Swimmer downed twelve drinks and one colleague. Australian swimmer Nick D’Arcy pleaded guilty to assaulting fellow swimmer and Commonwealth Games champion Simon Cowley in a Sydney bar back in March. D’Arcy and a group of swimmers were celebrating their selection to the Aussie Olympic squad. A dozen drinks later, around 2:30 a.m., an altercation occurred when Cowley allegedly took exception to D’Arcy’s treatment of a fellow swimmer.
It was a short fight. Cowley lightly slapped D’Arcy, and D’Arcy lunged forward and delivered a single vicious punch that shattered Cowley’s face like it was a dinner plate, fracturing his jaw, nose, and eye socket. D’Arcy was arrested at the bar and later charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm. Cowley underwent surgery, had five titanium plates and twenty screws inserted into his face, and will be spending up to two years in braces until his teeth stabilize. Doctors said Cowley’s injuries were so severe because the tooth-bearing portions of his face separated from the rest of his skull.
The attack cost both men their spots on the Olympic squad—Cowley’s due to convalescence, and D’Arcy’s due to suspension. A prison term could be next for D’Arcy, but indications are he learned little from his recent experience. Speaking after the guilty plea, he said, “I strongly maintain that my actions were in self-defence but I do deeply apologise for the degree of injury sustained by Simon.” Which to our ears translates as: “Nobody is more surprised than me that Simon’s skull is made of pie crust, but I’d hit him again in a heartbeat, along with his stanky old mom and his sister too.”
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.
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