Research

I was researching the 90's for a new story I'm working on.  Did you know that on Wikipedia you can search for a year and it'll give you a run down of what happened?  I typed in 1994.  Here's what I found:

August 20 – In Honolulu, Hawaii, during a circus international performance, an elephant named Tyke crushes her trainer Allen Campbell to death before hundreds of horrified spectators, at the Neal Blaisdell Arena.

So I clicked on "Tyke" for some more info.

On April 21, 1993, 16 months before the incident in Hawaii, Tyke ripped through the front doors of the Jaffa Mosque during a performance and ran out of control for an hour in Altoona, Pennsylvania. An estimated 4,500 school children had to leave the building as it was evacuated, and the rampage caused more than $14,000 in damage.

Dude, that totally happened in Altoona, where I live, and I had no idea.  Granted, I was 10 years old, but I have no recollection of hearing about this elephant running loose. 

I went to youtube and found the video of the elephant attacking his trainers and then being shot.  It just reaffirms my hatred for zoos and circuses.  The trainer had cocaine and alcohol in his system when they did the autopsy; he had complaints filed against him before for abusing elephants.  You'd think by the 90's that PETA and all those kinds of groups would've done something about the mistreatment of circus and zoo animals by then.  And, since they hadn't, it kind of makes me think that almost twenty years later not much has probably changed.