checkpoints they have erected. And they have imposed strict laws of behaviour for all the local people, including what clothing should be worn and what religious practices should be observed. There are reports of men having their hands cut off for looting and women being killed for prostitution.

Homosexuality is punishable by death, a sentence Abdel-Qader approves of with a passion. 'I have alerted my two sons. They will have the same end [as Rand] if they become contaminated with any gay relationship. These crimes deserve death - death in the name of God,' he said.

He said his daughter's 'bad genes were passed on from her mother'. Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. 'They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin's home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,' she said.

'She was killed by animals. Every night when go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,' she said, tears streaming down her face.

She was nervous, clearly terrified of being found, and her eyes constantly turned towards the window as she spoke. 'Rand told me about the soldier, but she swore it was just a friendship.

'She said she spoke with him because she was the only English speaker. I raised her in a religious manner and she never went out alone until she joined the university and then later when she was doing aid work.

'Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn't a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.'

The mother is now trying to raise enough money to escape abroad. 'I miss my two boys,' she said. 'But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,' said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.

One of those running the organisation, who did not want to be identified, said that Rand's case was similar to so many reported in Basra, with the only difference being she was in love with a foreigner, rather than an Iraqi.

'There isn't too much to say. Rand is dead. It is a tragedy and will be a tragedy for many other families in Iraq in the days to come.

'According to information we have been given, some from Rand's colleague, we have doubts that her love was reciprocated. We have the impression that Rand was in love, but the English soldier wasn't. But, for a girl to be paid nice compliments about her beauty and her intelligence, it was enough for her to think she was in love.

'She isn't here any more for her mother to ask any of the questions she would like to. Rand's case had repercussions because she fell in love with a foreigner. But what about the other girls murdered through "honour" killings because they fell in love with some of a different sect, or lost their virginity, or were forced to become prostitutes?'

Rand's mother used to call her 'Rose'. 'That was my nickname for her because when she was born she was so beautiful,' she said.

'Now, my lovely Rose is in her grave. But, God will make her father pay, either in this world ... or in the world after.'