Failure™ Magazine

This Day in Failure

February 27

2009: The Rocky Mountain News (RMN), Colorado’s oldest newspaper and a Denver fixture since 1859, publishes its last edition (“Goodbye, Colorado”) after owner E.W. Scripps Co. fails to find a buyer for the money-hemorrhaging publication. The paper—with a daily circulation of 210,000—closes just two months before its 150th anniversary.

2009: Alan Landers, 68, the model/cigarette pitchman who served as the “Winston Man” dies of throat and lung cancer. A longtime heavy smoker, Landers also suffered from emphysema and at the time of his death was engaged in a 14-year legal battle with R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies, claiming smoking caused his health problems. 

2002: Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros pay $2.1 million to buy back the naming rights to their stadium from bankrupt and scandal-ridden Enron Corp.

1879: Chemists Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg accidentally discover saccharin, which becomes the first commercially available artificial sweetener. Later, saccharin is found to cause cancer in lab rats.