October 22
Today, our friends down under celebrate
Wombat Day, honoring (what else?) wombats.
Today is
Make A Difference Day, so, do that.
The world marks today as
International Stuttering Awareness Day.
Also, TODAY IS
INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY, SO
♪ ♫SHOUT IT SHOUT IT SHOUT IT OUT LOUD♪ ♫.
Events
4004 BC – The world was created at approximately six o'clock in the evening, according to the
Ussher chronology.
1707 –
Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the
Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir
Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drown.
1790 – Warriors of the
Miami people under
Chief Little Turtle defeat United States troops under
General Josiah Harmar at the site of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the
Northwest Indian War.
1797 –
André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump from one thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris.
1836 –
Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the
Republic of Texas.
1844 – The Great Anticipation:
Millerites, followers of
William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the
Great Disappointment.
1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric
incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13˝ hours before burning out).
1883 – The
Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Gounod's
Faust.
1884 –
The Royal Observatory in Britain is adopted as
the prime meridian of longitude by the
International Meridian Conference.
1895 –
In Paris an express train derails (<--
awesome photo, btw) after overrunning the
buffer stop, crossing almost 30 metres (100 ft) of concourse before crashing through a wall and falling 10 metres (33 ft) to the road below.
1927 –
Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including single-phase electric power.
1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber
Pretty Boy Floyd.
1957 –
Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1962 –
Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.
1964 –
Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
1966 –
The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (
The Supremes A' Go-Go).
1972 – Vietnam War: In Saigon,
Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris.
1976 –
Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.
1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the
United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the
Supermax model of prisons.
1986 -
Jane Dornacker was killed in a helicopter crash during a live traffic report for WNBC radio in New York. Listeners heard the terrified voice of Dornacker screaming "Hit the water, hit the water!" as the helicopter from which she and pilot Bill Pate were reporting, fell from the sky and crashed into the Hudson River. Dornacker had been a member of
The Tubes and
Leila And The Snakes.
1990 -
Pearl Jam played their first ever concert when they appeared at the Off Ramp in Seattle.
2001 –
Grand Theft Auto III was released, popularizing a genre of open-world, action-adventure video games as well as spurring controversy around violence in video games.
2005 –
Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
2013 – The
Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the
Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013.
2014 – Michael Zehaf-Bibeau
attacks the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa, Canada, killing a soldier and injuring three other people.
Births
1734 – Daniel Boone; 1811 – Franz Liszt

; 1844 – Louis Riel; 1882 – N. C. Wyeth

; 1903 – Curly Howard (of Stooge fame); 1904 – Constance Bennett; 1917 – Joan Fontaine; 1920 – Timothy Leary; 1925 – Robert Rauschenberg

; 1931 – Ann Rule; 1938 – Christopher Lloyd; 1939 – Tony Roberts; 1942 – Annette Funicello; 1943 – Catherine Deneuve; 1945 - Leslie West

(Mountain); 1947 – Deepak Chopra; 1948 – Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford); 1952 – Jeff Goldblum; 1962 – Bob Odenkirk; 1963 – Brian Boitano; 1965 – Valeria Golino; 1968 – Jay Johnston; 1968 – Shaggy♪ ♫; 1969 – Spike Jonze; 1972 – Saffron Burrows; 1975 – Jesse Tyler Ferguson (
Modern Family); 1985 – Zac Hanson

(Hanson)
Deaths
741 – Charles Martel; 1906 – Paul Cézanne

; 1934 – Pretty Boy Floyd; 1973 – Pablo Casals♪ ♫; 1989 – Jacob Wetterling (kidnapping victim); 1992 – Cleavon Little ("Where da white women at?"); 1998 – Eric Ambler; 2006 – Arthur Hill (
The Andromeda Strain); 2009 – Soupy Sales; 2012 – Russell Means ('Chingachgook' in
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)); 2013 – Marylou Dawes