What Happened This Day In History

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October 1

331BC Alexander the Great decisively shatters King Darius III's Persian army at Gaugamela (Arbela), in a tactical masterstroke that leaves him master of the Persian Empire.
1273 Rudolf of Hapsburg is elected emperor in Germany.
1588 The feeble Sultan Mohammed Shah of Persia, hands over power to his 17-year old son Abbas.
1791 In Paris, the National Legislative Assembly holds its first meeting.
1839 The British government decides to send a punitive naval expedition to China.
1847 Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, discovers a comet and is elected the same day to the American Academy of Arts—the first woman to be so honored. The King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal for her discovery.
1856 The first installment of Gustav Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary appears in the Revue de Paris after the publisher refuses to print a passage in which the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage.
1864 The Condor, a British blockade-runner, is grounded near Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
1878 General Lew Wallace is sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and write Ben-Hur. His Civil War heroics earned him the moniker Savior of Cincinnati.
1890 Yosemite National Park is dedicated in California.
1908 The Ford Model T, the first car for millions of Americans, hits the market. Over 15 million Model Ts are eventually sold, all of them black.
1942 The German Army grinds to a complete halt within the city of Stalingrad.
1943 British troops in Italy enter Naples and occupy Foggia airfield.
1944 The U.S. First Army begins the siege Aachen, Germany.
1946 Eleven Nazi war criminals are sentenced to be hanged at Nuremberg trials—Hermann Goring, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachin von Ribbentrop, Fritz Saukel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg.
1947 First flight of F-86 Sabre jet fighter, which would win fame in the Korean War.
1949 Mao Zedong establishes the People's Republic of China.
1957 "In God We Trust" appears on US paper currency as an act to distinguish the US from the officially atheist USSR; the motto had appeared on coins at various times since 1864.
1958 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) replaces the 43-year-old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in the US.
1960 Nigeria becomes independent from the UK.
1961 The Federal Republic of Cameroon is formed by the merger of East and West Cameroon.
1962 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson debuts; Carson will remain The Tonight Show host until 1992.
1964 The first Free Speech Movement protest erupts spontaneously on the University of California, Berkeley campus; students demanded an end to the ban of on-campus political activities.
1964 Japanese "bullet trains" (Shinkansen) begin high-speed rail transit between Tokyo and Osaka.
1971 Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, the second of Disney's "Magic Kingdoms."
1971 First CT or CAT brain scan performed, at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London.
1974 Five Nixon aides–Kenneth Parkinson, Robert Mardian, Nixon's Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell–go on trial for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation.
1975 Legendary boxing match: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in the "Thrilla in Manila."
1979 US returns sovereignty of the Panama Canal to Panama.
1982 First compact disc player, released by Sony.
1989 Denmark introduces the world's first "civil union" law granting same-sex couples certain legal rights and responsibilities but stopping short of recognizing same-sex marriages.
1991 Siege of Dubrovnik begins in the Croatian War of Independence.
2009 The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over judicial functions of the House of Lords.


Born on October 1

1837 Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during America's Civil War.
1904 Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American virtuoso pianist.
1924 Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the U.S. (1977-1981)
1932 Albert Collins, guitarist.
1935 Julie Andrews (Julia Elizabeth Wells), actress and singer whose films include Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.
1946 Tim O'Brien, novelist (The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods).
1947 Dave Arneson, game designer; co-created Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game with Gary Gygax, establishing the roleplaying game genre.
1950 Randy Quaid, actor (The Last Detail; won Golden Globe for his portrayal of Pres. Lyndon Johnson in LBJ: The Early Years).
1955 Jeff Reardon, pro baseball pitcher known as "The Terminator" for his intimidating pitching mound presence and 98 mph fastball.
1963 Mark McGwire, "Big Mac," pro baseball player who broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record; admitted in 2010 to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.
1964 Max Matsuura (Masato Matsuura), record producer, president of Avex Group, one of Japan's largest music labels.

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Today in History

October 2

1263 At Largs, King Alexander III of Scotland repels an amphibious invasion by King Haakon IV of Norway.
1535 Having landed in Quebec a month ago, Jacques Cartier reaches a town, which he names Montreal.
1862 An Army under Union General Joseph Hooker arrives in Bridgeport, Alabama to support the Union forces at Chattanooga. Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain provides a dramatic setting for the Civil War's battle above the clouds.
1870 The papal states vote in favor of union with Italy. The capital is moved from Florence to Rome.
1871
Morman leader Brigham Young, 70, is arrested for polygamy. He was later convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.

1879 A dual alliance is formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agree to come to the other's aid in the event of aggression.
1909 Orville Wright sets an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham's previous record of 508 feet.
1931 Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Misawa City, Japan.
1941 The German army launches Operation Typhoon, the drive towards Moscow.
1950 The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schultz, makes its first appearance in newspapers.
1959 The groundbreaking TV series The Twilight Zone, hosted by Rod Serling, premiers on CBS.
1964 Scientists announce findings that smoking can cause cancer.
1967 Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, is sworn in. Marshall had previously been the solicitor general, the head of the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a leading American civil rights lawyer.
1970 A plane carrying the Wichita State University football team, staff, and supporters crashes in Colorado; 31 of the 40 people aboard die.
1980 Congressional Representative Mike Myers is expelled from the US House for taking a bribe in the Abscam scandal, the first member to be expelled since 1861.
1990 Flight 8301 of China's Xiamen Airlines is hijacked and crashed into Baiyun International Airport, hitting two other aircraft and killing 128 people.
2001 NATO backs US military strikes in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.


Born on October 2

1847 Paul von Hindenburg, German Field Marshall during World War I and second president of the Weimar Republic.
1869 Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, political leader of India and pioneer of nonviolent activism.
1871 Cordell Hull, Secretary of State for President Franklin Roosevelt.
1879 Wallace Stevens, poet.
1890 Julius Henry 'Groucho' Marx, comedian, one of the five Marx brothers (the others being Chico, Harpo, Zeppo and Gummo).
1900 William A. 'Bud' Abbot, comedian, the straight man to Lou Costello.
1901 Roy Campbell, poet (The Flaming Terrapin).
1904 Graham Greene, novelist (The Power and The Glory, The Heart of the Matter).
1907 Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, Scottish biochemist who won Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1957) for his work on nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes.
1933 John Bertrand Gurdon, English developmental biologist who shared Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (2012) for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells.
1937 Johnnie Cochran, high-profile African American lawyer whose many famous clients included O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson.
1938 Rex Reed, actor and film critic; co-hosted the At the Movies TV show.
1945 Don McLean, singer, songwriter guitarist, best known for "American Pie," his tribute to Buddy Holly and early rock 'n' roll.
1945 Martin Hellman, cryptologist, co-inventor of public key cryptography.
1949 Annie Leibovitz, photographer whose subjects include John Lennon and the Rolling Stones.
1951 Sting (Gordon M.T. Sumner), singer, songwriter, musician, actor; lead singer and bass player for the band The Police before launching a successful solo career.
1970 Kelly Ripa, actress, producer, co-host of Live! with Kelly and Michael TV talk show.

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Anyone notice that those Peanuts from 1950 never age. Maybe I should stop eating popcorn and start eating Peanuts

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Today in History

October 3

1739 Russia signs a treaty with the Turks, ending a three-year conflict between the two countries.
1776 Congress borrows five million dollars to halt the rapid depreciation of paper money in the colonies.
1862 At the Battle of Corinth, in Mississippi, a Union army defeats the Confederates.
1873 Captain Jack and three other Modoc Indians are hanged in Oregon for the murder of General Edward Canby.
1876 John L. Routt, the Colorado Territory governor, is elected the first state governor of Colorado in the Centennial year of the U.S.
1906 The first conference on wireless telegraphy in Berlin adopts SOS as warning signal.
1929 The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes officially changes its name to Yugoslavia.
1931 The comic strip Dick Tracy first appears in the New York News.
1940 U.S. Army adopts airborne, or parachute, soldiers. Airborne troops were later used in World War II for landing troops in combat and infiltrating agents into enemy territory.
1941 The Maltese Falson, starring Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade, opens.
1942 Germany conducts the first successful test flight of a V-2 missile, which flies perfectly over a 118-mile course.
1944 German troops evacuate Athens, Greece.
1951 A "shot is heard around the world" when New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson hits a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the National League pennant.
1952 The UK successfully conducts a nuclear weapon, becoming the world's third nuclear power
1955 Two children's television programs and a family sitcom all destined to become classics debut: Captain Kangaroo, Mickey Mouse Club, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
1963 A violent coup in Honduras ends a period of political reform and ushers in two decades of military rule.
1985 The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.
1989 Art Shell becomes the first African American to coach a professional football team, the Los Angeles Raiders.
1990 After 40 years of division, East and West Germany are reunited as one nation.
1993 Battle of Mogadishu, in which 18 US soldiers and some 1,000 Somalis are killed during an attempt to capture officials of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organization.
1995 Former pro football star and actor O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, ending what many called "the Trial of the Century.".
2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase distressed assets of financial corporations and supply cash directly to banks to keep them afloat.


Born on October 3

1800 George Bancroft, historian, known as the "Father of American History" for his 10-volume A History of the United States.
1900 Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (Look Homeward Angel) not to be confused with American novelist Tom Wolfe (The Right Stuff).
1916 James Herriot, Yorkshire veterinarian and author of All Creatures Great and Small.
1925 Gore Vidal, writer ("Myra Breckinridge," "Burr," "Lincoln"); one of the screenwriters on the movie Ben Hur (1959).
1935 Charles "Charlie" Duke, the youngest astronaut to walk on the moon (1972); retired from US Air Force as a brigadier general.
1938 Eddie Cochran, influential rock 'n' roll pioneer ("Summertime Blues").
1941 Chubby Checker (Ernest Evans), singer, songwriter who popularized the dance The Twist; Billboard magazine ranked "The Twist" as the most popular single in its Hot 100 since the list's debut in 1958.
1954 Al Sharpton, African-American minister, civil rights activist, TV and radio talk show host; unsuccessful candidate for Democratic nomination for the US presidency in 2004.

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Today in History
October 4


1777 At Germantown, Pa., British General Sir William Howe repels George Washington's last attempt to retake Philadelphia, compelling Washington to spend the winter at Valley Forge.
1795 General Napoleon Bonaparte leads the rout of counterrevolutionaries in the streets of Paris, beginning his rise to power.
1861 The Union ship USS South Carolina captures two Confederate blockade runners outside of New Orleans, La.
1874 Kiowa leader Satanta, known as "the Orator of the Plains," surrenders in Darlington, Texas. He is later sent to the state penitentiary, where he commits suicide October 11, 1878.
1905 Orville Wright pilots the first flight longer than 30 minutes. The flight lasted 33 minutes, 17 seconds and covered 21 miles.
1914 The first German Zeppelin raids London.
1917 Battle of Broodseinde near Ypres, Flanders, a part of the larger Battle of Passchendaele, between British 2nd and 5th armies and the defenders of German 4th Army; most successful Allied attack of the Passchendaele offensive.
1927 Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting the heads of 4 US presidents on Mount Rushmore.
1940 Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass.
1941 Willie Gillis Jr., a fictional everyman created by illustrator Norman Rockwell, makes his first appearance, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post; a series of illustrations on several magazines' covers would depict young Gillis throughout World War II.
1943 US captures the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.
1957 Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, is launched, beginning the "space race." The satellite, built by Valentin Glushko, weighed 184 pounds and was launched by a converted Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Sputnik orbited the earth every 96 minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. In 1958, it reentered the earth's atmosphere and burned up.
1963 Hurricane Flora storms through the Caribbean, killing 6,000 in Cuba and Haiti.
1965 Pope Paul VI arrives in New York, the first Pope ever to visit the US and the Western hemisphere.
1968 Cambodia admits that the Viet Cong use their country for sanctuary.
1972 Judge John Sirca imposes a gag order on the Watergate break-in case.
1976 In Gregg v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court lifts the ban on the death sentence in murder cases. This restores the legality of capital punishment, which had not been practiced since 1967. The first execution following this ruling was Gary Gilmore in 1977.
1985 Free Software Foundation founded to promote universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software.
1992 Mozambique's 16-year civil war ends with the Rome General Peace Accords.
1993 Russia's constitutional crisis over President Boris Yeltsin's attempts to dissolve the legislature: the army violently arrests civilian protesters occupying government buildings.
2004 SpaceShipOne, which had achieved the first privately funded human space flight on June 21, wins the Ansari X Prize for the first non-government organization to successfully launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space.


Born on October 4


1822 Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president of the U.S. (1877-1881).
1861 Frederic Remington, Western painter and sculptor.
1862 Edward Stratemeyer, author, creator of the Hardy Boys, Rover Boys, Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins.
1879 Edward Murray East, botanist whose research led to the development of hybrid corn.
1884 Damon Runyon, journalist and short story writer.
1895 Buster (Joseph F.) Keaton, star of silent film comedies including Sherlock, Jr. and The General.
1919 Rene Marques, Puerto Rican playwright and short story writer.
1923 Charlton Heston, American film actor.
1928 Alvin Toffler, writer and futurist.
1934 Sam Huff, pro football player; star of CBS TV special The Violent World of Sam Huff (1961) narrated by Walter Cronkite that is frequently credited with the surge of pro football's popularity in the US.
1937 Jackie Collins, novelist whose books have sold over 500 million copies (Hollywood Wives, Drop Dead Beautiful).
1941 Anne Rice, author of gothic fiction, erotica and Christian literature (Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt); also known by her pen names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure.
1946 Susan Sarandon, actress; won Academy Award for Dead Man Walking (1995).
1946 Chuck Hagel; current US Secretary of Defense (2013).
1947 Jim Fielder, bassist with the band Blood, Sweat & Tears.
1957 Russell Simmons, businessman; founded Def Jam Hip hop music label and Phat Farm clothing line.

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Today in History

October 5

1762 The British fleet bombards and captures Spanish-held Manila in the Philippines.
1795 The day after he routed counterrevolutionaries in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte accepts their formal surrender.
1813 U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames, in Ontario, broke Britain's Indian allies with the death of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, and made the Detroit frontier safe.
1821 Greek rebels capture Tripolitza, the main Turkish fort in the Peloponnese area of Greece.
1864 At the Battle of Allatoona, a small Union post is saved from Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's army.
1877 Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders to Colonel Nelson Miles in Montana Territory, after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada falls 40 miles short.
1880 The first ball-point pen is patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.
1882 Outlaw Frank James surrenders in Missouri six months after brother Jesse's assassination.
1915 Germany issues an apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers killed in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.
1915 Bulgaria enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers.
1921 The World Series is broadcast on radio for the first time.
1931 Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon complete the first heavier than air nonstop flight over the Pacific. Their flight, begun October 3, lasted 41 hours, 31 minutes and covered 5,000 miles. They piloted their Bellanca CH-200 monoplane from Samushiro, 300 miles north of Tokyo, Japan, to Wenatchee, Washington.
1938 Germany invalidates Jews' passports.
1943 Imperial Japanese forces execute 98 American POWs on Wake Island.
1947 US President Harry S Truman delivers the first televised White House address.
1948 A magnitude 7.3 earthquake near Ashgabat in the USSR kills tens of thousands; estimates range from 110,000 to 176,000.
1955 The first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery, debuts.
1965 U.S. forces in Saigon receive permission to use tear gas.
1966 A sodium cooling system malfunction causes a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit. Radiation is contained.
1968 Police attack civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland; the event is considered to be the beginning of "The Troubles."
1969 Monty Python's Flying Circus debuts on BBC One.
1970 The US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is established.
1970 Members of the Quebec Liberation Front (QLF) kidnap British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal, resulting in the October Crisis and Canada's first peacetime use of the War Measures Act.
1986 Britain's The Sunday Times newspaper publishes details of Israel's secret nuclear weapons development program.
1988 Brazil's Constituent Assembly authorizes the nation's new constitution.
2000 Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, resigns in the wake of mass protest demonstrations.


Born on October 5

1830 Chester A. Arthur, 21st president of the United States (1881-1885).
1882 Robert Goddard, American rocket scientist, held more than 200 rocketry patents.
1902 Ray Croc, founder of the McDonald's hamburger franchise in 1955.
1911 Flann O'Brien, Irish novelist and playwright (The Hard Life, The Third Policeman).
1936 Václav Havel, Czech dissident dramatist who became the first freely elected president of Czechoslovakia in 55 years.
1937 Barry Switzer, longtime coach of the University of Oklahoma, later coach of the Dallas Cowboys; one of only two head coaches to win both an NCAA college football championship and a Super Bowl.
1943 Steve Miller, singer, songwriter, guitarist; lead singer of Steve Miller Band.
1952 Clive Barker, author, director (Hellraiser, Candyman).
1957 Bernie Mac, comedian, actor; member of the Original Kings of Comedy.
1959 Maya Lin, American architect who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1963 Laura Davies, England's top professional female golfer.
1965 Mario Lemieux, hockey player, led Pittsburgh Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cups (1991-92).

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Today in History
October 6

1014 The Byzantine Emperor Basil earns the title "Slayer of Bulgers" after he orders the blinding of 15,000 Bulgerian troops.
1536 William Tyndale, the English translator of the New Testament, is strangled and burned at the stake for heresy at Vilvorde, France.
1696 Savoy Germany withdraws from the Grand Alliance.
1788 The Polish Diet decides to hold a four year session.
1801 Napoleon Bonaparte imposes a new constitution on Holland.
1847 Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre is published in London.
1866 The Reno brothers–Frank, John, Simeon and William–commit the country's first train robbery near Seymore, Indiana netting $10,000.
1927 The first "talkie," The Jazz Singer, opens with popular entertainer Al Jolson singing and dancing in black-face. By 1930, silent movies were a thing of the past.
1941 German troops renew their offensive against Moscow.
1965 Patricia Harris takes post as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, becoming the first African American U.S. ambassador.
1966 Hanoi insists the United States must end its bombings before peace talks can begin.
1969 Special Forces Captain John McCarthy is released from Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, pending consideration of his appeal to murder charges.
1973 Israel is taken by surprise when Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan attack on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
1981 Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat is assassinated in Cairo by Islamic fundamentalists. He is succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak.
1987 Fiji becomes a republic independent of the British Commonwealth.
1995 Astronomers discover 51 Pegasi is the second star known to have a planet orbiting it.
2000 Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic and Argentina's vice-president Carlos Alvarez both resign from their respective offices.
2007 Explorer and author Jason Lewis becomes the first person to complete a human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.


Born on October 6

1820 Jenny Lind, soprano known as the "Swedish Nightingale."
1846 George Westinghouse, prolific inventor, held over 100 patents on creations including air brakes for trains.
1887 Le Corbusier, Swiss-born French architect and city planner.
1895 Caroline Gordon, writer (The Strange Children).
1906 Janet Gaynor, film actress.
1908 Carol Lombard, American comediennne and actress.
1908 Sammy Price, jazz pianist.
1914 Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian anthropologist and explorer.
1917 Fannie Lou Hamer, US civil rights advocate; became vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
1931 Riccardo Giacconi, Italian astrophysicist ; won Nobel Prize in Astrophysics for his pioneering contributions that led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.
1948 Gerry Adams, Irish politician who was an important figure in Northern Ireland's peace process; president of Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland's second-largest political party, since 1983.

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Today in History

October 7

1571 In the last great clash of galleys, the Ottoman navy is defeated at Lepanto, Greece, by a Christian naval coalition under the overall command of Spain's Don Juan de Austria.
1765 Delegates from nine of the American colonies meet in New York to discuss the Stamp Act Crisis and colonial response to it.
1849 Edgar Allan Poe, aged 40, dies a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place.
1870 French Minister of the Interior Leon Gambetta escapes besieged Paris by balloon, reaching the French provisional government in Tours.
1913 In attempting to find ways to lower the cost of the automobile and make it more affordable to ordinary Americans, Henry Ford took note of the work of efficiency experts like Frederick Taylor, the "father of scientific management." The result was the assembly line that reduced the time it took to manufacture a car, from 12 hours to 93 minutes.
1944 Prisoner uprising at Birkenau concentration camp.
1949 Iva Toguri D'Aquino, better known as Tokyo Rose, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason.
1949 East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, is formed.
1957 A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor (later called Sellafield) north of Liverpool, England, spreads radioactive iodine and polonium through the countryside and into the Irish Sea. Livestock in the immediate area were destroyed, along with 500,000 gallons of milk. At least 30, and possibly as many as 1,000, cancer deaths were subsequently linked to the accident.
1976 Hua Guofeng, premier of the People's Republic of China, succeeds the late Mao Zedong as chairman of the Communist Party of China.
1985 Four Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) hijackers seize the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demand the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel.
1993 The Great Flood of 1993 on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers ends, the worst US flood since 1927.
1996 Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.
2001 US invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 begins; it will become the longest war in US history.
2003 California voters remove Democratic governor Gray Davis from office in the state's first successful recall of a sitting governor (only the second successful recall of a governor in US history); a Republican candidate, bodybuilder/actor Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the election to replace Davis 17 days later.


Born on October 7

1746 William Billings, composer.
1849 James Whitcomb Riley, poet.
1885 Nils Bohr, physicist whose model of atomic structure helped establish quantum theory.
1900 Heinrich Himmler, Nazi leader.
1907 Helen MacInnes, writer.
1931 Desmond Tutu, South African religious leader.
1934 Leroi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), playwright.
1935 Thomas Keneally, novelist, author of Schindler's Ark, the basis for the film Schindler's List.
1952 Vladimir Putin, former prime minister and current (2013) president of Russia.
1955 Yo Yo Ma, cellist.

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Today in History
October 8

876 Charles the Bald is defeated at the Battle of Andernach.
1690 Belgrade is retaken by the Turks.
1840 King William I of Holland abdicates.
1855 Arrow, a ship flying the British flag, is boarded by Chinese who arrest the crew, thus beginning the Second Chinese War.
1862 The Union is victorious at the Battle of Perryville, the largest Civil War combat to take place in Kentucky.
1871 The Great Chicago Fire begins in southwest Chicago, possibly in a barn owned by Patrick and Katherine O'Leary. Fanned by strong southwesterly winds, the flames raged for more than 24 hours, eventually leveling three and a half square miles and wiping out one-third of the city. Approximately 250 people were killed in the fire; 98,500 people were left homeless; 17,450 buildings were destroyed.
1897 Journalist Charles Henry Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, begins charting trends of stocks and bonds.
1900 Maximilian Harden is sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article critical of the German Kaiser.
1906 Karl Ludwig Nessler first demonstrates a machine in London that puts permenant waves in hair. The client wears a dozen brass curlers, each wearing two pounds, for the six-hour process.
1912 First Balkan War begins as Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
1918 US Army corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest; promoted to sergeant and awarded US Medal of Honor and French Croix de Guerre.
1919 The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives pass the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Bill.
1921 First live radio broadcast of a football game; Harold W. Arlin was the announcer when KDKA of Pittsburgh broadcast live from Forbes Field as the University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia University 21–13.
1922 Lilian Gatlin becomes the first woman pilot to fly across the United States.
1932 Indian Air Force established.
1939 Nazi Germany annexes Western Poland.
1956 Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitches the first perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1967 Guerrilla Che Guevara captured in Bolivia.
1968 U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation SEALORDS (South East Asia Lake, Ocean, River and Delta Strategy), an attack on communist supply lines and base areas in and around the Mekong Delta.
1969 The "Days of Rage" begin in Chicago; the Weathermen faction of the Students for a Democratic Society initiate 3 days of violent antiwar protests.
1973 In the Yom Kippur War an Israeli armored brigade makes an unsuccessful attack on Egyptian positions on the Israeli side of the Suez Canal.
1978 Ken Warby of Australia sets the world water speed record, 317.60 mph, at Blowering Dam in Australia; no other human has yet (2013) exceeded 300 mph on water and survived.
1982 The musical Cats begins a run of nearly 18 years on Broadway.
1991 Croatia votes to sever its ties with Yugoslavia.
2001 US President George W. Bush establishes the Office of Homeland Security.


Born on October 8

1810 James Wilson Marshall, discoverer of gold in California.
1890 Eddie Rickenbacker, U.S. fighter pilot in World War I, aviation pioneer.
1895 Juan Peron, Argentinean dictator.
1917 Rodney Porter, British biochemist and Nobel Proze winner.
1926 Cesar Milstein, molecular biologist.
1936 Rona Barrett, gossip columnist; co-host of NBC's Tomorrow program (1980-81).
1939 Paul Hogan, comedian, actor; won Golden Globe for his role as "Crocodile" Dundee (1986).
1939 Lynne Stewart, US attorney convicted of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists (2005) and perjury (2010).
1941 Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader.
1943 Chevy Chase, actor, comedian, known for his roles on Saturday Night Live TV series and comedic movies (National Lampoon's Summer Vacation, Caddyshack).
1943 R. L. Stine, author, screenwriter, producer; known as the "Stephen King of children's literature" for his hundreds of horror novels written for younger readers.
1948 Johnny Ramone, musician, songwriter, founding member of The Ramones band.
1949 Sigourney Weaver, actress; (Aliens film series, Gorillas in the Mist).
1952 Edward Zwick, director, producer whose films often are based on historic events (Glory, The Last Samurai).
1959 Erik Gundersen, motorcycle speedway rider; won 3 Speedway World Championships, 2 Long Track World Championships, and 7 World Team Cup awards (riding for Denmark in the latter).
1965 C. J. Ramone, musician, sometimes vocalist of The Ramones.
1970 Matt Damon, actor, screenwriter, producer, philanthropist; shared Academy Award and Golden Globe for screenplay Good Will Hunting; appeared in Saving Private Ryan, Invictus.

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Today in History

October 9

28 BC The Temple of Apollo is dedicated on the Palatine Hill in Rome.
1470 Henry VI of England restored to the throne.
1760 Austrian and Russian troops enter Berlin and begin burning structures and looting.
1779 The Luddite riots being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning cotton.
1781 Americans begin shelling the British surrounded at Yorktown.
1825 The first Norwegian immigrants to America arrive on the sloop Restaurationen.
1863 Confederate cavalry raiders return to Chattanooga after attacking Union General William Rosecrans' supply and communication lines all around east Tennessee.
1888 The Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, opens to the public.
1914 Germans take Antwerp, Belgium, after 12-day siege.
1934 In Marseilles, a Macedonian revolutionary associated with Croat terrorists in Hungary assassinates King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou. The two had been on a tour of European capitals in quest of an alliance against Nazi Germany. The assassinations bring the threat of war between Yugoslavia and Hungary, but confrontation is prevented by the League of Nations.
1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt requests congressional approval for arming U.S. merchant ships.
1946 Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh opens at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York.
1949 Harvard Law School begins admitting women.
1950 U.N. forces, led by the First Cavalry Division, cross the 38th parallel in South Korea and begin attacking northward towards the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
1983 The president of South Korea, Doo Hwan Chun, with his cabinet and other top officials are scheduled to lay a wreath on a monument in Rangoon, Burma, when a bomb explodes. Hwan had not yet arrived so escaped injury, but 17 Koreans–including the deputy prime minister and two other cabinet members–and two Burmese are killed. North Korea is blamed.
1999 Last flight of the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" stealth reconnaissance aircraft.
2006 North Korea reportedly tests its first nuclear device.


Born on October 9

1837 Francis Parker, educator and founder of progressive elementary schools.
1859 Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer who was falsely accused of giving French military secrets to foreign powers.
1873 Charles Rudolph Walgreen, "the father of the modern drugstore."
1879 Max von Laue, German physicist.
1899 Bruce Catton, U.S. historian and journalist, famous for his works on the Civil War.
1909 Jacques Tati, French actor and director.
1940 John Lennon, musician, singer, songwriter; one of the Beatles ("Imagine," "Give Peace a Chance").
1941 Brian Lamb, journalist, founder of C-SPAN cable network.
1941 Trent Lott, politician, Republican Senate Majority Whip (1995-96), Senate Majority Leader (1996–2001) and Minority Leader (2001-02); resigned during controversy over making remarks that praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign that had called for preservation of racial segregation.
1948 Jackson Browne, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; member of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ("Running on Empty," "Take It Easy").
1974 Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, writer, radio host; prominent figure in Modern Orthodox Judaism.
1979 Chris O'Dowd, comedian, actor (The IT Crowd and Family Tree TV series, Bridesmaids).

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Today in History
October 10

19 Germanicus, the best loved of Roman princes, dies of poisoning. On his deathbed he accuses Piso, the governor of Syria, of poisoning him.
732 At Tours, France, Charles Martel kills Abd el-Rahman and halts the Muslim invasion of Europe.
1733 France declares war on Austria over the question of Polish succession.
1789 In Versailles France, Joseph Guillotin says the most humane way of carrying out a death sentence is decapitation by a single blow of a blade.
1794 Russian General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov crushes the rebel Polish army at Maciejowice, Poland.
1845 The U.S. Naval Academy is founded at Annapolis, Md.
1863 The first telegraph line to Denver is completed.
1877 Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is buried at West Point in New York.
1911 Revolution in China begins with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last Ch'ing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi. By October 26, the Chinese Republic will be proclaimed, and on December 4, Premier Yuan Shih-K'ai will sign a truce with rebel general Li Yuan-hung.
1911 The Panama Canal opens.
1933 At Rio de Janeiro, nations of the Western Hemisphere sign a non-aggression and conciliation treaty. President Roosevelt adopts a "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America and announces a policy of nonintervention in Latin American affairs at the December 7th International American Conference at Montevideo, Uruguay.
1941 Soviet troops halt the German advance on Moscow.
1953 The Mutual Defense Treaty between the US and South Korea signed.
1966 U.S. Forces launch Operation Robin, in Hoa Province south of Saigon in South Vietnam, to provide road security between villages.
1970 The Quebec Provincial Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, is kidnapped by terrorists.
1971 The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.
1973 Spiro Agnew resigns the vice presidency amid accusations of income tax evasion. President Richard Nixon names Gerald Ford as the new vice president. Agnew is later convicted and sentenced to three years probation and fined $10,000.
1985 An Egyptian plane carrying hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship is intercepted by US Navy F-14s and forced to land at a NATO base in Sicily.
2008 Orakzai bombing, Afghanistan: members of the Taliban drive an explosive-laden truck into a meeting of 600 people discussing ways to rid their area of the Taliban; the bomb kills 110.


Born on October 10

1731 Henry Cavendish, English physicist who measured the density and mass of the Earth.
1813 Giuseppe Verdi, composer (Rigoletto, Aida).
1900 Helen Hayes, American actress.
1901 Alberto Giacometti, sculptor and painter.
1920 Thelonius Monk, jazz pianist and composer.
1924 James Clavell, novelist (Shogun, Noble House).
1930 Harold Pinter, British playwright (The Homecoming, Betrayal).
1940 Winston Spencer-Churchill, British politician; grandson of famed Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
1946 John Prine, singer, songwriter; influential for his poem-like lyrics ("The Great Compromise," "Blue Umbrella").
1946 Ben Vereen, actor (Roots miniseries).
1949 Wang Wanxing, Chinese rights advocate; prisoner for 13 years in detention centers and psychiatric institutions (Ankang), he is the only person thus far to be released from these institutions and allowed to live in a Western country.
1954 David Lee Roth, singer, songwriter, actor, author; lead vocalist for hard rock band Van Halen; member of Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame (2007).
1958 Tanya Tucker, singer whose first hit, "Delta Dawn," came when she was just 13.
1963 Daniel Pearl, journalist; captured and beheaded by Al Queda in Pakistan; Daniel Pearl Foundation to promote tolerance and understanding internationally founded in his memory.
1969 Brett Favre, pro football player; only pro quarterback to throw for over 70,000 yards, completing 6,000 passes, including over 500 for touchdowns.
1974 Dale Earnhardt Jr., stock car racing driver and team owner; won Most Popular Driver Award in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 10 times (2003–2012).

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Today in History

October 11

1531 The Catholics defeat the Protestants at Kappel during Switzerland's second civil war.
1540 Charles V of Milan puts his son Philip in control.
1727 George II of England crowned.
1795 In graditude for putting down a rebellion in the streets of Paris, France's National Convention appoints Napoleon Bonaparte second in command of the Army of the Interior.
1862 The Confederate Congress in Richmond passes a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirms many southerners opinion that they are in a 'rich man's war and a poor man's fight.'
1877 Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.
1899 South African Boers, settler from the Netherlands, declare war on Great Britain.
1906 San Francisco school board orders the segregation of Oriental schoolchildren, inciting Japanese outrage.
1915 Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.
1942 In the Battle of Cape Esperance, near the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeat a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter.
1945 Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung break down. Nationalist and Communist troops are soon engaged in a civil war.
1950 The Federal Communications Commission authorizes the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to begin commercial color TV broadcasts.
1962 Pope John XXIII opens the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) with a call for Christian unity. This is the largest gathering of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in history; among delegate-observers are representatives of major Protestant denominations, in itself a sign of sweeping change.
1968 Apollo 7, with three men aboard, is successfully launched from Cape Kennedy.
1972 A French mission in Vietnam is destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid.
1972 Race riot breaks out aboard carrier USS Kitty Hawk off Vietnam during Operation Linebacker.
1975 Saturday Night Live comedy-variety show premiers on NBC, with guest host comedian George Carlin and special guests Janis Ian, Andy Kaufman and Billy Preston; at this writing (2013) the show is still running.
1976 The so-called "Gang of Four," Chairman Mao Tse-tung's widow and three associates, are arrested in Peking, setting in motion an extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.
1984 Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan, part of the crew of Space Shuttle Challenger, becomes the first American woman to walk in space.
1987 Operation Pawan by Indian Peace Keeping Force begins in Sri Lanka; thousands of Tamil citizens, along with hundreds of Tamil Tigers militants and Indian Army soldiers will die in the operation.
1991 Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas begin.
2000 NASA launches its 100th Space Shuttle mission.
2001 The Polaroid Corporation, which had provided shutterbugs with photo prints in minutes with its "instant cameras" since 1947, files for bankruptcy.

Born on October 11

1820 Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA.
1844 Henry Heinz, manufacturer, founder of H.J. Heinz Co.
1884 Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt.
1885 Francois Mauriac, Nobel Prize-winning novelist.
1887 Willie Hoppe, billiards champion.
1910 Joseph Alsop, American journalist.
1918 Jerome Robbins, choreographer, won Oscar for West Side Story.
1925 Elmore Leonard, author, screenwriter (Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk).
1928 Roscoe Robinson Jr., first African American to attain 4-star general status in the US Army.
1932 Dottie West, influential female country singer, songwriter; won Grammy for "Here Comes My Baby Back Again" (1965).
1936 James M. McPherson, historian specializing in the American Civil War; won Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom (1989).
1946 Daryl Hall, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; lead vocalist of Hall & Oates ("Rich Girl," "Maneater").
1957 Paul Sereno, paleontologist; discovered several new dinosaur species (including Sarcosuchus imperator, "SuperCroc") on various continents.

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what happened today in history.

October 12

1492 Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.
1576 Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor.
1609 The song "Three Blind Mice" is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song.
1702 Admiral Sir George Rooke defeats the French fleet off Vigo.
1722 Shah Sultan Husayn surrenders the Persian capital of Isfahan to Afgan rebels after a seven month siege.
1809 Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, dies under mysterious circumstances in Tennessee.
1899 The Anglo-Boer War begins.
1872 Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in Arizona Territory.
1933 Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison.
1943 The U.S. Fifth Army begins an assault crossing of the Volturno River in Italy.
1949 Eugenie Anderson becomes the first woman U.S. ambassador.
1960 Inejiro Asanuma, leaders of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.
1964 1964 USSR launches Voskhod I, first spacecraft with multi-person crew; it is also the first mission in which the crew did not wear space suits.
1970 President Richard Nixon announces the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in Vietnam by Christmas.
1971 The House of Representatives passes the Equal Rights Amendment 354-23.
1984 The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates at bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; 5 others are killed and 31 wounded.
1994 NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus.
1999 Chief of Army Staff Perez Musharraf seizes power in Pakistan through a bloodless military coup.
2000 Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members killed and over 35 wounded.
2002 Terrorist bombers kill over 200 and wound over 300 more at the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali.

Born on October 12

1537 Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII by his third wife Jane Seymour.
1868 Charles Sumner Greene, architect.
1929 Richard Coles, child psychologist and author.
1932 Dick Gregory, comedian and social activist.
1935 Luciano Pavarotti, Italian opera tenor.
1944 Angel Rippon, first female journalist to present BBC national television news on a permanent basis.
1947 Chris Wallace, former host/moderator of Meet the Press, currently (2013) host of Fox News Sunday; the three-time Emmy winner is the only person thus far to host more than one major Sunday political talk show.
1949 Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanches), one of the most infamous political terrorists of the 1970s; currently (2013) serving a life term in France.
1955 Ante Gotvina, Croatian lieutenant general; convicted in 2011 of war crimes during the Croatian civil war, his conviction was overturned in 2012.
1968 Hugh Jackman, actor; well known for his recurring role as Wolverine in the X-Men films, his many awards include a Golden Globe (Les Miserables, 2013) and a Tony Award Special Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Theatre Community (2012).

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Today in History
October 14

1066 William of Normandy defeats King Harold in the Battle of Hastings.
1651 Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
1705 The English Navy captures Barcelona in Spain.
1773 Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md.
1806 Napoleon Bonaparte crushes the Prussian army at Jena, Germany.
1832 Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana's Jefferson River, killing one.
1884 Transparent paper-strip photographic film is patented by George Eastman.
1912 Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is shot and wounded in assassination attempt in Milwaukee. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and, though wounded, insisted on finishing his speech.
1917 Mata Hari, a Paris dancer, is executed by the French after being convicted of passing military secrets to the Germans.
1930 Singer Ethel Merman stuns the audience when she holds a high C for sixteen bars while singing "I Got Rhythm" during her Broadway debut in Gershwin's Girl Crazy.
1933 The Geneva disarmament conference breaks up as Germany proclaims withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23. This begins German policy of independent action in foreign affairs.
1944 German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, is visited at home by two of Hitler's staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chooses suicide and it is announced that he died of wounds.
1947 Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane.
1950 Chinese Communist Forces begin to infiltrate the North Korean Army.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis begins; USAF U-2 reconnaissance pilot photographs Cubans installing Soviet-made missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
1964 Rev. Martin Luther King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of non-violence.
1966 Montreal, Quebec, Canada, opens its underground Montreal Metro rapid-transit system.
1968 US Defense Department announces 24,000 soldiers and Marines will be sent back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty.
1968 Jim Hines, USA, breaks the "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint at the Olympics in Mexico City; his time was 9.95.
1969 The British 50-pence coin enters the UK's currency, the first step toward covering to a decimal system, which was planned for 1971.
1983 Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop overthrown and later executed by a military coup.
1994 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for establishing the Oslo Accords and preparing for Palestinian Self Government.
1998 Eric Robert Rudolph charged with the 1996 bombing during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; It was one of several bombing incidents Rudolph carried out to protest legalized abortion in the US.
2012 Felix Baumgartner breaks the world record for highest manned balloon flight, highest parachute jump, and greatest free-fall velocity, parachuting from an altitude of approximately 24 miles (39km).

Born on October 14

1644 William Penn, English Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania.
1888 Katherine Mansfield, short story writer.
1890 Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. President (1953-1961).
1894 e.e. cummings, American poet.
1896 Lilian Gish, Film actress, "The First Lady of the Silent Screen."
1905 Eugene Fodor, Hungarian-born travel writer.
1916 C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General.
1926 Son Thomas, blues guitarist and singer.
1927 Sir Roger Moore, actor; played James Bond in 7 films (1973-85) and starred as Simon Templar in The Saint TV series (1962-69).
1930 Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Congo / Zaire (1965-97); rose to power in coups that overthrew the first democratically elected president of the Republic of the Congo; the country was renamed Zaire in 1971.
1939 Ralph Lauren, noted fashion designer.
1940 Christopher Timothy, actor, director, writer; best known for portraying James Herriot in the British TV series All Creatures Great and Small (1978-80) and Brendan "Mac" McGuire in the BBC soap opera Doctors (2000-06).
1954 Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli nuclear technician who provided details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction.
1974 Natalie Maines, singer, songwriter, activist; lead vocalist of the Dixie Chicks, the top-selling all-female band and country group since Nielsen SoundScan tracking began in 1991; Maines' comments against the coming US invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to radio boycotts that virtually ended the group's career for several years.
1978 Usher (Usher Raymond IV), singer; among the top-selling artists in music history and multiple Grammy winner ("Nice & Slow," "OMG").

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Today in History

October 15

1529 Ottoman armies under Suleiman end their siege of Vienna and head back to Belgrade.
1582 The Gregorian (or New World) calendar is adopted in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal; and the preceding ten days are lost to history.
1783 Francois Pilatre de Rozier makes the first manned flight in a hot air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over the next few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet.
1813 During the land defeat of the British on the Thames River in Canada, the Indian chief Tecumseh, now a brigadier general with the British Army (War of 1812), is killed.
1863 For the second time, the Confederate submarine H L Hunley sinks during a practice dive in Charleston Harbor, this time drowning its inventor along with seven crew members.
1878 Thomas A. Edison founds the Edison Electric Light Co.
1880 Victorio, feared leader of the Minbreno Apache, is killed by Mexican troops in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico.
1892 An attempt to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kan., ends in disaster for the Dalton gang as four of the five outlaws are killed and Emmet Dalton is seriously wounded.
1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, is arrested for betraying military secrets to Germany.
1914 Congress passes the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which labor leader Samuel Gompers calls "labor's charter of freedom." The act exempts unions from anti-trust laws; strikes, picketing and boycotting become legal; corporate interlocking directorates become illegal, as does setting prices which would effect a monopoly.
1924 German ZR-3 flies 5000 miles, the furthest Zeppelin flight to date.
1941 Odessa, a Russian port on the Black Sea which has been surrounded by German troops for several weeks, is evacuated by Russian troops.
1945 Vichy French Premier Pierre Laval is executed by a firing squad for his wartime collaboration with the Germans.
1950 President Harry Truman meets with General Douglas MacArthur at Wake Island to discuss U.N. progress in the Korean War.
1964 Nikita Khrushchev is replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union.
1966 Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale establish the Black Panther Party, an African-American revolutionary socialist political group, in the US.
1969 Rallies for The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam draw over 2 million demonstrators across the US, a quarter million of them in the nation's capital.
1987 The Great Storm of 1987 strikes the UK and Europe during the night of Oct 15-16, killing over 20 people and causing widespread damage.
1989 Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky makes his 1,851st goal, breaking the all-time scoring record in the National Hockey League.
1990 Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the USSR, receives Nobel Peace Prize for his work in making his country more open and reducing Cold War tensions.
1997 Andy Green of the UK becomes the first person to break the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere, driving the ThrustSSC supersonic car to a record 763 mph (1,228 km/h).
2003 China launches its first manned space mission, Shenzhou I.
2007 New Zealand police arrest 17 people believed to be part of a paramilitary training camp.
2008 Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 733.08 points, the second-largest percentage drop in the Dow's history.
2011 Protests break out in countries around the globe, under the slogan "United for Global Democracy."

Born on October 15

70 BC Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Roman poet.
1830 Helen Hunt Jackson, writer and poet.
1844 Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and writer.
1881 P.G. Wodehouse, novelist and playwright.
1905 C.P. Snow, novelist.
1908 John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, writer and diplomat.
1910 Torbjorn Oskar Caspersson, Swedish cytologist and geneticist.
1917 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
1920 Mario Puzo, novelist and screenwriter best known for The Godfather.
1923 Italo Calvino, Italian novelist.
1924 Lee Iacocca, engineer, businessman; assisted in designing Ford Mustang and Pinto; later, as CEO of Chrysler Corp., he is credited with saving Chrysler from extinction.
1926 Evan Hunter, author, screenwriter; born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952 and created the pen name Ed McBain in 1956. As Evan Hunter he wrote The Blackboard Jungle novel and the screenplay for The Birds; as Ed McBain he created the popular 87th Precinct series that became benchmarks of the police procedural mystery genre.
1940 Peter C. Doherty, veterinary surgeon, medical researcher; shared 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; named Australian of the Year 1997.
1942 Penny Marshall, actress, producer, director; Laverne of Laverne & Shirley TV sitcom (1976-83); directed Big (1988), the first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million in US box office receipts.
1944 William David Trimble, Baron Trimble; British politician who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland (1998–2002); shared 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.
1954 Princess Friederike of Hanover.
2005 Prince Christian of Denmark, Count of Monpezat.