Post by farmgal on Oct 5, 2012 22:49:10 GMT -5
October 7 is the 281st day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 85 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 30
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
3761 BC The epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
1518 Martin Luther reached Augsburg for an interview with Thomas Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534). He discussed his 95 theses, but the conversation broke down with Cajetan telling Luther to stay away unless he would recant unconditionally.
1542 ExplorerJuan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovers Santa Catalina Island off the California coast.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rodriguez_Cabrillo#Voyages
1571 Turkish fleet defeated by Spanish & Italians in Battle of Lepanto.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_of_1571
www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lepanto.htm
1763 George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_Great_Britain
1765 The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York Citywith nine colonies in attendance; others would likely have participated if earlier notice had been provided. The delegates approved a 14-point Declaration of Rights and Grievances, formulated largely by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_Congress
1777 The second Battle of Saratoga began. The Battle of Bemis Heights was the second battle of Saratoga, taking place October 7th when Burgoyne desperately attacked rebel defenses with his tired, demoralized army. At Bemis Heights, Gate's defensive tactics insured a tactical victory for the Patriots. However, Arnold saw an opportunity to seize the offensive while Burgoyne was vulnerable and led a counterattack. This bold move so badly wounded the British forces that Burgoyne surrendered days later at Saratoga.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saratoga
1780 British defeated by American militia near Kings Mountain, SC During the American Revolution, Patriot irregulars under Colonel William Campbell defeat Tories under Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina.
Major Ferguson's Tory force, made up mostly of American Loyalists from South Carolina and elsewhere, was the western wing of General Lord Cornwallis' North Carolina invasion force. One thousand American frontiersmen under Colonel Campbell of Virginia gathered in the backcountry to resist Ferguson's advance. Pursued by the Patriots, Ferguson positioned his Tory force in defense of a rocky, treeless ridge named King's Mountain. The Patriots charged the hillside multiple times, demonstrating lethal marksmanship against the surrounded Loyalists.
Unwilling to surrender to a "band of banditti," Ferguson led a suicidal charge down the mountain and was cut down in a hail of bullets. After his death, some of his men tried to surrender, but they were slaughtered in cold blood by the frontiersmen, who were bitter over British excesses in the Carolinas. The Tories suffered 157 killed, 163 wounded, and 698 captured. Colonel Campbell's force suffered just 28 killed and 60 wounded.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_County,_North_Carolina#History
1816 First double decked steamboat, the Washington, arrived in New Orleans. The Washington was a remarkable boat in her day, and was the sixth boat that was built to run on the Western waters. She had a high pressure engine and four single-flue boilers. From all the information obtained, it appears that Capt. Shreve designed the engine and boilers. She left Wheeling on the third with twenty-one passengers on board. Near the town of Marietta, Ohio, the boiler burst, and seventeen out of the twenty-one were either killed or wounded, the Captain only slightly.The Washington finally arrived for the first time at the port of New Orleans, October 7, 1816.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Mississippi#Golden_age_of_steamboats
The Incline section of the Granite Railway
Quincy (1934 photo)
1826 Granite Railway (first chartered railway in US) begins operations . On October 7, 1826 the first car passed over the roadbed, from the foot of the Bunker Hill Ledge to the terminus at Neponset River. From now on the railroad could begin hauling the granite blocks that were ready. During the time Bryant had been building his railroad, Solomon Willard had a crew of workman quarrying granite, bringing the rough cut blocks, weighing up to ten tons each, to the shed at the foot of the quarry where they were dressed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Railway
1856 The first practical U.S. folding machine to fold book and newspaper sheets was patented by Cyrus Chambers, Jr. of Pennsylvania (No. 15,842). It made three right angle folds to produce a sixteen page folded signature. The machine was installed in the Bible printing house of Jasper Harding & Son, Philadelphia, Pa. Although the accuracy of early folders was poor, with hand folding still predominating for better grade work, development of the folding machine after 1862 was rapid, and in 1873 a machine was patented that would fold a 16-page section and one of 8 pages, inset the latter, and paste it in place. That same year devices to cut and slit paper as it went through the machine were introduced.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_machine
USS Wachusett
1864 Capture of the C.S.S. Florida The Union warship Wachusett captures the famed Confederate raider Florida while the Rebel ship is in port at Bahia, Brazil. After the Yankee crew sailed the Florida out to sea, the Brazilian government protested the invasion of its neutrality. The Union returned the ship and crew to the Confederate government, but the Florida sunk six weeks later off Hampton Roads, Virginia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wachusett_(1861)#CSS_Florida_captured_in_Brazil
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Darbytown Road: the Confederate forces' attempt to regain ground that had been lost around Richmond is thwarted.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Darbytown_Road
1865 Cornell University (Ithaca NY) is chartered.The Morrill Land Grant Act, which President Abraham Lincoln signed into law in 1862, helped make Cornell's vision possible by offering the states grants of federal land, proportional to their population, to establish colleges emphasizing agriculture, the mechanic arts (now called engineering), and military science ". . . in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." When Ezra Cornell founded the university in 1865, he envisioned an institution that would extend the opportunity for education to everyone, a place where "any person could find instruction in any study.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Land_Grant_Act
1871 Massive fire burns in Wisconsin The most devastating fire in United States history is ignited in Wisconsin on this day in 1871. Over the course of the next day, 1,200 people lost their lives and 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Despite the massive scale of the blaze, it was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire, which began the next day about 250 miles away.
Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was a company lumber and sawmill town owned by William Ogden that was home to what was then one of the largest wood-products factories in the United States. The summer of 1871 was particularly dry across the northern Midwest. Still, settlers continued to set fires, using the "slash and burn" method to create new farmland and, in the process, making the risk of forest fire substantial. In fact, the month before had seen significant fires burn from Canada to Iowa.
Peshtigo, like many Midwestern towns, was highly vulnerable to fire. Nearly every structure in town was a timber-framed building--prime fuel for a fire. In addition, the roads in and out of town were covered with saw dust and a key bridge was made of wood. This would allow a fire from outside the town to easily spread to Peshtigo and make escaping from a fire in the town difficult. On September 23, the town had stockpiled a large supply of water in case a nearby fire headed in Peshtigo’s direction. Still, they were not prepared for the size and speed of the October 7 blaze.
The blaze began at an unknown spot in the dense Wisconsin forest. It first spread to the small village of Sugar Bush, where every resident was killed. High winds then sent the 200-foot flames racing northeast toward the neighboring community of Peshtigo. Temperatures reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing trees to literally explode in the flames.
On October 8, the fire reached Peshtigo without warning. Two hundred people died in a single tavern. Others fled to a nearby river, where several people died from drowning. Three people who sought refuge in a water tank boiled to death when the fire heated the tank. A mass grave of nearly 350 people was established because extensive burns made it impossible to identify the bodies.
Despite the fact that this was the worst fire in American history, newspaper headlines on subsequent days were dominated by the story of another devastating, though smaller, blaze: the Great Chicago Fire. Another fire in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that consumed 2 million acres was an even smaller footnote in the next day’s papers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire
1877 The Synodical Conference officially began African American mission work in the U.S.
1913 Moving Assembly Line at Ford For the first time, Henry Ford's entire Highland Park, Michigan automobile factory is run on a continuously moving assembly line when the chassis--the automobile's frame--is assembled using the revolutionary industrial technique. A motor and rope pulled the chassis past workers and parts on the factory floor, cutting the man-hours required to complete one "Model T" from 12-1/2 hours to six. Within a year, further assembly line improvements reduced the time required to 93 man-minutes. The staggering increase in productivity effected by Ford's use of the moving assembly line allowed him to drastically reduce the cost of the Model T, thereby accomplishing his dream of making the car affordable to ordinary consumers.
In introducing the Model T in October 1908, Henry Ford proclaimed, "I will build a motor car for the great multitude." Before then, the decade-old automobile industry generally marketed its vehicles to only the richest Americans, because of the high cost of producing the machines. Ford's Model T was the first automobile designed to serve the needs of middle-class citizens: It was durable, economical, and easy to operate and maintain. Still, with a debut price of $850, the Model T was out of the reach of most Americans. The Ford Motor Company understood that to lower unit cost it had to increase productivity. The method by which this was accomplished transformed industry forever.
Prototypes of the assembly line can be traced back to ancient times, but the immediate precursor of Ford's industrial technique was 19th-century meat-packing plants in Chicago and Cincinnati, where cows and hogs were slaughtered, dressed, and packed using overhead trolleys that took the meat from worker to worker. Inspired by the meat packers, the Ford Motor Company innovated new assembly line techniques and in early 1913 installed its first moving assembly line at Highland Park for the manufacture of flywheel magnetos. Instead of each worker assembling his own magneto, the assembly was divided into 29 operations performed by 29 men spaced along a moving belt. Average assembly time dropped from 20 minutes to 13 minutes and soon was down to five minutes.
With the success of the magneto experiment, Ford engineers put the Model T motor and then the transmission on moving assembly lines. On October 7, 1913, the chassis also went on the moving assembly line, so that all the major components of the Model T were being assembled using this technique. Ford rapidly improved its assembly lines, and by 1916 the price of the Model T had fallen to $360 and sales were more than triple their 1912 level. Eventually, the company produced one Model T every 24 seconds, and the price fell below $300. More than 15 million Model T's were built before it was discontinued in 1927, accounting for nearly half of all automobiles sold in the world to that date. The affordable Model T changed the landscape of America, hastening the move from rural to city life, and the moving assembly line spurred a new industrial revolution in factories around the world.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company#20th_century
1914 Antwerp under siege On October 7, 1914, advancing German forces bombard the Belgian city of Antwerp, as Belgian troops and their British allies struggle to resist the onslaught.
After the mighty fortress city of Liege fell to the Germans in the opening weeks of World War I, King Albert I ordered the Belgian army’s remaining 65,000 troops in the region to retreat to the city of Antwerp, protected by a ring of 48 inner and outer forts and some 80,000 garrison troops. From Antwerp, Belgian forces conducted sorties in August and September 1914 designed to distract the German 1st Army, led by General Alexander von Kluck, from its attacks against the British and French over the French frontier. After von Kluck was forced to send four divisions to repel an attack from Antwerp on September 9, German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke decided to send his men against Antwerp with the goal of capturing the city.
On September 28, five German divisions began bombing the outer ring of forts at Antwerp’s southeastern corner. Heavy artillery such as the famous Big Bertha—a 420-mm siege howitzer gun—made an immediate impact, arousing the concern of the British War Office, which determined to redeploy troops originally intended for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France to Antwerp. After the Germans succeeded in penetrating two of the city’s forts on October 2, the British sent Winston Churchill, first lord of the Admiralty, to personally assess the situation. Churchill telegraphed his observations to Minister of War Lord H.H. Kitchener on October 4, stating that the Belgian troops were "weary and disheartened" and that the city’s ground was so waterlogged that it was impossible for the Belgians to dig trenches for its protection.
By October 5, some 8,000 troops of the British Royal Naval Division had arrived in Antwerp, transported from the port city of Ostend in London city buses commandeered for the war effort. The following day, a larger British force of 22,000 reached Ostend; after the French decided not to send any troops, however, the British command hesitated in sending their own force ahead. They hesitated too long: Though the British soldiers who did reach Antwerp were greeted with jubilant cries of "Vive les Anglais!" they were unable to withstand the German onslaught, which began with a fierce bombardment on the evening of October 7.
That same day, the Belgian government—relocated to Antwerp from Brussels after that city’s fall—moved again, this time to Ostend. On October 8, Antwerp was evacuated; its military governor, General Victor Deguise, formally surrendered to the Germans on October 10. German forces would occupy Antwerp for the duration of the war; it was finally liberated in late 1918.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antwerp
1916 Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222-0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.
1922 The first radio network -- of sorts -- debuted. It was a network of just two stations. WJZ in Newark, NJ teamed with WGY in Schenectady, NY to bring the World Series game direct from the Polo Grounds in New York.
1927 Yank Herb Pennock retires first 22 Pirates in world series game
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Pennock
1931 The first U.S.short-exposure infrared photograph taken of a large group of people in apparently total darkness was taken in Rochester, NY at the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories. They were in a room that was flooded with invisible infrared light (waves 700 to 900 nanometers long, beyond the red end of the visible spectrum). A group of 50 people visiting the laboratory was photographed on a new photographic emulsion sensitive to infrared. Since then, scientists have made use of infrared photography in medical applications and aerial photography. Since plant chlorophyll reflects infrared rays more intensely than other green materials, infrared photos yield a precise indication of where vegetation is present on the ground.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography
1940 Artie Shaw’s orchestra recorded Hoagy Carmichael’s standard, "Star Dust"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(song)
1940 - World War II: the McCollum memo proposes bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollum_memo
1940 A U.S. 1-cent stamp commemorating inventor Eli Whitney was issued, with first-day-of-issue ceremonies in Savannah, Georgia. The stamp was one of a series of 35 stamps released that year showing "Famous Americans" which also included five scientists and four other inventors. Whitney had been employed in Savannah to tutor the children of the owner of Mulberry Grove Plantation. There, having heard from the planters of the labour-intensive difficulty of separating seed from the cotton fibres, Whitney invented his famous cotton gin to accomplish this mechanically, in 1793. With this problem solved, cotton quickly spread as a newly valuable cash crop for farmers across the southern states.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney#Later_life_and_legacy
A U.S. Marine patrol crosses the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal in September 1942
1942 - World War II: The October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actions_along_the_Matanikau
1943 While WWII was raging, the American Council of Volunteer Agencies for Foreign Service was formed. It was as an interfaith venture to bring Protestant, Catholic and Jewish agencies involved in international relief together under one roof.
openlibrary.org/books/OL2556283M/The_American_Council_of_Voluntary_Agencies_for_Foreign_Service_ACVAFS
Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara (seated third from left) signing the surrender of Wake Island aboard USS Levy - 4 September 1945.
1943 Japanese execute nearly 100 American prisoners on Wake Island On this day in 1943, Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on the island, orders the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.
In late December 1941, the Japanese reinforced existing forces on Wake Island, part of a coral atoll west of Hawaii, in massive numbers after being unable to wrest the island from a small number of Americans troops earlier in the month. The Japanese strength was now overwhelming, and most of those Americans left alive after the battle were taken by the Japanese off the island to POW camps elsewhere. Ninety-six remained behind to be used as forced labor. The Allied response was periodic bombing of the island--but no more land invasions, as part of a larger Allied strategy to leave certain Japanese-occupied islands in the South Pacific to basically starve in isolation.
The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood, remains one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigematsu_Sakaibara"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigematsu_Sakaibara[/a][/url]
Ruins of Crematorium IV, blown up in the revolt
1944 World War II: Uprising at Birkenau concentration camp, Jews burn down the crematoria.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#Birkenau_revolt
1949 - German Democratic Republic (East Germany) formed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Democratic_Republic#GDR_created_1949
1950 US forces invade Korea by crossing the 38th parallel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#UN_forces_cross_partition_line_.28September_.E2.80.93_October_1950.29
1950 "Goodnight Irene" by the Weavers with Gordon Jenkins topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Irene
1950 "The Frank Sinatra Show" debuted. On October 7, 1950, the "Frank Sinatra Show" premiered on CBS. This Saturday night show was broadcast weekly from 9:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m., leading to a radio series, also on CBS, called Meet Frank Sinatra. A second series of the Frank Sinatra Show premiered on October 1, 1952, but, ratings were dwarfed by the likes of the Milton Berle Show.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frank_Sinatra_Show_(CBS)
1951 The Western Hills Hotel in Fort Worth, TX became the first hostelry to feature all foam-rubber mattresses and pillows.
1954 In Poughkeepsie, IBM displayed a large all-transistor calculator needing only 5% of the power of comparable electronic ones. Three years later, in 1957, IBM introduced the IBM 608, the first all-transistor commercial calculator.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_608
1955 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg reads his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg
1955 The religious drama 'Crossroads' first aired over ABC television. An anthology which dramatized true experiences of clergymen of all denominations, the program ran for two years.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(1955_TV_series)
1958 US manned space-flight project renamed Project Mercury.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury
1959 A U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly rigged TV quiz shows. Through October and November 1959, the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, chaired by Oren Harris (D-Arkansas), held standing room only hearings into the quiz show scandals. A renewed wave of publicity recorded the now repentant testimony of network bigwigs and star contestants whose minds, apparently, were concentrated powerfully by federal intervention. At one point, committee staffers came upon possible communist associations in the background of a few witnesses.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_show_scandals
Buz and Tod take a ferry to trouble in the series premiere.
1960 "Route 66" premieres. "Route 66" was a TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. The series is best remembered for its iconic Corvette convertible and its instrumental theme song (composed and performed by Nelson Riddle), which became a major pop hit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66_(TV_series)
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http://b5media_b4.s3.amazonaws.com/28/files/2007/09/debate.png [/img][/center]
1960 Kennedy and Nixon debate Cold War foreign policy In the second of four televised debates, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon turn their attention to foreign policy issues. Three Cold War episodes, in particular, engendered spirited confrontations between Kennedy and Nixon. The first involved Cuba, which had recently come under the control of Fidel Castro. Nixon argued that the island was not "lost" to the United States, and that the course of action followed by the Eisenhower administration had been the best one to allow the Cuban people to "realize their aspirations of progress through freedom." Kennedy fired back that it was clear that Castro was a communist, and that the Republican administration failed to use U.S. resources effectively to prevent his rise to power. He concluded that, "Today Cuba is lost for freedom."
The second point of contention revolved around the downing of an American U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union and the subsequent canceling of the U.S.-Soviet summit set for May 1960. Kennedy argued that the United States was "not in accordance with international law" in the case, and should have expressed its regrets to the Soviet Union in an attempt to keep the summit on track. Nixon fired back that Kennedy was simply wrong: the Soviets never really wanted the summit to take place and simply used the incident as an excuse.
The two candidates continued their discussions of foreign policy in the next two debates, but the lines had clearly been drawn. Kennedy's strategy was to paint the Republican administration in which Nixon served as timid, indecisive, and given to poor strategizing in terms of the Cold War. Nixon, on the other hand, wanted to portray Kennedy as naive and much too willing to compromise with the Soviets and communist Chinese. Whether the debates really changed any voters' minds is uncertain. While many speech experts argue that Nixon really won the debates, media analysts claim that Kennedy's telegenic presence swayed enough voters for him to win the extremely close 1960 election.
1961 "Take Good Care of My Baby" by Bobby Vee topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Good_Care_of_My_Baby
7 October 1963 President Kennedy signs the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the Treaty Room at the White House. L-R: William Hopkins, Sen. Mike Mansfield, John J. McCloy, Adrian S. Fisher, Sen. John Pastore, W. Averell Harriman, Sen. George Smathers, Sen. J.W. Fulbright, Sec. of State Dean Rusk, Sen. George Aiken, President Kennedy, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, Sen. Everett Dirksen, William C. Foster, Sen. Howard W. Cannon, Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel, Vice President Johnson. White House, Treaty Room. Photograph by Robert Knudsen, White House, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
1963 - John F. Kennedy signs ratification for Partial Test Ban Treaty.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Test_Ban_Treaty
1967 "The Letter" by Box Tops topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_(The_Box_Tops_song)
1969 Youngbloods hit, "Get Together" passes the million-selling mark.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Together_(Chet_Powers_song)
1969 General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announces progress in the Vietnamization effort. At his departure from Saigon following a four-day inspection of South Viet Nam Wheeler reports that "progress in Vietnamization is being steadily and realistically achieved," but that U.S. forces will have to assist the South Vietnamese "for some time to come."
President Nixon had announced his intention to "Vietnamize" the war at the Midway Conference in June, saying that it was time that the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the war. Accordingly, he announced that as the South Vietnamese improved in combat capability, U.S. forces would be withdrawn and returned to the United States. Supposedly, these withdrawals would be predicated on the rate of improvement in the South Vietnamese armed forces and the level of combat on the battlefield. However, once the U.S. troop withdrawals began in the fall of 1969, the schedule achieved a life of its own and the subsequent increments were withdrawn with very little consideration of the original criteria. By January 1972, less than 75,000 U.S. troops remained in South Vietnam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamization
1970 - Widespread flooding took place across Puerto Rico. Rainfall amounts for the day ranged up to seventeen inches at Aibonito. A slow moving tropical depression was responsible for six days of torrential rains across the island. Totals in the Eastern Interior Division averaged thirty inches, with 38.4 inches at Jayuya. Flooding claimed eighteen lives, and resulted in 62 million dollars damage. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1972 "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me" by Mac Davis topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Don%27t_Get_Hooked_on_Me
1981 - Seattle, WA, received four inches of rain in 24 hours, a record for the city. (The Weather Channel)
1982 "Cats" opened on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(musical)
1984 Walter Payton passes Jim Brown as NFL's career rushing leader.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton
1985 Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship Four Palestinian terrorists board the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro shortly after it left Alexandria, Egypt, in order to hijack the luxury liner. The well-armed men, who belonged to the Popular Front for the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), the terrorist wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Abu Abbas, easily took control of the vessel since there was no security force on board.
Abbas had been responsible for many attacks on Israel and its citizens in the early 1980s. On multiple occasions, he sent men on hang gliders and in hot air balloons on bombing missions to Israel, all of which turned out to be miserable failures. In an attempt to salvage his reputation, Abbas ordered the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. Yet there were no specific goals or demands set forth in the mission.
At first, the terrorists demanded that Israel release imprisoned PLF members and sought entry to a Syrian port. But when Syria denied the request, the terrorists lost control of the situation. Gathering the American tourists on board, the terrorists randomly chose to kill 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer. The wheelchair-bound American was shot in the head and thrown overboard.
Klinghoffer's cold-blooded murder backfired on the terrorists. The world's outrage forced PLO chief Yassir Arafat to cut PLO ties with the terrorists and to demand that Abbas end the situation. On October 9, Abbas contacted the terrorists, ordered them not to kill any more passengers, and arranged for the ship to land in Egypt.
Meanwhile, the elite U.S. Navy SEALs were dispatched to raid the Achille Lauro. But by the time they arrived, the terrorists had already gotten off the ship in Egypt and boarded a plane to Libya. The United States then sent out two F-14 fighter jets, which intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Italy. A three-way standoff between the PFLP terrorists, the Americans, and the Italian Army on the runway in Sicily ended with the Italians taking Abbas and the other terrorists into custody.
Despite intense American pressure, the Italians allowed Abbas to leave the country, and then prosecute the four who were on board. All were convicted, but only one received a sentence of 30 years; the others got off with lighter prison terms. Italy tried and convicted Abbas in absentia, but did not seek extradition until 2003. He was captured by U.S. Special Forces in Baghdad that year and died in American custody in 2004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Abbas
1987 - It was another hot day in the southwestern U.S. Tucson, AZ, hit 101 degrees for the second day in a row to again equal their record for the month of October. Phoenix AZ reported a record high of 103 degrees, and Blythe CA and Yuma AZ tied for honors as the hot spot in the nation with afternoon highs of 108 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Morning fog in the central U.S. reduced the visibility to near zero at some locations. Morning lows of 28 degrees at Rockford IL and 24 degrees at Waterloo IA were records for the date. Afternoon highs of 92 degrees at Hollywood FL and Miami FL were records for the date. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Morning thunderstorms in central Texas drenched San Antonio with 3.10 inches of rain in six hours causing local flooding in northeastern sections of the city. Temperatures dipped below the freezing mark from the Northern Rockies to the Upper Mississippi Valley. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 Rickey Henderson steals a record 8 bases in a play off (5 games)
The area around St. Louis, Missouri 1991 and 1993
1993 - The Great Flood of 1993 ends at St. Louis, Missouri, 103 days after it began, as the Mississippi River falls below flood stage.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1993
1995 A crowd of over 100,000 people were sitting or standing in Central Park to see Pope John Paul II
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II
1998 - Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young thugs in Laramie, Wyoming.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
2001 President Bush announces military action in Afghanistan On this day in 2001, less than a month after al-Qaida terrorists flew commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, President George W. Bush announces that American troops are on the offensive in Afghanistan. The goal of Operation Enduring Freedom, as the mission was dubbed, was to stamp out Afghanistan’s Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime, which had aided and abetted al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national who lived in the Afghan hills and urged his followers to kill Americans.
In a televised address that evening, Bush informed the American public that "carefully targeted actions" were being carried out to crush the military capability of al-Qaida and the Taliban, with help from British, Canadian, Australian, German and French troops. An additional 40 nations around the world provided intelligence, as well as bases from which the operations were conducted.
Bush touted the multinational effort as proof that America, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, was "supported by the collective will of the world." He also warned that the war in Afghanistan would likely be only the first front in a long struggle against terrorism. He vowed to continue to take what he called the "war on terror" to those countries that sponsored, harbored or trained terrorists.
2001 U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan begins. On this day in 2001, a U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. Logistical support was provided by other nations including France, Germany, Australia and Canada and, later, troops were provided by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels. The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the United States "war on terrorism" and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
Dubbed "Operation Enduring Freedom" in U.S. military parlance, the invasion of Afghanistan was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, which was based in the country, as well as the extreme fundamentalist Taliban government that had ruled most of the country since 1996 and supported and protected al-Qaida. The Taliban, which had imposed its extremist version of Islam on the entire country, also perpetrated countless human rights abuses against its people, especially women, girls and ethnic Hazaras. During their rule, large numbers of Afghans lived in utter poverty, and as many as 4 million Afghans are thought to have suffered from starvation.
In the weeks prior to the invasion, both the United States and the U.N. Security Council had demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden for prosecution. After deeming the Taliban's counteroffers unsatisfactory—among them to try bin Laden in an Islamic court—the invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaida installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other coalition planes flew in airdrops of humanitarian supplies for Afghan civilians. The Taliban called the actions "an attack on Islam." In a taped statement released to the Arabic al-Jazeera television network, Osama bin Laden called for a war against the entire non-Muslim world.
After the air campaign softened Taliban defenses, the coalition began a ground invasion, with Northern Alliance forces providing most of the troops and the U.S. and other nations giving air and ground support. On November 12, a little over a month after the military action began, Taliban officials and their forces retreated from the capital of Kabul. By early December, Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, had fallen and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar went into hiding rather than surrender. Al-Qaida fighters continued to hide out in Afghanistan's mountainous Tora Bora region, where they were engaged by anti-Taliban Afghan forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces troops. Al-Qaida soon initiated a truce, which is now believed to have been a ploy to allow Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaida members time to escape into neighboring Pakistan. By mid-December, the bunker and cave complex used by al-Qaida at Tora Bora had been captured, but there was no sign of bin Laden.
After Tora Bora, a grand council of Afghan tribal leaders and former exiles was convened under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, who first served as interim leader before becoming the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. Even as Afghanistan began to take the first steps toward democracy, however, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops in country, al-Qaida and Taliban forces began to regroup in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They continue to engage U.S. and Afghan troops in guerilla-style warfare and have also been responsible for the deaths of elected government officials and aid workers and the kidnapping of foreigners. Hundreds of American and coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans have been killed and wounded in the fighting.
Afghans continue to make up the largest refugee population in the world, though nearly 3 million have returned to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, further straining the country's war-ravaged economy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
Sum of 16 Hubble exposures registered on Quaoar
2002 Astronomers reported a frozen object beyond Pluto some 800 miles across. On October 7, 2002, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Mike Brown announced the discovery of one of the largest planet-like objects since Pluto was found in 1930. Identified as a new object on June 4, 2002, it was actually imaged as early as 1982 by astronomer Charles T. Kowal. Provisionally designated as 2002 LM60, the IAU eventually accepted the discovery team's nomination of "Quaoar" (the great force of nature that summoned all other things into being for the Tongva people who inhabited the Los Angeles area of the United States before the arrival of the Spanish and other European settlers) as a permanent name.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaoar
2003 On this day in 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected governor of California, the most populous state in the nation with the world's fifth-largest economy. Despite his inexperience, Schwarzenegger came out on top in the 11-week campaign to replace Gray Davis, who had earlier become the first United States governor to be recalled by the people since 1921. Schwarzenegger was one of 135 candidates on the ballot, which included career politicians, other actors, and one adult-film star.
Born in Thal, Austria, on July 30, 1947, Arnold Schwarzenegger began body-building as a teenager. He won the first of four "Mr. Universe" body-building championships at the age of 20, and moved to the United States in 1968. He also went on to win a then-record seven "Mr. Olympia" championships, securing his reputation as a body-building legend, and soon began appearing in films. Schwarzenegger first attracted mainstream public attention for a Golden Globe®-winning performance in Stay Hungry (1976) and his appearance in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. At the same time, he was working on a B.A. at the University of Wisconsin, from which he graduated in 1979.
Schwarzenegger's film career took off after his starring turn in 1982's Conan the Barbarian. In 1983, he became a U.S. citizen; the next year he made his most famous film, The Terminator, directed by James Cameron. Although his acting talent is probably aptly described as limited, Schwarzenegger went on to become one of the most sought-after action-film stars of the 1980s and early 1990s and enjoyed an extremely lucrative career. The actor's romantic life also captured the attention of the American public: he married television journalist and lifelong Democrat Maria Shriver, niece of the late President John F. Kennedy, in 1986.
With his film career beginning to stagnate, Schwarzenegger, a staunch supporter of the Republican party who had long been thought to harbor political aspirations, announced his candidacy for governor of California during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Aside from his well-known stint serving as chairman of the President s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George H.W. Bush, Schwarzenegger had little political experience. His campaign, which featured his use of myriad one-liners well-known from his movie career, was dogged by criticism of his use of anabolic steroids, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct and racism. Still, Schwarzenegger was able to parlay his celebrity into a win, appealing to weary California voters with talk of reform. He beat his closest challenger, the Democratic lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante, by more than 1 million votes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct07.html
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3761 BC The epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
1518 Martin Luther reached Augsburg for an interview with Thomas Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534). He discussed his 95 theses, but the conversation broke down with Cajetan telling Luther to stay away unless he would recant unconditionally.
1542 ExplorerJuan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovers Santa Catalina Island off the California coast.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rodriguez_Cabrillo#Voyages
1571 Turkish fleet defeated by Spanish & Italians in Battle of Lepanto.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_of_1571
www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lepanto.htm
1763 George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_Great_Britain
1765 The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York Citywith nine colonies in attendance; others would likely have participated if earlier notice had been provided. The delegates approved a 14-point Declaration of Rights and Grievances, formulated largely by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_Congress
1777 The second Battle of Saratoga began. The Battle of Bemis Heights was the second battle of Saratoga, taking place October 7th when Burgoyne desperately attacked rebel defenses with his tired, demoralized army. At Bemis Heights, Gate's defensive tactics insured a tactical victory for the Patriots. However, Arnold saw an opportunity to seize the offensive while Burgoyne was vulnerable and led a counterattack. This bold move so badly wounded the British forces that Burgoyne surrendered days later at Saratoga.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saratoga
1780 British defeated by American militia near Kings Mountain, SC During the American Revolution, Patriot irregulars under Colonel William Campbell defeat Tories under Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina.
Major Ferguson's Tory force, made up mostly of American Loyalists from South Carolina and elsewhere, was the western wing of General Lord Cornwallis' North Carolina invasion force. One thousand American frontiersmen under Colonel Campbell of Virginia gathered in the backcountry to resist Ferguson's advance. Pursued by the Patriots, Ferguson positioned his Tory force in defense of a rocky, treeless ridge named King's Mountain. The Patriots charged the hillside multiple times, demonstrating lethal marksmanship against the surrounded Loyalists.
Unwilling to surrender to a "band of banditti," Ferguson led a suicidal charge down the mountain and was cut down in a hail of bullets. After his death, some of his men tried to surrender, but they were slaughtered in cold blood by the frontiersmen, who were bitter over British excesses in the Carolinas. The Tories suffered 157 killed, 163 wounded, and 698 captured. Colonel Campbell's force suffered just 28 killed and 60 wounded.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_County,_North_Carolina#History
1816 First double decked steamboat, the Washington, arrived in New Orleans. The Washington was a remarkable boat in her day, and was the sixth boat that was built to run on the Western waters. She had a high pressure engine and four single-flue boilers. From all the information obtained, it appears that Capt. Shreve designed the engine and boilers. She left Wheeling on the third with twenty-one passengers on board. Near the town of Marietta, Ohio, the boiler burst, and seventeen out of the twenty-one were either killed or wounded, the Captain only slightly.The Washington finally arrived for the first time at the port of New Orleans, October 7, 1816.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Mississippi#Golden_age_of_steamboats
The Incline section of the Granite Railway
Quincy (1934 photo)
1826 Granite Railway (first chartered railway in US) begins operations . On October 7, 1826 the first car passed over the roadbed, from the foot of the Bunker Hill Ledge to the terminus at Neponset River. From now on the railroad could begin hauling the granite blocks that were ready. During the time Bryant had been building his railroad, Solomon Willard had a crew of workman quarrying granite, bringing the rough cut blocks, weighing up to ten tons each, to the shed at the foot of the quarry where they were dressed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Railway
1856 The first practical U.S. folding machine to fold book and newspaper sheets was patented by Cyrus Chambers, Jr. of Pennsylvania (No. 15,842). It made three right angle folds to produce a sixteen page folded signature. The machine was installed in the Bible printing house of Jasper Harding & Son, Philadelphia, Pa. Although the accuracy of early folders was poor, with hand folding still predominating for better grade work, development of the folding machine after 1862 was rapid, and in 1873 a machine was patented that would fold a 16-page section and one of 8 pages, inset the latter, and paste it in place. That same year devices to cut and slit paper as it went through the machine were introduced.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_machine
USS Wachusett
1864 Capture of the C.S.S. Florida The Union warship Wachusett captures the famed Confederate raider Florida while the Rebel ship is in port at Bahia, Brazil. After the Yankee crew sailed the Florida out to sea, the Brazilian government protested the invasion of its neutrality. The Union returned the ship and crew to the Confederate government, but the Florida sunk six weeks later off Hampton Roads, Virginia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wachusett_(1861)#CSS_Florida_captured_in_Brazil
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Darbytown Road: the Confederate forces' attempt to regain ground that had been lost around Richmond is thwarted.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Darbytown_Road
1865 Cornell University (Ithaca NY) is chartered.The Morrill Land Grant Act, which President Abraham Lincoln signed into law in 1862, helped make Cornell's vision possible by offering the states grants of federal land, proportional to their population, to establish colleges emphasizing agriculture, the mechanic arts (now called engineering), and military science ". . . in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." When Ezra Cornell founded the university in 1865, he envisioned an institution that would extend the opportunity for education to everyone, a place where "any person could find instruction in any study.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Land_Grant_Act
1871 Massive fire burns in Wisconsin The most devastating fire in United States history is ignited in Wisconsin on this day in 1871. Over the course of the next day, 1,200 people lost their lives and 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Despite the massive scale of the blaze, it was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire, which began the next day about 250 miles away.
Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was a company lumber and sawmill town owned by William Ogden that was home to what was then one of the largest wood-products factories in the United States. The summer of 1871 was particularly dry across the northern Midwest. Still, settlers continued to set fires, using the "slash and burn" method to create new farmland and, in the process, making the risk of forest fire substantial. In fact, the month before had seen significant fires burn from Canada to Iowa.
Peshtigo, like many Midwestern towns, was highly vulnerable to fire. Nearly every structure in town was a timber-framed building--prime fuel for a fire. In addition, the roads in and out of town were covered with saw dust and a key bridge was made of wood. This would allow a fire from outside the town to easily spread to Peshtigo and make escaping from a fire in the town difficult. On September 23, the town had stockpiled a large supply of water in case a nearby fire headed in Peshtigo’s direction. Still, they were not prepared for the size and speed of the October 7 blaze.
The blaze began at an unknown spot in the dense Wisconsin forest. It first spread to the small village of Sugar Bush, where every resident was killed. High winds then sent the 200-foot flames racing northeast toward the neighboring community of Peshtigo. Temperatures reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing trees to literally explode in the flames.
On October 8, the fire reached Peshtigo without warning. Two hundred people died in a single tavern. Others fled to a nearby river, where several people died from drowning. Three people who sought refuge in a water tank boiled to death when the fire heated the tank. A mass grave of nearly 350 people was established because extensive burns made it impossible to identify the bodies.
Despite the fact that this was the worst fire in American history, newspaper headlines on subsequent days were dominated by the story of another devastating, though smaller, blaze: the Great Chicago Fire. Another fire in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that consumed 2 million acres was an even smaller footnote in the next day’s papers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire
1877 The Synodical Conference officially began African American mission work in the U.S.
1913 Moving Assembly Line at Ford For the first time, Henry Ford's entire Highland Park, Michigan automobile factory is run on a continuously moving assembly line when the chassis--the automobile's frame--is assembled using the revolutionary industrial technique. A motor and rope pulled the chassis past workers and parts on the factory floor, cutting the man-hours required to complete one "Model T" from 12-1/2 hours to six. Within a year, further assembly line improvements reduced the time required to 93 man-minutes. The staggering increase in productivity effected by Ford's use of the moving assembly line allowed him to drastically reduce the cost of the Model T, thereby accomplishing his dream of making the car affordable to ordinary consumers.
In introducing the Model T in October 1908, Henry Ford proclaimed, "I will build a motor car for the great multitude." Before then, the decade-old automobile industry generally marketed its vehicles to only the richest Americans, because of the high cost of producing the machines. Ford's Model T was the first automobile designed to serve the needs of middle-class citizens: It was durable, economical, and easy to operate and maintain. Still, with a debut price of $850, the Model T was out of the reach of most Americans. The Ford Motor Company understood that to lower unit cost it had to increase productivity. The method by which this was accomplished transformed industry forever.
Prototypes of the assembly line can be traced back to ancient times, but the immediate precursor of Ford's industrial technique was 19th-century meat-packing plants in Chicago and Cincinnati, where cows and hogs were slaughtered, dressed, and packed using overhead trolleys that took the meat from worker to worker. Inspired by the meat packers, the Ford Motor Company innovated new assembly line techniques and in early 1913 installed its first moving assembly line at Highland Park for the manufacture of flywheel magnetos. Instead of each worker assembling his own magneto, the assembly was divided into 29 operations performed by 29 men spaced along a moving belt. Average assembly time dropped from 20 minutes to 13 minutes and soon was down to five minutes.
With the success of the magneto experiment, Ford engineers put the Model T motor and then the transmission on moving assembly lines. On October 7, 1913, the chassis also went on the moving assembly line, so that all the major components of the Model T were being assembled using this technique. Ford rapidly improved its assembly lines, and by 1916 the price of the Model T had fallen to $360 and sales were more than triple their 1912 level. Eventually, the company produced one Model T every 24 seconds, and the price fell below $300. More than 15 million Model T's were built before it was discontinued in 1927, accounting for nearly half of all automobiles sold in the world to that date. The affordable Model T changed the landscape of America, hastening the move from rural to city life, and the moving assembly line spurred a new industrial revolution in factories around the world.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company#20th_century
1914 Antwerp under siege On October 7, 1914, advancing German forces bombard the Belgian city of Antwerp, as Belgian troops and their British allies struggle to resist the onslaught.
After the mighty fortress city of Liege fell to the Germans in the opening weeks of World War I, King Albert I ordered the Belgian army’s remaining 65,000 troops in the region to retreat to the city of Antwerp, protected by a ring of 48 inner and outer forts and some 80,000 garrison troops. From Antwerp, Belgian forces conducted sorties in August and September 1914 designed to distract the German 1st Army, led by General Alexander von Kluck, from its attacks against the British and French over the French frontier. After von Kluck was forced to send four divisions to repel an attack from Antwerp on September 9, German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke decided to send his men against Antwerp with the goal of capturing the city.
On September 28, five German divisions began bombing the outer ring of forts at Antwerp’s southeastern corner. Heavy artillery such as the famous Big Bertha—a 420-mm siege howitzer gun—made an immediate impact, arousing the concern of the British War Office, which determined to redeploy troops originally intended for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France to Antwerp. After the Germans succeeded in penetrating two of the city’s forts on October 2, the British sent Winston Churchill, first lord of the Admiralty, to personally assess the situation. Churchill telegraphed his observations to Minister of War Lord H.H. Kitchener on October 4, stating that the Belgian troops were "weary and disheartened" and that the city’s ground was so waterlogged that it was impossible for the Belgians to dig trenches for its protection.
By October 5, some 8,000 troops of the British Royal Naval Division had arrived in Antwerp, transported from the port city of Ostend in London city buses commandeered for the war effort. The following day, a larger British force of 22,000 reached Ostend; after the French decided not to send any troops, however, the British command hesitated in sending their own force ahead. They hesitated too long: Though the British soldiers who did reach Antwerp were greeted with jubilant cries of "Vive les Anglais!" they were unable to withstand the German onslaught, which began with a fierce bombardment on the evening of October 7.
That same day, the Belgian government—relocated to Antwerp from Brussels after that city’s fall—moved again, this time to Ostend. On October 8, Antwerp was evacuated; its military governor, General Victor Deguise, formally surrendered to the Germans on October 10. German forces would occupy Antwerp for the duration of the war; it was finally liberated in late 1918.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antwerp
1916 Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222-0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.
1922 The first radio network -- of sorts -- debuted. It was a network of just two stations. WJZ in Newark, NJ teamed with WGY in Schenectady, NY to bring the World Series game direct from the Polo Grounds in New York.
1927 Yank Herb Pennock retires first 22 Pirates in world series game
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Pennock
1931 The first U.S.short-exposure infrared photograph taken of a large group of people in apparently total darkness was taken in Rochester, NY at the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories. They were in a room that was flooded with invisible infrared light (waves 700 to 900 nanometers long, beyond the red end of the visible spectrum). A group of 50 people visiting the laboratory was photographed on a new photographic emulsion sensitive to infrared. Since then, scientists have made use of infrared photography in medical applications and aerial photography. Since plant chlorophyll reflects infrared rays more intensely than other green materials, infrared photos yield a precise indication of where vegetation is present on the ground.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography
1940 Artie Shaw’s orchestra recorded Hoagy Carmichael’s standard, "Star Dust"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(song)
1940 - World War II: the McCollum memo proposes bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollum_memo
1940 A U.S. 1-cent stamp commemorating inventor Eli Whitney was issued, with first-day-of-issue ceremonies in Savannah, Georgia. The stamp was one of a series of 35 stamps released that year showing "Famous Americans" which also included five scientists and four other inventors. Whitney had been employed in Savannah to tutor the children of the owner of Mulberry Grove Plantation. There, having heard from the planters of the labour-intensive difficulty of separating seed from the cotton fibres, Whitney invented his famous cotton gin to accomplish this mechanically, in 1793. With this problem solved, cotton quickly spread as a newly valuable cash crop for farmers across the southern states.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney#Later_life_and_legacy
A U.S. Marine patrol crosses the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal in September 1942
1942 - World War II: The October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actions_along_the_Matanikau
1943 While WWII was raging, the American Council of Volunteer Agencies for Foreign Service was formed. It was as an interfaith venture to bring Protestant, Catholic and Jewish agencies involved in international relief together under one roof.
openlibrary.org/books/OL2556283M/The_American_Council_of_Voluntary_Agencies_for_Foreign_Service_ACVAFS
Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara (seated third from left) signing the surrender of Wake Island aboard USS Levy - 4 September 1945.
1943 Japanese execute nearly 100 American prisoners on Wake Island On this day in 1943, Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on the island, orders the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.
In late December 1941, the Japanese reinforced existing forces on Wake Island, part of a coral atoll west of Hawaii, in massive numbers after being unable to wrest the island from a small number of Americans troops earlier in the month. The Japanese strength was now overwhelming, and most of those Americans left alive after the battle were taken by the Japanese off the island to POW camps elsewhere. Ninety-six remained behind to be used as forced labor. The Allied response was periodic bombing of the island--but no more land invasions, as part of a larger Allied strategy to leave certain Japanese-occupied islands in the South Pacific to basically starve in isolation.
The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood, remains one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.
[a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigematsu_Sakaibara"]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigematsu_Sakaibara[/a][/url]
Ruins of Crematorium IV, blown up in the revolt
1944 World War II: Uprising at Birkenau concentration camp, Jews burn down the crematoria.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#Birkenau_revolt
1949 - German Democratic Republic (East Germany) formed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Democratic_Republic#GDR_created_1949
1950 US forces invade Korea by crossing the 38th parallel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#UN_forces_cross_partition_line_.28September_.E2.80.93_October_1950.29
1950 "Goodnight Irene" by the Weavers with Gordon Jenkins topped the charts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Irene
1950 "The Frank Sinatra Show" debuted. On October 7, 1950, the "Frank Sinatra Show" premiered on CBS. This Saturday night show was broadcast weekly from 9:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m., leading to a radio series, also on CBS, called Meet Frank Sinatra. A second series of the Frank Sinatra Show premiered on October 1, 1952, but, ratings were dwarfed by the likes of the Milton Berle Show.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frank_Sinatra_Show_(CBS)
1951 The Western Hills Hotel in Fort Worth, TX became the first hostelry to feature all foam-rubber mattresses and pillows.
1954 In Poughkeepsie, IBM displayed a large all-transistor calculator needing only 5% of the power of comparable electronic ones. Three years later, in 1957, IBM introduced the IBM 608, the first all-transistor commercial calculator.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_608
1955 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg reads his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg
1955 The religious drama 'Crossroads' first aired over ABC television. An anthology which dramatized true experiences of clergymen of all denominations, the program ran for two years.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(1955_TV_series)
1958 US manned space-flight project renamed Project Mercury.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury
1959 A U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly rigged TV quiz shows. Through October and November 1959, the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, chaired by Oren Harris (D-Arkansas), held standing room only hearings into the quiz show scandals. A renewed wave of publicity recorded the now repentant testimony of network bigwigs and star contestants whose minds, apparently, were concentrated powerfully by federal intervention. At one point, committee staffers came upon possible communist associations in the background of a few witnesses.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_show_scandals
Buz and Tod take a ferry to trouble in the series premiere.
1960 "Route 66" premieres. "Route 66" was a TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. The series is best remembered for its iconic Corvette convertible and its instrumental theme song (composed and performed by Nelson Riddle), which became a major pop hit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66_(TV_series)
1960 Kennedy and Nixon debate Cold War foreign policy In the second of four televised debates, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon turn their attention to foreign policy issues. Three Cold War episodes, in particular, engendered spirited confrontations between Kennedy and Nixon. The first involved Cuba, which had recently come under the control of Fidel Castro. Nixon argued that the island was not "lost" to the United States, and that the course of action followed by the Eisenhower administration had been the best one to allow the Cuban people to "realize their aspirations of progress through freedom." Kennedy fired back that it was clear that Castro was a communist, and that the Republican administration failed to use U.S. resources effectively to prevent his rise to power. He concluded that, "Today Cuba is lost for freedom."
The second point of contention revolved around the downing of an American U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union and the subsequent canceling of the U.S.-Soviet summit set for May 1960. Kennedy argued that the United States was "not in accordance with international law" in the case, and should have expressed its regrets to the Soviet Union in an attempt to keep the summit on track. Nixon fired back that Kennedy was simply wrong: the Soviets never really wanted the summit to take place and simply used the incident as an excuse.
The two candidates continued their discussions of foreign policy in the next two debates, but the lines had clearly been drawn. Kennedy's strategy was to paint the Republican administration in which Nixon served as timid, indecisive, and given to poor strategizing in terms of the Cold War. Nixon, on the other hand, wanted to portray Kennedy as naive and much too willing to compromise with the Soviets and communist Chinese. Whether the debates really changed any voters' minds is uncertain. While many speech experts argue that Nixon really won the debates, media analysts claim that Kennedy's telegenic presence swayed enough voters for him to win the extremely close 1960 election.
1961 "Take Good Care of My Baby" by Bobby Vee topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Good_Care_of_My_Baby
7 October 1963 President Kennedy signs the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the Treaty Room at the White House. L-R: William Hopkins, Sen. Mike Mansfield, John J. McCloy, Adrian S. Fisher, Sen. John Pastore, W. Averell Harriman, Sen. George Smathers, Sen. J.W. Fulbright, Sec. of State Dean Rusk, Sen. George Aiken, President Kennedy, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, Sen. Everett Dirksen, William C. Foster, Sen. Howard W. Cannon, Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel, Vice President Johnson. White House, Treaty Room. Photograph by Robert Knudsen, White House, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
1963 - John F. Kennedy signs ratification for Partial Test Ban Treaty.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Test_Ban_Treaty
1967 "The Letter" by Box Tops topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_(The_Box_Tops_song)
1969 Youngbloods hit, "Get Together" passes the million-selling mark.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Together_(Chet_Powers_song)
1969 General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announces progress in the Vietnamization effort. At his departure from Saigon following a four-day inspection of South Viet Nam Wheeler reports that "progress in Vietnamization is being steadily and realistically achieved," but that U.S. forces will have to assist the South Vietnamese "for some time to come."
President Nixon had announced his intention to "Vietnamize" the war at the Midway Conference in June, saying that it was time that the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the war. Accordingly, he announced that as the South Vietnamese improved in combat capability, U.S. forces would be withdrawn and returned to the United States. Supposedly, these withdrawals would be predicated on the rate of improvement in the South Vietnamese armed forces and the level of combat on the battlefield. However, once the U.S. troop withdrawals began in the fall of 1969, the schedule achieved a life of its own and the subsequent increments were withdrawn with very little consideration of the original criteria. By January 1972, less than 75,000 U.S. troops remained in South Vietnam.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamization
1970 - Widespread flooding took place across Puerto Rico. Rainfall amounts for the day ranged up to seventeen inches at Aibonito. A slow moving tropical depression was responsible for six days of torrential rains across the island. Totals in the Eastern Interior Division averaged thirty inches, with 38.4 inches at Jayuya. Flooding claimed eighteen lives, and resulted in 62 million dollars damage. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1972 "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me" by Mac Davis topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Don%27t_Get_Hooked_on_Me
1981 - Seattle, WA, received four inches of rain in 24 hours, a record for the city. (The Weather Channel)
1982 "Cats" opened on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(musical)
1984 Walter Payton passes Jim Brown as NFL's career rushing leader.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton
1985 Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship Four Palestinian terrorists board the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro shortly after it left Alexandria, Egypt, in order to hijack the luxury liner. The well-armed men, who belonged to the Popular Front for the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), the terrorist wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Abu Abbas, easily took control of the vessel since there was no security force on board.
Abbas had been responsible for many attacks on Israel and its citizens in the early 1980s. On multiple occasions, he sent men on hang gliders and in hot air balloons on bombing missions to Israel, all of which turned out to be miserable failures. In an attempt to salvage his reputation, Abbas ordered the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. Yet there were no specific goals or demands set forth in the mission.
At first, the terrorists demanded that Israel release imprisoned PLF members and sought entry to a Syrian port. But when Syria denied the request, the terrorists lost control of the situation. Gathering the American tourists on board, the terrorists randomly chose to kill 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer. The wheelchair-bound American was shot in the head and thrown overboard.
Klinghoffer's cold-blooded murder backfired on the terrorists. The world's outrage forced PLO chief Yassir Arafat to cut PLO ties with the terrorists and to demand that Abbas end the situation. On October 9, Abbas contacted the terrorists, ordered them not to kill any more passengers, and arranged for the ship to land in Egypt.
Meanwhile, the elite U.S. Navy SEALs were dispatched to raid the Achille Lauro. But by the time they arrived, the terrorists had already gotten off the ship in Egypt and boarded a plane to Libya. The United States then sent out two F-14 fighter jets, which intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Italy. A three-way standoff between the PFLP terrorists, the Americans, and the Italian Army on the runway in Sicily ended with the Italians taking Abbas and the other terrorists into custody.
Despite intense American pressure, the Italians allowed Abbas to leave the country, and then prosecute the four who were on board. All were convicted, but only one received a sentence of 30 years; the others got off with lighter prison terms. Italy tried and convicted Abbas in absentia, but did not seek extradition until 2003. He was captured by U.S. Special Forces in Baghdad that year and died in American custody in 2004.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Abbas
1987 - It was another hot day in the southwestern U.S. Tucson, AZ, hit 101 degrees for the second day in a row to again equal their record for the month of October. Phoenix AZ reported a record high of 103 degrees, and Blythe CA and Yuma AZ tied for honors as the hot spot in the nation with afternoon highs of 108 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Morning fog in the central U.S. reduced the visibility to near zero at some locations. Morning lows of 28 degrees at Rockford IL and 24 degrees at Waterloo IA were records for the date. Afternoon highs of 92 degrees at Hollywood FL and Miami FL were records for the date. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Morning thunderstorms in central Texas drenched San Antonio with 3.10 inches of rain in six hours causing local flooding in northeastern sections of the city. Temperatures dipped below the freezing mark from the Northern Rockies to the Upper Mississippi Valley. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 Rickey Henderson steals a record 8 bases in a play off (5 games)
The area around St. Louis, Missouri 1991 and 1993
1993 - The Great Flood of 1993 ends at St. Louis, Missouri, 103 days after it began, as the Mississippi River falls below flood stage.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1993
1995 A crowd of over 100,000 people were sitting or standing in Central Park to see Pope John Paul II
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II
1998 - Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young thugs in Laramie, Wyoming.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
2001 President Bush announces military action in Afghanistan On this day in 2001, less than a month after al-Qaida terrorists flew commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, President George W. Bush announces that American troops are on the offensive in Afghanistan. The goal of Operation Enduring Freedom, as the mission was dubbed, was to stamp out Afghanistan’s Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime, which had aided and abetted al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national who lived in the Afghan hills and urged his followers to kill Americans.
In a televised address that evening, Bush informed the American public that "carefully targeted actions" were being carried out to crush the military capability of al-Qaida and the Taliban, with help from British, Canadian, Australian, German and French troops. An additional 40 nations around the world provided intelligence, as well as bases from which the operations were conducted.
Bush touted the multinational effort as proof that America, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, was "supported by the collective will of the world." He also warned that the war in Afghanistan would likely be only the first front in a long struggle against terrorism. He vowed to continue to take what he called the "war on terror" to those countries that sponsored, harbored or trained terrorists.
2001 U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan begins. On this day in 2001, a U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. Logistical support was provided by other nations including France, Germany, Australia and Canada and, later, troops were provided by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels. The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the United States "war on terrorism" and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
Dubbed "Operation Enduring Freedom" in U.S. military parlance, the invasion of Afghanistan was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, which was based in the country, as well as the extreme fundamentalist Taliban government that had ruled most of the country since 1996 and supported and protected al-Qaida. The Taliban, which had imposed its extremist version of Islam on the entire country, also perpetrated countless human rights abuses against its people, especially women, girls and ethnic Hazaras. During their rule, large numbers of Afghans lived in utter poverty, and as many as 4 million Afghans are thought to have suffered from starvation.
In the weeks prior to the invasion, both the United States and the U.N. Security Council had demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden for prosecution. After deeming the Taliban's counteroffers unsatisfactory—among them to try bin Laden in an Islamic court—the invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaida installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other coalition planes flew in airdrops of humanitarian supplies for Afghan civilians. The Taliban called the actions "an attack on Islam." In a taped statement released to the Arabic al-Jazeera television network, Osama bin Laden called for a war against the entire non-Muslim world.
After the air campaign softened Taliban defenses, the coalition began a ground invasion, with Northern Alliance forces providing most of the troops and the U.S. and other nations giving air and ground support. On November 12, a little over a month after the military action began, Taliban officials and their forces retreated from the capital of Kabul. By early December, Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, had fallen and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar went into hiding rather than surrender. Al-Qaida fighters continued to hide out in Afghanistan's mountainous Tora Bora region, where they were engaged by anti-Taliban Afghan forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces troops. Al-Qaida soon initiated a truce, which is now believed to have been a ploy to allow Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaida members time to escape into neighboring Pakistan. By mid-December, the bunker and cave complex used by al-Qaida at Tora Bora had been captured, but there was no sign of bin Laden.
After Tora Bora, a grand council of Afghan tribal leaders and former exiles was convened under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, who first served as interim leader before becoming the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. Even as Afghanistan began to take the first steps toward democracy, however, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops in country, al-Qaida and Taliban forces began to regroup in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They continue to engage U.S. and Afghan troops in guerilla-style warfare and have also been responsible for the deaths of elected government officials and aid workers and the kidnapping of foreigners. Hundreds of American and coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans have been killed and wounded in the fighting.
Afghans continue to make up the largest refugee population in the world, though nearly 3 million have returned to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, further straining the country's war-ravaged economy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
Sum of 16 Hubble exposures registered on Quaoar
2002 Astronomers reported a frozen object beyond Pluto some 800 miles across. On October 7, 2002, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Mike Brown announced the discovery of one of the largest planet-like objects since Pluto was found in 1930. Identified as a new object on June 4, 2002, it was actually imaged as early as 1982 by astronomer Charles T. Kowal. Provisionally designated as 2002 LM60, the IAU eventually accepted the discovery team's nomination of "Quaoar" (the great force of nature that summoned all other things into being for the Tongva people who inhabited the Los Angeles area of the United States before the arrival of the Spanish and other European settlers) as a permanent name.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaoar
2003 On this day in 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected governor of California, the most populous state in the nation with the world's fifth-largest economy. Despite his inexperience, Schwarzenegger came out on top in the 11-week campaign to replace Gray Davis, who had earlier become the first United States governor to be recalled by the people since 1921. Schwarzenegger was one of 135 candidates on the ballot, which included career politicians, other actors, and one adult-film star.
Born in Thal, Austria, on July 30, 1947, Arnold Schwarzenegger began body-building as a teenager. He won the first of four "Mr. Universe" body-building championships at the age of 20, and moved to the United States in 1968. He also went on to win a then-record seven "Mr. Olympia" championships, securing his reputation as a body-building legend, and soon began appearing in films. Schwarzenegger first attracted mainstream public attention for a Golden Globe®-winning performance in Stay Hungry (1976) and his appearance in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. At the same time, he was working on a B.A. at the University of Wisconsin, from which he graduated in 1979.
Schwarzenegger's film career took off after his starring turn in 1982's Conan the Barbarian. In 1983, he became a U.S. citizen; the next year he made his most famous film, The Terminator, directed by James Cameron. Although his acting talent is probably aptly described as limited, Schwarzenegger went on to become one of the most sought-after action-film stars of the 1980s and early 1990s and enjoyed an extremely lucrative career. The actor's romantic life also captured the attention of the American public: he married television journalist and lifelong Democrat Maria Shriver, niece of the late President John F. Kennedy, in 1986.
With his film career beginning to stagnate, Schwarzenegger, a staunch supporter of the Republican party who had long been thought to harbor political aspirations, announced his candidacy for governor of California during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Aside from his well-known stint serving as chairman of the President s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George H.W. Bush, Schwarzenegger had little political experience. His campaign, which featured his use of myriad one-liners well-known from his movie career, was dogged by criticism of his use of anabolic steroids, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct and racism. Still, Schwarzenegger was able to parlay his celebrity into a win, appealing to weary California voters with talk of reform. He beat his closest challenger, the Democratic lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante, by more than 1 million votes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger
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www.history.com/this-day-in-history/arnold-schwarzenegger-becomes-california-governor
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct07.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1007.htm
www.daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm#lk
