This Day in History

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October 12

Today is Freethought Day in the United States, an annual observance by freethinkers and secularists of the effective end of the Salem Witch Trials.

The United Nations has designated today UN Spanish Language Day. So, hablar más español de hoy!

Events

539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.

1492 – Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically in The Bahamas. The explorer believes he has reached the Indies.

1654 – The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100 people.

1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.

1748 – British and Spanish naval forces engage at the Battle of Havana during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

1773 – America's first insane asylum opens. People went nuts.

1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina.

1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse was the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters.

1810 – First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland sells his first raincoat. The raincoat is still called a 'Mackintosh' in the U.K.

1847 – German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens & Halske, which later becomes Siemens AG.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools, as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.

1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.

1917 – World War I: The First Battle of Passchendaele takes place resulting in the largest single day loss of life in New Zealand history.

1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Cloquet, Minnesota.

1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston.

1933 – The military Alcatraz Citadel becomes the civilian Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

1945 – World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor.

1955 - The Chrysler Corporation launched high fidelity record players for their 1956 line-up of cars. The unit measured about four inches high and less than a foot wide and was mounted under the instrument panel. The seven inch discs spun at 16 2/3 rpm and required almost three times the number of grooves per inch as an LP. The players were discontinued in 1961.

1960 – Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe.

1960 – Television viewers in Japan unexpectedly witness the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, when he is stabbed and killed during a live broadcast.

1978 - Whilst living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious called the police to say that someone had stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. He was arrested and charged with murder and placed in the detox unit of a New York prison. Vicious died of a heroin overdose before the case went to trial.

1979 – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published.

1979 – The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip.

1984 – Brighton hotel bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. Thatcher escapes but the bomb kills five people and wounds 31.

1986 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China.

1994 – The Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus.

1994 - Pink Floyd played the first of a 15-night run at Earls Court, London, England. Less than a minute after the band had started playing 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', a scaffolding stand holding 1200 fans, collapsed, throwing hundreds of people 20 feet to the ground. It took over an hour to free everyone from the twisted wreckage, ninety-six people were injured, with 36 needing hospital treatment. Six were detained overnight with back, neck and rib injuries. Pink Floyd sent a free T-shirt and a note of apology to all the fans who had been seated in the stand that collapsed. The show was immediately cancelled and re-scheduled.

1997 - John Denver was killed when the handmade, experimental airplane he was flying ran out of gas and crashed off the coast of Monterey Bay, California. He was 53 years old.

1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, dies five days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie, Wyoming.

2000 – The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.

2002 – Terrorists detonate bombs in the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.

2005 - Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee suffered minor burns at a concert in Casper, Wyoming during a pyrotechnics explosion. Lee was treated at a local hospital for the injuries to his arm and face, which occurred while he was suspended from a wire 30 feet above the stage.

2005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit.

2013 – Fifty-one people are killed after a truck veers off a cliff in La Convención Province in Peru.

Continued in next post

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October 12 Continued from previous post

Births

1710 – Jonathan Trumbull; 1860 – Elmer Ambrose Sperry (co-invented the gyrocompass); 1875 – Aleister Crowley; 1920 – Christopher Soames; 1932 – Dick Gregory; 1932 – Ned Jarrett; 1935 – Luciano Pavarotti♪ ♫; 1935 - Sam Moore♪ ♫(Sam & Dave); 1937 – Robert Mangold; 1945 – Dusty Rhodes; 1947 – Chris Wallace; 1947 – Randy West (porn actor); 1949 – Carlos the Jackal (international terrorist); 1950 – Susan Anton; 1965 – Scott O'Grady (US F-16 pilot shot down over Bosnia, rescued); 1968 – Huge Ackman ('Wolverine' in X-Men); 1970 – Kirk Cameron; 1975 – Marion Jones (US track & field Olympian); 1977 – Bode Miller (US Olympic skier); 1992 – Josh Hutcherson

Deaths

1870 – Robert E. Lee; 1940 – Tom Mix; 1960 – Inejiro Asanuma; 1969 – Sonja Henie; 1971 – Dean Acheson; 1971 – Gene Vincent♪ ♫; 1985 – Johnny Olson ("Come on down!"); 1985 – Ricky Wilson(The B-52's); 1987 – Alf Landon; 1991 – Regis Toomey (w/Jane Wyman, had the longest kiss in cinema history, at 3 minutes 5 seconds); 1996 – René Lacoste (put a tiny alligator on a polo shirt); 1997 – John Denver♪ ♫; 1998 – Matthew Shepard; 1999 – Wilt The Stilt Chamberlain; 2002 – Ray Conniff♪ ♫; 2003 – Joan Kroc (widow of Ray Kroc, McDonald's); 2003 – Bill Shoemaker (jockey); 2009 – Dickie Peterson(Blue Cheer); 2011 – Dennis Ritchie (created the C programming language); 2012 – Norm Grabowski (American hot rod builder); 2015 – Joan Leslie

[glatt]

lol Mr. Ackman

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Heh, just seeing if anyone's paying attention.

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October 13

54 – Emperor Claudius dies from poisoning under mysterious circumstances; his 17-year-old stepson Nero succeeds him.

1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a "confession" of heresy.

1332 – Rinchinbal Khan, Emperor Ningzong of Yuan, becomes the Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan dynasty, reigning for only 53 days.

1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier.

1775 – The United States Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).

1843 – In New York City, Henry Jones and 11 others found B'nai B'rith (the oldest Jewish service organization in the world).

1845 – A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution that, if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.

1881 – First known conversation in modern Hebrew by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends.

1884 – The International Meridian Conference votes on a resolution to establish the meridian passing through the Observatory of Greenwich, in London, England, as the initial meridian for longitude.

1892 – Edward Emerson Barnard discovers D/1892 T1, the first comet discovered by photographic means, on the night of October 13–14.

1914 – In this year's World Series, the Boston Braves defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, at Fenway Park in Boston, completing the first World Series sweep in history.

1917 – The "Miracle of the Sun" is witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.

1923 – Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey.

1958 – Paddington Bear, a character from English children's literature, makes his debut.

1962 – The Pacific Northwest experiences a cyclone the equal of a Cat 3 hurricane. Winds measured above 150 mph at several locations; 46 people died.

1972 – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes mountains, near the border between Argentina and Chile. By December 23, 1972, only 16 out of 45 people lived long enough to be rescued.

1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago.

2000 - UK newspaper The Mirror reported that Toni Braxton had pulled out of this years US Mobo awards after one of her breast implants had exploded. A spokesman for her Arista record label said "We don't comment on our artists' personal lives."

2004 - The US Internal Revenue Service charged 63-year-old Ronald Isley, lead singer of the Isley Brothers, with tax evasion for failing to report income from royalties and performances by the band between 1997 and 2002. He was later found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.

2016 – Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Births

1872 – Leon Leonwood Bean (founded L.L.Bean); 1909 – Herblock (cartoonist/illustrator, coined the term "McCarthyism"); 1909 – Art Tatum; 1912 – Cornel Wilde; 1917 – George Osmond (Osmond Family patriarch); 1921 – Yves Montand♪ ♫; 1925 – Lenny Bruce; 1925 – Margaret Thatcher; 1926 - Tommy Whittle♪ ♫; 1926 – Killer Kowalski; 1930 – Bruce Geller; 1941 – Paul Simon(Simon & Garfunkel); 1942 – Jerry Jones; 1947 – Sammy Hagar(Montrose, Van Halen, Chickenfoot); 1948 – John Ford Coley♪ ♫; 1948 – Lacy J. Dalton♪ ♫; 1950 – Simon Nicol(Fairport Convention); 1957 – Chris Carter (creator X-Files); 1959 – Marie Osmond♪ ♫; 1960 – Joey Belladonna♪ ♫(Anthrax); 1960 – Ari Fleischer; 1962 – Kelly Preston; 1962 – Jerry Rice; 1963 – Chip Foose; 1964 – Christopher Judge ('Teal'c' on Stargate SG-1); 1967 – Kate Walsh (Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice); 1968 – Tisha Campbell-Martin; 1969 – Nancy Kerrigan; 1971 – Sacha Baron Cohen; 1971 – Billy Bush; 1980 – Ashanti♪ ♫; 1982 – Ian Thorpe

Deaths

54 – Claudius; 1938 – E. C. Segar (created Popeye); 1945 – Milton S. Hershey; 1966 – Clifton Webb; 1974 – Ed Sullivan (had a really big shoe); 1996 – Beryl Reid; 2001 – Peter Doyle♪ ♫; 2002 – Stephen Ambrose; 2009 - Al Martino♪ ♫('Johnny Fontane' in The Godfather); 2012 – Gary Collins; 2013 – Tommy Whittle♪ ♫

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Continued from previous post

Births

1644 – William Penn (founded the Province of Pennsylvania); 1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th POTUS); 1893 – Lillian Gish; 1894 - e e cummings; 1910 – John Wooden; 1916 – C. Everett Koop (13th United States Surgeon General); 1927 – Roger Moore (seven time James Bond); 1938 – Melba Montgomery♪ ♫; 1939 – Ralph Lauren; 1940 – Cliff Richard♪ ♫; 1940 – J. C. Snead; 1944 – Udo Kier; 1946 – Justin Hayward(The Moody Blues); 1946 – Dan McCafferty♪ ♫(Nazareth); 1947 – Norman Harris(MFSB); 1950 – Joey Travolta (older bro to John); 1952 – Harry Anderson (Night Court); 1954 – Mordechai Vanunu; 1956 – Arleen Sorkin (Days of Our Lives, voice of Harley Quinn on Batman: The Animated Series); 1958 – Thomas Dolby (sang "She Blinded Me With Science"); 1959 – A. J. Pero(Twisted Sister); 1963 – Lori Petty (Tank Girl); 1965 – Steve Coogan; 1969 – David Strickland (Suddenly Susan); 1974 - Natalie Maines♪ ♫(The Dixie Chicks); 1974 – Jessica Drake(porn actress); 1978 – Usher♪ ♫

Deaths

1880 – Victorio; 1944 – Erwin Rommel; 1959 – Errol Flynn; 1977 – Bing Crosby; 1986 – Keenan Wynn; 1990 – Leonard Bernstein; 1997 – Harold Robbins; 1998 – Cleveland Amory; 2006 – Freddy Fender; 2009 – Captain Lou Albano; 2010 – Simon MacCorkindale; 2010 – Benoit Mandelbrot (Mandelbrot set); 2012 – Arlen Specter

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October 14

Today is World Standards Day, honoring the experts who develop voluntary standards within standards development organizations, such as ISO.

Events

1066 – Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings: In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England.

1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence.

1656 – Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism makes them regard the Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive.

1812 – Work on London's Regent's Canal starts.

1880 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.

1884 – The American inventor, George Eastman, receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.

1888 – Louis Le Prince films first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene.

1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the World Series. The Cubs haven't won another one yet.

1912 – While campaigning in Milwaukee, the former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, is shot and mildly wounded by John Schrank, a mentally-disturbed saloon keeper. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Mr. Roosevelt still carries out his scheduled public speech. He also carried that bullet, for the rest of his life.

1913 – Senghenydd colliery disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident claims the lives of 439 miners.

1926 – The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.

1938 – The first flight of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter plane.

1940 – Balham underground station disaster in London, England, sixty-six people in the station were killed during the Nazi Luftwaffe air raids on Great Britain.

1943 – World War II: The American Eighth Air Force loses 60 of 291 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers in aerial combat during the second mass-daylight air raid on the Schweinfurt ball bearing factories in western Nazi Germany.

1944 – Linked to a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is forced to commit suicide.

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager () of the United States Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound at Mach 1.06 (700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h; 610 kn) over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight.

1958 – The District of Columbia's Bar Association votes to accept African-Americans as member attorneys.

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot flies over the island of Cuba and takes photographs of Soviet SS-4 Sandal missiles being installed and erected in Cuba.

1964 – Leonid Brezhnev becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and thereby, along with his allies, such as Alexei Kosygin, the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

1968 – Jim Hines of the United States of America becomes the first man ever to break the so-called "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint in the Summer Olympic Games held in Mexico City with a time of 9.95 seconds.

1969 – The United Kingdom introduces the British fifty-pence coin, which replaces, over the following years, the British ten-shilling note, in anticipation of the decimalization of the British currency in 1971, and the abolition of the shilling as a unit of currency anywhere in the world.

1973 – In the Thammasat student uprising over 100,000 people protest in Thailand against the Thanom military government, 77 are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers.

1979 – The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demands "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people", and draws approximately 100,000 people.

1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims a War on Drugs. Whoops.

1984 – "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon.

1988 - Def Leppard became first act in chart history to sell seven million copies of two consecutive LPs, with Pyromania (their third studio album released in 1983) and Hysteria, (which became the band's best-selling album to date, selling over 20 million copies worldwide, and spawning six hit singles).

1998 – Eric Rudolph is charged with six bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.

2003 – Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman becomes infamously known as the scapegoat for the Cubs losing Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series to the Florida Marlins.

2006 – The college football brawl between University of Miami and Florida International University leads to suspensions of 31 players of both teams.

2012 – Felix Baumgartner successfully jumped to Earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere in the Red Bull Stratos project.

2014 – A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people.

Continued in next post

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October 15

Today is Global Handwashing Day, motivating and mobilizing people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. So, wash your hands, Roger.

Sweetest Day is celebrated each year, on the 3rd Saturday in October, to "scam people out of money, and make Nicole's boyfriend, Scott, feel bad for not getting her anything".

In the United States, today is observed as White Cane Safety Day, celebrating the achievements of the blind and visually impaired.

The United Nations designates this day as International Day of Rural Women. So, if you're a country girl, you rock!

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed annually in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom on this day.

Events

1066 – Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England, but is never crowned. He reigns until 10 December, 1066.

1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, and condemned to death the following day.

1815 – Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

1863 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.

1888 – The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.

1894 – The Dreyfus Affair: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.

1910 – Airship America (<--Interesting read.) is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.

1917 – World War I: At Vincennes outside Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire.

1928 – The airship, Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.

1939 – The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) is dedicated.

1945 – World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.

1951 – The first episode of I Love Lucy airs on CBS.

1953 – British nuclear test Totem 1 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.

1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.

1989 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL.

1995 - Paul and Linda McCartney were the guest voices on Fox-TV's The Simpsons in an episode called "Lisa the Vegetarian". Macca's stipulation for appearing was that Lisa's decision to become a vegetarian would be a permanent character change, to which producer David Mirkin agreed.

1997 – The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere.

2006 – Hawaii earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.

2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst day in the Dow's history based on a percentage drop.

Births

70 BC – Virgil; 1844 – Friedrich Nietzsche; 1858 – John L. Sullivan; 1881 – P. G. Wodehouse; 1900 – Mervyn LeRoy; 1920 – Chris Economaki; 1920 – Mario Puzo; 1923 – Italo Calvino; 1924 – Lee Iacocca; 1924 – Warren Miller; 1925 – Mickey Baker; 1926 – Michel Foucault; 1926 – Ed McBain; 1935 – Barry McGuire (sang "Eve Of Destruction"); 1937 – Linda Lavin (Alice); 1938 – Robert Ward(The Ohio Players); 1943 – Penny Marshall; 1945 – Jim Palmer; 1946 – Richard Carpenter♪ ♫; 1948 – Chris de Burgh♪ ♫ (sang "Lady In Red"); 1950 – Candida Royalle(porn actress/director); 1951 – Roscoe Tanner; 1953 – Tito Jackson♪ ♫; 1954 – Jere Burns; 1959 – Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York; 1959 – Emeril Lagasse ("Bam!"); 1969 – Paige Davis (hostess Trading Spaces); 1970 – Ginuwine♪ ♫

Deaths

1917 – Mata Hari; 1930 – Herbert Henry Dow (founded Dow Chemical Company); 1934 – Raymond Poincaré; 1940 – Lluís Companys; 1945 – Pierre Laval; 1946 – Hermann Göring; 1964 – Cole Porter♪ ♫; 1976 – Carlo Gambino (mob boss); 2008 – Edie Adams♪ ♫; 2010 – Johnny Sheffield ('Boy' in 3 Tarzan movies)

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October 16

Today is World Food Day, celebrating the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. So, today, think of the starving Pygmies in New Guinea.

Today also marks World Anaesthesia Day, so, knock somebody out.

Events

1780 – Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.

1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.

1846 – William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

1869 – The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered".

1875 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

1909 – William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz hold a summit, a first between a U.S. and a Mexican president, and they only narrowly escape assassination.

1916 – In Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States.

1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

1964 – China detonates its first nuclear weapon.

1968 – United States Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

1975 – Rahima Banu, a two-year-old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.

1978 – Karol Wojtyla is elected Pope John Paul II after the October 1978 Papal conclave, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

1984 – The Bill debuts on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.

1991 – Luby's shooting: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby's Cafeteria.

1995 – The Million Man March takes place in Washington, D.C.

1995 – The Skye Bridge is opened.

2002 – Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.

2012 – The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb is discovered.

Births

1758 – Noah Webster; 1815 – Francis Lubbock (namesake of Lubbock, Texas); 1854 – Oscar Wilde; 1886 – David Ben-Gurion (Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport is named in his honor); 1888 – Eugene O'Neill; 1890 – Paul Strand; 1925 – Angela Lansbury; 1938 – Nico♪ ♫; 1940 – Barry Corbin; 1943 – Fred Turner(the 'Turner' in Bachman-Turner Overdrive); 1945 – Roger Hawkins(Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section); 1945 – Dave Hill (The Full Monty); 1946 – Suzanne Somers; 1947 – Bob Weir(The Grateful Dead); 1947 – David Zucker; 1948 – Bruce Fleisher; 1952 – Cordell Mosson(Parliament-Funkadelic); 1953 – Tony Carey(Rainbow); 1958 – Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption); 1960 – Bob Mould(Husker Du); 1962 – Flea(Red Hot Chili Peppers); 1962 – Manute Bol; 1971 – Chad Gray♪ ♫(Mudvayne); 1977 – John Mayer; 1985 – Casey Stoner

Deaths

1791 – Grigory Potemkin; 1793 – Marie Antoinette; 1972 – Hale Boggs; 1972 – Leo G. Carroll (Topper, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.); 1973 – Gene Krupa:drummer); 1978 – Dan Dailey♪ ♫; 1981 – Moshe Dayan; 1989 – Cornel Wilde; 1992 – Shirley Booth (Hazel); 1996 – Jason Bernard; 1997 – Audra Lindley ('Mrs. Roper' on Three's Company, The Ropers); 1997 – James A. Michener; 1999 – Jean Shepherd (narrated and co-scripted A Christmas Story); 2004 – Pierre Salinger; 2007 – Deborah Kerr; 2010 – Barbara Billingsley ('June Cleaver' on Leave It To Beaver); 2011 – Dan Wheldon; 2013 – Ed Lauter; 2014 – Allen Forte♪ ♫

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October 17

Today is observed as an International Day For The Eradication of Poverty, honoring victims of poverty, hunger, violence and fear.

Events

1091 – London tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.

1346 – Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by the English near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.

1660 – Nine regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.

1814 – Eight people die in the London Beer Flood.

1860 – First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open).

1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

1907 – Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland.

1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.

1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.

1931 – Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion.

1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.

1941 – World War II: a German submarine attacks an American ship for the first time in the war.

1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.

1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.

1966 – A fire at a building in New York City kills 12 firefighters, the fire department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.

1970 – Montreal: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte is murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.

1989 – The 6.9 Mw Loma Prieta earthquake shakes the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Sixty-three people were killed.

2000 – Train crash at Hatfield, north of London, leading to collapse of Railtrack.

2003 – The pinnacle is fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 56 metres (184 ft) and become the world's tallest highrise.

Births

1900 – Jean Arthur; 1902 – Irene Ryan; 1914 – Jerry Siegel (co-created Superman); 1915 – Arthur Miller; 1918 – Rita Hayworth; 1918 – Ralph Wilson (founded the Buffalo Bills); 1920 – Montgomery Clift; 1921 – Tom Poston; 1923 – Barney Kessel(The Wrecking Crew); 1926 – Julie Adams (Creature From The Black Lagoon); 1930 – Robert Atkins (created the Atkins diet); 1933 – The Singing Nun♪ ♫; 1938 – Evel Knievel; 1941 – Earl Thomas Conley♪ ♫; 1941 – Jim Seals♪ ♫(Seals & Crofts); 1946 – Michael Hossack(Doobie Bros); 1947 – Michael McKean; 1948 – Margot Kidder; 1948 – George Wendt ('Norm' on Cheers); 1950 – Howard Rollins (In The Heat Of The Night tv series); 1956 – Mae Jemison; 1957 – Lawrence Bender (producer Reservoir Dogs); 1958 – Alan Jackson♪ ♫; 1959 – Richard Roeper; 1962 – Mike Judge (created Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill); 1963 – Norm Macdonald; 1968 – Ziggy Marley♪ ♫; 1969 – Ernie Els; 1969 – Wyclef Jean♪ ♫(The Fugees); 1972 – Eminem♪ ♫(crapper)

Deaths

1849 – Frédéric Chopin; 1868 – Laura Secord; 1910 – Julia Ward Howe♪ ♫; 1970 – Pierre Laporte; 1991 – Tennessee Ernie Ford♪ ♫; 2007 – Joey Bishop; 2007 – Teresa Brewer♪ ♫; 2008 – Levi Stubbs♪ ♫; 2008 – Ben Weider (He was a Canadian businessman well known in two areas: Bodybuilding and Napoleonic history.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

1660 – Nine regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.

Did they kill them too?

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Killed their guts out, they did.

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October18

1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.

1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.

1386 – Opening of Heidelberg University.

1540 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto's forces destroy the fortified town of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Tuskaloosa.

1648 – Boston Shoemakers form first American labor organization.

1775 – African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery.

1851 – Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.

1867 – United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.

1898 – The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.

1929 – The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in Edwards v. Canada when it declares that women are considered "Persons" under Canadian law.

1945 – The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva "Evita" Duarte.

1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio.

1963 – Félicette, a black and white female Parisian stray cat becomes the first cat launched into space.

Births

1785 – Thomas Love Peacock; 1919 – Anita O'Day; 1919 – Pierre Trudeau; 1921 – Jesse Helms; 1923 – Jessie Mae Hemphill; 1926 – Chuck Berry; 1926 – Klaus Kinski; 1927 – George C. Scott; 1928 – Keith Jackson; 1934 – Inger Stevens; 1935 – Peter Boyle; 1938 – Dawn Wells; 1939 – Mike Ditka; 1939 – Lee Harvey Oswald; 1945 – Huell Howser; 1946 – Howard Shore; 1947 – Joe Morton; 1950 – Wendy Wasserstein; 1951 – Pam Dawber; 1951 – Terry McMillan; 1952 – Chuck Lorre; 1954 – Arliss Howard; 1955 – David Twohy; 1956 – Martina Navratilova; 1958 – Thomas Hearns; 1960 – Jean-Claude Van Damme; 1960 – Erin Moran; 1961 – Wynton Marsalis; 1962 – Vincent Spano; 1984 – Lindsey Vonn; 1987 – Zac Efron

Deaths

1931 – Thomas Edison; 1966 – Elizabeth Arden; 1966 – S. S. Kresge; 1973 – Walt Kelly; 1982 – Bess Truman; 2008 – Dee Dee Warwick; 2013 – Tom Foley; 2013 – Bum Phillips

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

October18
1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.

That explains why it looked like such a new city when I was there.


Thanks for posting these, even if you are dropping the hyperlinks. you slacker.

[Gravdigr]

October 19

1469 – Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.

1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis' sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.

1789 – Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.

1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow.

1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.

1900 – Max Planck discovers the law of black-body radiation (Planck's law).

1917 – Love Field in Dallas is opened.

1943 – The cargo vessel Sinfra is attacked by Allied aircraft at Souda Bay, Crete, and sunk. 2,098 Italian prisoners of war drown.

1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.

1950 – Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program.

1960 – Cold War: The United States government imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba.

1968 - 18 year old Peter Frampton meets Steve Marriott at a Small Faces show in London. After striking up a friendship, the two started planning a new group which emerged as Humble Pie the following April.

1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.

1988 – The British government imposes a broadcasting ban on television and radio interviews with members of Sinn Féin and eleven Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.

1989 – The convictions of the Guildford Four are quashed by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, after they had spent 15 years in prison.

2003 – Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.

2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

2005 – Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.

Births

1605 – Thomas Browne; 1810 – Cassius Marcellus Clay; 1862 – Auguste Lumière; 1901 – Arleigh Burke; 1920 – LaWanda Page aka The Bronze Goddess Of Fire ('Aunt Esther' on Sanford & Son); 1931 – John le Carré; 1932 – Robert Reed; 1936 – Tony Lo Bianco; 1937 – Peter Max; 1940 – Michael Gambon; 1944 – Peter Tosh♪ ♫(The Wailers); 1945 – Gloria Jones♪ ♫; 1945 – John Lithgow; 1945 – Jeannie C. Riley♪ ♫; 1946 – Keith Reid♪ ♫; 1948 – James Howard Kunstler; 1948 – Patrick Simmons(Doobie Bros); 1962 – Evander Holyfield; 1965 – Ty Pennington; 1966 – Jon Favreau; 1967 – Amy Carter (daughter of POTUS Jimmy Carter); 1968 – Rodney Carrington; 1969 – Trey Parker (co-creator South Park); 1970 – Chris Kattan (SNL)

Deaths

1682 – Thomas Browne; 1745 – Jonathan Swift; 1897 – George Pullman; 1943 – Camille Claudel; 1945 – N. C. Wyeth; 1950 – Edna St. Vincent Millay; 1978 – Gig Young; 1988 – Son House; 1994 – Martha Raye; 2008 – Richard 'Mr.' Blackwell; 2008 – Rudy Ray Moore, "Dolemite"; 2009 – Joseph Wiseman ('Dr. No' in Dr. No); 2010 – Tom Bosley; 2014 - Raphael Ravenscroft (sax on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street")