we live in a slightly mad world

May 12 1797

Following Napoleon's conquest of Venice, Ludovico Manin reluctantly steps down as its last Doge. Thus ends the Most Serene Republic's 820-year history of national sovereignty.

May 12 1932

When a truck driver stops in rural New Jersey to take a leak, he stumbles upon the badly decomposed body of the Lindbergh Baby lying in a shallow grave 45 feet from the highway.

May 12 1971

Tor Johnson dies of congestive heart failure at the age of 67 in San Fernando, California. The man who once wrestled under the name "The Super Swedish Angel" leaves behind a legacy of B-movie acting roles, most famously as the bald zombie in Ed Wood's masterpiece "Plan 9 from Outer Space."

May 12 1982

During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, decided that the Pope must be killed for being an "agent of Moscow."

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