On This Day...06.02

1918 - In Britain, the Representation of the People's Act receives the Royal Assent, giving the vote to all women over the age of 30.

1952 - After a long illness, King George VI of Great Britain and Northern Ireland succumbs to cancer.

1958 - Seven Manchester United footballers (the 'Busby Babes') are among the 21 people killed when their plane crashes in snow and ice during its take-off from Munich Airport.

1964 - France and Britain agree to share costs for the building of the Channel Tunnel - with initial estimates said to be around £160 million.

1983 - Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie is brought before a court at Lyon, in France to face charges of being responsible for crimes against humanity.

1993 - Death of American tennis player Arthur Ashe, Wimbledon champion in 1975. Dies of AIDS aged 49 having contracted the disease from a blood transfusion.

Comments

[Mike Cunningham]

Call me an old cynic but I feel a small protest coming on! The further anointing of 'Saint Arthur', as having died of AIDS aged 49 having contracted the disease from a blood transfusion, in your post should not go without at least a caveat!
The probability of a celebrity such as Ashe contracting this deadly disease from a transfusion is as unlikely as the Rev.Paisley speaking as the star turn at a SinnFein rally!
He probably was homosexual, and while it was his choice, he was shit scared to reveal himself out of the closet, so concocted the 'blood' story as a convenient 'get out of jail' card!

[Hanson]

"as unlikely as the Rev.Paisley speaking as the star turn at a SinnFein rally!"

And why would that strike you as strange Cunningham?

[Mike Cunningham]

Hanson,

If you have to ask, you probably don't know much about the Rev. Paisley, or about SinnFein either!

[Hanson]

Aw now! That's all in the past!

[Mike Cunningham]

Hanson,

As we are sometimes reminded, "the Past is another Country", but it is necessary to remind ourselves from whence we came, and also from whence came the people who would lead us!

[mahons]

Mike -do you have anything other than your contempt of homosexuals to back you up?

[Neal]

Mike, that's a ridiculous, contemptible comment. Ashe had heart surgery in 1983 http://www.answers.com/topic/arthur-ashe.

If you knew a little about the history of HIV/AIDS you might have realized that the first reports of the virus being acquired through transfusion were at about that time. The HIV virus wasn't even identified until 1984. And aside from a few hospitals in California, if memory serves, screening of blood donors wasn't implemented until several years later.

http://www.aabb.org/Content/About_Blood/Highlights_of_Transfusion_Medicine_History/