If you rub two sticks together fast enough you can make fire, so why not two people? But the lovers referred to on this cover of Midnight from August 1964 didn’t burst into flames from the sheer intensity of their fucking (though we love that image). They were allegedly doused with gasoline and set ablaze by a Colorado man named Ricardo Anlando, who wasn’t a husband, as we suggested in our subhead, but a spurned admirer. He incinerated his unrequited love because she married another man, which goes to show that hell hath no fury like an incel scorned. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but if there’s an opportunity to serve it as flambé, some will take it. There’s another fire themed story in this issue about a mother who stuffed her newborn into a furnace. No need to fret, though. The building janitor saved the kid and the mom went to prison. So you get a happy ending to counterbalance the sad one. We bet neither story is true, though. Just a hunch.
1920—Terrorists Bomb Wall Street
At 12:01 p.m. a bomb loaded into a horse-drawn wagon explodes in front of the J.P.Morgan building in New York City. 38 people are killed and 400 injured. Italian anarchists are thought to be the perpetrators, but after years of investigation no one is ever brought to justice.