Page 57 - 2000

Supplied by AP

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" celebrated
5 its 25th anniversary with a live broadcast
in September. Current and former cast
: members joined host Bill Murray on stage
for the three-hour special. The program
included a moving tribute to John Belushi,
Gilda Radner, Phil Hartman and Chris
Farley, the "not-ready-for-primetime"
players who have died since SN L first
aired in 1975.
French explorer Bernard Buigues led an international
expedition into a remote area of Siberia in October to
excavate a 23,000-year-old woolly mammoth, its body
remarkably preserved in the permafrost. Named "Jarkov"
for the nomadic family that discovered it, the ancient
mammoth was airlifted to special cold-storage caverns.
There, scientists began studying the creature and the soil - A man spouting
around it for clues about the environment and what might anti-Baptist rhetoric burst into the
have caused the species to become extinct.
Wedgwood Baptist Church in Forth W orth,
Texas, and opened fire, killing seven people
before sitting in a pew and turning the gun
on himself. Seven others were wounded,
Francis Latreille/AP three of them seriously, in the shooting
Kathy W illens/A P
rampage, which happened during a service
for teenagers. More than 150 people were
The sensational W illia m s Daniel Hulshizer/AP
in attendance. The shooting was one of
sisters took professional
several that occurred during the year, an
women's tennis to new
heights in 1999 with Venus, ominous trend that sparked a nationwide
19, and Serena, 1 8, debate on gun control.
finishing ranked No. 3 and
No. 4 respectively. At the — Federal health
F U.S. Open in September, experts announced that the deaths of three
Serena won the singles
people in New York City, originally
championship and then
tf attributed to mosquito-borne St. Louis
teamed with Venus the
encephalitis, were actually caused by a rare
following day to ace the
Hurricane Floyd brought deadly flood bird virus, not previously seen in the
doubles title.
waters to North Carolina in September,
Western Hemisphere. Officials said the
killing more than 50 people and causing
fatalities, in addition to more than 100
in excess of $5 billion in damage. Towns
cases of illness, had been reclassified and
in 61 counties were inundated by flooding
were now being linked to a virus called the
in what was deemed the worst disaster in
West Nile fever-like virus. Since the virus
the state's history. Floyd was part of one of
the worst hurricane seasons the East Coast was usually found in Africa, they could not
had seen in more than 20 years. explain how it had traveled to New York.
— A sellout crowd of
nostalgic Detroit baseball fans joined Hall of
Fame players and the ghosts of past glory to
say farewell to Tiger Stadium after 88
seasons. The American League team would
be moving to the $2 90 million Comerica
Faced with the threat of civil war and weakened by loss­
Park about a mile away. Tiger Stadium,
es in France and an ongoing conflict with the church, King
home of some of the greatest players i
John of England bowed to demands by English barons baseball history, including Ty Cobb, Hank
who wanted more governmental control by signing the Greenberg and Al Kaline, opened April 20,
1912, the same day as Fenway Park in
Magna C arta in 1215. The document not only served
Boston, which would now be the league's
as the foundation for future forms of government in
oldest stadium.
England, but eventually helped shape the U.S.
Constitution. Two commuter trains
Xanadu was founded in 1265 on the site now occu­ smashed into each other during morning
rush hour in central London and burst into
pied by Beijing. Built by Kublai Kahn, the first emperor of
flames, killing more than 7 0 people and
the Kuan Dynasty who ruled during a time of widespread
sending another 150 people to area
prosperity, Xanadu would eventually become China's first hospitals. Considered one of the country's
worst train crashes in half a century,
investigators eventually determined that the
crash was caused by one of the trains
passing a red signal.
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