[KenOC]

It's been a year, and from here on it'll be mostly repeats. So I won't be posting these any more. Thanks to all who have enjoyed reading. Bye!

It would be great if somebody wants to continue these...

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 12 November 1893: The treaty of the Durand Line delineating the border between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan is signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India, and the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. The Durand Line has gained international recognition as an international border between the two nations.

1912: The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

1927: Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.

1936: In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.

1948: In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

1970: The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the "exploding whale" incident.

1996: A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349. This is the deadliest mid-air collision to date.

Born today:
1817: Bahá'u'lláh, Persian spiritual leader, founded the Bahá'í Faith (d. 1892).
1833: Alexander Borodin, Russian composer and chemist (d. 1887).
1840: Auguste Rodin, French sculptor, created The Thinker (d. 1917).
1866: Sun Yat-sen, Chinese physician and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (d. 1925).
1929: Grace Kelly, American-Monacan actress and singer (d. 1982).
1934: Charles Manson, American cult leader and murderer.
1945: Neil Young, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young).
1970: Tonya Harding, American figure skater.

It's World Pneumonia Day.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 11 November 1215: The Fourth Lateran Council meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.

1620: The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.

1634: Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.

1675: Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).

1831: In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

1864: American Civil War, Sherman's March to the Sea: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.

1880: Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.

1918: World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ends at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and this is commemorated annually with a two minute silence.

1926: The United States Numbered Highway System, including U.S. Route 66, is established.

1930: Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.

1992: The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

Happy birthday to:
1821: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian philosopher and author (d. 1881).
1869: Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (d. 1947).
1883: Ernest Ansermet, Swiss conductor (d. 1969).
1904: Alger Hiss, American lawyer and spy (d. 1996).
1914: Howard Fast, American author and screenwriter (d. 2003).
1922: Kurt Vonnegut, American soldier, author, and academic (d. 2007).
1925: Jonathan Winters, American comedian and actor (d. 2013).
1930: Vernon Handley, English conductor (d. 2008).
1945: Daniel Ortega, Nicaraguan politician, President of Nicaragua.
1962: Demi Moore, American actress.
1974: Leonardo DiCaprio, American actor.

It's Pocky Day and Pretz Day in Japan. And Singles Day in China.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 10 November 1865: Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes.

1871: Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1951: With the rollout of the North American Numbering Plan, direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

1958: The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.

1969: National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.

1983: Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0.

Born today:
1483: Martin Luther, German monk and priest, leader of the Protestant Reformation (d. 1546).
1668: François Couperin, French organist and composer (d. 1733).
1697: William Hogarth, English painter, illustrator, and critic (d. 1764).
1759: Friedrich Schiller, German poet, playwright, and historian (d. 1805).
1810: George Jennings, English plumber and engineer, invented the flush toilet (d. 1882).
1919: Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian general and weapons designer, designed the AK-47 (d. 2013).
1925: Richard Burton, Welsh actor and producer (d. 1984).
1928: Ennio Morricone, Italian trumpet player, composer, and conductor.
1939: Russell Means, American actor and activist (d. 2012).
1940: Screaming Lord Sutch, English singer-songwriter and politician (d. 1999).

Who could forget Screaming Lord Sutch?

It's World Science Day, established by UNESCO in 2001.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 9 November 694: At the Seventeenth Council of Toledo, Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims, sentencing all Jews to slavery.

1620: Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

1720: The synagogue of Yehudah he-Hasid is burned down by Arab creditors, leading to the expulsion of the Ashkenazim from Jerusalem.

1799: Napoleon Bonaparte leads the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, ending the Directory government and becoming one of three Consuls (Consulate Government).

1867: The Tokugawa Shogunate hands power back to the Emperor of Japan, starting the Meiji Restoration.

1906: Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country, to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.

1938: The Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath dies from gunshot wounds of Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan, an act which the Nazis use as an excuse to instigate the 1938 national pogrom, also known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night).

1965: Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of 1965.

1967: The first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published.

1985: Garry Kasparov of the Soviet Union, 22, becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union. But Deep Blue is stirring...

1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. This key event leads to the eventual reunification of East and West Germany and fall of communism in eastern Europe including Russia.

1998: A US federal judge orders 37 US brokerage houses to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.

Born today:
1914: Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress (and inventor!) (d. 2000).
1918: Spiro Agnew, American lawyer, and politician, 39th Vice President of the United States (d. 1996).
1934: Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist (d. 1996).
1936: Mikhail Tal, Latvian chess player (d. 1992).
1959: Thomas Quasthoff, German opera singer.
1965: Bryn Terfel, Welsh opera singer.

It's Day of the Skulls, or Dia de los ñatitas, in Bolivia.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 8 November 1519: Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration. Oops.

1892: The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.

1895: While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.

1898: The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 takes place, the only instance of an attempted coup d'état in American history.

1923: Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.

1966: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.

1973: The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay US$2.9 million. (Rather grudgingly. See Wiki.)

Born today:
1656: Edmond Halley, English astronomer and mathematician (d. 1742).
1883: Arnold Bax, English composer and poet (d. 1953).
1922: Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon and academic (d. 2001).

It's International Day of Radiology.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 7 November 1492: The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.

1775: John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation which offers freedom to slaves who abandon their colonial masters in order to fight with Murray and the British.

1874: A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party.

1908: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia.

1912: The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio.

1917: The Gregorian calendar date of the October Revolution, which gets its name from the Julian calendar date of 25 October. On this date in 1917, the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace.

1940: In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a mild windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion. It was known as "Galloping Gertie" due to its unfortunate tendency to twist and oscillate in the wind. It was the third-longest suspension span in the world at the time. A picture shows the problem:

2000: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas.

Born today:
1867: Marie Curie, Polish chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934).
1879: Leon Trotsky, Russian theorist and politician, founded the Red Army (d. 1940).
1903: Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989).
1913: Albert Camus, French journalist, author, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960).
1918: Billy Graham, American evangelist and minister.
1926: Joan Sutherland, Australian-Swiss soprano (d. 2010).
1943: Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 6 November 1913: Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1935: Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" to the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers. (He had previously, in 1918, invented the superheterodyne receiver, the fundamental design for almost all radios built since. He committed suicide in 1954 after being left penniless by protracted legal battles with RCA, which claimed FM radio as its own. Ultimately these battles were decided in his favor, but too late.)

1935: Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie.

1944: Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

1965: Cuba and the United States formally agree to begin an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971, 250,000 Cubans had made use of this program.

Born today:
1814: Adolphe Sax, Belgian-French instrument designer, inventor of the saxophone (d. 1894).
1854: John Philip Sousa, American commander, composer, and conductor (d. 1932).

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 5 November 1605: Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is arrested.

1757: Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great defeats the allied armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Rossbach.

1831: Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.

1862: American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army for the second and final time.

1872: Women's suffrage in the United States: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.

1916: The Everett Massacre takes place in Everett, Washington as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police.

1925: Secret agent Sidney Reilly, the first "super-spy" of the 20th century, is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union.

1955: After being destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio.

1995: André Dallaire attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada. He is thwarted when the Prime Minister's wife locks the door.

2007: The Android mobile operating system is unveiled by Google.

Born today:
1855: Eugene V. Debs, American union leader and socialist politician (d. 1926).
1885: Will Durant, American historian, philosopher, and author (d. 1981).
1887: Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-American pianist (d. 1961).
1895: Walter Gieseking, French-German pianist and composer (d. 1956).
1906: Fred Lawrence Whipple, American astronomer and academic (d. 2004).
1911: Roy Rogers, American singer, guitarist, and actor (Sons of the Pioneers) (d. 1998).
1921: Georges Cziffra, Hungarian pianist and composer (d. 1994).
1941: Art Garfunkel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (Simon & Garfunkel).
1948: Bernard-Henri Lévy, French philosopher and author.
1963: Tatum O'Neal, American actress and author.

It's Guy Fawkes Night in the UK and related places.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 4 November 1783: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria.

1847: Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform.

1922: In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1942: Second Battle of El Alamein: Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.

1956: Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.

1962: In a test of the Nike Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Atoll. This is the last atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States.

1979: A mob of Iranians, mostly students, overruns the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).

2008: Barack Obama becomes the first man of African-American descent to be elected President of the United States.

Born today:
1879: Will Rogers, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1935).
1916: Walter Cronkite, American journalist and producer (d. 2009).

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 3 November 1783: John Austin, a highwayman, is the last person to be publicly hanged at London's Tyburn gallows.

1838: The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper, is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.

1868: John Willis Menard is the first African American elected to the United States Congress. Because of an electoral challenge, he was never seated.

1883: American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves a clue that eventually leads to his capture.

1911: Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.

1954: The first Godzilla film is released, marking the debut of the character of the same name.

1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika.

1979: Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States.

Born today:
1500: Benvenuto Cellini, Italian sculptor and painter (d. 1571).
1801: Vincenzo Bellini, Italian composer (d. 1835).
1901: André Malraux, French historian, theorist, and author (d. 1976).
1921: Charles Bronson, American actor (d. 2003).
1933: Jeremy Brett, English actor (d. 1995).
1942: Martin Cruz Smith, American author and screenwriter.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 2 November 1895: The first gasoline-powered race in the United States; first prize is $2,000.

1917: The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".

1920: In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the United States presidential election.

1936: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis powers.

1936: The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.

1947: In California, designer Howard Hughes pilots the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose or H-4 The Hercules, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

1959: Quiz show scandals: Twenty One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

2000: The first resident crew of the ISS docks with their Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft.

Born today:
1692: Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer, Dutch composer and diplomat (d. 1766).
1734: Daniel Boone, American hunter and explorer (d. 1820).
1739: Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Austrian violinist and composer (d. 1799).
1755: Marie Antoinette, Austrian wife of Louis XVI of France (d. 1793).
1795: James K. Polk, American lawyer and politician, 11th President of the United States (d. 1849).
1815: George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1864).
1865: Warren G. Harding, American journalist and politician, 29th President of the United States (d. 1923).
1913: Burt Lancaster, American actor (d. 1994).
1944: Keith Emerson, English keyboard player and songwriter.
1946: Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor and composer (d. 2001).

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 1 November 1512: The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

1520: The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.

1604: William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1611: William Shakespeare's play The Tempest is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1765: The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the Thirteen Colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.

1814: Congress of Vienna opens to re-draw the European political map after the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars.

1894: Nicholas II becomes the new (and last) Tsar of Russia after his father, Alexander III, dies.

1896: A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.

1918: Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 102 deaths.

1941: American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.

1950: Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman at Blair House.

1952: Operation Ivy: The United States successfully detonates the first staged hydrogen device, codenamed "Mike" [M for megaton], in the Eniwetok atoll, located in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The explosion has a yield of ten megatons.

1960: While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.

1963: The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.

1982: Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, Ohio. The Honda Accord is the first car produced there.

Born today:
1871: Stephen Crane, American journalist, author, and poet (d. 1900).
1902: Eugen Jochum, German conductor (d. 1987).
1923: Victoria de los Ángeles, Spanish soprano (d. 2005).
1923: Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian-American author (d. 2001).
1935: Edward Said, Palestinian-American theorist, author, and academic (d. 2003).

It's National Bison Day in the United States.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 31 October 1517: Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

1913: Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across United States.

1917: World War I: Battle of Beersheba: The "last successful cavalry charge in history".

1941: After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed.

1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Riots break out in New Delhi and other cities and nearly 10,000 Sikhs are killed.

2000: Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been crewed continuously since then.

2011: The global population of humans reaches seven billion. This day is now recognized by the United Nations as Seven Billion Day.

Born today:
1632: Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter (d. 1675).
1795: John Keats, English-Italian poet (d. 1821).
1920: Dick Francis, Welsh-Caymanian jockey and author (d. 2010).
1950: John Candy, Canadian actor (d. 1994).
1961: Peter Jackson, New Zealand actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.
1963: Rob Schneider, American actor.

It's Halloween in the United States.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 30 October 1534: English Parliament passes Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the English church -- a role formerly held by the Pope.

1831: In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.

1922: Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy.

1938: Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.

1941: World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.

1942: Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and canteen assistant Tommy Brown from HMS Petard board U-559, retrieving material which will lead to the decryption of the German Enigma code.

1961: Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 50 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise. This picture is from 99 miles. The crown of the cloud is at 35 miles.

1974: As a member of the California Angels, Major League Baseball player Nolan Ryan throws the fastest recorded pitch at 100.9 MPH.

1974: The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire. Against all odds, Muhammed Ali wins.

Born today:
1735: John Adams, American politician, 2nd President of the United States (d. 1826).
1885: Ezra Pound, American poet and critic (d. 1972).
1893: Charles Atlas, Italian-American bodybuilder (d. 1972).
1894: Peter Warlock, English composer and critic (d. 1930).
1896: Harry Randall Truman, American owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge (d. 1980 in the eruption).
1939: Grace Slick, American singer-songwriter (Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and The Great Society).

It's Mischief Night in the United States.

 

[KenOC]

Thanks Taggart! Frederick Brown's magazine cover: This is supposedly a Kelly Freas self-portrait.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 29 October 539 BC: Cyrus the Great, founder of Persian Empire, enters the capital of Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to their land.

1618: English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.

1675: Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.

1787: Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.

1792: Mount Hood, Oregon, is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River. Here's a repost of a 1931 photo by my dad.

1901: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.

1923: Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1929: The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday", ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

1953: BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco. Pianist William Kapell is among the 19 killed.

1964: A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves (among them is "Murph the surf") from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

1969: The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

Born today:
1897: Joseph Goebbels, German politician, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1945).
1906: Fredric Brown, American author (d. 1972)*.
1921: Bill Mauldin, American cartoonist (d. 2003).
1926: Jon Vickers, Canadian tenor.
1947: Richard Dreyfuss, American actor, singer, and producer.

* My current avatar is inspired by a Frederick Brown story from 1954.

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 28 October 1420: Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty on the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, is completed.

1492: Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba on his first voyage to the New World.

1636: A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what will become the United States, today known as Harvard University.

1886: In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.

1893: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, receives its première performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer's death.

1915: Richard Strauss conducts the first performance of his tone poem Eine Alpensinfonie in Berlin.

1919: The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.

1942: The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Born on this day:
1846: Auguste Escoffier, French chef and author (d. 1935).
1896: Howard Hanson, American composer, conductor, and educator (d. 1981).
1955: Bill Gates, American businessman, co-founded Microsoft.

 

[KenOC]

On this day 27 October 1810: The United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.

1827: Bellini's third opera, Il pirata, is premiered at Teatro alla Scala di Milano

1838: Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.

1904: The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.

1914: The British lose their first battleship of World War I: The British super-dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious (23,400 tons), is sunk off Tory Island, north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin. The loss is kept an official secret in Britain until November 14 1918. The sinking is witnessed and photographed by passengers on RMS Olympic, sister ship of RMS Titanic.

1962: Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban missile crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.

1967: Catholic priest Philip Berrigan and others of the 'Baltimore Four' protest the Vietnam War by pouring blood on Selective Service records.

1988: Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.

Born today:
1703: Johann Gottlieb Graun, German violinist and composer (d. 1771).
1782: Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1840).
1858: Theodore Roosevelt, American colonel and politician, 26th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919).
1914: Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and playwright (d. 1953).
1923: Roy Lichtenstein, American painter and sculptor (d. 1997).
1940: John Gotti, American mobster (d. 2002).

 

[KenOC]

On this day, 26 October 1775: King George III of Great Britain (only a part-time lunatic) goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorizes a military response to quell the American Revolution.

1825: The Erie Canal opens, providing passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.

1881: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1917: World War I: Battle of Caporetto; Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the forces of Austria-Hungary and Germany. The young unknown Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel captures Mount Matajur with only 100 Germans against a force of over 7000 Italians.

1940 - The P-51 Mustang makes its maiden flight.

1944: World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends with an overwhelming American victory.

1977: Ali Maow Maalin, the last natural case of smallpox, develops rash in Merca district, Somalia. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.

2001: The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.

Born today:
1685: Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer (d. 1757).
1947: Hillary Rodham Clinton, American lawyer and politician, 49th First Lady of the United States.