Timeline Oklahoma
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110 Mil BP In Oklahoma the plant eating Tenontosaurus roamed the area along with the meat-eating Deinonychus. Fossils of both together were found in 1999.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A4)
110 Million Fossils of Sauroposeidon proteles, a 60-ton, 60-foot tall dinosaur, were found in 1994 near Antlers, Okla.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A8)
1540 Feb 23, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico. Coronado, Spanish explorer, introduced horses, mules, pigs, cattle, and sheep into the American southwest. An Indian guide spoke of a rich kingdom called Quivira. When no cities were found he confessed under torture that the story was false.
(NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)(HN, 2/23/99)(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D1)
1758 Oct 10, Jean Pierre Chouteau, French fur trader, early St. Louis settler and "father of Oklahoma" was born in New Orleans.
(AP, 10/10/08)
1802 Oct 10, The 1st non-Indian settlement in Oklahoma was made.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1825 Jan 27, Congress approved Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."
(HN, 1/27/99)
1834 Jun 30, Congress passed the final Indian Intercourse Act. In addition to regulating relations between Indians living on Indian land and non-Indians, this final act identified an area known as "Indian country". This land was described as being "…all that part of the United States west of the Mississippi and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana, or the territory of Arkansas…" This is the land that became known as Indian Territory. Oklahoma was declared Indian Territory.
(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Intercourse_Act)
1838 Aug, Some 12,000 Cherokee Indians in 13 ragtag parties followed the Trail of Tears on a 116-day journey west 800 miles to eastern Oklahoma. Estimates have placed the death toll in camps and in transit as high as 4,000. They followed the trail already set by the Choctaw out of Mississippi, the Creek from Alabama, the Chickasaw from Arkansas and Mississippi, and the Seminole from Florida.
(NG, 5/95, p.82)(www.crystalinks.com/cherokee2.html)
1842 Aug 14, Seminole War ended and the Indians were moved from Florida to Oklahoma.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1847 Members of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma collected $170 and sent the money to Dublin to help feed the Irish during a potato famine. The money would be worth about $4,400 in 2018.
(AP, 3/13/18)
1861 Apr, William Woods Averell, recently convalesced Union officer, was sent out west in civilian garb from Washington, D.C., carrying orders to a fort commander in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Averell was to proceed through secessionist lands to Fort Arbuckle in Indian Territory. Ordinarily, orders to frontier posts were telegraphed to Fort Smith, Arkansas--some 180 miles east of Fort Arbuckle--and a courier dispatched from there. But with Arkansas likely to secede at any time, such orders might be intercepted by secessionists.
(HNQ, 5/27/01)
1864 The Confederate War Dept. organized the Indian tribes of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas into the Indian Division. Cherokee Gen’l. Stand Watie commanded the Cherokee Mounted Rifles.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A19)
1865 Jun 23, Confederate General Stand Watie, who was also a Cherokee chief, surrendered the last sizable Confederate army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A19)(HN, 6/23/98)
1868 Nov 27, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry killed Chief Black Kettle (b.1801) and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River near present day Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
(www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/blackkettle.htm)
1872 The Osage Indians purchased close to 2,300 square miles in the Oklahoma Territory from the Cherokee and created the Osage Reservation.
(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)
1873 Fall, Leaders of the Northern California 1872 Modoc War were executed and survivors were exiled to Oklahoma.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T7)
1875 The Quahadi Comanches, led by Quanah Parker (c.1852-1911), gave up their fight and settled on Indian Territory in Oklahoma after hunters slaughtered the great buffalo herds of the Texas panhandle.
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah_Parker)
1876 William M. “Bill" Doolin was killed by an “Oaklahoma" posse. Photos of the dead man were sold for 25 cents.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1879 Nov 4, William Penn Adair Rogers was born on a ranch in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). "I never met a man I didn't like." He was widely loved during the 1920s and 1930s for his gentle humor and homespun philosophies. Part Cherokee Indian, Rogers once told a Boston audience, "My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat." Rogers got his show business start in 1902 doing rope tricks in a Wild West show. He moved on to vaudeville and, by 1916, he was the wisecracking star of Florenz Ziegfeld's "Follies." As a newspaper columnist and book author, Rogers poked fun at important people and events, and he was equally successful as a motion picture actor. Rogers' film credits include “A Connecticut Yankee" in 1931 and “State Fair" in 1933. The nation mourned when Will Rogers, along with pilot Wiley Post, were killed in an Alaska plane crash on August 15, 1935.
(HFA, ‘96, p.18) (HNPD, 11/4/98)(HN, 11/4/98)
1879-1954 Enamored with flying after Louis Beriot’s 1909 famous flight across the English Channel, Oklahoma automobile salesman Clyde Cessna became a pioneer aviator--flying, building and selling airplanes.
(HNQ, 7/31/01)
1889 Mar 23, President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1889 Apr 15, A marshal's posse killed and captured a group of Sooners, settlers who stole onto the Public Domain territory in Oklahoma in hopes of claiming it legally, just nine days before the official start of the land rush.
(HN, 4/15/99)
1889 Apr 22, The US federal government opened up the Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory to the country's first land run. The Oklahoma land rush officially started at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-8) (AP, 4/22/97) (HN, 4/22/98)
1890 May 2, The Oklahoma Territory was organized.
(AP, 5/2/97) (HN, 5/2/98)
1890 May 22, George Washington Steele, on appointment by Pres. Benjamin Harrison, took the oath of office as the 1st territorial governor (1890-1891) of Oklahoma.
(http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v020/v020p218.html)
1891 Sep 15, The Dalton gang held up a train and took $2,500 at Wagoner, Okla.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1892 Feb 1, Judge Abraham Jefferson Seay was sworn in as the 2nd territorial governor (1892-1893) of Oklahoma.
(http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v020/v020p218.html)
1892 Jan 8, Coal mine explosion killed 100 in McAlister, Okla.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1892 Nov 2, Lawmen surrounded outlaws Ned Christie and Arch Wolf near Tahlequah, Indian Country (present-day Oklahoma). It would take dynamite and a cannon to dislodge the two from their cabin.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1893 Sep 16, More than 100,000 settlers ("Sooners") claimed land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.
(AP, 9/16/97)(HN, 9/16/98)
1898 Feb 12, [Le]Roy Harris, composer (When Johnny Comes Marching Home), was born in Oklahoma.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1901-1905 Discovery of oil in the nearby villages of Red Fork and Glenn Pool in 1901 and 1905 launched the Oklahoma city of Tulsa's modern era. The city's population of 1,400 in 1900 reached 18,200 by 1910 and 72,000 by 1920. Tulsa long called itself "The Oil Capital of the World."
(HNQ, 10/2/98)
1902 Sep 22, A long-simmering feud between the Brooks and McFarland clans erupted into a bloody gunfight in the railroad town of Spokogee, Indian Territory, which is now Dustin, Oklahoma. Spokogee had sprung up in the path of the coming Fort Smith & Western Railroad. The Creek name meant "the exalted," or "near to God." The area around Spokogee was home to two feuding families, the Brookses and McFarlands. Willis B. Brooks, 48, was a well-known inhabitant of the Dogwood Settlement and one of the toughest men to be found in Indian Territory. He was a gunfighter from Alabama, by way of Texas. Jim McFarland, his chief adversary, had the reputation of being an outlaw and a killer. While the ribbon of steel inched its way toward Spokogee, the long-simmering feud between the warring families heated up and then erupted into a classic Western gunfight, settled with gun smoke, blood and lead.
(HNQ, 8/25/01)
1904 Apr 3, Iron Eyes Cody, actor (Black Gold, Ernest Goes to Camp), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1905 Feb 7, Congress granted statehood to Oklahoma. New Mexico and Arizona were the only remaining territories. [see 1907]
(HN, 2/7/99)
1907 Nov 16, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were unified to make Oklahoma, which was made the 46th state. Black settlers founded some 30 towns before statehood was achieved. Osage Indian Reservation became Osage County, one of the largest in the US.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(NG, 5/95, p.92)(HN, 11/16/98)(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)
1908 Feb 27, The forty-sixth star was added to the U.S. flag, signifying Oklahoma's admission to statehood.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1908 The Wichita National Bison Range opened and received 15 bison from New York.
(ON, 3/02, p.9)
1909 Feb 17, Apache chief Geronimo died of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Okla.
(HN, 2/17/99)
1910 The Oklahoma State Reformatory was built of granite from Wildcat Mountain by the first 60 inmates who arrived in covered wagons.
(WSJ, 11/2/05, p.A9)
1911 Elmer McCurdy, outlaw, died. His mummified corpse became a tourist attraction in a small Oklahoma funeral home, and later was taken across country in carnivals and roving wax museums. In 2002 Mark Svengold authored “Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw."
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M4)
1912 Jul 14, Woodrow Wilson “Woody" Guthrie, American folk singer, was born. Woody Guthrie (d.1967) was born in Okemah, Okla.
(HN, 7/14/98)(SFC, 11/27/98, p.C11)
1912 Grasshoppers swept across Tulsa, Okla. People raked them up and sold them as chicken feed.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.C3)
1913 Apr 25, Earl Bostic, alto sax player (Flamingo, Temptation), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1916 Mar 6, Rochelle Hudson (d.1972), American film actress (That's My Boy), was born in Oklahoma City, Ok.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle_Hudson)
1918 Apr 13, Electrical fire killed 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1918 Sep 4, Paul Harvey, conservative radio commentator, was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(HN, 9/4/98)(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)
1920 Feb 26, Tony Randall [Leonard Rosenberg], actor (Felix-Odd Couple, Love Sidney), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1921 May 31, A major race riot broke out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood, the black section of town, was burned. In 1997 Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote the novel “Magic City" based on this event. As many as 10,000 white men and boys attacked the black community and 35 blocks of the black business district were burned with participation by police officers and a local unit of the National Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed to have been killed. In 2000 the Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors of the riots. In 2001 a final state commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors and their descendants.
(NPR, 5/31/96)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.3)(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A2)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A4)
1921 Jun 1, A race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing 85 people (21 whites & 60 blacks killed). [see May 31, 1921]
(HN, 6/1/98)(MC, 6/1/02)
1922 Jul 2, Dan Rowan, comedian (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in), was born in Beggs, Okla.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1923 Sep 15, Gov. Walton (b.1881) of Oklahoma declared a state of siege because of KKK terror. Walton was elected governor in 1922 and impeached in 1923.
(www.cga.state.ct.us/2004/rpt/2004-R-0184.htm)
1923 Nov 19, Oklahoma Governor Walton was ousted by state senate for anti-Ku Klux Klan measures.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1924 Nov 1, Bill Tilghman (b.1854), legendary Oklahoma marshal, was gunned down by a drunk in Cromwell, Oklahoma, while trying to arrest Wiley Lynn, a corrupt prohibition officer.
(HN, 11/1/98)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtilghman.htm)
1926 A collection of US roads from Chicago to Los Angeles were improved and formed what would be designated as US 66. It was later replaced by 3 interstates, I-55 in Illinois, I-44 in Missouri and Oklahoma, and I-40 to LA. Route 66 was decertified in 1985. In 2006 Arthur Krim authored “Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway."
(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.P8)
1927 Mar 6, Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. (d.2004), USAF astronaut (Mer 9, Gem 5), was born in Shawnee, Okla.
(SFC, 10/5/04, p.B7)
1927 Mar 16, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (d.2003), later NY Senator (1976-2000) and scholar, was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(SFC, 3/27/03, p.A1)
1927 Oklahoma produced 278 million barrels of crude oil. By 2005 production dropped to 60.7 million.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.33)
1928 Apr 7, James Garner, actor (Rockford Files, Bret Maverick), was born in Norman, Okla.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1929 The Paseo Arts District of Oklahoma City was built in the style of a Spanish village.
(SFCM, 3/20/05, p.31)
1932 Aug 17, Chet Allen, actor (Jerry-Bonino, Slats-Troubleshooter), was born in Chickasha, Okla.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1932 Dec 21, Carl McGee, Oklahoma inventor, applied for a patent for his parking meter. He had came up with the 1st coin-operated, single-space, mechanical meter to be used to free up parking spaces in downtown Oklahoma City.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.B1)(www.ok-history.mus.ok.us/enc/parking.htm)
1934 May 13, A great dustbowl storm occurred. [see Apr 14, 1935]
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1934 Oct 20, Michael Dunn, actor (House of the Damned, Ship of Fools), was born in Shattuck, Ok.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1935 Feb 17, Thirty-one prisoners escaped an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1935 Apr 14, A major sandstorm, dubbed “The Black Blizzard," ravaged the US Midwest. The Black Sunday was the worst day of the almost decade long Dust Bowl era. It ravaged Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 2005 Timothy Egan authored “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl."
(SSFC, 1/8/06, p.M1)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm)(Sm, 3/06, p.111)
1935 Jul 16, The first parking meters were installed, in Oklahoma City. Carlton Magee's automatic meter, the "Park-O-Meter" was installed by the Dual Parking Meter Company in Oklahoma City. The parking meters were divided by 20-foot spaces painted on the pavement and accepted nickels.
(AP, 7/16/97)(HNQ, 8/4/02)
1938 Charles George Werner (d.1997 at 88), cartoonist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his Oklahoman cartoon of the Nobel Peace Prize lying on a grave marked “Czechoslovakia."
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A24)
1940 Mar 25, Anita Bryant, homophobe, singer (George Gobel Show), was born in Barnsdall, Okla.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1941 The town of Berwyn renamed itself Gene Autry after the 34-year-old radio and film star.
(SFEC, 12/20/98, z1 p.5)
1941-1983 Wagon Wheel dinner sets were manufactured of cream-colored clay from Ada, Okla. After 1956 they were made of red clay from Sapulpa, Okla.
(SFC, 7/29/98, Z1 p.23)
1942 Apr 27, Tornado destroyed Pryor, Oklahoma, killing 100 and injuring 300.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1942 Jun 1, The US Supreme Court, in Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, struck down Oklahoma’s Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act.
(WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A18)(http://supreme.justia.com/us/316/535/case.html)
1944 Feb, Denison Dam was completed and formed Lake Texoma, one of the largest reservoirs in the United States. Woodville, Okla., was flooded when the Red River was dammed to form Lake Texoma.
(AP, 11/21/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Texoma)
1947 Apr 9, A series of tornadoes struck Kansas, West Texas and Oklahoma. 181 were killed and some 1,300 injured. The Woodward tornado ranked as the deadliest ever to hit Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/9/08)(AH, 4/07, p.55)
1948 Mar 20 A severe tornado moved through Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City destroying 52 aircraft.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.D8)
1949 R.D. Hull, a Texas watchmaker, invented the spin-cast reel for fishing and got the Zero Hour Bomb Co. in Tulsa to manufacture it. The company soon changed its name to Zebco.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A25)
1950 The first “Yield" sign was installed in Tulsa. Okla. It read “Yield Right-Of-Way. Clinton E. Riggs (d.1997 at 86), Tulsa police officer, developed the sign after a decade of experimentation.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C10)
1951 Aug 11, The Mississippi River flooded some 100,000 acres in Ks, Okla, Mo and Ill.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1954 The Collins Kids of Oklahoma, Lawrencine (1942-2018) and Lawrence (b.1944), began performing as a musical act on "Town Hall Party," hosted by Tex Ritter on KTTV, Los Angeles. Lawrence later co-wrote "Delta Dawn", a 1972 country hit for Tanya Tucker and a 1973 No. 1 pop single for Helen Reddy.
(www.rockabillyhall.com/YouTubeCollinsKids.html)(SFC, 8/10/18, p.D5)
1955 May 25, Series of 19 twisters destroyed Udall, KS., and most of Blackwell, OK.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1956 Feb 7, Garth Brooks, country vocalist (No Fences), was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1959 Apr 7, Oklahoma ended prohibition after 51 years.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1963 Aug 19, NAACP Youth Council began sit-ins at lunch counters in Oklahoma City.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1963 The Oral Roberts Univ. in Tulsa, Okla., founded by Oral Roberts (1918-2009), was chartered.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)
1969 George B. Kaiser took over Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., a small family oil firm founded in the 1940s by his uncle and parents, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who had settled in Oklahoma. Operations at the time were limited to Kansas. By 2004 the firm had over $600 million in revenues from oil and gas production.
(WSJ, 7/23/04, p.A1)
1970 Nov 20, In Oklahoma 3 teenagers in a Chevrolet Camaro failed to return home after a high school football game. In 2013 divers on a training exercize discovered Their skeletal remains in a Camaro in Foss Lake.
(SFC, 9/19/13, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/m9owvbn)
1971-1976 Carl Albert (d.2000 at 91), Oklahoma Democrat, served as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
(WSJ, 2/7/00, p.A1)
1974 Nov 13, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.
(AP, 11/13/07)
1977 The Alfred P. Murrah Building was put up in Federal Plaza in Oklahoma City. It was bombed on April 19, 1995 and 169 people were killed including 19 children and 600 injured.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-8)
1981 May 27, Roger Wheeler, chairman of Telex Corp. and owner of World Jai Alai, was shot execution style at a Tulsa country club. In 2001 2 reputed Boston mobsters, James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, were charged. Jai Alai executive John B. Callahan was murdered in Aug 1982 in Miami. In 2001 hitman John Vincent Martorano (60) pleaded guilty to Wheeler’s murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2003 former FBI agent H. Paul Rico (78) was arrested and charged with murder for helping to setup the hit.
(http://tinyurl.com/38z78q)(SFC, 3/15/01, p.A8)(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D5)(SFC, 10/10/03, p.A3)
1981 Jul 28, In Guatemala Rev. Stanley Rother (b.1935) of Oklahoma was shot twice in the head by three masked men at the parish rectory in Santiago Atitlan. In 2016 the Vatican declared him a martyr. On Sep 23, 2017, Rother was beatified at a Mass in Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 12/3/16, p.A2)(SSFC, 9/24/17 p.A15)
1981 The federal government declared Picher, Oklahoma, a hazardous waste site due to lead contamination and proceeded to buy out about 900 homeowners and businesses. In 2011 every commercial building was destroyed and only a handful of residents remained.
(Reuters, 1/29/11)
1982 Jul 5, Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma went bankrupt as wildcat oil well loans went bad. More than $2 billion in oil and gas participations were held by five major US banks: Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, Chicago, Illinois held $1 billion in those participations. Most of the remaining participations were held by Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, New York; Michigan National Bank, Lansing, Michigan; Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, Washington; and Northern Trust Company, Chicago, Illinois.
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.A4)(www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/managing/Chron/1982/index.html)
1982 Debra Sue Carter (21), a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, was raped and murdered. For five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Williamson was sent to death row. Both were released 12 years later, when DNA evidence proved their innocence. In 2006 novelist John Grisham read Williamson's obituary in The New York Times and made him and Fritz the subject of his first non-fiction book: “The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town." The book became a bestseller.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Williamson)
1984 In Oklahoma John A. Boltz (52) killed his stepson (22) with multiple stabbings. Boltz was executed for the murder in 2006.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)
1985 Jul 3, Three people were shot, clubbed and stabbed during a robbery of an Edmond grocery store. Mark Andrew Fowler (20) and Billy Ray Fox (20) were convicted and executed in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)(SFC, 1/26/01, p.A5)
1985 Dec 14, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1985 Addie Hawley (84) of Oklahoma City was kidnapped, raped, beaten and set afire. Loyd Winford Lafevers (20) was convicted with another man and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1985 Rhonda Kay Timmons (19) died after she was stabbed 12 times. Robert William Clayton (24), apartment complex groundskeeper, was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1986 Aug 20, Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill (44) went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Okla., shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself. This incident is credited with inspiring the American phrase "going postal".
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A12)(AP, 8/20/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Sherrill)
1986 Aug 22, Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood (1946-1974) $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.
(AP, 8/22/97)
1987 Oct 6, In Oklahoma Michael Houghton (27) and Laura Lee Sanders (22) were kidnapped from behind a Tulsa bar, stuffed into a car trunk and taken to a rural area where the car was set afire. Scott Allen Hain was executed for the murders on Apr 3, 2003. Hain was 17 in 1987 and claimed to be under the influence of Robert Lambert.
(SFC, 4/4/03, p.A6)
1987 In Oklahoma City Ernestine Jones (84) was beaten, raped, robed and murdered in her home. Eddie Leroy Trice (35) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1988 Dec 3, Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State University won the Heisman Trophy.
(AP, 12/3/98)
1988 In Oklahoma City the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory, designed by I.M. Pei, was built. The 224-foot long steel and acrylic cylinder stood 7-stories.
(SFCM, 3/20/05, p.30)
1988 Gloria Jean Leathers (29) was shot to death by her roommate in front of a police station. Wanda Jean Allen (29) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1989 Aubrey McClendon (b.1959) and Tom L. Ward co-founded Chesapeake Energy in Oklahoma City. They took the company public in 1993. In 2012 Chesapeake was the second-largest producer of natural gas, a Top 15 oil producer and the most active driller in the United States.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_McClendon)
1990 Jack E. Counts Jr., an Oklahoma City entrepreneur, founded Glamour Shots Licensing. The business was based on the idea of photographing ordinary women in dazzling garb and makeup.
(WSJ, 5/13/96, p.B-1)
1990 Katherine Ann Busch (7) was stabbed to death and thrown into a trash bin, Floyd Allen Medlock (19) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1991 Apr 26, Twenty-three people were killed as four dozen tornadoes raked Kansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1991 Dec, An Islamic extremist conference was held in Oklahoma City. Terrorism expert Steve Emerson filmed the conference for his documentary, “Jihad in America." The documentary (which has been shown to Congress several times) revealed that during the 1991 OKC conference, WTC attacks were openly discussed and planned by OKC Hamas terrorists being closely monitored by OKC FBI agents including FBI agent Floyd Zimms.
(http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/4765_comment.php)
1991 Michael N. Bates (1952-1996), Wichita correspondent for the Associated press, covered the six-week Wichita abortion protests and the tornado devastation of Andover. While in Oklahoma City, Bates covered the Karen Silkwood trial and the Locust Grove Boy Scout murders.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.B2)
1992 Lois Frederick was killed with a croquet mallet and her body was burned with gasoline. Dion Athanasius, her adopted daughter’s boyfriend, was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1993 Francisco Morales and Maria Yanez were killed during a burglary. In 1996 George Ochoa and Osbaldo Torres were convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. In 2004 Gov. Henry commuted the sentence against Torres (29) following a World Court ruling his rights, as well as those of 51 other Mexicans on death row, were violated because they was not told that they could receive help from their government as guaranteed by the 1963 Vienna Convention.
(SFC, 5/14/04, p.A3)
1994 Aug 30, Randolph Dial, a sculptor and painter convicted of a 1981 murder, escaped from the Oklahoma State Reformatory. On the same day Bobbi Parker disappeared from staff housing at the reformatory, where her husband worked. On Apr 4, 2005, she was found living with Randolph Dial on a chicken farm in Texas. In 2011 Bobbi Parker was sentenced to a year in jail for helping Dial escape.
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A2)(www.amw.com/fugitives/capture.cfm?id=23521)(SFC, 11/8/11, p.A6)
1994 Dr. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, was elected to Congress. He retired in 2001 after 3 terms in the House of Representatives. In 2003 he with John Hart authored "Breach of Trust."
(WSJ, 12/11/03, p.D6)
1995 Feb 25, In Oklahoma store manager Richard Yost was beaten to death with a baseball bat and placed in the freezer of his supermarket in Tulsa. Three men were later executed for the murder and a 4th was convicted to life in prison.
(AFP, 1/10/14)(http://tinyurl.com/qhw3t45)
1995 Apr 19, At 9:02 A.M. Oklahoma City, USA, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people, and injuring 500 including many children in the building’s day care center. Within a week a suspect, Timothy McVeigh, was caught and charged. Two suspects, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, faced trial. McVeigh was arrested during a routine traffic stop 78 miles from Oklahoma City on weapons charges the same day. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were later convicted of charges related to the bombing. Michael Fortier, a key government witness and friend of Nichols and McVeigh, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1998 for failing to warn authorities, lying to the FBI, transporting stolen weapons and conspiring to fence stolen weapons. In 1999 Fortier's sentence was overturned and a more lenient sentence was ordered under manslaughter guidelines. In Oct a new 12-year sentence was issued. McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.
(NPR, 4/19/95)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A2)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A3)(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A7)(AP, 4/19/06)
1995 Apr 21, The FBI arrested former soldier Timothy McVeigh at an Oklahoma jail where he had spent two days on minor traffic and weapons charges; he was charged in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing two days earlier in which over 200 people were killed by a truck bomb that exploded in front of a Federal building.
(AP, 4/21/00)(HN, 4/21/99)
1995 Apr 23, Pres. Clinton declared a national day of mourning for the victims of the Oklahoma City blast.
(AP, 4/23/00)(MC, 4/23/02)
1995 Apr 29, 10 days after the blast, rescue workers in Oklahoma City continued the grim task of searching for bodies and pulling debris from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where 168 people died.
(AP, 4/29/00)
1995 May 5, As rescue workers ended their search for bodies in the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton denounced self-styled anti-government militias, saying, "How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes."
(AP, 5/5/00)
1995 May 10, Terry Nichols was charged in the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 5/10/00)
1995 May 23, The nine-story hulk of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was demolished. That day, James Nichols, whose brother and a friend were charged in the Oklahoma bombing, was released from federal custody.
(AP, 5/23/00)
1995 Aug 10, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with eleven counts in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was later convicted of murder. He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the US Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh (33) stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building. Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to life in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh#Execution)(AP, 8/10/00)
1996 Apr 19, On the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, hundreds of mourners paused for 168 seconds of silence at the site where the federal building once stood.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1996 Dec, Juli Buskin (21) was murdered shortly after her last semester at the Univ. of Oklahoma. Her raped body with a shot in the head was later found near a lake. Police later attempted a DNA dragnet to find her killer.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A3)
1997 Jun 2, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 11 counts in the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed in June 2001.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A4)(AP, 6/2/07)
1997 Aug 14, An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Kelli Cox (20), a student at the Univ. of North Texas, disappeared. She was one of four young women disappeared in Oklahoma and Texas over a four-month period. The others included Tiffany Johnson (19), Jessica Cain (17) and Laura Smither (12). In 2016 William Lewis Reece led police to the graves of Cox and Cain. In 2017 Reece was indicted for the murder of Cox.
(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.A8)
1998 Jan 2, The defense in the Terry Nichols trial rested its case in the penalty phase after calling nine witnesses who pleaded for his life. Nichols had already been convicted of conspiracy, which carried a potential death sentence, and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter involving the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. He was later convicted of state murder charges in Oklahoma, and sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences.
(AP, 1/2/99)(AP, 1/2/08)
1998 Jun 4, In Denver Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison without parole for conspiring in 1995 to bomb the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 25, Thousands came to Oklahoma City for the ground-breaking ceremony of a memorial to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 1, Weekend rain caused severe flooding in central Kansas and Oklahoma. The Whitewater and Walnut Rivers topped a 35-foot levee.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A3)
1999 May 3, Tornadoes hit Oklahoma and Kansas and at least 40 people were killed. As many as 1,500 homes were destroyed. 38 people were killed in Oklahoma and 5 in Kansas. Damages in Oklahoma were later estimated at over $225 million.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 8, Dana Plato (34), a star of TV’s Diff'rent Strokes, died in a suburb of Oklahoma City. Authorities said she succumbed to an overdose of painkillers.
(www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,19982,00.html?fdnews)
1999 Jun 8, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) blocked all the civilian nominations of Pres. Clinton in protest of the "recess appointment" of James Hormel.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Oklahoma a boy (13) opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and injured 4 classmates at Fort Gibson Middle School.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 2, Steven Ray Thacker (29) of Oklahoma was arrested in Tennessee following a 3-state crime spree that left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)
2000 Aug 19, In Oilton Kristi Blevins (12) was raped in strangled to death by Robert Rotramel (19), a known juvenile sex offender.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.A7)
2000 Dec 28, In the US recent bad weather was blamed for 41 deaths: including 22 in Texas and 11 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A6)
2001 Jan 11, Wanda Jean Allen (41) was executed for 2 murders. This was the 1st execution of an African American woman since 1954.
(SFC, 1/12/01, p.A6)
2001 Jan 27, A small plane crashed south of Denver and 10 people were killed including passengers associated with the Oklahoma State Univ. basketball team.
(SSFC, 1/28/01, p.A13)
2001 Feb 19, President George W. Bush opened a museum commemorating the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 2/19/02)
2001 Apr 12, Tornadoes killed at least 4 people in Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma.
(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 5, C. Wesley Lane, the new district attorney for Oklahoma City, announced that he would prosecute Terry Nichols for murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 10, Tornadoes hit the US plains and caused heavy damage in Oklahoma and Nebraska.
(SFC, 10/11/01, p.C16)
2001 Dec 28, Oklahoma led the US in prisoner executions this year over Texas in with 18 vs. 17.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A9)
2002 May 26, In Oklahoma a barge hit an I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River and 14 people were killed. A 500-600-foot section of the 1,988-foot bridge collapsed after Joe Dedmon, Capt. of the Robert Y. Love tugboat, apparently blacked out.
(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A5)
2002 Oct 26, In eastern Oklahoma Daniel H. Fears, a teenager apparently angered by a neighbor, went on a shooting spree that left two people dead and at least seven injured.
(AP, 10/27/02)(SFC, 10/28/02, p.A4)
2002 Oklahoma banned cockfighting following a referendum. In 2005 state senator Frank Shurden proposed gamecock boxing with cocks wearing foam-filled muffs and protective vests.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.27)
2003 May 8, In Oklahoma a tornado swept through Oklahoma City and flattened hundreds of homes. At least 104 people were injured.
(SFC, 5/8/03, p.A10)
2003 May 13, A judge ruled that Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols should stand trial in state court on 160 counts of first-degree murder. Nichols was later found guilty on 161 counts; the 161st count was for the fetus of a pregnant victim. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2003 Aug 27, Oklahoma charged Bernie Ebbers (62), ex-CEO of WorldCom, and 6 other former executives with 15 felony violations of state's securities laws. The charges against Ebbers were dropped when the Federal government filed on March 2, 2004 security fraud and conspiracy charges. Ebbers was found guilty of all charges on March 15, 2005. He was sentenced to 25 years in a federal prison in Louisiana, the toughest sentence yet among other recent corporate accounting scandals.
(SFC, 8/28/03, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ebbers#Criminal_charges)
2003 Elizabeth Seay authored "Searching For Lost City," a look at Native Indian languages in Oklahoma.
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.W4)
2003 Oklahoma and Arkansas made an agreement on phosphorus levels. Toxic run-off from poultry houses in Arkansas was entering the Illinois river watershed, which supplied water to eastern Oklahoma. In 2005 Oklahoma filed suit against Arkansas for various violations related to high phosphorus levels.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.30)
2004 Jan 22, Oklahoma Gov. Henry proposed a series of tax cuts to improve the state's economy.
(USAT, 1/23/04, p.12A)
2004 Mar 22, Terry Nichols went on trial for his life in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was already serving a life sentence for his conviction on federal charges. On May 26 he was found guilty of 161 state murder charges, but was again spared the death penalty when the jury couldn't agree on his sentence.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2004 May 26, A District court jury in McAlester, Oklahoma, convicted Terry Nichols of 161 counts of 1st degree murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Nichols later received 161 consecutive life sentences.
(SFC, 5/27/04, p.A3)(AP, 5/26/05)
2004 Jun 11, Terry Nichols escaped execution as the District court jury in McAlester, Oklahoma, deadlocked in the penalty phase of his trial. He was convicted May 26 on 161 counts of 1st degree murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing.
(WSJ, 6/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, In McAlester, Oklahoma, District Judge Steven Taylor sentenced Terry Nichols to 161 consecutive life sentences for the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked victims of the blast for forgiveness
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Sep 9, It was reported that a munitions plant in Oklahoma had suspended production of “bunker buster" bombs after workers there developed anemia.
(WSJ, 9/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Oklahoma became the first US state to pass a law that made it harder to buy more than small quantities of medicine containing pseudoephedrine, one of the ingredients for the illegal production of methamphetamine. Other states soon followed.
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.40)
2005 Oct 1, In Norman, Oklahoma, Joel Henry Hinrichs (21), a Univ. of Oklahoma student, committed suicide using an explosive attached to his body near the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, where 84,000 people watched a football game.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 27, Grass fires burned in drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma. Over three days, nearly 200 homes were lost and the fires blamed for at least four deaths.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Jan 2, Grass fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas left at least 4 people dead with over 250 structures burned.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes. Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 10, Oil magnate Boone Pickens donated $165 million to Oklahoma State Univ. for the development of new sports facilities. The 100-acre site under consideration in Stillwater faced problems with low-income residents.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=ncf&id=2286807)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 20, Michael Fortier, the government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trials, was released from federal prison after serving more than 10 years for failing to warn authorities about the plot.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Apr 14, In Oklahoma Kevin Ray Underwood (26) was arrested after investigators found the body of Jamie Rose Bolin (10), missing since April 12, in a bedroom closet in his apartment. The girl's unclothed body was inside a large plastic tub. Police said she was killed as part of the neighbor's elaborate plan to eat human flesh. On February 29 2008, a jury found him guilty of first degree murder after deliberating for twenty-three minutes. This quick verdict was attributed to the showing of Underwood's videotaped confession. On Thursday, April 3, 2008, McClain County District Judge Candace Blalock approved a recommended death sentence.
(AP, 4/16/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Ray_Underwood)
2006 May 10, Oklahoma became the last state to make tattoos legal when the governor Brad Henry signed legislation to license and regulate tattoo artists and parlors.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 Jul 18, The Seattle SuperSonics basketball team said a group of Oklahoma businessmen had purchased the club for $350 million. The new ownership group said it plans to keep the team in Seattle, if it can work out a deal for a new arena in the next 12 months. Officials in Seattle said they planned to hold the Sonics to their lease, which expires in 2010.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.33)(http://tinyurl.com/qga3e)
2006 Jul 18, A heat wave in the US left at least 7 people dead including 5 in Oklahoma and 2 in Pennsylvania.
(SFC, 7/19/06, p.A2)
2006 Aug 18, In Bristow, Oklahoma, Donald Thompson (59), a former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials, was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $40,000.
(SFC, 8/19/06, p.A2)
2007 Jan 14, In Oklahoma a minivan carrying 12 people skidded off an icy highway and slammed into an oncoming tractor-trailer, killing seven.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These included 20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New York, 5 in Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in a row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Oklahoma Cherokee Nation members voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Jun 15, In Tulsa, Okla., a crane lifted out a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that had been buried in an underground concrete vault half a century earlier to celebrate 50 years of statehood.
(AP, 6/15/08)
2007 Jun 27, Don Harvey and his wife, Joyce, of Oklahoma won a $105.8 million Powerball lottery. They chose to receive a $33.3 million lump sum after taxes instead of the full amount paid out over 29 years.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Aug 19, Fierce storms from the upper Mississippi to Texas since last week left 22 people dead. Six people died in floodwaters across Oklahoma after heavy rains from the remains of Tropical Storm Erin drenched the state. As much as 9 inches of rain fell across a wide swath of Oklahoma, leaving roadways under 5 feet of water. 8 people were reported dead in Texas and 6 dead in Minnesota.
(Reuters, 8/20/07)(SFC, 8/21/07, p.A6)(AP, 8/22/07)
2007 Aug 22, The death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least 26. Three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop in Madison, Wis.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Apr 4, In SF cyclist Tammy Thomas, Univ. of Oklahoma law student, was found guilty of lying to a federal grand jury about her use of banned drugs.
(SFC, 4/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 10, Powerful storms brought hail, heavy rain and possible tornadoes to Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, causing flooding and power outages for thousands of customers and at least one death.
(AP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Oklahoma Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess (56) resigned just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official. On March 24 Burgess was sentenced to 79 years in prison for forcing drug defendants to have sex with him.
(AP, 4/18/08)(SFC, 3/25/09, p.A7)
2008 May 10, A tornado rumbled through Picher, Okla., killing at least 7 people. The same storm system then moved into southwest Missouri, where tornadoes killed at least 15 others. The storms moved eastward and killed at least one person the next day in Georgia.
(AP, 5/11/08)(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 8, In Oklahoma Taylor Placker (13) and Skyla Whitaker (11) were murdered on an unpaved road in Weleetka. On Dec 9, 2011, authorities announced murder charges against Kevin Sweat (25), who was already in custody in connection with the July 17 death of his girlfriend, Ashley Taylor (23).
(SFC, 12/10/11, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/6lne9lz)
2008 Aug 29, In Oklahoma a train slammed into a propane tanker truck triggering an explosion that killed 2 people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 9, In Louisiana Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, shot and killed an Oklahoma woman, who was lured over the Internet to take part in a Ku Klux Klan initiation, after a fight broke out when she asked to be taken back to town. The group tried to cover it up by dumping her body on a rural roadside and setting her belongings aflame. Foster, the local Klan leader was soon in jail on a second-degree murder charge, and seven others were charged with trying to help conceal the crime.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2008 The Seattle SuperSonics basketball team was renamed Thunder following a move to Oklahoma City. Ticket prices rose 34%.
(SSFC, 2/23/14, p.A14)
2009 Jan 12, In El Reno, Oklahoma, a woman and her 4 children, aged 3-7, were found killed. Texas officials the next day arrested the mother’s boyfriend, Joshua Steven Durcho (25).
(SFC, 1/14/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 28, President Barack Obama signed requests from Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe for federal emergency declarations as crews worked around the clock to resurrect power lines downed by thick ice in both states. Since the storm began building on Jan 26, the weather has been blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 10, In Oklahoma an unusual cluster of twisters ripped across the state killing eight people. The eight confirmed deaths included seven people in Lone Grove and a truck driver who was driving through the area.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 May 19, In Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland (57), confronted by two holdup men, pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager. Ersland was soon charged with first-degree murder. District Attorney David Prater later said Ersland was justified in shooting Antwun Parker (16) once in the head, but not in firing the additional shots into his belly.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Oklahoma 9 people died when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped outside Miami, Okla. A 10th person died a few days later.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Sep 5, A small airplane crashed into a Tulsa, Okla., park killing all 5 people on board.
(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A7)
2009 Dec 15, Oral Roberts (b.1918), preacher, televangelist and founder of the Oral Roberts Univ. in Tulsa, Okla., died in Newport Beach, Ca. The pioneer Oklahoma-based televangelist began broadcasting his revivals by television in 1954.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.65)
2009 Oklahoma’s legislature passed a bill ordering that a monumental version of the Ten Commandments be placed in the grounds of its state capitol building, but that the state would not pay for it. It was donated by bill sponsor Mike Ritze and erected in Nov, 2012.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2009 Oklahoma’s population stood at about 3.6 million people.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.31)
2010 Jan 29, A US storm that toppled power lines, closed major highways and buried parts of the southern Plains in heavy ice and snow began moving into the South, leaving tens of thousands of people in the dark. Nearly 142,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma were without power.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Apr 27, The Oklahoma Senate voted to override Gov. Brad. Henry’s veto of two abortion bills, one that an abortion-rights group has said would be among the nation’s strictest measures against the procedure. On July 19 Oklahoma County District Judge Noma Gurich granted an injunction blocking enforcement of the abortion law.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A6)(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A4)
2010 May 10, Several tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas. 5 people were killed and dozens more injured. Flattened homes, toppled semitrailers and downed power lines were left behind.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 Jun 14, Floodwaters inundated parts of Oklahoma City following 10 inches of rain.
(SFC, 6/15/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Hermine swept north through Texas and into Oklahoma swamping city neighborhoods and killing 6 people, 5 in Texas and 1 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A7)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 2, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would forbid judges from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. The "Save Our State Amendment" was approved by 70 percent of state voters. A federal judge in Oklahoma City issued a court order in November 2010 barring the measure from taking effect. On Jan 10, 2012, a federal appeals court upheld an injunction against the voter-approved ban on Islamic law in Oklahoma, saying it likely violated the US Constitution by discriminating against religion.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/10/12)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Dec 16, Oklahoma executed John David Duty (58) using a drug combination that included the sedative pentobarbital, commonly used to euthanize animals. Duty had strangled a cellmate nearly a decade ago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2011 Feb 9, A second powerful blizzard in a week roared through parts of the US midsection, bringing biting winds and dumping more than a foot of snow on areas still digging out from last week's major storm. Up to 2 feet of snow fell on parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 2/9/11)(SFC, 2/10/11, p.A5)
2011 Apr 14, Storms began late in the day in Oklahoma, where at least 5 tornadoes touched down and two people were killed. The system then pushed into Arkansas, killing 7 more.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 16, Vicious storms and howling winds smacked the deep South, killing at least 7 people in Alabama including three family members whose homes were tossed into nearby woods. Combined with earlier reported fatalities in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the confirmed death toll over 3 days rose to 16.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 17, A furious storm system that kicked up tornadoes, flash floods and hail as big as softballs has left at least 45 people dead on a rampage that stretched for days as it barreled from Oklahoma to North Carolina and Virginia. 11 people were confirmed dead in Bertie County, NC, bringing the state's death toll to at least 18 people. Authorities have said 7 died in Arkansas; 7 in Alabama; 2 in Oklahoma; one in Mississippi and at least 5 in Virginia.
(AP, 4/17/11)(AP, 4/18/11)
2011 Apr 20, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a pair of bills intended to further restrict abortion in her state.
(SFC, 4/21/11, p.A6)
2011 May 3, Oklahoma City reported a record drought, the longest there since record keeping began in 1908.
(SFC, 5/4/11, p.A6)
2011 May 25, A violent storm system powering through a wide swath of the Midwest and South spawned tornadoes and powerful winds that turned homes into splintered wreckage and cars into crumpled shells. At least 8 people were killed in Oklahoma, 2 in Kansas and 3 in Arkansas.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 25, The death toll from the May 22 tornado that savaged Joplin, Missouri, rose to 125. A violent storm system across a wide swath of the Midwest and South spawned tornadoes and powerful winds. 9 people were killed in Oklahoma, 2 in Kansas and 4 in Arkansas.
(Reuters, 5/25/11)
2011 Jun 26, In Oklahoma the Cherokee Nation election officials declared Bill John Baker as its new leader. He unseated 3-term incumbent Chad Smith by 11 of 15,000 votes.
(SFC, 6/27/11, p.A4)
2011 Aug 22, The Cherokee nation, the USA’s second-largest Indian tribe, formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners.
(Reuters, 8/23/11)
2011 Nov 5, In Oklahoma a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit the state with the epicenter located 44 miles east of Oklahoma City. It was felt as far away as Wisconsin and South Carolina, but there were no serious injuries. The largest earthquake previously recorded in Oklahoma was a 5.5-magnitude tremor in 1952. In 2013 geologists said the Oklahoma quake and other seismic activity in the central US was linked to the disposal of wastewater from fracking operations for oil extraction.
(Reuters, 11/6/11)(SFC, 3/27/13, p.D3)
2012 Jan 5, In Oklahoma Gary Roland Welch was executed by lethal injection for killing a man during a knife fight nearly two decades ago.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Mar 6, Ten US states voted in the Super Tuesday Republican primaries. Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney edged out conservative rival Rick Santorum in the vital battleground of Ohio and won five of the night's other contests. Romney also notched victories in Alaska, Idaho, Vermont, Virginia and his home-state of Massachusetts, while Santorum won North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and Newt Gingrich carried his home state of Georgia.
(SFC, 3/7/12, p.A6)(Econ, 3/10/12, p.18)
2012 Apr 6, In Oklahoma a series of early-morning shootings left three people killed and two others critically wounded within a three-mile span of north Tulsa. On April 8 police arrested two white men, Jake England (19) and Alvin Watts (32) in connection with the shootings. Both men soon confessed to the shootings. On April 13 they were charged with first degree murder.
(AP, 4/7/12)(AP, 4/8/12)(SFC, 4/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 4/14/12, p.A5)
2012 Apr 15, In the area of Woodward, Oklahoma, tornadoes killed at least 5 people and left at least 29 injured. At least 8,000 were without power in the region. About 75 tornadoes touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska.
(AP, 4/14/12)(SFC, 4/17/12, p.A6)
2012 Jun 24, In Oklahoma two freight trains collided near Goodwell and 3 crew members were missing.
(SFC, 6/25/12, p.A5)
2012 Sep 8, In Oklahoma fierce overnight thunderstorms carried a mobile home into a creek killing 3 people. A truck driver was killed when wind flipped his semi onto a concrete barrier.
(SSFC, 9/9/12, p.A10)
2012 Nov 6, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that wipes out all affirmative action programs in state government hiring, education and contracting practices.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A10)
2012 Nov 6, Oklahoma executed Garry Thomas Allen (56) for the 1986 killing of his fiancee, despite claims that he was insane.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 14, Oklahoma police arrested Sammie Eaglebear Chavez (18) on charges that he had plotted to shoot students at Bartlesville High School.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2013 Jan 7, In Oklahoma 4 young women were found shot to death in a Tulsa apartment.
(SFC, 1/8/13, p.A5)
2013 Feb 22, In Oklahoma City a medical helicopter crashed outside a nursing home killing 2 people onboard and injuring a third.
(SFC, 2/23/13, p.A4)
2013 May 19, More than two dozen tornadoes were spotted in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois. A half-mile wide twister struck near Oklahoma City and at least one person was killed.
(Reuters, 5/20/13)
2013 May 20, In Oklahoma a mile-wide category 5 tornado with winds of up to 200 mph touched down in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. 7 children were among the 24 people killed. Early estimated of damages ranged from $1.5-2 billion. In 2017 the Oklahoma City reached a settlement with the families of the seven children for $14,000 each to settle a lawsuit arising from construction of a Plaza Towers classroom addition where the children were killed.
(AP, 5/21/13)(SFC, 5/22/13, p.A6)(Reuters, 5/26/13)(Econ, 5/25/13, p.30)(SFC, 6/14/17, p.A5)
2013 May 31, A 2.6-mile wide tornado hit Oklahoma City and its suburbs with winds nearly 300 mph. Storms and flash floods left 14 people dead. They included storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son and another member of their team. 6 people remained missing.
(SFC, 6/1/13, p.A10)(AP, 6/1/13)(SFC, 6/4/13, p.A4)(SFC, 6/5/13, p.A6)(Econ, 6/15/13, p.90)
2013 Aug 9, Christopher Lane (22) of Melbourne, Australia, was shot once in the back as he was jogging in Duncan, Okla. He died before paramedics arrived. On Aug 20 prosecutors charged two boys, Chancey Allen Luna (16) and James Francis Edwards Jr. (15), with first-degree murder. A third boy, Michael Dewayne Jones (17), was charged as an accessory to first-degree murder after the fact. The boys said they were bored and decided to shoot someone.
(Yahoo, 8/21/13)(AP, 2/4/14)
2013 Aug, The Oklahoma chapter of the ACLU sued Oklahoma for violating a section of state law forbidding the use of public property to support any system of religion.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Sep 17, The Oklahoma governor’s office confirmed that Gov. Mary Fallin has ordered the national Guard to stop processing requests for military benefits for same-sex couples. State voters had approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 that prohibited giving benefits of marriage to gay couples.
(SFC, 9/18/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 12, In Oklahoma 5 people were shot at a Hmong New year’s festival in Tulsa. Meng Lee (19) and Boonmlee (21) fled the scene, but were arrested the next day.
(SFC, 10/13/12, p.A4)
2013 Nov 23, In Oklahoma 4 people were slain and a 5th wounded after being shot at a residence in Tulsa. Police said the home was the scene of several drug arrests.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 24, US media reported that a major winter storm that has dumped freezing rain and snow in the US southwest has killed at least 13 people in Arizona (1), California (3), Oklahoma (4), New Mexico (1) and Texas (4).
(AFP, 11/245/13)
2013 Dec 2, The Satanic Temple, a New York-based group, launched a campaign to donate a monument to stand next to Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma City.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Dec 28, In Oklahoma Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland. He was suspected of killing 3 people and setting fire to a home in Colorado on Nov 27.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2014 Jan 9, In Oklahoma an African American man was put to death for murdering a store manager with a baseball bat. This was the second US execution of 2014. Michael Lee Wilson (38) was the third man put to death for the murder of Richard Yost, beaten with a baseball bat and found in the freezer of his supermarket in Tulsa in February 1995.
(AFP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 14, A US federal judge struck down Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage. He immediately stayed the ruling pending appeals.
(SFC, 1/15/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 22, TransCanada began delivering oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, to customers in Nederland, Texas, through the southern portion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
(SFC, 1/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 27, A broad tornado killed at least 15 when it sliced through Arkansas at the start of the US tornado season. Two more people were killed died in Iowa and Oklahoma.
(Reuters, 4/28/14)(Reuters, 4/29/14)
2014 Apr 29, Oklahoma halted a double execution after Clayton Lockett (38) appeared to twitch and gag after being declared unconscious. Vein failure was cited. Locket, convicted of shooting a woman in 1999 and having buried her alive, soon died of a heart attack. The execution of Charles Warner (46) was stayed for 14 days. He had been convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-month-old girl in 1997.
(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A9)
2014 May 16, Clyde Snow (b.1928), American forensic anthropologist, died in Norman, Ok. His work took him around the world to examine the slaughter of innocents.
(Econ, 5/24/14, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Snow)
2014 Jun 16, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer Jerrod Martin shot and killed Joshua Stand following a call about a man walking in the street with a weapon. In 2017 Stands estate settled a civil rights lawsuit for $175,000. Court records said Stand had a closed pocket knife and posed no immediate threat to anyone.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd4jx56w)(SFC, 10/25/17, p.A5)
2014 Jul 18, A US federal appeals court ruled that Oklahoma must allow gay couples to wed, prompting an angry respnse from state leaders.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A5)
2014 Aug 5, In Oklahoma Tulsa police officers Shannon Kepler (54) and Gina Kepler (48) who are married, were arrested in the fatal shooting of Jeremey Lake (19) who was walking with their daughter, Lisa Kepler (18). Lisa said the next day that her parents had kicked her out of their home a week ago, and she said was living with Lake at the time of the shooting. On July 7, 2017, a third mistrial was declared in the murder case against officer Shannon Kepler. In Oct, 2017, a judge ordered a 4th murder trial. On Oct. 19, 2017, a jury convicted Shannon Kepler of first-degree manslaughter.
(AP, 8/6/14)(SFC, 7/8/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 10/20/17, p.A14)
2014 Aug 13, Former Oklahoma doctor William Valuck (71) pleaded guilty to 8 counts of 2nd-degree murder in connection with the drug overdose deaths of several patients. The plea deal called for eight years in prison.
(SFC, 8/14/14, p.A7)
2014 Aug 21, Oklahoma police officer Daniel Ken Holtzclaw (27) was arrested on complaints of sexually assaulting at least six women during traffic stops.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Aug 25, In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a man (35) fatally shot his estranged wife (22), their 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son before shooting himself. The victims were all from Guatemala.
(AP, 8/26/14)
2014 Sep 15, Oklahoma state trooper Eric Roberts (42) was arrested on complaints of kidnapping, rape and othercrimes after three women alleged the officer sexually assaulted them while he was on duty.
(SFC, 9/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 25, In Oklahoma Alton Nolen (30), just fired from work, severed the head of Colleen Hufford (54) and attacked another worker at a Vaughan Foods processing plant in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, before he was shot and wounded.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 26, In Oklahoma 4 women’s softball players from North Texas Central College were killed when an 18-wheel truck crashed into the side of their team bus.
(SSFC, 9/28/14, p.A15)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2014 Nov 4, The Oklahoma Supreme Court put on hold a state law restricting abortions while the issue is argued in a lower court. The law had gone into effect on Nov 1.
(SFC, 11/5/14, p.A7)
2015 Jan 15, Oklahoma executed Charles Frederick Warner for raping and killing an 11-month-old girl. An autopsy later revealed that the wrong drug was used to stop the inmate’s heart. Corrections officials used potassium acetate, not potassium chloride, as required under state protocol.
(http://tinyurl.com/p9lhow9)(SFC, 10/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 9, Univ. of Oklahoma Pres. David Boren severed the school’s ties with national fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon and ordered its on campus house to be shuttered after several members took part in a racist chant caught in an online video. Two students were expelled the following day.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)(SFC, 3/11/15, p.A7)
2015 Apr 2, In Oklahoma Eric Courtney Harris, a black man, died after being shot by Robert Charles Bates (73), a white deputy, after selling drugs to an undercover officer in Tulsa County. The reserve deputy in an apparent error used a gun instead of an intended Taser.
(SFC, 4/13/15, p.A5)
2015 May 7, Residents of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and northern Texas cleaned up after overnight storms spawned 51 tornadoes that left at least one person dead.
(SFC, 5/8/15, p.A8)
2015 May 24, In Texas a five-year drought came to a dramatic end, as a straight month of rain built into a torrent that destroyed more than 1,000 homes. At least 21 people were killed, including 5 in Houston, as spectacular flash flooding hit Texas and Oklahoma.
(AFP, 5/25/15)(Reuters, 5/27/15)(SFC, 5/28/15, p.A5)
2015 Jun 18, In Oklahoma Tropical Depression Bill pelted the state with heavy rains that swept a two-year-old toddler away overnight in flood waters and triggered a rockslide that piled boulders on a major highway.
(Reuters, 6/18/15)
2015 Jul 23, Oklahoma police found 5 members of the Bever family either dead or dying and a girl (13) stabbed but alive near the front door of a home in Broken Arrow. Brothers Michael (16) and Robert Bever (18) were taken into custody. Both faced trial as adults.
(SFC, 7/24/15, p.A11)(SFC, 7/25/15, p.A4)(SFC, 10/13/15, p.A6)
2015 Aug 3, Oklahoma regulators imposed new restrictions on energy companies injecting wastewater underground, in the latest effort to stem a sharp increase in earthquakes.
(Reuters, 8/4/15)
2015 Sep 13, In Oklahoma violence erupted at the for-profit Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing. 3 inmates were stabbed to death. A 4th died overnight.
(SFC, 9/14/15, p.A5)
2015 Sep 18, The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), which regulates the state's oil and gas industry, ordered companies to shut or reduce usage of five saltwater disposal wells around the north-central Oklahoma city of Cushing. Days later an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 struck near the crude oil hub of Cushing.
(Reuters, 11/19/15)
2015 Sep 29, In Oklahoma a panel that oversees artwork at the statehouse voted 7-1 to authorize the removal of a granite monument depicting the Ten Commandments after the state’s highest court ruled that it violated the state constitution.
(SFC, 9/30/15, p.A7)
2015 Oct 2, Oklahoma’s highest criminal court agreed to halt all executions after the state’s prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week.
(SFC, 10/3/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 24, In Oklahoma 4 people were killed and dozens more injured after Adacia Avery Chambers (25), suspected of driving under the influence, crashed into a crowd attending an Oklahoma State University homecoming parade in Stillwater.
(AP, 10/2515)(AFP, 10/2515)
2015 Nov 5, In Oklahoma some 1,000 barrels of crude oil spilled from a rural pipeline owned by magellan Midstream Partners.
(SFC, 11/7/15, p.A5)
2015 Nov 19, A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck northern Oklahoma.
(Reuters, 11/19/15)
2015 Nov 30, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency after storms over the weekend caused floods, coated roads with ice and left about 60,000 customers without power.
(Reuters, 11/30/15)
2015 Dec 16, In Oklahoma a man began firing randomly from a pickup truck and killed 2 people on I-40. A suspect was arrested the next day following a 25-mile chase.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A9)
2016 Jan 21, Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison for preying on women in 2013 and 2014.
(SFC, 1/22/16, p.A10)
2016 Mar 2, In Oklahoma City Aubrey McClendon (56), co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and a part-owner of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, drove his SUV into a wall a day after he was indicted for conspiring to rig bids to buy oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma.
(SFC, 3/3/16, p.C2)(Econ, 3/5/16, p.58)
2016 Mar 7, US regulators asked oil and gas producers in central Oklahoma to restrict wastewater disposal operations to help curb a spike in the number and severity of earthquakes.
(SFC, 3/8/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 7, Matthew Lane Durham (21), a former missionary from Edmond, Okla., was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after being convicted of sexually abusing children at an orphanage in Kenya in 2014.
(SFC, 3/8/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 22, In Oklahoma a wildfire began and spread to Kansas. By Easter it covered 620 square miles making it the biggest wildfire in Kansas history.
(SFC, 3/28/16, p.A4)
2016 Apr 6, Kansas and Oklahoma authorities said wildfires this week have burned through thousands of acres, scorched numerous structures and prompted hundreds of people to evacuate their homes ahead of the blazes.
(Reuters, 4/6/16)
2016 May 12, In Oklahoma the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Tulsa after taking off from Arizona on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016 Aug 12, In Oklahoma Stanley Vernon Majors (61) gunned down his Lebanese neighbor Khalid Jabara (37) outside his Tulsa home after bombarding him with racial insults in a feud that had lasted several years. On Feb. 20, 2018, Majors was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(http://tinyurl.com/y7hmneoc)(SFC, 2/21/18, p.A6)
2016 Sep 3, In Oklahoma a 5.6 earthquake, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the state, rattled the area northwest of Pawnee, fueling growing concern about seismic activity linked to energy production.
(Reuters, 9/3/16)(SSFC, 9/4/16, p.A8)
2016 Sep 16, Oklahoma police Officer Betty Shelby shot a black man who ignored repeated requests to put up his hands before reaching into an SUV that was stalled in the middle of a street in Tulsa. Terence Crutcher (40) died at a hospital following the shooting. Police dash cam video showed Crutcher with his hands up and no weapon was found at the scene.
(SSFC, 9/19/16, p.A11)(SFC, 919/16, p.A5)(SFC, 9/20/16, p.A10)
2016 Sep 22, In Oklahoma Tulsa prosecutors charged police Officer Betty Shelby with first-degree manslaughter in the Sep 16 shooting of Terence Crutcher. On May 17, 2017, a jury acquitted Shelby of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 9/23/16, p.A8)(SFC, 5/19/17, p.A7)
2016 Oct 4, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court threw out another state law that would put new restrictions on abortion providers.
(SFC, 10/5/16, p.A5)
2016 Oct 23, In Oklahoma Michael Vance (38) shot two police officers, stole a patrol car, carjacked another car and then killed his aunt and uncle in Luther. On Oct 30 Vance was shot and killed in a gunbattle with state troopers near Leedey.
(SFC, 10/25/16, p.A6)(SFC, 11/1/16, p.A10)
2016 Oct 24, A leak prompted the Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC to shut one of the largest pipeline systems feeding crude from the US oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma to Gulf coast refineries. Enterprise said much of it was contained in a retention pond at Enbridge's facility.
(Reuters, 10/24/16)
2016 Nov 6, In central Oklahoma a 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Cushing. The state recorded 19 earthquakes in the past week. Scientists have linked the sharp increase to the underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas production.
(SFC, 11/7/16, p.A5)
2016 Nov 8, California, Nebraska and Oklahoma voted to reinstate or otherwise support the death penalty. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts had poured some $400,000 of his family’s money to finance the death penalty referendum.
(SFC, 11/10/16, p.A7)(AFP, 11/12/16)(Econ, 11/19/16, p.24)
2017 Jan 18, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said he would honor the Congressional intent and timetables of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard.
(Reuters, 1/18/17)
2017 Jan 29, An American Airlines flight arrived in Miami from Bogota, Colombia. It was flagged for maintenance and sent to Tulsa where seven bricks of cocaine were found in the nose gear.
(SFC, 1/31/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 17, The US Senate approved former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, has been an ardent critic of the agency for years.
(SFC, 2/18/17, p.A7)
2017 Feb 22, More than 6,000 e-mails were made public that showed close ties between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the EPA, with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups tied to the Koch brothers and their efforts to roll back environmental regulations during Pruitt’s tenure as attorney general of Oklahoma.
(SFC, 2/23/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 8, Wildfires in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas left 6 people dead along with some 2,500 adult cattle and 1,000 calves.
(SFC, 3/9/17, p.A7)
2017 Mar 29, In Oklahoma and Texas six people were killed and nearly 200,000 customers were without electric power after overnight storms brought tornadoes, torrential rain and hail to large parts of the states.
(Reuters, 3/29/17)(SFC, 3/30/17, p.A12)
2017 Apr 1, Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b.1932) died in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1961 he gained international acclaim with the poem “Babi Yar," that told of the Nazi slaughter of almost 34,000 Jews and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.
(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.C11)(Econ, 4/22/17, p.82)
2017 Apr 20, The Cherokee Nation sued distributors and retailers of opioid medications for contributing to an epidemic of opioid abuse in the 14 Oklahoma counties that comprise the Cherokee Nation.
(SFC, 4/21/17, p.A5)
2017 May 16, In the central US storms that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes spawned 29 twisters that killed two people in Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 6, Federal prosecutors said Oklahoma-based craft store chain Hobby Lobby has agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi religious artifacts smuggled from the Middle East.
(SFC, 7/7/17, p.A7)
2017 Jul 9, In Oklahoma hundreds of prisoners began rioting late today at the federal Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton. Authorities gained control the next morning after about eight hours.
(SFC, 7/11/17, p.A7)
2017 Aug 12, US federal officials arrested Jerry Drake Varnell (23) of Sayre, Okla., in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in an alley adjacent to BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A5)
2017 Sep 17, In Oklahoma five teenagers in a pickup were killed when they crashed and plummeted 35 feet into a creek near Tahlequah.
(SFC, 9/19/17 p.A5)
2017 Oct 21, In Chandler, Oklahoma, a crossbow arrow, fired by a 13-year-old, entered the left side of Austin Almanza (10) in the area of his lower torso, kept traveling and stuck in the arm of Austin's brother, Ayden(8). Austin was pronounced dead at the scene. In 2018 prosecutors charged the 13-year-old with first-degree murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/y79xszmj)(SFC, 1/20/18, p.A6)
2017 Nov 15, In Oklahoma City Dustin Pigeon (29) was shot and killed by police. Pigeon had doused himself in lighter fluid and threatened to set himself on fire in a courtyard. In 2019 police Sgt. Keith Sweeney was sentenced to 10 years in prison, more than a month after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder in the shooting death of the unarmed, suicidal man.
(AP, 12/19/19)
2017 Nov 20, In Oklahoma Tulsa police officer Shannon Kepler (54) was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2014 slaying of Jeremey Lake (19), his daughter’s black boyfriend.
(SFC, 11/21/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 22, A US federal lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma City on behalf of 15 girls who say they were molested by Arnold Cohen (86), a Perry school district teacher’s aide.
(SFC, 12/26/17, p.A4)
2018 Jan 22, In Oklahoma a natural gas rig exploded killing five workers nerar Quinton. Three companies were later fined a total of $118,000 for exposing employees to fire and explosion hazards. The families of the workers later filed wrongful-death lawsuits.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.A6)
2018 Mar 14, Oklahoma officials said they plan to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates once the state resumes using the death penalty, after trying unsuccessfully for months to obtain lethal injection drugs.
(SFC, 3/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 2, Thousands of Oklahoma teachers walked out of classrooms in a campaign for higher pay. State Gov. Mary Fallin signed legislation last week granting teachers pay raises of 15-18 percent, but some educators said that wasn't good enough.
(SFC, 4/3/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 10, Oklahoma's two largest school districts cancelled classes for the seventh consecutive school day extending the second week of a statewide teacher walkout.
(SFC, 4/10/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 13, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency in 55 of the state's 77 counties following wildfires that have forced the evacuation of some 1,400 people in three towns.
(SFC, 4/13/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 16, Oklahoma officials said wildfires have killed two people and burned over 625 square miles in the western part of the state.
(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A5)
2018 May 11, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill that provides legal protections to faith-based agencies that won't place children in LGBT homes because of religious or moral convictions or policies.
(SFC, 5/12/18, p.A5)
2018 May 24, In Oklahoma City Alexander Tilghman (28) wounded a woman and two girls in a restaurant before he was shot dead by two armed citizens.
(SFC, 5/26/18, p.A6)
2018 Aug 4, In Oklahoma a small plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Ponca City Regional Airport. All five people on board were killed.
(SSFC, 8/5/18, p.A9)
2018 Nov 15, Roy Clark, US country music star, died in Oklahoma. He headlined the TV show "Hee Haw" for nearly a quarter century.
(SFC, 11/16/18, p.A7)
2018 Dec 21, US Federal prosecutors said that Hongjin Tan (35), a Chinese national employed by an Oklahoma petroleum company, has been charged with stealing trade secrets from his unnamed US-based employer that operates a research facility in the Tulsa area.
(AP, 12/22/18)
2019 Jan 3, In Oklahoma and Texas car crashes in a winter storm left four people dead over the last 24 hours.
(SFC, 1/4/19, p.A4)
2019 Jan 4, In Texas Jenna Scott and her friend Michael Swearingin disappeared. Their bodies were later found in a shallow grave in Clearview, Oklahoma. Cedric Marks (44) was arrested this month in Michigan on a burglary charged related to Scott's house in Temple, Texas.
(http://tinyurl.com/y7986eun)(SFC, 2/4/19, p.A4)
2019 Feb 21, It was reported that 50 million gallons of toxic water is being discharged daily from contaminated mining sites into streams and ponds without being treated in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Montana and at least five other states.
(SFC, 2/21/19, p.A8)
2019 May 21, In Missouri two deaths were reported following a string of more than 30 tornadoes that damaged homes in Oklahoma before storms moved to the northeast.
(SFC, 5/22/19, p.A6)
2019 May 25, In Oklahoma a tornado touched down in El Reno and tore through the Skyview Estates mobile home park leaving two people dead.
(SFC, 5/27/19, p.A4)
2019 May 26, Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva agreed to pay the US state of Oklahoma $85 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of fueling the state's opioid epidemic.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 Aug 1, The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the rape and sexual assault convictions and 263-year prison sentence of former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw (32), whose case has been watched closely by the Black Lives Matter movement and some conservatives.
(AP, 8/1/19)
2019 Aug 26, An Oklahoma judge ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572.1 million to the state for its part in fueling an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers, a sum that was substantially less than investors had expected, driving up J&J's shares.
(Reuters, 8/26/19)
2019 Aug 30, In suburban Oklahoma City two men and a woman were found dead inside a home in what was being investigated as an apparent murder-suicide.
(AP, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 9, Oklahoma City police officers shot and killed a man after he fled a home where a woman was fatally shot. Police said the man led them on a chase and pointed a gun at them.
(AP, 9/10/19)
2019 Sep 14, In Oklahoma fights broke out at the Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center in Vinita. The next day more fights broke out at prisons in Hominy, Sayre, Fort Supply, Lawton and Stringtown. One inmate was left dead and more than a dozen injured.
(AP, 9/16/19)
2019 Sep 15, Oklahoma City police fatally shot Brian Dryer (28) early today after he ran toward them with a knife.
(AP, 9/16/19)
2019 Oct 3, In Oklahoma Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj (35) of Saudi Arabia was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to not disclosing he had attended an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before entering the US. He has lived in Oklahoma since 2012.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 21, Overnight storms spawned tornadoes in several US states, killing at least four people in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 10/22/19)
2019 Nov 1, The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole board commuted the sentences of more than 450 inmates. House Bill 1269, which just took effect after it was passed in May by the state legislature, was designed to limit prison time for low-level drug and property crime offenders. They were scheduled to be released on Nov. 4.
(ABC News, 11/1/19)
2019 Nov 10, An Oklahoma police chief was found dead in a Florida hotel late today and local authorities soon arrested one of his officers in connection with his death. Mannford's police chief, Lucky Miller (44), was pronounced dead at a Hilton hotel in Pensacola Beach. Officer Michael Nealey, was booked into the Escambia County Jail the next day and charged with homicide. The two had been staying in Pensacola Beach for a conference.
(SFC, 11/12/19, p.A6)
2019 Nov 18, In Oklahoma the Pottawatomie County jury convicted Byron James Shepard (38) for the 2017 killing of Officer Justin Terney, who was shot during a traffic stop. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.
(AP, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 21, In Oklahoma two US airmen were killed at Vance Air Force Base during a routine training mission in Enid.
(SFC, 11/22/19, p.A8)
2019 Dec 16, Bullets were fired into an Oklahoma City home early today, killing a 2-year-old girl and wounding her grandmother as the two were sleeping in bed.
(AP, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 31, Three of the most powerful tribes in Oklahoma filed a federal lawsuit against state Gov. Kevin Stitt, asking the court to help resolve a dispute over gambling at tribal casinos. Stitt contends the gaming compacts expire on Jan. 1 and that casino gambling after that date will be illegal. Stitt has signaled he wants to renegotiate the compacts to give the state a larger slice of revenue.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2020 Jan 11, Severe storms sweeping across southern portions of the US and up into the Midwest were blamed in the deaths of at least 11 people, including two first responders, as high winds, tornadoes and unrelenting rain battered large swaths of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power from Texas to Ohio, parts of highways were closed in Oklahoma and Arkansas due to flooding and hundreds of flights were canceled at Chicago's international airports.
(AP, 1/11/20)
2020 Jan 13, Deionna Young (26), a former manager at an Oklahoma Arby's restaurant, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two decades in prison. She was charged with fatally shooting a customer who she said spit on her.
(AP, 1/15/20)
2020 Jan 23, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt banned sate-funded travel to California in response to a similar 2018 ban by California after Oklahoma passed a law that allowed adoption agencies to deny placement services to same-sex parents.
(SFC, 1/24/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 3, In Oklahoma City a truck slammed into members of the Moore High School cross-country team. One student was killed and another died the following day. Authorities said the truck was driven by man whose son was killed in a traffic crash over the weekend. Max Leroy Townsend (57) was being held in the Cleveland County jail on charges of first-degree manslaughter and six counts of failure to stop and render aid. A third student died on Feb 15.
(AP, 2/4/20)(SFC, 2/17/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 13, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said the state would resume Death Row executions using a three-drug lethal injection protocol.
(SFC, 2/14/20, p.A6)
2020 Mar 20, It was reported that Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock before the markets plunged. Three other senators — Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California; James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma; and Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia — also sold major holdings, according to disclosure records.
(NY Times, 3/20/20)
2020 Mar 23, In Oklahoma Jerry Drake Varnell (26) was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of trying to blow up an Oklahoma City bank in August 2017 with a massive vehicle bomb. The FBI had learned of Varnell's plan and an undercover agent posed as someone who could help construct the bomb, but instead provided inert materials.
(AP, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 28, Former US Sen. Tom Coburn (72), died. The Oklahoma family doctor had earned a reputation as a conservative political maverick as he railed against federal earmarks and subsidies for the rich. Coburn had been diagnosed years earlier with prostate cancer.
(AP, 3/28/20)
2020 Apr 1, In Oklahoma three people were killed and one was wounded early today in a shooting at a convenience store in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
(AP, 4/1/20)
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110 Mil BP In Oklahoma the plant eating Tenontosaurus roamed the area along with the meat-eating Deinonychus. Fossils of both together were found in 1999.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A4)
110 Million Fossils of Sauroposeidon proteles, a 60-ton, 60-foot tall dinosaur, were found in 1994 near Antlers, Okla.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A8)
1540 Feb 23, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico. Coronado, Spanish explorer, introduced horses, mules, pigs, cattle, and sheep into the American southwest. An Indian guide spoke of a rich kingdom called Quivira. When no cities were found he confessed under torture that the story was false.
(NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)(HN, 2/23/99)(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D1)
1758 Oct 10, Jean Pierre Chouteau, French fur trader, early St. Louis settler and "father of Oklahoma" was born in New Orleans.
(AP, 10/10/08)
1802 Oct 10, The 1st non-Indian settlement in Oklahoma was made.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1825 Jan 27, Congress approved Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."
(HN, 1/27/99)
1834 Jun 30, Congress passed the final Indian Intercourse Act. In addition to regulating relations between Indians living on Indian land and non-Indians, this final act identified an area known as "Indian country". This land was described as being "…all that part of the United States west of the Mississippi and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana, or the territory of Arkansas…" This is the land that became known as Indian Territory. Oklahoma was declared Indian Territory.
(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Intercourse_Act)
1838 Aug, Some 12,000 Cherokee Indians in 13 ragtag parties followed the Trail of Tears on a 116-day journey west 800 miles to eastern Oklahoma. Estimates have placed the death toll in camps and in transit as high as 4,000. They followed the trail already set by the Choctaw out of Mississippi, the Creek from Alabama, the Chickasaw from Arkansas and Mississippi, and the Seminole from Florida.
(NG, 5/95, p.82)(www.crystalinks.com/cherokee2.html)
1842 Aug 14, Seminole War ended and the Indians were moved from Florida to Oklahoma.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1847 Members of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma collected $170 and sent the money to Dublin to help feed the Irish during a potato famine. The money would be worth about $4,400 in 2018.
(AP, 3/13/18)
1861 Apr, William Woods Averell, recently convalesced Union officer, was sent out west in civilian garb from Washington, D.C., carrying orders to a fort commander in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Averell was to proceed through secessionist lands to Fort Arbuckle in Indian Territory. Ordinarily, orders to frontier posts were telegraphed to Fort Smith, Arkansas--some 180 miles east of Fort Arbuckle--and a courier dispatched from there. But with Arkansas likely to secede at any time, such orders might be intercepted by secessionists.
(HNQ, 5/27/01)
1864 The Confederate War Dept. organized the Indian tribes of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas into the Indian Division. Cherokee Gen’l. Stand Watie commanded the Cherokee Mounted Rifles.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A19)
1865 Jun 23, Confederate General Stand Watie, who was also a Cherokee chief, surrendered the last sizable Confederate army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A19)(HN, 6/23/98)
1868 Nov 27, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry killed Chief Black Kettle (b.1801) and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River near present day Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
(www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/blackkettle.htm)
1872 The Osage Indians purchased close to 2,300 square miles in the Oklahoma Territory from the Cherokee and created the Osage Reservation.
(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)
1873 Fall, Leaders of the Northern California 1872 Modoc War were executed and survivors were exiled to Oklahoma.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T7)
1875 The Quahadi Comanches, led by Quanah Parker (c.1852-1911), gave up their fight and settled on Indian Territory in Oklahoma after hunters slaughtered the great buffalo herds of the Texas panhandle.
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah_Parker)
1876 William M. “Bill" Doolin was killed by an “Oaklahoma" posse. Photos of the dead man were sold for 25 cents.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1879 Nov 4, William Penn Adair Rogers was born on a ranch in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). "I never met a man I didn't like." He was widely loved during the 1920s and 1930s for his gentle humor and homespun philosophies. Part Cherokee Indian, Rogers once told a Boston audience, "My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat." Rogers got his show business start in 1902 doing rope tricks in a Wild West show. He moved on to vaudeville and, by 1916, he was the wisecracking star of Florenz Ziegfeld's "Follies." As a newspaper columnist and book author, Rogers poked fun at important people and events, and he was equally successful as a motion picture actor. Rogers' film credits include “A Connecticut Yankee" in 1931 and “State Fair" in 1933. The nation mourned when Will Rogers, along with pilot Wiley Post, were killed in an Alaska plane crash on August 15, 1935.
(HFA, ‘96, p.18) (HNPD, 11/4/98)(HN, 11/4/98)
1879-1954 Enamored with flying after Louis Beriot’s 1909 famous flight across the English Channel, Oklahoma automobile salesman Clyde Cessna became a pioneer aviator--flying, building and selling airplanes.
(HNQ, 7/31/01)
1889 Mar 23, President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1889 Apr 15, A marshal's posse killed and captured a group of Sooners, settlers who stole onto the Public Domain territory in Oklahoma in hopes of claiming it legally, just nine days before the official start of the land rush.
(HN, 4/15/99)
1889 Apr 22, The US federal government opened up the Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory to the country's first land run. The Oklahoma land rush officially started at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-8) (AP, 4/22/97) (HN, 4/22/98)
1890 May 2, The Oklahoma Territory was organized.
(AP, 5/2/97) (HN, 5/2/98)
1890 May 22, George Washington Steele, on appointment by Pres. Benjamin Harrison, took the oath of office as the 1st territorial governor (1890-1891) of Oklahoma.
(http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v020/v020p218.html)
1891 Sep 15, The Dalton gang held up a train and took $2,500 at Wagoner, Okla.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1892 Feb 1, Judge Abraham Jefferson Seay was sworn in as the 2nd territorial governor (1892-1893) of Oklahoma.
(http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v020/v020p218.html)
1892 Jan 8, Coal mine explosion killed 100 in McAlister, Okla.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1892 Nov 2, Lawmen surrounded outlaws Ned Christie and Arch Wolf near Tahlequah, Indian Country (present-day Oklahoma). It would take dynamite and a cannon to dislodge the two from their cabin.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1893 Sep 16, More than 100,000 settlers ("Sooners") claimed land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.
(AP, 9/16/97)(HN, 9/16/98)
1898 Feb 12, [Le]Roy Harris, composer (When Johnny Comes Marching Home), was born in Oklahoma.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1901-1905 Discovery of oil in the nearby villages of Red Fork and Glenn Pool in 1901 and 1905 launched the Oklahoma city of Tulsa's modern era. The city's population of 1,400 in 1900 reached 18,200 by 1910 and 72,000 by 1920. Tulsa long called itself "The Oil Capital of the World."
(HNQ, 10/2/98)
1902 Sep 22, A long-simmering feud between the Brooks and McFarland clans erupted into a bloody gunfight in the railroad town of Spokogee, Indian Territory, which is now Dustin, Oklahoma. Spokogee had sprung up in the path of the coming Fort Smith & Western Railroad. The Creek name meant "the exalted," or "near to God." The area around Spokogee was home to two feuding families, the Brookses and McFarlands. Willis B. Brooks, 48, was a well-known inhabitant of the Dogwood Settlement and one of the toughest men to be found in Indian Territory. He was a gunfighter from Alabama, by way of Texas. Jim McFarland, his chief adversary, had the reputation of being an outlaw and a killer. While the ribbon of steel inched its way toward Spokogee, the long-simmering feud between the warring families heated up and then erupted into a classic Western gunfight, settled with gun smoke, blood and lead.
(HNQ, 8/25/01)
1904 Apr 3, Iron Eyes Cody, actor (Black Gold, Ernest Goes to Camp), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1905 Feb 7, Congress granted statehood to Oklahoma. New Mexico and Arizona were the only remaining territories. [see 1907]
(HN, 2/7/99)
1907 Nov 16, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were unified to make Oklahoma, which was made the 46th state. Black settlers founded some 30 towns before statehood was achieved. Osage Indian Reservation became Osage County, one of the largest in the US.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(NG, 5/95, p.92)(HN, 11/16/98)(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)
1908 Feb 27, The forty-sixth star was added to the U.S. flag, signifying Oklahoma's admission to statehood.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1908 The Wichita National Bison Range opened and received 15 bison from New York.
(ON, 3/02, p.9)
1909 Feb 17, Apache chief Geronimo died of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Okla.
(HN, 2/17/99)
1910 The Oklahoma State Reformatory was built of granite from Wildcat Mountain by the first 60 inmates who arrived in covered wagons.
(WSJ, 11/2/05, p.A9)
1911 Elmer McCurdy, outlaw, died. His mummified corpse became a tourist attraction in a small Oklahoma funeral home, and later was taken across country in carnivals and roving wax museums. In 2002 Mark Svengold authored “Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw."
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M4)
1912 Jul 14, Woodrow Wilson “Woody" Guthrie, American folk singer, was born. Woody Guthrie (d.1967) was born in Okemah, Okla.
(HN, 7/14/98)(SFC, 11/27/98, p.C11)
1912 Grasshoppers swept across Tulsa, Okla. People raked them up and sold them as chicken feed.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.C3)
1913 Apr 25, Earl Bostic, alto sax player (Flamingo, Temptation), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1916 Mar 6, Rochelle Hudson (d.1972), American film actress (That's My Boy), was born in Oklahoma City, Ok.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle_Hudson)
1918 Apr 13, Electrical fire killed 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1918 Sep 4, Paul Harvey, conservative radio commentator, was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(HN, 9/4/98)(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)
1920 Feb 26, Tony Randall [Leonard Rosenberg], actor (Felix-Odd Couple, Love Sidney), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1921 May 31, A major race riot broke out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood, the black section of town, was burned. In 1997 Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote the novel “Magic City" based on this event. As many as 10,000 white men and boys attacked the black community and 35 blocks of the black business district were burned with participation by police officers and a local unit of the National Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed to have been killed. In 2000 the Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors of the riots. In 2001 a final state commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors and their descendants.
(NPR, 5/31/96)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.3)(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A2)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A4)
1921 Jun 1, A race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing 85 people (21 whites & 60 blacks killed). [see May 31, 1921]
(HN, 6/1/98)(MC, 6/1/02)
1922 Jul 2, Dan Rowan, comedian (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in), was born in Beggs, Okla.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1923 Sep 15, Gov. Walton (b.1881) of Oklahoma declared a state of siege because of KKK terror. Walton was elected governor in 1922 and impeached in 1923.
(www.cga.state.ct.us/2004/rpt/2004-R-0184.htm)
1923 Nov 19, Oklahoma Governor Walton was ousted by state senate for anti-Ku Klux Klan measures.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1924 Nov 1, Bill Tilghman (b.1854), legendary Oklahoma marshal, was gunned down by a drunk in Cromwell, Oklahoma, while trying to arrest Wiley Lynn, a corrupt prohibition officer.
(HN, 11/1/98)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtilghman.htm)
1926 A collection of US roads from Chicago to Los Angeles were improved and formed what would be designated as US 66. It was later replaced by 3 interstates, I-55 in Illinois, I-44 in Missouri and Oklahoma, and I-40 to LA. Route 66 was decertified in 1985. In 2006 Arthur Krim authored “Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway."
(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.P8)
1927 Mar 6, Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. (d.2004), USAF astronaut (Mer 9, Gem 5), was born in Shawnee, Okla.
(SFC, 10/5/04, p.B7)
1927 Mar 16, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (d.2003), later NY Senator (1976-2000) and scholar, was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(SFC, 3/27/03, p.A1)
1927 Oklahoma produced 278 million barrels of crude oil. By 2005 production dropped to 60.7 million.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.33)
1928 Apr 7, James Garner, actor (Rockford Files, Bret Maverick), was born in Norman, Okla.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1929 The Paseo Arts District of Oklahoma City was built in the style of a Spanish village.
(SFCM, 3/20/05, p.31)
1932 Aug 17, Chet Allen, actor (Jerry-Bonino, Slats-Troubleshooter), was born in Chickasha, Okla.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1932 Dec 21, Carl McGee, Oklahoma inventor, applied for a patent for his parking meter. He had came up with the 1st coin-operated, single-space, mechanical meter to be used to free up parking spaces in downtown Oklahoma City.
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.B1)(www.ok-history.mus.ok.us/enc/parking.htm)
1934 May 13, A great dustbowl storm occurred. [see Apr 14, 1935]
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1934 Oct 20, Michael Dunn, actor (House of the Damned, Ship of Fools), was born in Shattuck, Ok.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1935 Feb 17, Thirty-one prisoners escaped an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1935 Apr 14, A major sandstorm, dubbed “The Black Blizzard," ravaged the US Midwest. The Black Sunday was the worst day of the almost decade long Dust Bowl era. It ravaged Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 2005 Timothy Egan authored “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl."
(SSFC, 1/8/06, p.M1)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm)(Sm, 3/06, p.111)
1935 Jul 16, The first parking meters were installed, in Oklahoma City. Carlton Magee's automatic meter, the "Park-O-Meter" was installed by the Dual Parking Meter Company in Oklahoma City. The parking meters were divided by 20-foot spaces painted on the pavement and accepted nickels.
(AP, 7/16/97)(HNQ, 8/4/02)
1938 Charles George Werner (d.1997 at 88), cartoonist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his Oklahoman cartoon of the Nobel Peace Prize lying on a grave marked “Czechoslovakia."
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A24)
1940 Mar 25, Anita Bryant, homophobe, singer (George Gobel Show), was born in Barnsdall, Okla.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1941 The town of Berwyn renamed itself Gene Autry after the 34-year-old radio and film star.
(SFEC, 12/20/98, z1 p.5)
1941-1983 Wagon Wheel dinner sets were manufactured of cream-colored clay from Ada, Okla. After 1956 they were made of red clay from Sapulpa, Okla.
(SFC, 7/29/98, Z1 p.23)
1942 Apr 27, Tornado destroyed Pryor, Oklahoma, killing 100 and injuring 300.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1942 Jun 1, The US Supreme Court, in Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, struck down Oklahoma’s Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act.
(WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A18)(http://supreme.justia.com/us/316/535/case.html)
1944 Feb, Denison Dam was completed and formed Lake Texoma, one of the largest reservoirs in the United States. Woodville, Okla., was flooded when the Red River was dammed to form Lake Texoma.
(AP, 11/21/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Texoma)
1947 Apr 9, A series of tornadoes struck Kansas, West Texas and Oklahoma. 181 were killed and some 1,300 injured. The Woodward tornado ranked as the deadliest ever to hit Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/9/08)(AH, 4/07, p.55)
1948 Mar 20 A severe tornado moved through Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City destroying 52 aircraft.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.D8)
1949 R.D. Hull, a Texas watchmaker, invented the spin-cast reel for fishing and got the Zero Hour Bomb Co. in Tulsa to manufacture it. The company soon changed its name to Zebco.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A25)
1950 The first “Yield" sign was installed in Tulsa. Okla. It read “Yield Right-Of-Way. Clinton E. Riggs (d.1997 at 86), Tulsa police officer, developed the sign after a decade of experimentation.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C10)
1951 Aug 11, The Mississippi River flooded some 100,000 acres in Ks, Okla, Mo and Ill.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1954 The Collins Kids of Oklahoma, Lawrencine (1942-2018) and Lawrence (b.1944), began performing as a musical act on "Town Hall Party," hosted by Tex Ritter on KTTV, Los Angeles. Lawrence later co-wrote "Delta Dawn", a 1972 country hit for Tanya Tucker and a 1973 No. 1 pop single for Helen Reddy.
(www.rockabillyhall.com/YouTubeCollinsKids.html)(SFC, 8/10/18, p.D5)
1955 May 25, Series of 19 twisters destroyed Udall, KS., and most of Blackwell, OK.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1956 Feb 7, Garth Brooks, country vocalist (No Fences), was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1959 Apr 7, Oklahoma ended prohibition after 51 years.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1963 Aug 19, NAACP Youth Council began sit-ins at lunch counters in Oklahoma City.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1963 The Oral Roberts Univ. in Tulsa, Okla., founded by Oral Roberts (1918-2009), was chartered.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)
1969 George B. Kaiser took over Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., a small family oil firm founded in the 1940s by his uncle and parents, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who had settled in Oklahoma. Operations at the time were limited to Kansas. By 2004 the firm had over $600 million in revenues from oil and gas production.
(WSJ, 7/23/04, p.A1)
1970 Nov 20, In Oklahoma 3 teenagers in a Chevrolet Camaro failed to return home after a high school football game. In 2013 divers on a training exercize discovered Their skeletal remains in a Camaro in Foss Lake.
(SFC, 9/19/13, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/m9owvbn)
1971-1976 Carl Albert (d.2000 at 91), Oklahoma Democrat, served as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
(WSJ, 2/7/00, p.A1)
1974 Nov 13, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.
(AP, 11/13/07)
1977 The Alfred P. Murrah Building was put up in Federal Plaza in Oklahoma City. It was bombed on April 19, 1995 and 169 people were killed including 19 children and 600 injured.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-8)
1981 May 27, Roger Wheeler, chairman of Telex Corp. and owner of World Jai Alai, was shot execution style at a Tulsa country club. In 2001 2 reputed Boston mobsters, James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, were charged. Jai Alai executive John B. Callahan was murdered in Aug 1982 in Miami. In 2001 hitman John Vincent Martorano (60) pleaded guilty to Wheeler’s murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2003 former FBI agent H. Paul Rico (78) was arrested and charged with murder for helping to setup the hit.
(http://tinyurl.com/38z78q)(SFC, 3/15/01, p.A8)(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D5)(SFC, 10/10/03, p.A3)
1981 Jul 28, In Guatemala Rev. Stanley Rother (b.1935) of Oklahoma was shot twice in the head by three masked men at the parish rectory in Santiago Atitlan. In 2016 the Vatican declared him a martyr. On Sep 23, 2017, Rother was beatified at a Mass in Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 12/3/16, p.A2)(SSFC, 9/24/17 p.A15)
1981 The federal government declared Picher, Oklahoma, a hazardous waste site due to lead contamination and proceeded to buy out about 900 homeowners and businesses. In 2011 every commercial building was destroyed and only a handful of residents remained.
(Reuters, 1/29/11)
1982 Jul 5, Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma went bankrupt as wildcat oil well loans went bad. More than $2 billion in oil and gas participations were held by five major US banks: Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, Chicago, Illinois held $1 billion in those participations. Most of the remaining participations were held by Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, New York; Michigan National Bank, Lansing, Michigan; Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, Washington; and Northern Trust Company, Chicago, Illinois.
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.A4)(www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/managing/Chron/1982/index.html)
1982 Debra Sue Carter (21), a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, was raped and murdered. For five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Williamson was sent to death row. Both were released 12 years later, when DNA evidence proved their innocence. In 2006 novelist John Grisham read Williamson's obituary in The New York Times and made him and Fritz the subject of his first non-fiction book: “The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town." The book became a bestseller.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Williamson)
1984 In Oklahoma John A. Boltz (52) killed his stepson (22) with multiple stabbings. Boltz was executed for the murder in 2006.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)
1985 Jul 3, Three people were shot, clubbed and stabbed during a robbery of an Edmond grocery store. Mark Andrew Fowler (20) and Billy Ray Fox (20) were convicted and executed in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)(SFC, 1/26/01, p.A5)
1985 Dec 14, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
(AP, 12/14/97)
1985 Addie Hawley (84) of Oklahoma City was kidnapped, raped, beaten and set afire. Loyd Winford Lafevers (20) was convicted with another man and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1985 Rhonda Kay Timmons (19) died after she was stabbed 12 times. Robert William Clayton (24), apartment complex groundskeeper, was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1986 Aug 20, Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill (44) went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Okla., shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself. This incident is credited with inspiring the American phrase "going postal".
(WSJ, 8/7/97, p.A12)(AP, 8/20/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Sherrill)
1986 Aug 22, Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood (1946-1974) $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.
(AP, 8/22/97)
1987 Oct 6, In Oklahoma Michael Houghton (27) and Laura Lee Sanders (22) were kidnapped from behind a Tulsa bar, stuffed into a car trunk and taken to a rural area where the car was set afire. Scott Allen Hain was executed for the murders on Apr 3, 2003. Hain was 17 in 1987 and claimed to be under the influence of Robert Lambert.
(SFC, 4/4/03, p.A6)
1987 In Oklahoma City Ernestine Jones (84) was beaten, raped, robed and murdered in her home. Eddie Leroy Trice (35) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1988 Dec 3, Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State University won the Heisman Trophy.
(AP, 12/3/98)
1988 In Oklahoma City the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory, designed by I.M. Pei, was built. The 224-foot long steel and acrylic cylinder stood 7-stories.
(SFCM, 3/20/05, p.30)
1988 Gloria Jean Leathers (29) was shot to death by her roommate in front of a police station. Wanda Jean Allen (29) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1989 Aubrey McClendon (b.1959) and Tom L. Ward co-founded Chesapeake Energy in Oklahoma City. They took the company public in 1993. In 2012 Chesapeake was the second-largest producer of natural gas, a Top 15 oil producer and the most active driller in the United States.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_McClendon)
1990 Jack E. Counts Jr., an Oklahoma City entrepreneur, founded Glamour Shots Licensing. The business was based on the idea of photographing ordinary women in dazzling garb and makeup.
(WSJ, 5/13/96, p.B-1)
1990 Katherine Ann Busch (7) was stabbed to death and thrown into a trash bin, Floyd Allen Medlock (19) was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1991 Apr 26, Twenty-three people were killed as four dozen tornadoes raked Kansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1991 Dec, An Islamic extremist conference was held in Oklahoma City. Terrorism expert Steve Emerson filmed the conference for his documentary, “Jihad in America." The documentary (which has been shown to Congress several times) revealed that during the 1991 OKC conference, WTC attacks were openly discussed and planned by OKC Hamas terrorists being closely monitored by OKC FBI agents including FBI agent Floyd Zimms.
(http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/4765_comment.php)
1991 Michael N. Bates (1952-1996), Wichita correspondent for the Associated press, covered the six-week Wichita abortion protests and the tornado devastation of Andover. While in Oklahoma City, Bates covered the Karen Silkwood trial and the Locust Grove Boy Scout murders.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.B2)
1992 Lois Frederick was killed with a croquet mallet and her body was burned with gasoline. Dion Athanasius, her adopted daughter’s boyfriend, was convicted and scheduled for execution in 2001.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A5)
1993 Francisco Morales and Maria Yanez were killed during a burglary. In 1996 George Ochoa and Osbaldo Torres were convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. In 2004 Gov. Henry commuted the sentence against Torres (29) following a World Court ruling his rights, as well as those of 51 other Mexicans on death row, were violated because they was not told that they could receive help from their government as guaranteed by the 1963 Vienna Convention.
(SFC, 5/14/04, p.A3)
1994 Aug 30, Randolph Dial, a sculptor and painter convicted of a 1981 murder, escaped from the Oklahoma State Reformatory. On the same day Bobbi Parker disappeared from staff housing at the reformatory, where her husband worked. On Apr 4, 2005, she was found living with Randolph Dial on a chicken farm in Texas. In 2011 Bobbi Parker was sentenced to a year in jail for helping Dial escape.
(SFC, 4/6/05, p.A2)(www.amw.com/fugitives/capture.cfm?id=23521)(SFC, 11/8/11, p.A6)
1994 Dr. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, was elected to Congress. He retired in 2001 after 3 terms in the House of Representatives. In 2003 he with John Hart authored "Breach of Trust."
(WSJ, 12/11/03, p.D6)
1995 Feb 25, In Oklahoma store manager Richard Yost was beaten to death with a baseball bat and placed in the freezer of his supermarket in Tulsa. Three men were later executed for the murder and a 4th was convicted to life in prison.
(AFP, 1/10/14)(http://tinyurl.com/qhw3t45)
1995 Apr 19, At 9:02 A.M. Oklahoma City, USA, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people, and injuring 500 including many children in the building’s day care center. Within a week a suspect, Timothy McVeigh, was caught and charged. Two suspects, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, faced trial. McVeigh was arrested during a routine traffic stop 78 miles from Oklahoma City on weapons charges the same day. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were later convicted of charges related to the bombing. Michael Fortier, a key government witness and friend of Nichols and McVeigh, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1998 for failing to warn authorities, lying to the FBI, transporting stolen weapons and conspiring to fence stolen weapons. In 1999 Fortier's sentence was overturned and a more lenient sentence was ordered under manslaughter guidelines. In Oct a new 12-year sentence was issued. McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.
(NPR, 4/19/95)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A2)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A3)(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A7)(AP, 4/19/06)
1995 Apr 21, The FBI arrested former soldier Timothy McVeigh at an Oklahoma jail where he had spent two days on minor traffic and weapons charges; he was charged in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing two days earlier in which over 200 people were killed by a truck bomb that exploded in front of a Federal building.
(AP, 4/21/00)(HN, 4/21/99)
1995 Apr 23, Pres. Clinton declared a national day of mourning for the victims of the Oklahoma City blast.
(AP, 4/23/00)(MC, 4/23/02)
1995 Apr 29, 10 days after the blast, rescue workers in Oklahoma City continued the grim task of searching for bodies and pulling debris from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where 168 people died.
(AP, 4/29/00)
1995 May 5, As rescue workers ended their search for bodies in the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton denounced self-styled anti-government militias, saying, "How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes."
(AP, 5/5/00)
1995 May 10, Terry Nichols was charged in the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 5/10/00)
1995 May 23, The nine-story hulk of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was demolished. That day, James Nichols, whose brother and a friend were charged in the Oklahoma bombing, was released from federal custody.
(AP, 5/23/00)
1995 Aug 10, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with eleven counts in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was later convicted of murder. He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the US Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh (33) stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building. Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to life in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh#Execution)(AP, 8/10/00)
1996 Apr 19, On the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, hundreds of mourners paused for 168 seconds of silence at the site where the federal building once stood.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1996 Dec, Juli Buskin (21) was murdered shortly after her last semester at the Univ. of Oklahoma. Her raped body with a shot in the head was later found near a lake. Police later attempted a DNA dragnet to find her killer.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A3)
1997 Jun 2, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 11 counts in the Apr 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed in June 2001.
(SFC, 6/3/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A4)(AP, 6/2/07)
1997 Aug 14, An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1997 Kelli Cox (20), a student at the Univ. of North Texas, disappeared. She was one of four young women disappeared in Oklahoma and Texas over a four-month period. The others included Tiffany Johnson (19), Jessica Cain (17) and Laura Smither (12). In 2016 William Lewis Reece led police to the graves of Cox and Cain. In 2017 Reece was indicted for the murder of Cox.
(SSFC, 12/17/17, p.A8)
1998 Jan 2, The defense in the Terry Nichols trial rested its case in the penalty phase after calling nine witnesses who pleaded for his life. Nichols had already been convicted of conspiracy, which carried a potential death sentence, and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter involving the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. He was later convicted of state murder charges in Oklahoma, and sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences.
(AP, 1/2/99)(AP, 1/2/08)
1998 Jun 4, In Denver Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison without parole for conspiring in 1995 to bomb the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 25, Thousands came to Oklahoma City for the ground-breaking ceremony of a memorial to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 1, Weekend rain caused severe flooding in central Kansas and Oklahoma. The Whitewater and Walnut Rivers topped a 35-foot levee.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A3)
1999 May 3, Tornadoes hit Oklahoma and Kansas and at least 40 people were killed. As many as 1,500 homes were destroyed. 38 people were killed in Oklahoma and 5 in Kansas. Damages in Oklahoma were later estimated at over $225 million.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 8, Dana Plato (34), a star of TV’s Diff'rent Strokes, died in a suburb of Oklahoma City. Authorities said she succumbed to an overdose of painkillers.
(www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,19982,00.html?fdnews)
1999 Jun 8, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) blocked all the civilian nominations of Pres. Clinton in protest of the "recess appointment" of James Hormel.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec 6, In Oklahoma a boy (13) opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and injured 4 classmates at Fort Gibson Middle School.
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 2, Steven Ray Thacker (29) of Oklahoma was arrested in Tennessee following a 3-state crime spree that left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A5)
2000 Aug 19, In Oilton Kristi Blevins (12) was raped in strangled to death by Robert Rotramel (19), a known juvenile sex offender.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.A7)
2000 Dec 28, In the US recent bad weather was blamed for 41 deaths: including 22 in Texas and 11 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A6)
2001 Jan 11, Wanda Jean Allen (41) was executed for 2 murders. This was the 1st execution of an African American woman since 1954.
(SFC, 1/12/01, p.A6)
2001 Jan 27, A small plane crashed south of Denver and 10 people were killed including passengers associated with the Oklahoma State Univ. basketball team.
(SSFC, 1/28/01, p.A13)
2001 Feb 19, President George W. Bush opened a museum commemorating the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
(AP, 2/19/02)
2001 Apr 12, Tornadoes killed at least 4 people in Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma.
(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 5, C. Wesley Lane, the new district attorney for Oklahoma City, announced that he would prosecute Terry Nichols for murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 10, Tornadoes hit the US plains and caused heavy damage in Oklahoma and Nebraska.
(SFC, 10/11/01, p.C16)
2001 Dec 28, Oklahoma led the US in prisoner executions this year over Texas in with 18 vs. 17.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A9)
2002 May 26, In Oklahoma a barge hit an I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River and 14 people were killed. A 500-600-foot section of the 1,988-foot bridge collapsed after Joe Dedmon, Capt. of the Robert Y. Love tugboat, apparently blacked out.
(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A5)
2002 Oct 26, In eastern Oklahoma Daniel H. Fears, a teenager apparently angered by a neighbor, went on a shooting spree that left two people dead and at least seven injured.
(AP, 10/27/02)(SFC, 10/28/02, p.A4)
2002 Oklahoma banned cockfighting following a referendum. In 2005 state senator Frank Shurden proposed gamecock boxing with cocks wearing foam-filled muffs and protective vests.
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.27)
2003 May 8, In Oklahoma a tornado swept through Oklahoma City and flattened hundreds of homes. At least 104 people were injured.
(SFC, 5/8/03, p.A10)
2003 May 13, A judge ruled that Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols should stand trial in state court on 160 counts of first-degree murder. Nichols was later found guilty on 161 counts; the 161st count was for the fetus of a pregnant victim. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2003 Aug 27, Oklahoma charged Bernie Ebbers (62), ex-CEO of WorldCom, and 6 other former executives with 15 felony violations of state's securities laws. The charges against Ebbers were dropped when the Federal government filed on March 2, 2004 security fraud and conspiracy charges. Ebbers was found guilty of all charges on March 15, 2005. He was sentenced to 25 years in a federal prison in Louisiana, the toughest sentence yet among other recent corporate accounting scandals.
(SFC, 8/28/03, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ebbers#Criminal_charges)
2003 Elizabeth Seay authored "Searching For Lost City," a look at Native Indian languages in Oklahoma.
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.W4)
2003 Oklahoma and Arkansas made an agreement on phosphorus levels. Toxic run-off from poultry houses in Arkansas was entering the Illinois river watershed, which supplied water to eastern Oklahoma. In 2005 Oklahoma filed suit against Arkansas for various violations related to high phosphorus levels.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.30)
2004 Jan 22, Oklahoma Gov. Henry proposed a series of tax cuts to improve the state's economy.
(USAT, 1/23/04, p.12A)
2004 Mar 22, Terry Nichols went on trial for his life in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols was already serving a life sentence for his conviction on federal charges. On May 26 he was found guilty of 161 state murder charges, but was again spared the death penalty when the jury couldn't agree on his sentence.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2004 May 26, A District court jury in McAlester, Oklahoma, convicted Terry Nichols of 161 counts of 1st degree murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Nichols later received 161 consecutive life sentences.
(SFC, 5/27/04, p.A3)(AP, 5/26/05)
2004 Jun 11, Terry Nichols escaped execution as the District court jury in McAlester, Oklahoma, deadlocked in the penalty phase of his trial. He was convicted May 26 on 161 counts of 1st degree murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing.
(WSJ, 6/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, In McAlester, Oklahoma, District Judge Steven Taylor sentenced Terry Nichols to 161 consecutive life sentences for the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked victims of the blast for forgiveness
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Sep 9, It was reported that a munitions plant in Oklahoma had suspended production of “bunker buster" bombs after workers there developed anemia.
(WSJ, 9/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Oklahoma became the first US state to pass a law that made it harder to buy more than small quantities of medicine containing pseudoephedrine, one of the ingredients for the illegal production of methamphetamine. Other states soon followed.
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.40)
2005 Oct 1, In Norman, Oklahoma, Joel Henry Hinrichs (21), a Univ. of Oklahoma student, committed suicide using an explosive attached to his body near the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, where 84,000 people watched a football game.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 27, Grass fires burned in drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma. Over three days, nearly 200 homes were lost and the fires blamed for at least four deaths.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Jan 2, Grass fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas left at least 4 people dead with over 250 structures burned.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes. Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 10, Oil magnate Boone Pickens donated $165 million to Oklahoma State Univ. for the development of new sports facilities. The 100-acre site under consideration in Stillwater faced problems with low-income residents.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=ncf&id=2286807)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 20, Michael Fortier, the government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trials, was released from federal prison after serving more than 10 years for failing to warn authorities about the plot.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Apr 14, In Oklahoma Kevin Ray Underwood (26) was arrested after investigators found the body of Jamie Rose Bolin (10), missing since April 12, in a bedroom closet in his apartment. The girl's unclothed body was inside a large plastic tub. Police said she was killed as part of the neighbor's elaborate plan to eat human flesh. On February 29 2008, a jury found him guilty of first degree murder after deliberating for twenty-three minutes. This quick verdict was attributed to the showing of Underwood's videotaped confession. On Thursday, April 3, 2008, McClain County District Judge Candace Blalock approved a recommended death sentence.
(AP, 4/16/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Ray_Underwood)
2006 May 10, Oklahoma became the last state to make tattoos legal when the governor Brad Henry signed legislation to license and regulate tattoo artists and parlors.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 Jul 18, The Seattle SuperSonics basketball team said a group of Oklahoma businessmen had purchased the club for $350 million. The new ownership group said it plans to keep the team in Seattle, if it can work out a deal for a new arena in the next 12 months. Officials in Seattle said they planned to hold the Sonics to their lease, which expires in 2010.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.33)(http://tinyurl.com/qga3e)
2006 Jul 18, A heat wave in the US left at least 7 people dead including 5 in Oklahoma and 2 in Pennsylvania.
(SFC, 7/19/06, p.A2)
2006 Aug 18, In Bristow, Oklahoma, Donald Thompson (59), a former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials, was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $40,000.
(SFC, 8/19/06, p.A2)
2007 Jan 14, In Oklahoma a minivan carrying 12 people skidded off an icy highway and slammed into an oncoming tractor-trailer, killing seven.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These included 20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New York, 5 in Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in a row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Oklahoma Cherokee Nation members voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Jun 15, In Tulsa, Okla., a crane lifted out a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that had been buried in an underground concrete vault half a century earlier to celebrate 50 years of statehood.
(AP, 6/15/08)
2007 Jun 27, Don Harvey and his wife, Joyce, of Oklahoma won a $105.8 million Powerball lottery. They chose to receive a $33.3 million lump sum after taxes instead of the full amount paid out over 29 years.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Aug 19, Fierce storms from the upper Mississippi to Texas since last week left 22 people dead. Six people died in floodwaters across Oklahoma after heavy rains from the remains of Tropical Storm Erin drenched the state. As much as 9 inches of rain fell across a wide swath of Oklahoma, leaving roadways under 5 feet of water. 8 people were reported dead in Texas and 6 dead in Minnesota.
(Reuters, 8/20/07)(SFC, 8/21/07, p.A6)(AP, 8/22/07)
2007 Aug 22, The death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week rose to at least 26. Three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop in Madison, Wis.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Apr 4, In SF cyclist Tammy Thomas, Univ. of Oklahoma law student, was found guilty of lying to a federal grand jury about her use of banned drugs.
(SFC, 4/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 10, Powerful storms brought hail, heavy rain and possible tornadoes to Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, causing flooding and power outages for thousands of customers and at least one death.
(AP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Oklahoma Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess (56) resigned just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official. On March 24 Burgess was sentenced to 79 years in prison for forcing drug defendants to have sex with him.
(AP, 4/18/08)(SFC, 3/25/09, p.A7)
2008 May 10, A tornado rumbled through Picher, Okla., killing at least 7 people. The same storm system then moved into southwest Missouri, where tornadoes killed at least 15 others. The storms moved eastward and killed at least one person the next day in Georgia.
(AP, 5/11/08)(SFC, 5/12/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 8, In Oklahoma Taylor Placker (13) and Skyla Whitaker (11) were murdered on an unpaved road in Weleetka. On Dec 9, 2011, authorities announced murder charges against Kevin Sweat (25), who was already in custody in connection with the July 17 death of his girlfriend, Ashley Taylor (23).
(SFC, 12/10/11, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/6lne9lz)
2008 Aug 29, In Oklahoma a train slammed into a propane tanker truck triggering an explosion that killed 2 people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 9, In Louisiana Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, shot and killed an Oklahoma woman, who was lured over the Internet to take part in a Ku Klux Klan initiation, after a fight broke out when she asked to be taken back to town. The group tried to cover it up by dumping her body on a rural roadside and setting her belongings aflame. Foster, the local Klan leader was soon in jail on a second-degree murder charge, and seven others were charged with trying to help conceal the crime.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2008 The Seattle SuperSonics basketball team was renamed Thunder following a move to Oklahoma City. Ticket prices rose 34%.
(SSFC, 2/23/14, p.A14)
2009 Jan 12, In El Reno, Oklahoma, a woman and her 4 children, aged 3-7, were found killed. Texas officials the next day arrested the mother’s boyfriend, Joshua Steven Durcho (25).
(SFC, 1/14/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 28, President Barack Obama signed requests from Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe for federal emergency declarations as crews worked around the clock to resurrect power lines downed by thick ice in both states. Since the storm began building on Jan 26, the weather has been blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 10, In Oklahoma an unusual cluster of twisters ripped across the state killing eight people. The eight confirmed deaths included seven people in Lone Grove and a truck driver who was driving through the area.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 May 19, In Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland (57), confronted by two holdup men, pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager. Ersland was soon charged with first-degree murder. District Attorney David Prater later said Ersland was justified in shooting Antwun Parker (16) once in the head, but not in firing the additional shots into his belly.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Oklahoma 9 people died when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped outside Miami, Okla. A 10th person died a few days later.
(SFC, 6/27/09, p.A4)(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Sep 5, A small airplane crashed into a Tulsa, Okla., park killing all 5 people on board.
(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A7)
2009 Dec 15, Oral Roberts (b.1918), preacher, televangelist and founder of the Oral Roberts Univ. in Tulsa, Okla., died in Newport Beach, Ca. The pioneer Oklahoma-based televangelist began broadcasting his revivals by television in 1954.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts)(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.65)
2009 Oklahoma’s legislature passed a bill ordering that a monumental version of the Ten Commandments be placed in the grounds of its state capitol building, but that the state would not pay for it. It was donated by bill sponsor Mike Ritze and erected in Nov, 2012.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2009 Oklahoma’s population stood at about 3.6 million people.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.31)
2010 Jan 29, A US storm that toppled power lines, closed major highways and buried parts of the southern Plains in heavy ice and snow began moving into the South, leaving tens of thousands of people in the dark. Nearly 142,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma were without power.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Apr 27, The Oklahoma Senate voted to override Gov. Brad. Henry’s veto of two abortion bills, one that an abortion-rights group has said would be among the nation’s strictest measures against the procedure. On July 19 Oklahoma County District Judge Noma Gurich granted an injunction blocking enforcement of the abortion law.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A6)(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A4)
2010 May 10, Several tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas. 5 people were killed and dozens more injured. Flattened homes, toppled semitrailers and downed power lines were left behind.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 Jun 14, Floodwaters inundated parts of Oklahoma City following 10 inches of rain.
(SFC, 6/15/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Hermine swept north through Texas and into Oklahoma swamping city neighborhoods and killing 6 people, 5 in Texas and 1 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A7)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 2, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would forbid judges from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. The "Save Our State Amendment" was approved by 70 percent of state voters. A federal judge in Oklahoma City issued a court order in November 2010 barring the measure from taking effect. On Jan 10, 2012, a federal appeals court upheld an injunction against the voter-approved ban on Islamic law in Oklahoma, saying it likely violated the US Constitution by discriminating against religion.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/10/12)
2010 Nov 2, Iowa (Terry Branstad), Kansas (Sam Brownback), Maine (Paul LePage), Michigan (Rick Snyder), New Mexico (Susana Martinez), Ohio (John Kasich), Oklahoma (Mary Fallin), Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett), Tennessee (Bill Haslam), Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Wyoming (Matt Mead) all replaced the Democratic governors with Republicans. Snyder (R) defeated Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) by bragging about his managerial skills.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.45)
2010 Dec 16, Oklahoma executed John David Duty (58) using a drug combination that included the sedative pentobarbital, commonly used to euthanize animals. Duty had strangled a cellmate nearly a decade ago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2011 Feb 9, A second powerful blizzard in a week roared through parts of the US midsection, bringing biting winds and dumping more than a foot of snow on areas still digging out from last week's major storm. Up to 2 feet of snow fell on parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 2/9/11)(SFC, 2/10/11, p.A5)
2011 Apr 14, Storms began late in the day in Oklahoma, where at least 5 tornadoes touched down and two people were killed. The system then pushed into Arkansas, killing 7 more.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 16, Vicious storms and howling winds smacked the deep South, killing at least 7 people in Alabama including three family members whose homes were tossed into nearby woods. Combined with earlier reported fatalities in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the confirmed death toll over 3 days rose to 16.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 17, A furious storm system that kicked up tornadoes, flash floods and hail as big as softballs has left at least 45 people dead on a rampage that stretched for days as it barreled from Oklahoma to North Carolina and Virginia. 11 people were confirmed dead in Bertie County, NC, bringing the state's death toll to at least 18 people. Authorities have said 7 died in Arkansas; 7 in Alabama; 2 in Oklahoma; one in Mississippi and at least 5 in Virginia.
(AP, 4/17/11)(AP, 4/18/11)
2011 Apr 20, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a pair of bills intended to further restrict abortion in her state.
(SFC, 4/21/11, p.A6)
2011 May 3, Oklahoma City reported a record drought, the longest there since record keeping began in 1908.
(SFC, 5/4/11, p.A6)
2011 May 25, A violent storm system powering through a wide swath of the Midwest and South spawned tornadoes and powerful winds that turned homes into splintered wreckage and cars into crumpled shells. At least 8 people were killed in Oklahoma, 2 in Kansas and 3 in Arkansas.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 25, The death toll from the May 22 tornado that savaged Joplin, Missouri, rose to 125. A violent storm system across a wide swath of the Midwest and South spawned tornadoes and powerful winds. 9 people were killed in Oklahoma, 2 in Kansas and 4 in Arkansas.
(Reuters, 5/25/11)
2011 Jun 26, In Oklahoma the Cherokee Nation election officials declared Bill John Baker as its new leader. He unseated 3-term incumbent Chad Smith by 11 of 15,000 votes.
(SFC, 6/27/11, p.A4)
2011 Aug 22, The Cherokee nation, the USA’s second-largest Indian tribe, formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners.
(Reuters, 8/23/11)
2011 Nov 5, In Oklahoma a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit the state with the epicenter located 44 miles east of Oklahoma City. It was felt as far away as Wisconsin and South Carolina, but there were no serious injuries. The largest earthquake previously recorded in Oklahoma was a 5.5-magnitude tremor in 1952. In 2013 geologists said the Oklahoma quake and other seismic activity in the central US was linked to the disposal of wastewater from fracking operations for oil extraction.
(Reuters, 11/6/11)(SFC, 3/27/13, p.D3)
2012 Jan 5, In Oklahoma Gary Roland Welch was executed by lethal injection for killing a man during a knife fight nearly two decades ago.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A6)
2012 Mar 6, Ten US states voted in the Super Tuesday Republican primaries. Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney edged out conservative rival Rick Santorum in the vital battleground of Ohio and won five of the night's other contests. Romney also notched victories in Alaska, Idaho, Vermont, Virginia and his home-state of Massachusetts, while Santorum won North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and Newt Gingrich carried his home state of Georgia.
(SFC, 3/7/12, p.A6)(Econ, 3/10/12, p.18)
2012 Apr 6, In Oklahoma a series of early-morning shootings left three people killed and two others critically wounded within a three-mile span of north Tulsa. On April 8 police arrested two white men, Jake England (19) and Alvin Watts (32) in connection with the shootings. Both men soon confessed to the shootings. On April 13 they were charged with first degree murder.
(AP, 4/7/12)(AP, 4/8/12)(SFC, 4/10/12, p.A6)(SFC, 4/14/12, p.A5)
2012 Apr 15, In the area of Woodward, Oklahoma, tornadoes killed at least 5 people and left at least 29 injured. At least 8,000 were without power in the region. About 75 tornadoes touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska.
(AP, 4/14/12)(SFC, 4/17/12, p.A6)
2012 Jun 24, In Oklahoma two freight trains collided near Goodwell and 3 crew members were missing.
(SFC, 6/25/12, p.A5)
2012 Sep 8, In Oklahoma fierce overnight thunderstorms carried a mobile home into a creek killing 3 people. A truck driver was killed when wind flipped his semi onto a concrete barrier.
(SSFC, 9/9/12, p.A10)
2012 Nov 6, Oklahoma voters approved a measure that wipes out all affirmative action programs in state government hiring, education and contracting practices.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A10)
2012 Nov 6, Oklahoma executed Garry Thomas Allen (56) for the 1986 killing of his fiancee, despite claims that he was insane.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A5)
2012 Dec 14, Oklahoma police arrested Sammie Eaglebear Chavez (18) on charges that he had plotted to shoot students at Bartlesville High School.
(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.A12)
2013 Jan 7, In Oklahoma 4 young women were found shot to death in a Tulsa apartment.
(SFC, 1/8/13, p.A5)
2013 Feb 22, In Oklahoma City a medical helicopter crashed outside a nursing home killing 2 people onboard and injuring a third.
(SFC, 2/23/13, p.A4)
2013 May 19, More than two dozen tornadoes were spotted in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois. A half-mile wide twister struck near Oklahoma City and at least one person was killed.
(Reuters, 5/20/13)
2013 May 20, In Oklahoma a mile-wide category 5 tornado with winds of up to 200 mph touched down in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. 7 children were among the 24 people killed. Early estimated of damages ranged from $1.5-2 billion. In 2017 the Oklahoma City reached a settlement with the families of the seven children for $14,000 each to settle a lawsuit arising from construction of a Plaza Towers classroom addition where the children were killed.
(AP, 5/21/13)(SFC, 5/22/13, p.A6)(Reuters, 5/26/13)(Econ, 5/25/13, p.30)(SFC, 6/14/17, p.A5)
2013 May 31, A 2.6-mile wide tornado hit Oklahoma City and its suburbs with winds nearly 300 mph. Storms and flash floods left 14 people dead. They included storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son and another member of their team. 6 people remained missing.
(SFC, 6/1/13, p.A10)(AP, 6/1/13)(SFC, 6/4/13, p.A4)(SFC, 6/5/13, p.A6)(Econ, 6/15/13, p.90)
2013 Aug 9, Christopher Lane (22) of Melbourne, Australia, was shot once in the back as he was jogging in Duncan, Okla. He died before paramedics arrived. On Aug 20 prosecutors charged two boys, Chancey Allen Luna (16) and James Francis Edwards Jr. (15), with first-degree murder. A third boy, Michael Dewayne Jones (17), was charged as an accessory to first-degree murder after the fact. The boys said they were bored and decided to shoot someone.
(Yahoo, 8/21/13)(AP, 2/4/14)
2013 Aug, The Oklahoma chapter of the ACLU sued Oklahoma for violating a section of state law forbidding the use of public property to support any system of religion.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Sep 17, The Oklahoma governor’s office confirmed that Gov. Mary Fallin has ordered the national Guard to stop processing requests for military benefits for same-sex couples. State voters had approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 that prohibited giving benefits of marriage to gay couples.
(SFC, 9/18/13, p.A7)
2013 Oct 12, In Oklahoma 5 people were shot at a Hmong New year’s festival in Tulsa. Meng Lee (19) and Boonmlee (21) fled the scene, but were arrested the next day.
(SFC, 10/13/12, p.A4)
2013 Nov 23, In Oklahoma 4 people were slain and a 5th wounded after being shot at a residence in Tulsa. Police said the home was the scene of several drug arrests.
(SFC, 11/25/13, p.A5)
2013 Nov 24, US media reported that a major winter storm that has dumped freezing rain and snow in the US southwest has killed at least 13 people in Arizona (1), California (3), Oklahoma (4), New Mexico (1) and Texas (4).
(AFP, 11/245/13)
2013 Dec 2, The Satanic Temple, a New York-based group, launched a campaign to donate a monument to stand next to Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma City.
(Econ, 12/14/13, p.41)
2013 Dec 28, In Oklahoma Harry Carl Mapps (59) was arrested in a motel in Roland. He was suspected of killing 3 people and setting fire to a home in Colorado on Nov 27.
(SFC, 12/30/13, p.A6)
2014 Jan 9, In Oklahoma an African American man was put to death for murdering a store manager with a baseball bat. This was the second US execution of 2014. Michael Lee Wilson (38) was the third man put to death for the murder of Richard Yost, beaten with a baseball bat and found in the freezer of his supermarket in Tulsa in February 1995.
(AFP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 14, A US federal judge struck down Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage. He immediately stayed the ruling pending appeals.
(SFC, 1/15/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 22, TransCanada began delivering oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, to customers in Nederland, Texas, through the southern portion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
(SFC, 1/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 27, A broad tornado killed at least 15 when it sliced through Arkansas at the start of the US tornado season. Two more people were killed died in Iowa and Oklahoma.
(Reuters, 4/28/14)(Reuters, 4/29/14)
2014 Apr 29, Oklahoma halted a double execution after Clayton Lockett (38) appeared to twitch and gag after being declared unconscious. Vein failure was cited. Locket, convicted of shooting a woman in 1999 and having buried her alive, soon died of a heart attack. The execution of Charles Warner (46) was stayed for 14 days. He had been convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-month-old girl in 1997.
(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A9)
2014 May 16, Clyde Snow (b.1928), American forensic anthropologist, died in Norman, Ok. His work took him around the world to examine the slaughter of innocents.
(Econ, 5/24/14, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Snow)
2014 Jun 16, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer Jerrod Martin shot and killed Joshua Stand following a call about a man walking in the street with a weapon. In 2017 Stands estate settled a civil rights lawsuit for $175,000. Court records said Stand had a closed pocket knife and posed no immediate threat to anyone.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd4jx56w)(SFC, 10/25/17, p.A5)
2014 Jul 18, A US federal appeals court ruled that Oklahoma must allow gay couples to wed, prompting an angry respnse from state leaders.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.A5)
2014 Aug 5, In Oklahoma Tulsa police officers Shannon Kepler (54) and Gina Kepler (48) who are married, were arrested in the fatal shooting of Jeremey Lake (19) who was walking with their daughter, Lisa Kepler (18). Lisa said the next day that her parents had kicked her out of their home a week ago, and she said was living with Lake at the time of the shooting. On July 7, 2017, a third mistrial was declared in the murder case against officer Shannon Kepler. In Oct, 2017, a judge ordered a 4th murder trial. On Oct. 19, 2017, a jury convicted Shannon Kepler of first-degree manslaughter.
(AP, 8/6/14)(SFC, 7/8/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/3/17, p.A4)(SFC, 10/20/17, p.A14)
2014 Aug 13, Former Oklahoma doctor William Valuck (71) pleaded guilty to 8 counts of 2nd-degree murder in connection with the drug overdose deaths of several patients. The plea deal called for eight years in prison.
(SFC, 8/14/14, p.A7)
2014 Aug 21, Oklahoma police officer Daniel Ken Holtzclaw (27) was arrested on complaints of sexually assaulting at least six women during traffic stops.
(SFC, 8/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Aug 25, In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a man (35) fatally shot his estranged wife (22), their 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son before shooting himself. The victims were all from Guatemala.
(AP, 8/26/14)
2014 Sep 15, Oklahoma state trooper Eric Roberts (42) was arrested on complaints of kidnapping, rape and othercrimes after three women alleged the officer sexually assaulted them while he was on duty.
(SFC, 9/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 25, In Oklahoma Alton Nolen (30), just fired from work, severed the head of Colleen Hufford (54) and attacked another worker at a Vaughan Foods processing plant in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, before he was shot and wounded.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A6)
2014 Sep 26, In Oklahoma 4 women’s softball players from North Texas Central College were killed when an 18-wheel truck crashed into the side of their team bus.
(SSFC, 9/28/14, p.A15)
2014 Oct 6, The US Supreme Court denied review of cases in five states that had limited marriage to opposite sex couples. This in effect granted equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 10/7/14, p.A1)
2014 Nov 4, The Oklahoma Supreme Court put on hold a state law restricting abortions while the issue is argued in a lower court. The law had gone into effect on Nov 1.
(SFC, 11/5/14, p.A7)
2015 Jan 15, Oklahoma executed Charles Frederick Warner for raping and killing an 11-month-old girl. An autopsy later revealed that the wrong drug was used to stop the inmate’s heart. Corrections officials used potassium acetate, not potassium chloride, as required under state protocol.
(http://tinyurl.com/p9lhow9)(SFC, 10/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 9, Univ. of Oklahoma Pres. David Boren severed the school’s ties with national fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon and ordered its on campus house to be shuttered after several members took part in a racist chant caught in an online video. Two students were expelled the following day.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.A6)(SFC, 3/11/15, p.A7)
2015 Apr 2, In Oklahoma Eric Courtney Harris, a black man, died after being shot by Robert Charles Bates (73), a white deputy, after selling drugs to an undercover officer in Tulsa County. The reserve deputy in an apparent error used a gun instead of an intended Taser.
(SFC, 4/13/15, p.A5)
2015 May 7, Residents of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and northern Texas cleaned up after overnight storms spawned 51 tornadoes that left at least one person dead.
(SFC, 5/8/15, p.A8)
2015 May 24, In Texas a five-year drought came to a dramatic end, as a straight month of rain built into a torrent that destroyed more than 1,000 homes. At least 21 people were killed, including 5 in Houston, as spectacular flash flooding hit Texas and Oklahoma.
(AFP, 5/25/15)(Reuters, 5/27/15)(SFC, 5/28/15, p.A5)
2015 Jun 18, In Oklahoma Tropical Depression Bill pelted the state with heavy rains that swept a two-year-old toddler away overnight in flood waters and triggered a rockslide that piled boulders on a major highway.
(Reuters, 6/18/15)
2015 Jul 23, Oklahoma police found 5 members of the Bever family either dead or dying and a girl (13) stabbed but alive near the front door of a home in Broken Arrow. Brothers Michael (16) and Robert Bever (18) were taken into custody. Both faced trial as adults.
(SFC, 7/24/15, p.A11)(SFC, 7/25/15, p.A4)(SFC, 10/13/15, p.A6)
2015 Aug 3, Oklahoma regulators imposed new restrictions on energy companies injecting wastewater underground, in the latest effort to stem a sharp increase in earthquakes.
(Reuters, 8/4/15)
2015 Sep 13, In Oklahoma violence erupted at the for-profit Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing. 3 inmates were stabbed to death. A 4th died overnight.
(SFC, 9/14/15, p.A5)
2015 Sep 18, The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), which regulates the state's oil and gas industry, ordered companies to shut or reduce usage of five saltwater disposal wells around the north-central Oklahoma city of Cushing. Days later an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 struck near the crude oil hub of Cushing.
(Reuters, 11/19/15)
2015 Sep 29, In Oklahoma a panel that oversees artwork at the statehouse voted 7-1 to authorize the removal of a granite monument depicting the Ten Commandments after the state’s highest court ruled that it violated the state constitution.
(SFC, 9/30/15, p.A7)
2015 Oct 2, Oklahoma’s highest criminal court agreed to halt all executions after the state’s prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week.
(SFC, 10/3/15, p.A6)
2015 Oct 24, In Oklahoma 4 people were killed and dozens more injured after Adacia Avery Chambers (25), suspected of driving under the influence, crashed into a crowd attending an Oklahoma State University homecoming parade in Stillwater.
(AP, 10/2515)(AFP, 10/2515)
2015 Nov 5, In Oklahoma some 1,000 barrels of crude oil spilled from a rural pipeline owned by magellan Midstream Partners.
(SFC, 11/7/15, p.A5)
2015 Nov 19, A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck northern Oklahoma.
(Reuters, 11/19/15)
2015 Nov 30, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency after storms over the weekend caused floods, coated roads with ice and left about 60,000 customers without power.
(Reuters, 11/30/15)
2015 Dec 16, In Oklahoma a man began firing randomly from a pickup truck and killed 2 people on I-40. A suspect was arrested the next day following a 25-mile chase.
(SFC, 12/18/15, p.A9)
2016 Jan 21, Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison for preying on women in 2013 and 2014.
(SFC, 1/22/16, p.A10)
2016 Mar 2, In Oklahoma City Aubrey McClendon (56), co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and a part-owner of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, drove his SUV into a wall a day after he was indicted for conspiring to rig bids to buy oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma.
(SFC, 3/3/16, p.C2)(Econ, 3/5/16, p.58)
2016 Mar 7, US regulators asked oil and gas producers in central Oklahoma to restrict wastewater disposal operations to help curb a spike in the number and severity of earthquakes.
(SFC, 3/8/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 7, Matthew Lane Durham (21), a former missionary from Edmond, Okla., was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after being convicted of sexually abusing children at an orphanage in Kenya in 2014.
(SFC, 3/8/16, p.A7)
2016 Mar 22, In Oklahoma a wildfire began and spread to Kansas. By Easter it covered 620 square miles making it the biggest wildfire in Kansas history.
(SFC, 3/28/16, p.A4)
2016 Apr 6, Kansas and Oklahoma authorities said wildfires this week have burned through thousands of acres, scorched numerous structures and prompted hundreds of people to evacuate their homes ahead of the blazes.
(Reuters, 4/6/16)
2016 May 12, In Oklahoma the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Tulsa after taking off from Arizona on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
(SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016 Aug 12, In Oklahoma Stanley Vernon Majors (61) gunned down his Lebanese neighbor Khalid Jabara (37) outside his Tulsa home after bombarding him with racial insults in a feud that had lasted several years. On Feb. 20, 2018, Majors was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(http://tinyurl.com/y7hmneoc)(SFC, 2/21/18, p.A6)
2016 Sep 3, In Oklahoma a 5.6 earthquake, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the state, rattled the area northwest of Pawnee, fueling growing concern about seismic activity linked to energy production.
(Reuters, 9/3/16)(SSFC, 9/4/16, p.A8)
2016 Sep 16, Oklahoma police Officer Betty Shelby shot a black man who ignored repeated requests to put up his hands before reaching into an SUV that was stalled in the middle of a street in Tulsa. Terence Crutcher (40) died at a hospital following the shooting. Police dash cam video showed Crutcher with his hands up and no weapon was found at the scene.
(SSFC, 9/19/16, p.A11)(SFC, 919/16, p.A5)(SFC, 9/20/16, p.A10)
2016 Sep 22, In Oklahoma Tulsa prosecutors charged police Officer Betty Shelby with first-degree manslaughter in the Sep 16 shooting of Terence Crutcher. On May 17, 2017, a jury acquitted Shelby of first-degree murder.
(SFC, 9/23/16, p.A8)(SFC, 5/19/17, p.A7)
2016 Oct 4, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court threw out another state law that would put new restrictions on abortion providers.
(SFC, 10/5/16, p.A5)
2016 Oct 23, In Oklahoma Michael Vance (38) shot two police officers, stole a patrol car, carjacked another car and then killed his aunt and uncle in Luther. On Oct 30 Vance was shot and killed in a gunbattle with state troopers near Leedey.
(SFC, 10/25/16, p.A6)(SFC, 11/1/16, p.A10)
2016 Oct 24, A leak prompted the Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC to shut one of the largest pipeline systems feeding crude from the US oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma to Gulf coast refineries. Enterprise said much of it was contained in a retention pond at Enbridge's facility.
(Reuters, 10/24/16)
2016 Nov 6, In central Oklahoma a 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Cushing. The state recorded 19 earthquakes in the past week. Scientists have linked the sharp increase to the underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas production.
(SFC, 11/7/16, p.A5)
2016 Nov 8, California, Nebraska and Oklahoma voted to reinstate or otherwise support the death penalty. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts had poured some $400,000 of his family’s money to finance the death penalty referendum.
(SFC, 11/10/16, p.A7)(AFP, 11/12/16)(Econ, 11/19/16, p.24)
2017 Jan 18, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said he would honor the Congressional intent and timetables of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard.
(Reuters, 1/18/17)
2017 Jan 29, An American Airlines flight arrived in Miami from Bogota, Colombia. It was flagged for maintenance and sent to Tulsa where seven bricks of cocaine were found in the nose gear.
(SFC, 1/31/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 17, The US Senate approved former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, has been an ardent critic of the agency for years.
(SFC, 2/18/17, p.A7)
2017 Feb 22, More than 6,000 e-mails were made public that showed close ties between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the EPA, with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups tied to the Koch brothers and their efforts to roll back environmental regulations during Pruitt’s tenure as attorney general of Oklahoma.
(SFC, 2/23/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 8, Wildfires in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas left 6 people dead along with some 2,500 adult cattle and 1,000 calves.
(SFC, 3/9/17, p.A7)
2017 Mar 29, In Oklahoma and Texas six people were killed and nearly 200,000 customers were without electric power after overnight storms brought tornadoes, torrential rain and hail to large parts of the states.
(Reuters, 3/29/17)(SFC, 3/30/17, p.A12)
2017 Apr 1, Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b.1932) died in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1961 he gained international acclaim with the poem “Babi Yar," that told of the Nazi slaughter of almost 34,000 Jews and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.
(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.C11)(Econ, 4/22/17, p.82)
2017 Apr 20, The Cherokee Nation sued distributors and retailers of opioid medications for contributing to an epidemic of opioid abuse in the 14 Oklahoma counties that comprise the Cherokee Nation.
(SFC, 4/21/17, p.A5)
2017 May 16, In the central US storms that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes spawned 29 twisters that killed two people in Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)
2017 Jul 6, Federal prosecutors said Oklahoma-based craft store chain Hobby Lobby has agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi religious artifacts smuggled from the Middle East.
(SFC, 7/7/17, p.A7)
2017 Jul 9, In Oklahoma hundreds of prisoners began rioting late today at the federal Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton. Authorities gained control the next morning after about eight hours.
(SFC, 7/11/17, p.A7)
2017 Aug 12, US federal officials arrested Jerry Drake Varnell (23) of Sayre, Okla., in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in an alley adjacent to BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A5)
2017 Sep 17, In Oklahoma five teenagers in a pickup were killed when they crashed and plummeted 35 feet into a creek near Tahlequah.
(SFC, 9/19/17 p.A5)
2017 Oct 21, In Chandler, Oklahoma, a crossbow arrow, fired by a 13-year-old, entered the left side of Austin Almanza (10) in the area of his lower torso, kept traveling and stuck in the arm of Austin's brother, Ayden(8). Austin was pronounced dead at the scene. In 2018 prosecutors charged the 13-year-old with first-degree murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/y79xszmj)(SFC, 1/20/18, p.A6)
2017 Nov 15, In Oklahoma City Dustin Pigeon (29) was shot and killed by police. Pigeon had doused himself in lighter fluid and threatened to set himself on fire in a courtyard. In 2019 police Sgt. Keith Sweeney was sentenced to 10 years in prison, more than a month after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder in the shooting death of the unarmed, suicidal man.
(AP, 12/19/19)
2017 Nov 20, In Oklahoma Tulsa police officer Shannon Kepler (54) was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2014 slaying of Jeremey Lake (19), his daughter’s black boyfriend.
(SFC, 11/21/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 22, A US federal lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma City on behalf of 15 girls who say they were molested by Arnold Cohen (86), a Perry school district teacher’s aide.
(SFC, 12/26/17, p.A4)
2018 Jan 22, In Oklahoma a natural gas rig exploded killing five workers nerar Quinton. Three companies were later fined a total of $118,000 for exposing employees to fire and explosion hazards. The families of the workers later filed wrongful-death lawsuits.
(SFC, 8/3/18, p.A6)
2018 Mar 14, Oklahoma officials said they plan to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates once the state resumes using the death penalty, after trying unsuccessfully for months to obtain lethal injection drugs.
(SFC, 3/15/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 2, Thousands of Oklahoma teachers walked out of classrooms in a campaign for higher pay. State Gov. Mary Fallin signed legislation last week granting teachers pay raises of 15-18 percent, but some educators said that wasn't good enough.
(SFC, 4/3/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 10, Oklahoma's two largest school districts cancelled classes for the seventh consecutive school day extending the second week of a statewide teacher walkout.
(SFC, 4/10/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 13, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency in 55 of the state's 77 counties following wildfires that have forced the evacuation of some 1,400 people in three towns.
(SFC, 4/13/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 16, Oklahoma officials said wildfires have killed two people and burned over 625 square miles in the western part of the state.
(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A5)
2018 May 11, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill that provides legal protections to faith-based agencies that won't place children in LGBT homes because of religious or moral convictions or policies.
(SFC, 5/12/18, p.A5)
2018 May 24, In Oklahoma City Alexander Tilghman (28) wounded a woman and two girls in a restaurant before he was shot dead by two armed citizens.
(SFC, 5/26/18, p.A6)
2018 Aug 4, In Oklahoma a small plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Ponca City Regional Airport. All five people on board were killed.
(SSFC, 8/5/18, p.A9)
2018 Nov 15, Roy Clark, US country music star, died in Oklahoma. He headlined the TV show "Hee Haw" for nearly a quarter century.
(SFC, 11/16/18, p.A7)
2018 Dec 21, US Federal prosecutors said that Hongjin Tan (35), a Chinese national employed by an Oklahoma petroleum company, has been charged with stealing trade secrets from his unnamed US-based employer that operates a research facility in the Tulsa area.
(AP, 12/22/18)
2019 Jan 3, In Oklahoma and Texas car crashes in a winter storm left four people dead over the last 24 hours.
(SFC, 1/4/19, p.A4)
2019 Jan 4, In Texas Jenna Scott and her friend Michael Swearingin disappeared. Their bodies were later found in a shallow grave in Clearview, Oklahoma. Cedric Marks (44) was arrested this month in Michigan on a burglary charged related to Scott's house in Temple, Texas.
(http://tinyurl.com/y7986eun)(SFC, 2/4/19, p.A4)
2019 Feb 21, It was reported that 50 million gallons of toxic water is being discharged daily from contaminated mining sites into streams and ponds without being treated in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Montana and at least five other states.
(SFC, 2/21/19, p.A8)
2019 May 21, In Missouri two deaths were reported following a string of more than 30 tornadoes that damaged homes in Oklahoma before storms moved to the northeast.
(SFC, 5/22/19, p.A6)
2019 May 25, In Oklahoma a tornado touched down in El Reno and tore through the Skyview Estates mobile home park leaving two people dead.
(SFC, 5/27/19, p.A4)
2019 May 26, Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva agreed to pay the US state of Oklahoma $85 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of fueling the state's opioid epidemic.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 Aug 1, The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the rape and sexual assault convictions and 263-year prison sentence of former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw (32), whose case has been watched closely by the Black Lives Matter movement and some conservatives.
(AP, 8/1/19)
2019 Aug 26, An Oklahoma judge ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572.1 million to the state for its part in fueling an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers, a sum that was substantially less than investors had expected, driving up J&J's shares.
(Reuters, 8/26/19)
2019 Aug 30, In suburban Oklahoma City two men and a woman were found dead inside a home in what was being investigated as an apparent murder-suicide.
(AP, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 9, Oklahoma City police officers shot and killed a man after he fled a home where a woman was fatally shot. Police said the man led them on a chase and pointed a gun at them.
(AP, 9/10/19)
2019 Sep 14, In Oklahoma fights broke out at the Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center in Vinita. The next day more fights broke out at prisons in Hominy, Sayre, Fort Supply, Lawton and Stringtown. One inmate was left dead and more than a dozen injured.
(AP, 9/16/19)
2019 Sep 15, Oklahoma City police fatally shot Brian Dryer (28) early today after he ran toward them with a knife.
(AP, 9/16/19)
2019 Oct 3, In Oklahoma Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj (35) of Saudi Arabia was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to not disclosing he had attended an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before entering the US. He has lived in Oklahoma since 2012.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 21, Overnight storms spawned tornadoes in several US states, killing at least four people in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 10/22/19)
2019 Nov 1, The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole board commuted the sentences of more than 450 inmates. House Bill 1269, which just took effect after it was passed in May by the state legislature, was designed to limit prison time for low-level drug and property crime offenders. They were scheduled to be released on Nov. 4.
(ABC News, 11/1/19)
2019 Nov 10, An Oklahoma police chief was found dead in a Florida hotel late today and local authorities soon arrested one of his officers in connection with his death. Mannford's police chief, Lucky Miller (44), was pronounced dead at a Hilton hotel in Pensacola Beach. Officer Michael Nealey, was booked into the Escambia County Jail the next day and charged with homicide. The two had been staying in Pensacola Beach for a conference.
(SFC, 11/12/19, p.A6)
2019 Nov 18, In Oklahoma the Pottawatomie County jury convicted Byron James Shepard (38) for the 2017 killing of Officer Justin Terney, who was shot during a traffic stop. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.
(AP, 11/19/19)
2019 Nov 21, In Oklahoma two US airmen were killed at Vance Air Force Base during a routine training mission in Enid.
(SFC, 11/22/19, p.A8)
2019 Dec 16, Bullets were fired into an Oklahoma City home early today, killing a 2-year-old girl and wounding her grandmother as the two were sleeping in bed.
(AP, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 31, Three of the most powerful tribes in Oklahoma filed a federal lawsuit against state Gov. Kevin Stitt, asking the court to help resolve a dispute over gambling at tribal casinos. Stitt contends the gaming compacts expire on Jan. 1 and that casino gambling after that date will be illegal. Stitt has signaled he wants to renegotiate the compacts to give the state a larger slice of revenue.
(AP, 12/31/19)
2020 Jan 11, Severe storms sweeping across southern portions of the US and up into the Midwest were blamed in the deaths of at least 11 people, including two first responders, as high winds, tornadoes and unrelenting rain battered large swaths of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power from Texas to Ohio, parts of highways were closed in Oklahoma and Arkansas due to flooding and hundreds of flights were canceled at Chicago's international airports.
(AP, 1/11/20)
2020 Jan 13, Deionna Young (26), a former manager at an Oklahoma Arby's restaurant, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two decades in prison. She was charged with fatally shooting a customer who she said spit on her.
(AP, 1/15/20)
2020 Jan 23, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt banned sate-funded travel to California in response to a similar 2018 ban by California after Oklahoma passed a law that allowed adoption agencies to deny placement services to same-sex parents.
(SFC, 1/24/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 3, In Oklahoma City a truck slammed into members of the Moore High School cross-country team. One student was killed and another died the following day. Authorities said the truck was driven by man whose son was killed in a traffic crash over the weekend. Max Leroy Townsend (57) was being held in the Cleveland County jail on charges of first-degree manslaughter and six counts of failure to stop and render aid. A third student died on Feb 15.
(AP, 2/4/20)(SFC, 2/17/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 13, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said the state would resume Death Row executions using a three-drug lethal injection protocol.
(SFC, 2/14/20, p.A6)
2020 Mar 20, It was reported that Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock before the markets plunged. Three other senators — Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California; James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma; and Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia — also sold major holdings, according to disclosure records.
(NY Times, 3/20/20)
2020 Mar 23, In Oklahoma Jerry Drake Varnell (26) was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of trying to blow up an Oklahoma City bank in August 2017 with a massive vehicle bomb. The FBI had learned of Varnell's plan and an undercover agent posed as someone who could help construct the bomb, but instead provided inert materials.
(AP, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 28, Former US Sen. Tom Coburn (72), died. The Oklahoma family doctor had earned a reputation as a conservative political maverick as he railed against federal earmarks and subsidies for the rich. Coburn had been diagnosed years earlier with prostate cancer.
(AP, 3/28/20)
2020 Apr 1, In Oklahoma three people were killed and one was wounded early today in a shooting at a convenience store in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
(AP, 4/1/20)
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Subject = Oklahoma
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