On This Day in History

[tkD]

October 15


1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte began his exile on the remote island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

1844 - German philosopher Friedich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born.

1860 - Grace Bedell, 11 years old, wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. The letter stated that Lincoln would look better if he would grow a beard.

1883 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It allowed for individuals and corporations to discriminate based on race.

1892 - The U.S. government announced that the land in the western Montana was open to settlers. The 1.8 million acres were bought from the Crow Indians for 50 cents per acre.

1914 - The Clayton Antitrust Act was passed by the U.S. Congress.

1917 - Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad. Hari was a Dutch dancer that had spied for Germany.

1931 - "Cat and the Fiddle" opened in New York for the first of 395 performances.

1937 - "To Have and Have Not" by Ernest Hemingway was published for the first time.

1939 - New York Municipal Airport was dedicated. The name was later changed to La Guardia Airport.

1945 - Pierre Laval, the former premier of Vichy France, was executed for treason.

1946 - Hermann Goering, a Nazi war criminal and founder of the Gestapo, poisoned himself just hours before his scheduled execution.

1951 - "I Love Lucy" premiered on CBS-TV.

1953 - "Teahouse of the August Moon" opened on Broadway. It ran for 1,027 performances.

1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis began. It was on this day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing data discovered Soviet medium-range missle sites in Cuba. On October 22 U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that he had ordred the naval "quarantine" of Cuba.

1964 - It was announced that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had been removed from power. He was replaced with Alexei N. Kosygin.

1966 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill creating the Department of Transportation.

1973 - "Tomorrow" debuted on NBC-TV.

1983 - U.S. Marines killed five snipers who had pinned them down in Beirut International Airport.

1989 - South African officials released eight prominent political prisoners.

1989 - Wayne Gretzky, while playing for the Los Angeles Kings, surpassed Gordie Howe's NHL scoring record of 1,850 career points.

1993 - U.S. President Clinton sent warships to enforce trade sanctions that had been imposed on Haitian military rulers.

1993 - South Africa's President F.W. de Klerk and African National Congress President Nelson Mandela were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end the apartheid system in South Africa.

1997 - British Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green broke the land-speed record by driving a jet-powered car faster than the speed of sound.

1997 - The Cassini-Huygens mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. On January 14, 2005, a probe sent back pictures of Saturn's moon Titan during and after landing.

1998 - Typhoon Zeb killed 24 people and drove 100,000 more from their homes when it hit the Philippines.

1998 - The U.N. condemned the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba for the seventh year in a row.

1998 - James Woods received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 - NASA's Galileo spacecraft passed within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.



Birthdays


Tito Jackson (The Jackson 5) 1953

 

[tkD]

October 16


1701 - The Collegiate School was founded in Killingworth, CT. The school moved to New Haven in 1745 and changed its name to Yale College.

1758 - Author Noah Webster was born. He was a teacher and journalist whose name is associated with the word "dictionary."

1793 - During the French Revolution, Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded.

1829 - The first modern hotel in America opened. The Tremont Hotel had 170 rooms that rented for $2 a day and included four meals.

1846 - Ether, the painkiller, was used for the first time. The drug was invented by dentist William T. Morton.

1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led a raid on Harper's Ferry, VA (now located in West Virginia).

1869 - A hotel in Boston became the first in the U.S. to install indoor plumbing.

1898 - Supreme Court Justice William Orville Douglas was born. He served for 36 years on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1916 - Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in New York City, NY.

1923 - Walt Disney contracted with M.J. Winkler to distribute the Alice Comedies. This event is recognized as the start of the Disney Company.

1928 - Marvin Pipkin received a patent for the frosted electric light bulb.

1939 - "Right To Happiness" debuted on the NBC-Blue network.

1939 - "The Man Who Came to Dinner" opened on Broadway.

1941 - The Nazis advanced to within 60 miles of Moscow. Romanians entered Odessa, USSR, and began exterminating 150,000 Jews.

1942 - The ballet "Rodeo" premiered in New York City.

1943 - Chicago's new subway system was officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

1944 - "The Robe," by Lloyd Douglas, was published for the first time.

1945 - "His Honor the Barber" debuted on NBC Radio.

1946 - 10 Nazi war criminals were hanged after being condemned by the Nuremberg trials.

1955 - Mrs. Jules Lederer replaced Ruth Crowley in newspapers using the name Ann Landers.

1962 - U.S. President Kennedy was informed that there were missile bases in Cuba, beginning the Cuban missile crisis.

1964 - China detonated its first atomic bomb becoming the world's fifth nuclear power.

1967 - NATO headquarters opened in Brussels.

1970 - Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt to succeed Gamal Abdel Nassar.

1973 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Vietnamese official declined the award.

1987 - Rescuers freed Jessica McClure from the abandoned well that she had fallen into in Midland, TX. The was trapped for 58 hours.

1989 - U.S. President Bush signed the Gramm-Rudman budget reduction law that ordered federal programs be cut by $16.1 billion.

1990 - Comedian Steve Martin and his wife Victoria Tennant visited U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

1990 - The play "Stand Up Tragedy" closed after only 13 performances.

1991 - George Hennard crashed his truck into a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, TX and began a shooting rampage in which he killed 23 people before taking his own life.

1993 - The U.N. Security Council approved the deployment of U.S. warships to enforce a blockade on Haiti to increase pressure on the controlling military leaders.

1994 - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was re-elected to a fourth term.

1995 - The "Million Man March" took place in Washington, DC.

1997 - Charles M. Schulz and his wife Jeannie announced that they would give $1 million toward the construction of a D-Day memorial to be placed in Virginia.

2000 - It was announced that Chevron Corp. would be buying Texaco Inc. for $35 billion. The combined company was called Chevron Texaco Corp. and became the 4th largest oil company in the world.

2002 - It was reported that North Korea had told the U.S. that it had a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of an 1994 agreement with the U.S.

2002 - The Arthur Andersen accounting firm was sentenced to five years probation and fined $500,000 for obstructing a federeal investigation of the energy company Enron.

 

[tkD]

October 17


1777 - American troops defeated British forces in Saratoga, NY. It was the turning point in the American Revolutionary War.

1880 - Founder of the Kraft Food Company, Charles Kraft was born.

1888 - The first issue of "National Geographic Magazine" was released at newsstands.

1917 - The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was formed.

1931 - Al Capone was convicted on income tax evasion and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in 1939.

1933 - "News-Week" appeared for the first time at newsstands. The name was later changed to "Newsweek."

1933 - Dr. Albert Einstein moved to Princeton, NJ, after leaving Germany.

1939 - "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" premiered.

1945 - Ava Gardner and Artie Shaw were married.

1945 - Colonel Juan Peron became the dictator of Argentina after staging a coup in Buenos Aires.

1973 - The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) began an oil-embargo against several countries including the U.S. and Great Britain. The incident stemmed from Western support of Israel when Egypt and Syria attacked the nation on October 6, 1973. The embargo lasted until March of 1974.

1978 - U.S. President Carter signed a bill that restored full U.S. citizenship rights to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

1979 - Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1987 - U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan underwent a modified radical mastectomy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

1989 - An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale hit the San Francisco Bay area in California. The quake caused about 67 deaths, 3,000 injuries, and damages up to $7 billion.

1994 - Israel and Jordan initialed a draft peace treaty.

1994 - The Angolan government and rebels agreed to a peace treaty that ended their 19 years of civil war.

1997 - The remains of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara were laid to rest in his adopted Cuba, 30 years after his execution in Bolivia.

2000 - In New York City, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum opened to the public. The 42nd Street location joined Tussaud's other exhibitions already in London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Las Vegas.

2000 - Patrick Roy (Colorado Avalanche) achieved his 448th victory as a goalie in the NHL. Roy passed Terry Sawchuck to become the record holder for career victories.

2001 - Israel's tourism minister was killed. A radical Palestinian faction claimed that it had carried out the assassination to avenge the killing of its leader by Israel 2 months earlier.

2001 - Pakistan placed its armed forces on high alert because of troop movements by India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. India said that the movements were part of a normal troop rotation.

2001 - The U.S. Capitol building was closed because of an outside threat. The Capitol building and all House office buildings were closed for inspection following the discovery of anthrax in a Senate office building.

2001 - Italian priest Giuseppe "Beppe" Pierantoni was kidnapped by the terrorist group the "Pentagon." He was released on April 8, 2002.

2003 - In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration approved a drug, known as memantine, to help people with Alzheimer's symptoms.

2003 - In Taipei, Taiwan, construction crews finished 1,676-foot-tall-building called Taipei 101. The building was planned to open for business in 2004.

2003 - In northwest England, the Carnforth railway station reopened as a heritage center.




Birthdays

Evel Knievel (Robert Craig) 1938

 

[tkD]

Ocotber 18



1469 - Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. The marriage united all the dominions of Spain.

1685 - King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration of the Protestant population.

1767 - The Mason-Dixon line was agreed upon. It was the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

1842 - Samuel Finley Breese Morse laid his first telegraph cable.

1860 - British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan at the end of the Second Opium War.

1867 - The U.S. took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. The land was purchased of a total of $7 million dollars (2 cents per acre).

1873 - The first rules for intercollegiate football were drawn up by representatives from Rutgers, Yale, Columbia and Princeton Universities.

1892 - The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago, IL, and New York City, NY, was opened.

1898 - The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico only one year after the Caribbean nation won its independence from Spain.

1929 - The Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada.

1931 - Inventor Thomas Alva Edison died at the age of 84.

1943 - The first broadcast of "Perry Mason" was presented on CBS Radio. The show went to TV in 1957.

1944 - Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets during World War II.

1944 - "Forever Amber", written by Kathleen Windsor, was first published.

1950 - Connie Mack announced that he was going to retire after 50 seasons as the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.

1956 - NFL commissioner Bert Bell disallowed the use of radio-equipped helmets by NFL quarterbacks.

1958 - The first computer-arranged marriage took place on Art Linkletter's show.

1961 - Henri Matiss' "Le Bateau" went on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was discovered 46 days later that the painting had been hanging upside down.

1967 - The American League granted permission for the A's to move to Oakland. Also, new franchises were awarded to Kansas City and Seattle.

1968 - Two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, were suspended by the U.S. Olympic Committee for giving a "black power" salute during a ceremony in Mexico City.

1969 - The U.S. government banned artificial sweeteners due to evidence that they caused cancer.

1970 - Quebec's minister of labor was found strangled to death after eight days of being held captive by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ).

1971 - After 34 years, the final issue of "Look" magazine was published.

1977 - A German special forces team stormed a hijacked Lufthansa airliner and killed all four hijackers and freed 86 hostages. The Palestinian hijackers had demanded the release of members of the Red Army Faction.

1977 - Reggie Jackson tied Babe Ruth's record for hitting three homeruns in a single World Series game. Jackson was only the second player to achieve this.

1983 - General Motors agreed to hire more women and minorities for five years as part of a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

1985 - South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer.

1989 - Egon Krenz became the leader of East Germany after Erich Honecker was ousted. Honeker had been in power for 18 years.

1989 - The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a mission that included the deployment of the Galileo space probe.

1990 - Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait.

1997 - A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.

2001 - In New York, four defendants were convicted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

2001 - It was announced that a New Jersey letter carrier and an employee in the office of CBS news anchorman Dan Rather's office had tested positive for skin anthrax.


Birthdays

Jean-Claude Van Damme 1960

 

[sexnews]

Thanx for keeping this thread going tkD

 

[tkD]

Thanx for keeping this thread going tkD

No problemo!

 

[tkD]

October 19



1765 - In the U.S., The Stamp Act Congress met and drew up a declaration of rights and liberties.

1781 - British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered to U.S. General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. It was to be the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War.

1812 - Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces began their retreat out of Russia after a month of chasing the retreating Russian army.

1885 - Charles Merrill, founder of Merrill-Lynch, was born.

1914 - In the U.S., government owned vehicles were first used to pick up mail in Washington, DC.

1915 - The U.S. recognized General Venustiano Carranza as the president of Mexico. The U.S. imposed embargo to all parts of Mexico except where Carranza was in control.

1933 - Basketball was introduced to the 1936 Olympic Games by the Berlin Organization Committee.

1937 - "Woman's Day" was published for the first time.

1937 - "Big Town" made its debut on CBS.

1943 - The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers began in Russia during World War II. Delegates from the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, the U.S., and China met to discuss war aims and cooperation between the nations.

1944 - The play "I Remember Mama" opened on Broadway. Marlon Brando made his debut with his appearance.

1944 - The U.S. Navy announced that black women would be allowed into Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).

1950 - The United Nations forces entered the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

1951 - U.S. President Truman singed an act officially ending the state of war with Germany.

1959 - Patty Duke, at the age of 12, made her Broadway debut in "The Miracle Worker." The play lasted for 700 performances.

1960 - The United States imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.

1969 - U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters "an effete corps of impudent snobs."

1974 - The news program "Weekend" debuted on NBC.

1977 - The Concorde made its first landing in New York City.

1983 - The U.S. Senate approved a bill establishing a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

1984 - Four U.S. employees of the CIA were killed in El Salvador when their plane crashed.

1987 - The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 508 points. It was the worst one-day percentage decline, 22.6%, in history.

1989 - The Guilford Four were cleared of all charges and released after 14 years in prison. The charges were from the 1975 IRA bombings of public houses in Guildford and Woolrich, England.

1989 - The U.S. Senate rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that barred the desecration of the American flag.

1993 - Benazir Bhutto was returned to the premiership of Pakistan.

1998 - In Washington, DC, Microsoft went on trial to defend against an antitrust case.

1998 - Fires in Nigeria swept through villages killing 500 people.

1998 - Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson got his boxing license back after he had lost it for biting Evander Holyfield's ear during a fight.

2001 - Two U.S. Army Rangers were killed in a helicopter crash in Pakistan. The deaths were the first American deaths of the military campaign in Afghanistan.

2001 - It was reported that a New Jersey postal worker and a New York Post employee had tested positive for skin anthrax.

2002 - In York, PA, former mayor Charlie Robertson was acquitted and two other men were convicted in the shotgun murder of a young black woman during race riots in 1969.

2003 - In London, magician David Blaine emerged from a clear plastic box that had been suspended by a crane over the banks of the Thames River. He survived only on water for 44 days. Blaine had entered the box on September 5.

2006 - The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day at 12,011.73. It was the first close above 12,000.

 

[tkD]

October 20


1740 - Maria Theresa became the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia with the death of her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

1774 - The new Continental Congress, the governing body of America’s colonies, passed an order proclaiming that all citizens of the colonies "discountenance and discourage all horse racing and all kinds of gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays and other expensive diversions and entertainment."

1803 - The U.S. Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase.

1818 - The U.S. and Great Britain established the boundary between the U.S. and Canada to be the 49th parallel.

1827 - The Battle of Navarino took place during the Greek War for Independence.

1873 - A Hippodrome was opened in New York City by showman Phineus T. (P.T.) Barnum.

1892 - The city of Chicago dedicated the World's Columbian Exposition.

1903 - A joint commission ruled in favor of the U.S. concerning a dispute over the boundary between Canada and the District of Alaska.

1910 - A baseball with a cork center was used in a World Series game for the first time.

1930 - "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" debuted on NBC radio.

1935 - Mao Zedong arrived in Hanoi after his Long March that took just over a year. He then set up the Chinese Communist Headquarters.

1942 - Pierre Laval told the French labor that they must serve in Germany.

1944 - Allied forces invaded the Philippines.

1944 - During World War II, the Yugoslav cities of Belgrade and Dubrovnik were liberated.

1947 - Hollywood came under scrutiny as the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence within the motion picture industry.

1952 - The Mau Mau uprising against white settlers began in Kenya.

1955 - "No Time for Sergeants" opened on Broadway.

1957 - Walter Cronkite began hosting "The 20th Century." The show aired until January 4, 1970.

1967 - Seven men were convicted in Meridian, MS, on charges of violating the civil rights of three civil rights workers. Of the men convicted one was a Ku Klux Klan leader and another was a sheriff's deputy.

1968 - Jackie Lee Bouvier Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.

1976 - More than 70 people were killed when the Norwegian tanker Frosta collided with the ferryboat George Prince on the Mississippi River.

1979 - The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston was dedicated.

1984 - The U.S. State Department reduced the number of Americans assigned to the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

1986 - American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus was formally charged by the Nicaraguan government on several charges including terrorism.

1993 - Attorney General Janet Reno warned the TV industry to limit the violence in their programs.

1995 - Britain, France and the U.S. announced a treaty that banned atomic blasts in the South Pacific.

2003 - A 40-year-old man went over Niagara Falls without safety devices and survived. He was charged with illegally performing a stunt.


Birthdays

Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus) 1971

 

[tkD]

October 21


1797 - "Old Ironsides," the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, was launched in Boston's harbor.

1805 - The Battle of Trafalgar occurred off the coast of Spain. The British defeated the French and Spanish fleet.

1849 - The first tattooed man, James F. O’Connell, was put on exhibition at the Franklin Theatre in New York City, NY.

1858 - The Can-Can was performed for the first time in Paris.

1879 - Thomas Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp. It would last 13 1/2 hours before it would burn out.

1917 - The first U.S. soldiers entered combat during World War I near Nancy, France.

1918 - Margaret Owen set a typing speed record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.

1925 - The photoelectric cell was first demonstrated at the Electric Show in New York City, NY.

1925 - The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had fined 29,620 people for prohibition (of alcohol) violations.

1927 - Construction began on the George Washington Bridge.

1944 - During World War II, the German city of Aachen was captured by U.S. troops.

1945 - Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.

1950 - Chinese forces invaded Tibet.

1959 - The Guggenheim Museum was opened to the public in New York. The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

1966 - In south Wales, 140 people were killed by a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and several houses.

1967 - Thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington, DC, in opposition to the Vietnam War.

1980 - The Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series.

1983 - The Pentagon reported that 2,000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.

1986 - Pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon claimed that they had abducted American writer Edward Tracy. He was not released until August of 1991.

1986 - The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave. The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats.

1988 - Former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were indicted in New York on fraud and racketeering charges. Marcos died before his trial and Imelda was acquitted in 1990.

1991 - Jesse Turner, an American hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly five years of being imprisoned.

1993 - The play "The Twilight of the Golds" opened.

1994 - North Korea and the U.S. signed an agreement requiring North Korea to halt its nuclear program and agree to inspections.

1994 - Rosario Ames, the wife of CIA agent Aldrich Ames, was sentenced to five years in prison for her role in her husband's espionage.

1998 - 68 people were arrested in Indonesia for the killing spree that left nine suspected murderers dead.

1998 - The New York Yankees set a major league baseball record of 125 victories for the regular and postseason combined.

1998 - Cancer specialist Dr. Jane Henney became the FDA's first female commissioner.

2003 - The U.S. Senate voted to ban what was known as partial birth abortions.

2003 - North Korea rejected U.S. President Bush's offer of a written pledge not to attack in exchange for the communist nation agreeing to end its nuclear weapons program.

 

[tkD]

October 22


1746 - The College of New Jersey was officially chartered. It later became known as Princeton University.

1797 - Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump. He made the jump from about 3,000 feet.

1836 - Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.

1844 - This day is recognized as "The Great Disappointment" among those who practiced Millerism. The world was expected to come to an end according to the followers of William Miller.

1879 - Thomas Edison conducted his first successful experiment with a high-resistance carbon filament.

1883 - The New York Horse show opened. The first national horse show was formed by the newly organized National Horse Show Association of America.

1907 - The Panic of 1907 began when depositors began withdrawing money from many New York banks.

1934 - Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, the notorious bank robber, was shot and killed by Federal agents in East Liverpool, OH.

1939 - The first televised pro football game was telecast from New York. Brooklyn defeated Philadelphia 23-14.

1950 - The Los Angeles Rams set an NFL record by defeating the Baltimore Colts 70-27. It was a record score for a regular season game.

1954 - The Federal Republic of Germany was invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

1959 - "Take Me Along" opened on Broadway.

1962 - U.S. President Kennedy went on radio and television to inform the United States about his order to send U.S. forces to blockade Cuba. The blockade was in response to the discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island.

1968 - Apollo 7 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. The spacecraft had orbited the Earth 163 times.

1975 - Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich was discharged after publicly declaring his homosexuality. His tombstone reads " "A gay Vietnam Veteran. When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

1979 - The ousted Shah of Iran, Mohammad Riza Pahlavi was allowed into the U.S. for medical treatment.

1981 - The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization was decertified by the federal government for its strike the previous August.

1983 - At the Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia, an armed man crashed a truck through front gates and demanded to speak with U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

1986 - U.S. President Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law.

1991 - The European Community and the European Free Trade Association agreed to create a free trade zone of 19 nations by the year 1993.

1995 - The 50th anniversary of the United Nations was marked by a record number of world leaders gathering.

1995 - British writer Sir Kingsley Amis died at the age of 73.

1998 - The United Nations announced that over 2 million children had been killed in war as innocent victims since 1987.

1998 - Pakistan's carpet weaving industry announced that they would begin to phase out child labor.

1999 - China ended its first-ever human rights conference in which it defied Western definitions of civil liberties.

1999 - The U.N. Security Council voted to send 6,000 troops to Sierra Leone to oversee a peace plan that had been signed in July.



Birthdays

Shaggy 1968

 

[tkD]

October 23


42 B.C. - Marcus Junius Brutus committed suicide after his defeat at the Battle of Philippi. He was a leading conspirator in the assassination of Julius Caesar.

1864 - During the U.S. Civil War, Union forces led by Gen. Samuel R. Curtis defeated the Confederate forces in Missouri that were under Gen. Stirling Price.

1869 - John (William) Heisman was born. He is recognized as one of the greatest innovators of the game of football.

1910 - Blanche S. Scott became the first woman to make a public solo airplane flight.

1915 - The first U.S. championship horseshoe tourney was held in Kellerton, IA.

1915 - Approximately 25,000 women demanded the right to vote with a march in New York City, NY.

1929 - In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged starting the stock-market crash that began the Great Depression.

1930 - J.K. Scott won the first miniature golf tournament. The event was held in Chattanooga, TN.

1942 - During World War II, the British began a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein, Egypt.

1944 - During World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

1946 - The United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time.

1956 - Hungarian citizens began an uprising against Soviet occupation. On November 4, 1956 Soviet forces enter Hungar and eventually suppress the uprising.

1956 - NBC broadcasted the first videotape recording. The tape of Jonathan Winters was seen coast to coast in the U.S.

1958 - Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He was forced to refuse the honor due to negative Soviet reaction. Pasternak won the award for writing "Dr. Zhivago".

1962 - During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. naval "quarantine" of Cuba was approved by the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS).

1962 - The U.S. Navy reconnaissance squadron VFP-62 began overflights of Cuba under the code name "Blue Moon."

1971 - The U.N. General Assembly voted to expel Taiwan and seat Communist China.

1973 - U.S. President Richard M. Nixon agreed to turn over the subpoenaed tapes concerning the Watergate affair.

1978 - China and Japan formally ended four decades of hostility when they exchanged treaty ratifications.

1980 - The resignation of Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin was announced.

1983 - At Beirut International Airport, a suicide bomber destroyed a U.S. Marine compound and killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors. 58 French paratroopers were killed in a near-simultaneous attack.

1984 - "NBC Nightly News" aired footage of the severe drought in Ethiopia.

1985 - U.S. President Reagan arrived in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly.

1989 - In Boston, MA, Charles Stuart claimed he and his pregnant wife, Carol, had been shot in their car by a black robber. Carol Stuart and her prematurely delivered baby died. Charles Stuart later died, an apparent suicide, after he was implicated in the murder of his wife and child.

1989 - Hungary became an independent republic, after 33 years of Soviet rule.

1992 - Japanese Emperor Akihito became the first Japanese emperor to stand on Chinese soil.

1992 - A former French health official was sentenced to four years in prison for allowing 1,200 hemophiliacs to receive AIDS-tainted blood.

1993 - Joe Carter (Toronto Blue Jays) became only the second player to end the World Series with a homerun.

1995 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton agree to a joint peacekeeping effort in the war-torn Bosnia.

1996 - The civil trial of O.J. Simpson opened in Santa Monica, CA. Simpson was later found liable in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

1998 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a breakthrough in a land-for-peace West Bank accord.

1998 - Japan nationalized its first bank since World War II.

1998 - Dr. Barnett Slepian, a doctor who performed legal abortions, was killed at his home in suburban Buffalo, NY, by sniper fire through his kitchen window. James Kopp was charged with second-degree murder.

2000 - Universal Studios Consumer Products Group (USCPG) and Amblin Entertainment announced an unprecedented and exclusive three-year worldwide merchandising program with Toys "R" Us, Inc. The deal was for the rights to exclusive "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" merchandise starting in fall 2001. The film was scheduled for re-release in the spring of 2002.



Birthdays

Dwight Yoakam 1956

 

[tkD]

October 24



1537 - Jane Seymour, the third wife of England's King Henry VIII, died after giving birth to Prince Edward. Prince Edward became King Edward VI.

1632 - Scientist Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Holland. He created the first microscope lenses that were powerful enough to observe single-celled animals.

1648 - The Holy Roman Empire was effectively destroyed by the Peace of Westphalia that brought an end to the Thirty Years War.

1788 - Poet Sarah Joseph Hale was born. She wrote the poem "Mary Had A Little Lamb."

1795 - The country of Poland was divided up between Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

1830 - Belva Lockwood was born. She was the first woman formally nominated for the U.S. Presidency.

1836 - Alonzo D. Phillips received a patent for the phosphorous friction safety match.

1861 - The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent when Justice Stephen J. Field of California transmitted a telegram to U.S. President Lincoln.

1901 - Daredevil Anna Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. She was 63 years old.

1929 - In the U.S., investors dumped more than 13 million shares on the stock market. The day is known as "Black Thursday."

1931 - The George Washington Bridge opened for traffic between New York and New Jersey.

1939 - Nylon stockings were sold to the public for the first time in Wilmington, DE.

1940 - In the U.S., the 40-hour workweek went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

1945 - The United Nations (UN) was formally established less than a month after the end of World War II. The Charter was ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories.

1945 - Pierre Laval of France and Vidkum Abraham Quisling of Norway were executed. The two men were recognized as the two most prominent collaborators of the Nazis.

1948 - The term "cold war" was used for the first time. It was in a speech by Bernard Baruch before the Senate War Investigating Committee.

1949 - The cornerstone for the U.N. Headquarters was laid in New York City.

1960 - All remaining American-owned property in Cuba was nationalized. The process of nationalizing all U.S. and foreign-owned property in Cuban had begun on August 6, 1960.

1962 - During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. military forces went on the highest alert in the postwar era in preparation for a possible full-scale war with the Soviet Union. The U.S. blockade of Cuba officially began on this day.

1969 - Richard Burton bought his wife Elizabeth Taylor a 69-carat Cartier diamond ring for $1.5 million. Burton presented the ring to Taylor several days later.

1986 - Britain broke off relations with Syria after a Jordanian was convicted in an attempted bombing. The evidence in the trial led to the belief that Syria was involved in the attack on the Israeli jetliner.

1989 - Reverend Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000 for his conviction on 24 counts of fraud. In 1991, his sentence was reduced to eighteen years and he was released on parole after a total five years in prison.

1992 - The Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-U.S. team to win the World Series.

1997 - In Arlington, VA, former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert was spared a jail sentence after a courtroom apology to the woman he'd bitten during a sexual encounter.

1999 - An Israeli court sentenced American teen-ager Samuel Sheinbein to 24 years in prison. The crime was killing an acquaintance in Maryland in 1997.

2001 - The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that gave police the power to secretly search homes, tap all of a person's telephone conversation and track people's use of the Internet.

2001 - The U.S. stamp "United We Stand" was dedicated.

2001 - NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mars.

2002 - Microsoft Corp. and Walt Disney Co. announced the release of an upgraded MSN Internet service with Disney content.

2003 - In London, the last commercial supersonic Concorde flight landed.

 

[tkD]

October 25



2137 B.C. - Chinese Royal astronomers, Ho and Hsi, were executed after not predicting a solar eclipse caused panic in the streets of China.

1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer died at the age of 57. He was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

1415 - In Northern France, England won the Battle of Agincourt over France during the Hundred Years' War. Almost 6000 Frenchmen were killed while fewer than 400 were lost by the English.

1760 - George III took the British throne after the death of King George II, his grandfather.

1812 - During the War of 1812, the U.S. frigate United States captured the British vessel Macedonian.

1854 - The Charge of the Light Brigade took place during the Crimean War. The British were winning the Battle of Balaclava when Lord James Cardigan received an order to attack the Russians. He took his troops into a valley and suffered 40 percent caualties. Later it was revealed that the order was the result of confusion and was not given intentionally.

1870 - The first U.S. trademark was given. The recipient was the Averill Chemical Paint Company of New York City.

1881 - The founder of "Cubism," Pablo Picasso, was born in Malaga, Spain.

1888 - Richard Byrd, the first person to see the North Pole, was born.

1917 - The Bolsheviks (Communists) under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin seized power in Russia.

1918 - The Canadian steamship Princess Sophia hit the reef off the coast of Alaska. Nearly 400 people died.

1920 - King Alexander of Greece died from blood poisoning that resulted from a bite from his pet monkey.

1929 - Alber B. Fall, of U.S. President Harding's cabinet, was found guilty of taking a bribe. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000.

1931 - The George Washington Bridge opened to traffic.

1939 - "The Time of Your Life," by William Saroyan, opened in New York.

1951 - In Panmunjom, peace talks concerning the Korean War resumed after 63 days.

1954 - A U.S. cabinet meeting was televised for the first time.

1955 - The microwave oven, for home use, was introduced by The Tappan Company.

1958 - U.S. Marines withdrew from Beirut, Lebanon. They had been sent in on July 25, 1958, to protect the nation's pro-Western government.

1960 - The Accutron watch by the Bulova Watch Company was introduced.

1962 - U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson presented photographic evidence to the United Nations Security Council. The photos were of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

1962 - American author John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

1971 - The U.N. General Assembly voted to expel Taiwan and admit mainland China.

1983 - U.S. troops and soldiers from six Caribbean nations invaded Grenada to restore order and provide protection to U.S. citizens after a recent coup within Grenada's Communist (pro-Cuban) government.

1990 - It was announced by U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney that the Pentagon was planning to send 100,000 more troops to Saudi Arabia.

1994 - Susan Smith of Union, SC, claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. Smith was later convicted of drowning her children in a nearby lake.

1999 - Golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when their Learjet crashed in South Dakota. The plane flew uncontrolled for four hours before the crash.

2000 - AT&T Corp. announced that it would restructure into a family of four separately traded companies (consumer, business, broadband and wireless).

2001 - It was announced that scientists had unearthed the remains of an ancient crocodile which lived 110 million years ago. The animal, found in Gadoufaoua, Niger, grew as long as 40 feet and weighed as much as eight metric tons.

 

[tkD]

October 26



1774 - The First Continental Congress of the U.S. adjourned in Philadelphia.

1825 - The Erie Canal opened in upstate New York. The 363-mile canal connected Lake Erie and the Hudson River at a cost of $7,602,000.

1854 - Charles William Post was born. He was the inventor of "Grape Nuts," "Postum" and "Post Toasties."

1858 - H.E. Smith patented the rotary-motion washing machine.

1881 - The "Gunfight at the OK Corral" took place in Tombstone, AZ. The fight was between Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holiday and the Ike Clanton Gang.

1905 - Norway gained independence from Sweden.

1914 - Jackie Coogan was born. He became the first child to appear in a full-length movie, "The Kid."

1942 - The U.S. ship Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz during World War II.

1944 - During World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf ended. The battle was won by American forces and brought the end of the Pacific phase of World War II into sight.

1949 - U.S. President Harry Truman raised the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour.

1951 - Winston Churchill became the prime minister of Great Britain.

1955 - New York City's "The Village Voice" was first published.

1957 - The Soviet Union announced that defense minister Marchal Georgi Zhukov had been relieved of his duties.

1958 - Pan American Airways flew its first Boeing 707 jetliner from New York City to Paris.

1962 - The Soviet Union made an offer to end the Cuban Missile Crisis by taking their missile bases out of Cuba if the U.S. agreed to not invade Cuba and would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

1967 - The Shah of Iran crowned himself and his Queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne.

1970 - "Doonesbury," the comic strip by Gary Trudeau, premiered in 28 newspapers across the U.S.

1972 - U.S. National security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam.

1975 - Anwar Sadat became the first Egyptian president to officially visit to the United States.

1977 - The experimental space shuttle Enterprise successfully landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1979 - South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

1980 - Israeli President Yitzhak Navon became the first Israeli head of state to visit Egypt.

1984 - "Baby Fae" was given the heart of baboon after being born with a severe heart defect. She lived for 21 days with the animal heart.

1985 - Approximately 110,000 people marched past the U.S. and Soviet embassies in London to pressure the two countries to end their arms race.

1988 - Roussel Uclaf, a French pharmaceutical company, announced it was halting the worldwide distribution of RU-486. The pill is used to induce abortions. The French government made the company reverse itself two days later.

1988 - Two whales were freed by Soviet and American icebreakers. The whales had been trapped for nearly 3 weeks in an Arctic ice pack.

1990 - The U.S. State Department issued a warning that terrorists could be planning an attack on a passenger ship or aircraft.

1990 - William S. Paley died at the age of 89. He was the founder of CBS Inc.

1990 - Wayne Gretzky became the first NHL player to reach 2,000 points.

1991 - Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry arrived at a federal correctional institution in Petersburg, VA, to begin serving a six-month sentence for cocaine possession.

1992 - General Motors Corp. Chairman Robert Stempel resigned after the company recorded its highest losses in history.

1992 - In Canada, voters rejected the Charlottetown accord, which was designed to unify the country.

1993 - Deborah Gore Dean was convicted of 12 felony counts of defrauding the U.S. government and lying to the U.S. Congress. Dean was a central figure in the Reagan-era HUD scandal.

1994 - Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan signed a peace treaty.

1995 - Alec Baldwin got into a fight with a paparazzi in front of his home when he and his wife Kim Bassinger were bringing their first baby home from the hospital.

1995 - Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) scored his 500th National Hockey League (NHL) career goal against the New York Islanders in his 605th game. He became the second-fastest player to attain the plateau. Wayne Gretzky had reached 600 goals by his 575th NHL game.

1996 - Federal prosecutors cleared Richard Jewell as a suspect in the Olympic park bombing.

1998 - A French lab found a nerve agent on an Iraqi missile warhead.

2001 - It was announced that Fort Worth's Lockheed Martin won a defense contract for $200 billion over 40 years. The contract, for the "joint strike fighter," was the largest defense contract in history.

2002 - Russian authorities pumped a gas into a theater where separatist rebels held over 800 hostages. The gas killed 116 hostages and all 50 hostage-takers were killed by the gas or gunshot wounds.



Birthdays

Eros Ramazzotti 1964

 

[tkD]

October 27


1659 - William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson became the first Quakers to be executed in America.

1787 - The first of the Federalist Papers were published in the New York Independent. The series of 85 essays, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, were published under the pen name "Publius."

1795 - The United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo. The treaty is also known as "Pinckney's Treaty."

1858 - Roland Macy opened Macy's Department Store in New York City. It was Macy's eighth business adventure, the other seven failed.

1878 - The Manhattan Savings Bank in New York City was robbed of over $3,000,000. The robbery was credited to George "Western" Leslie even though there was not enough evidence to convict him, only two of his associates were convicted.

1880 - Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee.

1904 - The New York subway system officially opened. It was the first rapid-transit subway system in America.

1925 - Fred Waller received a patent for water skis.

1927 - The first newsreel featuring sound was released in New York.

1931 - Chuhei Numbu of Japan set a long jump record at 26' 2 1/4".

1938 - Du Pont announced "nylon" as the new name for its new synthetic yarn.

1947 - "You Bet Your Life," the radio show starring Grouch Marx, premiered on ABC. It was later shown on NBC television.

1954 - Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were divorced. They had been married on January 14, 1954.

1954 - The first Walt Disney television show "Disneyland" premiered on ABC.

1962 - The Soviet Union adds to the Cuban Missile Crisis by calling for the dismantling of U.S. missile basis in Turkey. U.S. President Kennedy agreed to the new aspect of the agreement.

1978 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their progress toward achieving a Middle East accord.

1994 - The U.S. Justice Department announced that the U.S. prison population had exceeded one million for the first time in American history.

1997 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 554.26 points. The stock market was shut down for the first time since the 1981 assassination attempt on U.S. President Reagan.

1998 - The reunion episode "CHiPs '99" aired for the first time on the cable network TNT.

1998 - A car bomb exploded in the car of a Palestinian leader Mahmoud Majzoub. Majzoub, his wife, and his nine-month-old son, and a passerby were injured in the blast.

1998 - "Lion King II: Simba's Pride" was released on video.

1998 - Two boats hit head-on in India. One of the boats suffered no damage. The other sank and 60 people were missing.

1999 - Armenia's Prime Minister and seven other government officials were killed during a parliamentary session. It was the believed that the gunmen were staging a coup.

2002 - The Anaheim Angels won their first World Series. The beat the San Francisco Giants in Game 7 of the series.

2002 - Emmitt Smith (Dallas Cowboys) became the all-time leading rusher in the NFL when he extended his career yardage to 16,743. He achieved the record in his 193rd game. He also scored his 150th career touchdown.

2002 - Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff. He was the country's first elected leftist leader.

2003 - Bank of America Corp. announced it had agreed to buy FleetBoston Financial Corp. The deal created the second largest banking company in the U.S.


Birthdays

Theodore Roosevelt (U.S.) 1858

 

[tkD]

October 28


1636 - Harvard College was founded in Massachusetts. The original name was Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was the first school of higher education in America.

1776 - The Battle of White Plains took place during the American Revolutionary War.

1793 - Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin.

1886 - The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor by U.S. President Cleveland. The statue weighs 225 tons and is 152 feet tall. It was originally known as "Liberty Enlightening the World."

1904 - The St. Louis Police Department became the first to use fingerprinting.

1919 - The U.S. Congress enacted the Volstead Act, also known as the National Prohibition Act. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 with the passing of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1922 - Benito Mussolini took control of the Italian government and introduced fascism to Italy.

1936 - The Statue of Liberty was rededicated by U.S. President Roosevelt on its 50th anniversary.

1940 - During World War II, Italy invaded Greece.

1949 - U.S. President Harry Truman swore in Eugenie Moore Anderson as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. Anderson was the first woman to hold the post of ambassador.

1958 - Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope. He took the name John XXIII.

1962 - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the U.S. that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

1965 - Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

1965 - The Gateway Arch along the waterfront in St. Louis, MO, was completed.

1976 - John D. Erlichman, a former aide to U.S. President Richard Nixon, entered a federal prison camp in Safford, AZ, to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions.

1983 - The U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution "deeply deploring" the ongoing U.S.-led invasion of Grenada.

1984 - The New York City Marathon was marred by its first fatality when a French runner who collapsed and died.

1985 - John A. Walker Jr. and his son, Michael Lance Walker, pled guilty to charges of spying for the Soviet Union.

1986 - The centennial of the Statue of Liberty was celebrated in New York.

1988 - Roussel Uclaf, a French manufacturer that produces the abortion pill RU486, announced it would resume distribution of the drug after the government of France demanded it do so.

1990 - Iraq announced that it was halting gasoline rationing.

1993 - Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, called for a complete blockade of Haiti to force out the military leaders.

1994 - U.S. President Clinton visited Kuwait and implied that all the troops there would be home by Christmas.

1996 - The Dow Jones Industial Average gained a record 337.17 points (or 5%). The day before the Dow had dropped 554.26 points (or 7%).

1998 - An Air China jet was hijacked and flown to Taiwan by pilot Yuan Bin. He was upset with his pay and working conditions. The plane arrived safely and Yuan Bin was taken into custody.



Birthdays

Julia Roberts 1967

 

[tkD]

October 29



1618 - Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded under a sentence that had been brought against him 15 years earlier for conspiracy against King James I.

1652 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed itself to be an independent commonwealth.

1682 - William Penn landed at what is now Chester, PA. He was the founder of Pennsylvania.

1863 - The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded.

1901 - Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President McKinley, was electrocuted.

1911 - American newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer died.

1923 - Turkey formally became a republic after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The first president was Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk.

1929 - America's Great Depression began with the crash of the Wall Street stock market.

1940 - The first peacetime military draft began in the U.S.

1945 - The first ballpoint pens to be made commercially went on sale at Gimbels Department Store in New York at the price of $12.50 each.

1956 - Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal Crisis.

1956 - "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered on NBC. The show replaced "The Camel News Caravan."

1959 - General Mills became the first corporation to use close-circuit television.

1960 - Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) won his first professional fight.

1964 - Three men stole the star of India and other gems from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The men were later convicted of the crime.

1966 - The National Organization for Women was founded.

1969 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered an immediate end to all school segregation.

1973 - O.J. Simpson, of the Buffalo Bills, set two NFL records. He carried the ball 39 times and he ran 157 yards putting him over 1,000 yards at the seventh game of the season.

1974 - U.S. President Gerald Ford signed a new law forbidding discrimination in credit applications on the basis of sex or marital status

1985 - It was announced that Maj. Gen. Samuel K. Doe had won the first multiparty election in Liberia.

1989 - A public mourning, involving over 20,000 East Berliners, was observed with a minute of silence for the people who had been killed while trying to flee over the Berlin Wall.

1990 - The U.N. Security Council voted to hold Saddam Hussein's regime liable for human rights abuses and war damages during its occupation of Kuwait.

1991 - The U.S. Galileo spacecraft became the first to visit an asteroid (Gaspra).

1991 - Trade sanctions were imposed on Haiti by the U.S. to pressure the new leaders to restore the ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

1992 - Depo Provera, a contraceptive, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

1993 - A group of U.S. athletes were attacked by skinheads in Germany.

1994 - Francisco Martin Duran fired more than two dozen shots at the White House while standing on Pennsylvania Ave. Duran was later convicted of trying to kill U.S. President Clinton.

1995 - Palestinians swore revenge for the assassination of Dr. Fathi Shakaki.

1995 - Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers became the NFL's career leader in receiving yards with 14,040 yards.

1996 - An auction was held to sell the artwork that had been stolen by the Nazis during the German occupation of Austria during World War II.

1998 - South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemned both apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress.

1998 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off with John Glenn on board. Glenn was 77 years old. In 1962 he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

1998 - A Turkish Airlines flight was hijacked and ordered to fly to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. The plane had 39 people on board.

1998 - In Freehold, NJ, Melissa Drexler was sentenced to 15 years in prison for strangling her baby after giving birth in the bathroom at her senior prom.

1998 - In London, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman accepted a substantial settlement from the Express Newspapers for an article that was run on October 5, 1997. The article claimed that both were homosexual and their marriage was a sham to cover the truth.

1998 - James Orr was sentenced to 3 years probation and ordered to do 100 hours of community service for slamming Farrah Fawcett's head to the ground and choking her during a fight.

1998 - A dance hall in Goteborg, Sweden, was gutted with fire killing 60 people. 173 were also injured in the fire.

1998 - The oldest known copy of Archimedes' work sold for $2 million at a New York auction.

2001 - KTLA broadcasted the first coast to coast HDTV network telecast.



Birthdays

Winona Ryder 1971

 

[tkD]

October 30




1735 - John Adams, the second President of the United States, was born in Braintree, MA. His son became the sixth President of the U.S.

1817 - The independent government of Venezuela was established by Simon Bolivar.

1831 - Escaped slave Nat Turner was apprehended in Southampton County, VA, several weeks after leading the bloodiest slave uprising in American history.

1875 - The constitution of Missouri was ratified by popular vote.

1893 - The U.S. Senate gave final approval to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890.

1894 - The time clock was patented by Daniel M. Cooper of Rochester, NY.

1938 - Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds" aired on CBS radio. The belief that the realistic radio dramatization was a live news event about a Martian invasion caused panic among listeners.

1943 - In Moscow, a declaration was signed by the Governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and China called for an early establishment of an international organization to maintain peace and security. The goal was supported on December 1, 1943, at a meeting in Teheran.

1944 - Martha Graham's ballet "Appalachian Spring" premiered at the Library of Congress.

1945 - The U.S. government announced the end of shoe rationing.

1953 - General George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1961 - The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force of approximately 58 megatons.

1961 - The Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved an order to remove Joseph Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb.

1972 - U.S. President Richard Nixon approved legislation to increase Social Security spending by $5.3 billion.

1972 - In Illinois, 45 people were killed when two trains collided on Chicago's south side.

1975 - Prince Juan Carlos assumed power in Spain as dictator Francisco Franco was near death.

1975 - The New York Daily News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead." The headline came a day after U.S. President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.

1984 - In Poland, police found the body of kidnapped pro-Solidarity priest Father Jerry Popieluszko. His death was blamed on four security officers.

1989 - Mitsubishi Estate Company announced it would buy 51 percent of Rockefeller Group Inc. of New York.

1993 - Martin Fettman, America's first veterinarian in space, performed the world's first animal dissections in space, while aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

1993 - The United Nations deadline concerning ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide passed with country's military still in control.

1995 - Federalist prevailed over separatists in Quebec in a referendum concerning secession from the federation of Canada.

1997 - The play revival "The Cherry Orchard" opened.

1998 - The terrorist who hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane and the 39 people on board was killed when anti-terrorist squads raided the plane.

2001 - In New York City, U.S. President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

2001 - Michael Jordan returned to the NBA with the Washington Wizards after a 3 1/2 year retirement. The Wizards lost 93-91 to the New York Knicks.



Birthdays


John Adams (U.S.) 1735

 

[tkD]

October 31


1517 - Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church. The event marked the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

1860 - Juliette Low, the founder off the Girl Scouts, was born.

1864 - Nevada became the 36th state to join the U.S.

1868 - Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for postal carriers.

1887 - Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek was born. He was the first constitutional President of the Republic of China.

1914 - The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria).

1922 - Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy.

1926 - Magician Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. His appendix had been damaged twelve days earlier when he had been punched in the stomach by a student unexpectedly. During a lecture Houdini had commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows.

1940 - The British air victory in the Battle of Britain prevented Germany from invading Britain.

1941 - Mount Rushmore was declared complete after 14 years of work. At the time the 60-foot busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were finished.

1941 - The U.S. Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German submarine near Iceland. The U.S. had not yet entered World War II. More than 100 men were killed.

1952 - The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb.

1954 - The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began a revolt against French rule.

1955 - Britain's Princess Margaret announced she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend.

1956 - Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek become the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole. Dufek also became the first person to set foot on the South Pole.

1959 - Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, TX, announced that he would never return to the U.S. At the time he was in Moscow, Russia.

1961 - In the Soviet Union, the body of Joseph Stalin was removed from Lenin's Tomb where it was on public display.

1968 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

1983 - The U.S. Defense Department acknowledged that during the U.S. led invasion of Grenada, that a U.S. Navy plane had mistakenly bombed a civilian hospital.

1984 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards. Her son, Rajiv, was sworn in as prime minister.

1992 - In Liberia, it was announced that five American nuns had been killed near Monrovia. Rebels loyal to Charles Taylor were blamed for the murders.

1993 - River Phoenix died at the age of 23 after collapsing outside The Viper Room in Hollywood.

1993 - The play "Wonderful Tennessee" closed after only 9 performances.

1994 - 68 people were killed when an American Eagle ATR-72, plunged into a northern Indiana farm.

1997 - Louise Woodward, British au pair, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. She was released after her sentence was reduced to manslaughter.

1998 - Iraq announced that it was halting all dealings with U.N. arms inspectors. The inspectors were investigating the country's weapons of mass destruction stemming from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the coast of Nantucket, MA, killing all 217 people aboard.

1999 - Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The event ended a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

2001 - Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the antitrust case againt the software company.



Birthdays

Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) 1967

 

[tkD]

November 1


1512 - Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public.

1604 - "Othello," the tragedy by William Shakespeare, was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.

1611 - "The Tempest," Shakespeare's romantic comedy, was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.

1755 - At least 60,000 people were killed in Lisbon, Portugal by an earthquake, its aftershocks and the ensuing tsunami.

1765 - The British Parliament enacted The Stamp Act in the American colonies. The act was repealed in March of 1766 on the same day that the Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts which asserted that the British government had free and total legislative power of the colonies.

1800 - U.S. President John Adams became the first president to live in the White House when he moved in.

1848 - The first medical school for women, founded by Samuel Gregory, opened in Boston, MA. The Boston Female Medical School later merged with Boston University School of Medicine.

1856 - The first photography magazine, Daguerreian Journal, was published in New York City, NY.

1861 - Gen. George B. McClellan was made the general-in-chief of the American Union armies.

1864 - The U.S. Post Office started selling money orders. The money orders provided a safe way to payments by mail.

1870 - The U.S. Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations using 24 locations that provided reports via telegraph.

1879 - Thomas Edison executed his first patent application for a high-resistance carbon filament (U.S. Pat. 223,898).

1894 - "Billboard Advertising" was published for the first time. It later became known as "Billboard."

1894 - Russian Emperor Alexander III died.

1904 - The Army War College in Washington, DC, enrolled the first class.

1911 - Italy used planes to drop bombs on the Tanguira oasis in Libya. It was the first aerial bombing.

1936 - Benito Mussolini made a speech in Milan, Italy, in which he described the alliance between Italy and Nazi Germany as an "axis" running between Berlin and Rome.

1937 - "Hilltop House" was aired for the first time on CBS Radio.

1937 - "Terry and the Pirates" debuted on NBC Radio.

1940 - "A Night in the Tropics" was released. It was the first movie for Abbott and Costello.

1944 - "Harvey," by Mary Chase, opened on Broadway.

1947 - The famous racehorse Man o' War died.

1949 - In Washington, 55 people were killed when a fighter plane hit an airliner.

1950 - Two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate U.S. President Harry Truman. One of the men was killed when they tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, DC.

1950 - Charles Cooper became the first black man to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

1952 - The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

1954 - Algeria began to rebel against French rule.

1959 - Jacques Plante, of the Montreal Canadiens, became the first goalie in the NHL to wear a mask.

1962 - "The Lucy Show" premiered.

1963 - The USSR launched Polyot I. It was the first satellite capable of maneuvering in all directions and able to change its orbit.

1968 - The movie rating system of G, M, R, X, followed by PG-13 and NC-17 went into effect.

1973 - Leon Jaworski was appointed the new Watergate special prosecutor in the Watergate case.

1979 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged all Iranians to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand their attacks against the U.S. and Israel. On November 4, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage.

1985 - In the village of Ignacio Aldama, 22 members of a Mexican anti-narcotics squad were killed by alleged drug traffickers.

1987 - Deng Xiaoping retired from China's Communist Party's Central Committee.

1989 - Tens of thousands of refugees to fled to the West when East Germany reopened its border with Czechoslovakia.

1989 - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced the end of a cease-fire with the Contra rebels.

1993 - The European Community's treaty on European unity took effect.

1995 - In Dayton, OH, the Bosnian peace talks opened with the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia present.

1998 - Nicaraguan Vice President Enrique Bolanos announced that between 1,000 and 1,500 people were buried in a 32-square mile area below the slopes of the Casita volcano in northern Nicaragua by a mudslide caused by Hurricane Mitch.

1998 - Iridium inaugurated the first handheld, global satellite phone and paging system.