Norma Jean Paulus (Petersen) (March 13, 1933 – February 28, 2019)

(Portland, Ore.) – Former Oregon Secretary of State Norma Paulus has
died.   

Close friend Kerry Tymchuk confirmed her death to local news media
Thursday afternoon.

Paulus’ death comes a day after the state’s current Secretary of State
Dennis Richardson died of brain cancer.

In addition to serving as secretary of state, Paulus was an Oregon
representative from 1970 to 1976 and Superintendent of Public
Instruction. She was appointed to that position by former Gov. Neil
Goldschmidt in 1990 and was elected to it in 1994.

A member of the Republican Party, she was the first woman to be
elected to statewide office. She was elected secretary of state in 1976
and re-elected in 1980. She ran for governor in 1986 but lost.

 
Dennis Michael Richardson (July 30, 1949 – February 26, 2019)

SALEM, Ore. – Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson has passed away
after a battle with cancer.

Oregon state officials say Richardson died at around 9 p.m. Tuesday at his
home surrounded by family and friends.

Richardson announced in June 2018 that he was receiving treatment for
brain cancer. He said he was diagnosed in May.

ROSS SIMPSON

At 12:18 p.m. et, a terrorist bomb exploded in a parking garage of the World
Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast. Although the terrorist bomb failed to critically damage the main structure of
the skyscrapers, six people were killed, more than 1,000 were injured and
the World Trade Center itself suffered more than $500 million in damage. 

After the attack, authorities evacuated 50,000 people from the buildings,
hundreds of whom were suffering from smoke inhalation. The evacuation
lasted the whole afternoon.

City authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation undertook a massive manhunt for suspects, and within days several radical Islamic fundamentalists
were arrested.

On this day in 1987, The Tower Commission rebuked President
Reagan for failing to control his national security staff in the wake
of the Iran-Contra Affair.

Presidents’ Day, officially Washington’s Birthday, in the United States,
holiday (third Monday in February) popularly recognized as honoring
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The day is sometimes
understood as a celebration of the birthdays and lives of all U.S.
presidents.

The origin of Presidents’ Day lies in the 1880s, when the birthday
of Washington—commander of the Continental Army during the
American Revolution and the first president of the United States
was first celebrated as a federal holiday.

In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, which  
moved a number of federal holidays to Mondays. The change was
designed to  schedule certain holidays so that workers had a number
of long weekends throughout the year, but it has been opposed by
those who believe that those holidays should be celebrated on the
dates they actually commemorate.  (Encyclopedia Britannica)
 

BRIAN THOMAS

In Milwaukee on this day in 1992, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison. He was later sentenced to a 16th term
of life imprisonment for an additional homicide committed in Ohio
in 1978. On November 28 of 1994, he was beaten to death in prison
by Christopher Scarver (below), a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution.

Michael Jeffrey Jordan is 56 years old today.

Former high-flying Chicago Bulls shooting guard is considered by many to
be the greatest basketball player of all-time. He was a 6-time NBA champion,
6-time NBA Finals MVP, and 5-time NBA MVP. He didn’t make the varsity
squad as a sophomore at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina because he was only 5’11".  MJ is currently the principal owner and chairman of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

Here’s “Air Jordan” in Portland, Oregon.