Post by farmgal on Oct 15, 2012 18:40:33 GMT -5
October 16 is the 290th day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 21
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1311 The Council of Vienna opened to decide if the Knights Templar, a military order sworn to protect Christian pilgrims, were heretical and too wealthy. Pope Clement V (1264–1314) decided to suppress the order. Its leader was burned and members’ possessions taken by the church. That decision was adamantly derided by the poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and later historians.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar#Arrests.2C_charges.2C_and_dissolution
1384 Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman. Monarch of Poland from 1384 to her death. Her official title was 'king' rather than 'queen', reflecting that she was a sovereign in her own right and not merely a royal consort. She was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, the daughter of King Louis I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Bosnia. She is known in Polish as Jadwiga, in English and German as Hedwig, in Lithuanian as Jadvyga, in Hungarian as Hedvig, and in Latin as Hedvigis. Queens regnant being relatively uncommon in Europe at the time, Jadwiga was officially crowned a King. She is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Hedwig, where she is the patron saint of queens
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_of_Poland
1555 Nicholas Ridley (b. ca. 1500) and Hugh Latimer (b. ca. 1485/90), English reformers and martyrs, were burned at the stake for their Protestant beliefs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ridley_(martyr)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Latimer
1649 The American colony of Maine passed legislation granting religious freedom to all its citizens, on condition that those of contrary religious persuasions behave acceptably.
1701 The Collegiate School was founded at Saybrook, Connecticut, by Congregational clergy dissatisfied with growing liberalism at Harvard College. In 1716 the school moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where in 1718 it became Yale College, named after Elihu Yale, son of one of the founders of New Haven. In 1887 the name was changed to Yale University.
1773 Philadelphia Resolutions criticize Tea Act. The first public statement against the British Parliament's Tea Act was a document printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette on this day in 1773. The document became known as the "Philadelphia Resolutions."
The Tea Act of 1773 was a bill designed to save the faltering British East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as yet another example of taxation tyranny. In response, the "Philadelphia Resolutions" called the British tax upon America unfair and said that it introduced "arbitrary government and slavery" upon the American citizens. The resolutions urged all Americans to oppose the British tax and stated that anyone who transported, sold or consumed the taxed tea would be considered "an enemy to his country."
On December 16, 1773, two months after the publication of the resolutions, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawks boarded three British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor in what is now known as the Boston Tea Party.
Parliament, outraged by this blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts—called the "Intolerable Acts" by the colonists—in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act_of_1773
1780 Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalton,_Vermont#History
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunbridge,_Vermont#History
1781 Washington takes Yorktown. On October 16, a British attack intended to silence a French battery failed. The allied batteries, from their closer second siege line, were now firing directly into the British defensive works. That night, an attempted breakout across the York River to Gloucester Point failed due to a severe storm. Cornwallis, whose army was running low on food and ammunition, offered to surrender on October 17.
1789 In Philadelphia, as the second general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church closed, a church constitution had been adopted. Canons of the new denomination were ratified and a revised version of the "Book of Common Prayer" was authorized.
1829 The first U.S. annunciator, invented by Seth Fuller, was placed in service in the 170-room hotel, the Tremont House, Boston, Mass. It was known as "hanging bells" because of the 140 bells mounted in a space 57-ft long, 6-ft high and 1-ft deep. A small hammer hitting a gong gave an audible alert and vibrated a card showing the room number. Fuller received a patent on his invention on 26 Dec 1833. The luxury hotel had further innovations, including the installation of eight bathrooms and toilets in the basement. Each of two cisterns in the hotel attic contained three hogsheads of rainwater. One supplied the baths, and the other supplied other outlets, including running cold water in the laundry and kitchen
1844 The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane was formed in Philadelphia, Pa., with 13 members. This was the first U.S. psychiatric association. Its officers were Samuel B. Woodward, Samuel White and Thomas S. Kirkbride. As they prepared to meet for the first time in 1844, a major item on the agenda was the use of mechanical restraints. After extensive discussion, the superintendents concluded that they were not ready to abandon mechanical restraints. The association changed its name in 1892 to the Medico-Psychological Association, and again in 1921 to the American Psychiatric Association.
1844 The Miami Synod was formed at Xenia, Ohio.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=M&word=MIAMISYNOD
1846 American dentist, Dr William Thomas Green Morton (9 Aug 1819 - 15 Jul 1868) made the first public demonstration of the administration of ether anesthetic, which the patient inhaled from a blown glass flask, during an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The patient, Gilbert Abbott, age 20, had a small superficial tumor removed from beneath the left lower jaw. Two weeks before (30 Sep1846), Morton had privately made a painless tooth extraction for a patient. The suggestion to use ether came from the chemist Charles T. Jackson, (1860-1913). After the success of the public demonstration, the use of ether for painless operations spread quickly to other countries.
1848 The first homeopathic college in the U.S began preliminary instruction. The Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, incorporated 8 Apr 1848, began the regular course with 15 students on 6 Nov 1848. This first class graduated six students on 29 Mar 1849*. The first dean of the college was Dr. Walter Williamson, who founded it with Constantine Hering and Jacob Jeanes. It merged with the Hahnemann College of Philadelphia (1870). As developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann over 200 years ago, homeopathy treats patients with very dilute amounts of a substance (derived from a various plants, animal materials and minerals) that, in larger amounts, would produce similar symptoms to the illness being treated.
1851 Psychopathic gunfighter "Wild Bill" Longley is born in Texas. The sadistic and murderous western gunman William Preston Longley is born on this day in 1815 in Austin County, Texas.
Little is reliably known of the youth of William Longley, or "Wild Bill" as he was later aptly called. But it is certain that before he was even 20 years old, Longley had already killed several men, and the evidence suggests he was probably what modern-day psychologists would term a psychopath. Notoriously short-tempered, Longley frequently killed for the most trivial of reasons. More than a few men died simply because he believed they had somehow slighted or insulted him, like an unarmed man named Thomas, who Longley murdered in cold blood for daring to argue with him over a card game. He had a particularly strong dislike of blacks, and African-Americans in Texas avoided him whenever possible.
Wherever Longley traveled he left behind a trail of pointless murders, but most of the details of his life are shrouded in myth and supposition. Legend has it that Longley was once hanged along with a horse thief; but shots fired back by the departing posse cut his rope, and he was saved. Reports that he was imprisoned for at least a time and once lived with the Ute Indians are more believable, though not confirmed.
After fleeing to Louisiana to escape punishment for killing a minister named Roland Lay, Longley was captured and returned to Lee County, Texas, where he was tried and found guilty of murder. Sentenced to hang, during his final days Longley became a Catholic, wrote long letters about his life, and claimed that he had actually only killed eight men. On the day of his execution, October 28, 1878, he climbed the steps to the gallows with a cigar in his mouth and told the gathered crowd that his punishment was just and God had forgiven him. After kissing the sheriff and priest and bidding farewell to the crowd, the noose was fitted around his neck, and he was hanged. Unfortunately, the rope slipped so that Longley's knees hit the ground, denying him a quick and painless death. After the hangman pulled the rope taut once more, the famous killer slowly choked to death. It took 11 minutes before he was finally pronounced dead.
1854 Lincoln speaks out against slavery. On this day in 1854, an obscure lawyer and Congressional hopeful from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Congress had passed five months earlier. In his speech, the future president denounced the act and outlined his views on slavery, which he called "immoral."
Under the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, two new territories—Kansas and Nebraska—would be allowed into the Union and each territory’s citizens would be given the power to determine whether slavery would be allowed within the territory’s borders. It was believed that the act would set a precedent for determining the legality of slavery in other new territories. Controversy over the act influenced political races across the country that fall. Abolitionists, like Lincoln, hoped to convince lawmakers in the new territories to reject slavery.
Lincoln, who was practicing law at the time, campaigned on behalf of abolitionist Republicans in Illinois and attacked the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He denounced members of the Democratic Party for backing a law that "assumes there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another." He believed that the law went against the founding American principle that "all men are created equal." Lincoln was an abolitionist at heart, but he realized that the outlawing of slavery in states where it already existed might lead to civil war. Instead, he advocated outlawing the spread of slavery to new states. He hoped this plan would preserve the Union and slowly eliminate slavery by confining it to the South, where, he believed, "it would surely die a slow death."
Lincoln and his fellow abolitionists were dismayed when Kansans voted a pro-slavery candidate into Congress in November. As Lincoln’s political career picked up momentum over the next several years, he continually referred to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the seeming inevitability that Kansas should become a slave state as "a violence…it was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence."
Lincoln continued to actively campaign against slavery in Kansas and helped to raise money to support anti-slavery candidates in that state. Meanwhile he continued his law practice and ran for the U.S. Senate in 1859. Although he lost to Democrat Stephen Douglas, Lincoln began to make a name for himself in national politics and earned increasing support from the North and abolitionists across the nation. It was this constituency that helped him win the presidency in 1860.
1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery.
Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during which he was so moved that he publicly announced his dedication to destroying the institution of slavery. As early as 1848 he was formulating a plan to incite an insurrection, and he shared the idea with Frederick Douglass.
In the 1850s, Brown traveled to Kansas with five of his sons to fight against the proslavery forces in the contest over that territory. On May 21, 1856, proslavery men raided the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown personally sought revenge. On May 25, Brown and his sons attacked three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They killed five men with broad swords and triggered a summer of guerilla warfare in the troubled territory. One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting.
By 1857, Brown returned to the East and began raising money to carry out his vision of a mass uprising of slaves. He secured the backing of six prominent abolitionists, known as the "Secret Six," and he assembled an invasion force. His "army" grew to include 22 men, including five black men and three of Brown's sons. The group rented a Maryland farm near Harpers Ferry and prepared for the assault.
Although Brown spent years dreaming of the raid, he apparently put little thought into the specifics of its execution. He made no attempt to notify the slaves that he hoped would join him, and he had little idea what to do with the armory he planned to capture. On the night of October 16, Brown and his band overran the arsenal. Some of his men rounded up a handful of hostages, including a few slaves. Word of the raid spread, and by morning Brown and his men were surrounded. A company of U.S. marines arrived on October 17, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart. On the morning of October 19, the soldiers overran Brown and his survivors. Ten of his men were killed, including two of his sons.
The wounded Brown was tried by the state of Virginia for treason and murder, and he was found guilty on November 2. He went to the gallows on December 2, 1859. Before his execution, he handed his guard a slip of paper that read, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." It was a prophetic statement. Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown's raid helped make any further accommodation between North and South nearly impossible and thus became an important impetus of the Civil War.
1869 “Now the Light Has Gone Away,” written by Frances R. Havergal (1836–1879), appeared in Songs for Little Singers.
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/h/a/v/havergal_fr.htm
1861 Confederacy starts selling postage stamps. During the summer of 1861 when there were no Confederate postage stamps available, a few enterprising postmasters contracted with local printers with the full permission of the CSA government to print their own stamps solely for local use and only until such time as regular issue Confederate stamps were available. On October 16, 1861, Confederate general issue postage stamps made their first appearance. The Confederacy would issue 13 different major stamps (16 stamps when the different printers are taken into consideration) which would see postal usage.
1867 Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar, crosses international date line.
1869 The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered". It was a 10-foot (3.0 m) tall purported "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P.T. Barnum are still on display.
1875 Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.
1876 Construction began on the first cantilever bridge built on the American continent. Preliminary work had already been completed for the 1,125 foot long High Bridge between Jessamine and Mercer counties to carry the Cincinnati Southern Railroad 275 feet high over a deep gorge of the Kentucky River. Finished on 20 Feb 1877, it was then the highest railroad bridge in the U.S. The design, by bridge engineer Charles Shaler Smith, used Whipple double-interesection trusses built outwardly from the cliffs. The stone foundations for the piers were built on bedrock. Great care in design and workmanship included inspections from the mill and throughout the erection, marking the beginning of modern scientific bridge building.
1882 The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business. The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (reporting mark NKP), abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the Nickel Plate Road, the railroad served a large area, including trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Its primary connections included Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Toledo.
1900 Frank Sprague was granted a patent for a multi-control for electric trains. Up to that point, all trains were operated with locomotives, which supplied tractive effort, and trailer cars in which the passengers or freight were placed. In the multiple-unit system, each car of the train carries electric traction motors. By means of relays energized by train-line wires, the engineer or motorman commands all of the traction motors in the train to behave in unison. There is no need for locomotives, so every car in the train can generate revenue. Furthermore, higher acceleration and speed are possible as compared to the locomotive system.
1908 The first aeroplane flight in England was made by Samuel Cody, an American, who built his own machines and by trial and error took to the air at Farnborough. Sam Cody arrived in England at the age of 34 as a cowboy and Wild West showman. When he failed to pull the crowds he turned to other interests and activities, one of which was kites and large man-lifting kites. Cody patented a two-celled box kite (1901) with wings for lift. In 1903, Cody succeeded in crossing the English Channel in a canvas canoe, towed by one of his large kites. Cody was able to make a series of very short powered 'flights' over the period Sep to Oct 1908. On 16 Oct 1908, the fifth, which ended in a crash, was the first officially recorded powered flight - a length of 1,390 feet.
1912 Game eight of the World Series. In the Series finale, Christy Mathewson squares off against Hugh Bedient in quest of his first win of the Series. He takes a 1-0 lead into the 7th, but with one out, Boston manager Jake Stahl hits a pop-up to short LF. The ball drops among Art Fletcher, Josh Devore, and Fred Snodgrass. Heinie Wagner walks, and with two outs, pinch hitter Olaf Henriksen doubles home the tying run. Smoky Joe Wood relieves Bedient, and the two aces match zeroes until Red Murray doubles and Fred Merkle singles in the 10th to give New York a 2-1 lead. In the last of the 10th, pinch hitter Clyde Engle lifts a can of corn to CF Snodgrass, who drops the ball. Snodgrass then makes a great catch of a long drive by Harry Hooper. Steve Yerkes walks, bringing up Tris Speaker, who pops a high foul along the 1B line. C Chief Meyers chases it, but it drops a few feet from 1B Merkle, who could have taken it easily. Reprieved, Speaker then singles in the tying run and sends Yerkes to 3B. After Duffy Lewis is walked intentionally, 3B Larry Gardner hits a long sac fly to a retreating Devore that scores Yerkes with the winning run. This World Series was the most butterfingered in history, with thirty-one errors recorded, seventeen for The Giants. The Red Sox earn $4,024.68 each; the Giants' share is $2,566.47 each.
1913 - The temperature in Downtown San Francisco soared to 101 degrees to equal their record for October. (The Weather Channel)
1916 The first birth control clinic in the U.S. was opened - by Margaret Sanger, her sister, Ethel Byrne, both nurses, and an associate, Fania Mindell - at 46 Amboy Street, near the corner of Pitkin Avenue, in Brooklyn, NYC, was in the impoverished area of Brownsville. A circular announcing its opening was printed in English, Yiddish and Italian. The clinic was closed by the police, and she received a 30-day jail sentence. Sanger also helped organize (1917) the National Birth Control League which would later become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She opened a permanent birth control clinic in New York City in 1923. The first birth-control clinic in the world was opened in 1885 by Dr. Aletta Jacobs in Amsterdam.
1923 Disney Co founded. Disney got his start in Kansas City, where, beginning in 1922, he produced animated advertisements and small vignettes for a local movie house. Newman's Laugh-O-Grams (named after the theater where they were shown) soon grew to be full-length (four to seven minutes) animated shorts. The people who worked with Disney on this series included Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Isadore "Friz" Freleng, all of whom would later achieve fame in animation. Very few of the cartoons in this series survive today. In 1923, Disney moved to Hollywood, taking his crew with him, and started producing shorts for national distribution. His first series there was the "Alice" Comedies, about a live-action little girl's adventures with animated cartoon characters.
1925 The Texas State Text Book Board banned evolutionary theory from all its textbooks.
1927 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau was incorporated.
1928 A U.S. patent (No. 1,687,510) was issued for the first electric light bulb frosted on the inside with sufficient strength for commercial handling. The inventor, Marvin Pipkin, worked at the Incandescent Lamp Department of the General Electric Company, Nela Park, Ohio. The advantages of frosting the inside of a bulb (versus the outside) are less absorption of light and less collection of dust. The previous etching processes tended to weaken the glass because the etched pits in the surface were sharply angled. He was able to produce rounded pits by treating the bulb with a weaker etching solution, or a strong solution used for a shorter time.
1937 - An unlikely winter-like storm produced as much as ten inches of snow in Minnesota and Iowa.
1939 World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe.
1939 Radio listeners welcomed "The Right to Happiness" on the NBC Blue network.
1940 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
1940 Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.
1941 "Gordo" comic strip (by Gus Arriola) first appears in newspapers. The Gordo comic strip was founded in stereotypes. The title character was a Mexican bean farmer who spoke broken English and liked to siesta all day. Gordo hadn't been in print long before praise started coming in from diplomats, prominent educators, Mexican government officials and the like, for its effectiveness in promoting friendship and understanding between global neighbors. The strip was only a couple of weeks old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and the country was suddenly at war. After less than a year, Gordo went on hiatus while Arriola served in the U.S. military.
1941 "Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard" recorded by the Will Bradley Orchestra. In 1940 Bradley and McKinley began to feature the boogie woogie sound in their arrangements. Initial success with the song Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar sparked a slew of similar recordings, such as Bounce Me Brother, with a Solid Four, "Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard," and Scrub Me Mama, with a Boogie Beat. The new style proved popular with the public, and the band quickly developed a niche following.
1942 National Boxing Association freezes titles of those serving in armed services.
1944 "The Robe", by Lloyd Douglas, was published. Based on the imagined life of the Roman soldier in charge of Christ's crucifixion, Douglas's religious epic is one of the decade's biggest sellers. The Robe sold more than 2 million copies, without any reprint edition. Douglas sold the motion picture rights to this story, though the film, starring Richard Burton, was not released until 1953, after Douglas's death.
1945 "His Honor, the Barber" debuted on NBC radio. Barry Fitzgerald's weekly series, His Honor, the Barber, appeared in was fashioned of homespun, with an expensive tailor's touch. The character he played is sure fire for cornfed philosophizing: a small-town judge who doubles in hair-clipping. The resemblance between this series and another well-wearing job cut to the same cloth, radio's 13-year-old One Man's Family, was more than coincidental. Both of them are written and directed by paunchy, bald Carlton Errol Morse, 44, one of radio's masters of the so-human touch.
1946 Nazi war criminals executed. At Nuremberg, Germany, 10 high-ranking Nazi officials are executed by hanging for their crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and war crimes during World War II.
Two weeks earlier, the 10 were found guilty by the International War Crimes Tribunal and sentenced to death along with two other Nazi officials. Among those condemned to die by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. Seven others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.
The trial, which had lasted nearly 10 months, was conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the USSR, France, and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged one by one. Hermann Goering, who at sentencing was called the "leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews," committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia; he is now known to have died in Berlin at the end of the war.
1948 William J. Danker held the first Missouri Synod worship service in Tokyo.
1951 The first motion picture in the U.S. of the inside of a living heart was shown at the clinical session of the New York Academy of Medicine Post Graduate Fortnightly held at Montefiore Hospital, New York City, where the film was made. A dog's heart was the subject of the 9-1/2 minute colour film, which showed the opening and closing of the mitral valve. This structure was of interest because it is often crippled by rheumatic fever. Entitled A Cinematographic Study of the Function of the Mitral Valve in Situ, the film was the result of work by Dr. Elliott S. Hurwitt, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz and photography by Anatol Herskovitz.
1958 Chevrolet introduces the El Camino. On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero, which had already been on the market for two years, the El Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with the same "cat's eye" taillights and dramatic rear fins. It was, ads trilled, "the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load!" "It rides and handles like a convertible," Chevy said, "yet hauls and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels."
Ford's Ranchero was the first "car-truck" sold in the United States, but it was not a new idea. Since the 1930s, Australian farmers had been driving what they called "utes"—short for "coupé utility"—all around the outback. Legend has it that a farmer's wife from rural Victoria had written a letter to Ford Australia, asking the company to build a car that could carry her to church on Sundays and her husband's pigs to market on Mondays. In response, Ford engineer Lewis Brandt designed a low-slung sedan-based vehicle that was a ritzy passenger car in the front, with wind-up windows and comfortable seats and a rough-and-tumble pickup in back. The ute was a huge hit; eventually, virtually every company that sold cars Down Under made its own version.
In the United States, however, ute-type vehicles were slower to catch on. Though the Ranchero was a steady seller, the first incarnation of the El Camino was not and Chevy discontinued it after just two years. In 1964, the company introduced a new version, this one built on the brawnier Chevelle platform. In 1968, the more powerful SS engine made the El Camino into one of the iconic muscle cars of the late 1960s and 1970s.
In 1987, Chevrolet dropped the El Camino from its lineup for good. Today, the car is a cult classic. In 2008, Pontiac announced plans to introduce an El-Camino–inspired "sport truck" and even considered naming it the El Camino, before settling on the shorter G8 ST. In 2009, however, GM's financial difficulties forced the carmaker to postpone production of its new models; it also announced plans to eliminate the Pontiac brand altogether by 2010
1962 Cuban missile crisis began as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba. At midday, and again in the early evening of October 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy called together a group of his closest advisers at the White House. Late the night before, the CIA had produced detailed photo intelligence identifying Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction on the island of Cuba, some ninety miles off the Florida coast; now the president and his men confronted the dangerous decision of how the United States should respond.
1964 China detonated the country's first atomic bomb, and became the fifth country with nuclear arms after the United States (1945), Great Britain (1953), the Soviet Union (1961), and France. It was determined by the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission to have been exploded in the vicinity of Lop Nor, a lake in a remote area of Central Asia. The AEC characterized it as a low-yield explosion "typical of an early nuclear test" of a fission device employing uranium-235 equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT or less. The Chinese Government stated "This is a major achievement of the Chinese people in their struggle to increase their national defence capability and oppose the U.S. imperialist policy of nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats."
1965 “Yesterday” by the Beatles topped the charts. McCartney is the only Beatle to play on "Yesterday." It was the first time a Beatle recorded without the others. A string quartet was brought in to play on this. In addition to the strings, this is notable as one of the first Pop songs to use elements of Classical Music. While touring in Paris, McCartney claims he tumbled out of bed and the tune was in his head. He thought he had heard it somewhere before.
1968 United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the USA's team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
1969 100-1 shot NY Mets beat Orioles 5-3 & win 66th World Series in 5. In game five Cleon Jones, awarded 1B when shoe polish on the ball proves he was hit by a pitch, scores on Donn Clendenon's home run. Al Weis's home run an inning later ties the game. Ron Swoboda's double and two Baltimore errors in the 8th give New York a 5-3 win and the Series. Jerry Koosman completes the Mets amazin' achievement with a 5-hitter.
1971 "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart topped the charts.
1973 Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris peace accords. Kissinger accepted, but Tho declined the award until such time as "peace is truly established."
1975 The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
1975 Rahima Banu, a 2-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
1978 Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.
1982 Halley's Comet was observed on its 30th recorded visit to Earth, first detected using the 5-m (200-in) Hale Telescope at the Mount Palomar Observatory by a team of astronomers led by David Jewett and G. Edward Danielson. They found the comet, beyond the orbit of Saturn, about 11 AU (1.6 billion km) from the Sun. While 50 million times fainter than the faintest objects our eyes can see, they needed to use not only the largest American telescope but also special electronic equipment developed for the Space Telescope. In 1705, Halley used Newton's theories to compute the orbit and correctly predicted the return of this comet about every 76 years. After his death, for correctly predicting its reappearance, it was named after Halley.
1984 Archbishop Desmond Tutu (b. 7 October 1931) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1985 Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip
1987 Paul Holc became the youngest person in the world known to have an organ transplant of any kind when he received a new heart at just three hours old. The heart transplant was performed by surgeons at Loma Linda University Medical Center. At birth, the baby weighed 6 pounds 6¾ ounces, and suffered from hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a fatal heart defect in which the heart's left chamber is missing or atrophied. He was delivered early by Caesarian section because a donor heart became available from a brain-dead baby in Canada. By the time he celebrated his 10th birthday, hundreds of similar transplants had been performed at Loma Linda.
1987 - Ten cities in the southeastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date. The low of 34 degrees at Augusta GA marked their third straight morning of record cold. A cold front brought showers and thunderstorms to parts of the central U.S. Lightning struck a bull and six cows under a tree near Battiest OK. (The National Weather Summary)
1987 Jessica McClure rescued 58 hrs after falling 22' into a well shaft. Jessica McClure became famous at the age of 18 months after getting herself trapped in a Midland, Texas well on October 14, 1987. Rescuers worked for 58 hours to free "Baby Jessica" from an 8-inch-wide pipe. A vital part of the rescue the use of the relatively new technology of waterjet cutting.
1988 - Late afternoon thunderstorms produced severe weather in southwestern Lower Michigan and northern Indiana. One thunderstorm spawned a tornado north of Nappanee IN which caused half a million dollars damage. Six cities in California reported record high temperatures for the date. The afternoon high of 100 degrees at Red Bluff CA was the latest such reading of record for so late in the autumn season. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Orel Hershiser, first to pitch shutout in playoff & world series. In 1988, the World Series Championship was transformed into a "California Classic" as the Los Angeles Dodgers went up against the neighboring Oakland Athletics. Los Angeles had benefited from the amazing arm of Orel Hershiser who had ended the regular season with a record-breaking fifty-nine consecutive scoreless innings as well as one win and a save in the National League Championship Series. Orel Hershiser gives up three hits and hits three himself to beat Oakland 6-0.
1989 - Heavy snow blanketed the foothills of Colorado. Up to three inches was reported around Denver. Echo Lake was buried under nineteen inches of snow. Temperatures again warmed into the 80s and lower 90s in the eastern and south central U.S. Thirteen cities reported record high temperatures for the date, including Atlantic City NJ with a reading of 84 degrees. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1991 Handguns in Texas. On a Wednesday afternoon in Killeen, Texas, George Jo Hennard drives his pickup truck through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria and begins firing indiscriminately into the crowded restaurant with a semi-automatic pistol. The deranged Hennard killed 22 people and wounded 20, one fatally, before turning the gun on himself.
Present in the restaurant was Suzanna Gratia, who narrowly escaped being shot but whose mother and father were killed. Gratia had her own gun with her that day but had left it locked in her car as required by Texas state law. After recovering from the tragedy, Gratia became a fierce advocate of the right to carry concealed handguns in public places and led a popular movement that resulted in the approval of the Texas Concealed Handgun License Act in 1995. In 1996, she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as Suzanna Gratia-Hupp and continued to be a vocal proponent of the right to bear arms.
1995 The Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Attended by at least 100,000 men*.
2006 The creation of the heaviest man-made element was announced by researchers from Russia's Joint Institute of Nuclear Research and the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The results were published in the journal Physics Review C. The element, if confirmed, is the first man-made noble gas, below radon on the periodic table. The new element resulted from the collision of accelerated calcium ions with atoms of the man-made heavy element californium, and existed barely a millisecond before decaying into element 114, then element 112 and then split in half. A claim in 1999 for element 118 from kryton and lead was retracted in 2001 after independent confirmation failed. The new work was closely scrutinized.
2006 A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_16
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-long-march
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_16.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct16.html
*Crowd size controversy
Because of the name of the event, the number of attendees was a primary measure of its success and estimating the crowd size, always a contentious issue, reached new heights in bitterness. March organizers estimated the crowd size at between 1.5 to 2 million people, but were shocked when the United States Park Police officially estimated the crowd size at 400,000. Farrakhan threatened to sue the National Park Service because of the controversial low estimate from the Park Police.
Three days after the march, Dr. Farouk El-Baz and a team of ten research associates and graduate students at the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University released an estimate of 870,000 people with a margin of error of about 25 percent. They arrived at this figure by enlarging aerial photographs taken by the Park Service and counting crowd density. They later revised that figure to 837,000 ±20% (669,600 to 1,004,400). This revision was made when the Park Service provided original 35mm negatives; the first count was made with scanned printed photographs.
The Park Service estimate was never retracted, and other academics have supported its lower figure.
After the Million Man March, the Park Police ceased making official crowd size estimates. Roger G. Kennedy, the Park Service director, said Congress had provided the "structure and canons" for counting people, but it had not demanded that the exercise actually be done. He contemplated informing Congress, "Thank you for telling us how to do it, but we won't be doing it."[25] In the 1997 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, Congress included language that prohibits the National Park Service from conducting crowd estimates in the District of Columbia. The legislation also states that if event organizers want crowd estimates, they should contract with an outside agency.
There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 21
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1311 The Council of Vienna opened to decide if the Knights Templar, a military order sworn to protect Christian pilgrims, were heretical and too wealthy. Pope Clement V (1264–1314) decided to suppress the order. Its leader was burned and members’ possessions taken by the church. That decision was adamantly derided by the poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and later historians.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar#Arrests.2C_charges.2C_and_dissolution
1384 Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman. Monarch of Poland from 1384 to her death. Her official title was 'king' rather than 'queen', reflecting that she was a sovereign in her own right and not merely a royal consort. She was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, the daughter of King Louis I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Bosnia. She is known in Polish as Jadwiga, in English and German as Hedwig, in Lithuanian as Jadvyga, in Hungarian as Hedvig, and in Latin as Hedvigis. Queens regnant being relatively uncommon in Europe at the time, Jadwiga was officially crowned a King. She is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Hedwig, where she is the patron saint of queens
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_of_Poland
1555 Nicholas Ridley (b. ca. 1500) and Hugh Latimer (b. ca. 1485/90), English reformers and martyrs, were burned at the stake for their Protestant beliefs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ridley_(martyr)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Latimer
1649 The American colony of Maine passed legislation granting religious freedom to all its citizens, on condition that those of contrary religious persuasions behave acceptably.
1701 The Collegiate School was founded at Saybrook, Connecticut, by Congregational clergy dissatisfied with growing liberalism at Harvard College. In 1716 the school moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where in 1718 it became Yale College, named after Elihu Yale, son of one of the founders of New Haven. In 1887 the name was changed to Yale University.
1773 Philadelphia Resolutions criticize Tea Act. The first public statement against the British Parliament's Tea Act was a document printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette on this day in 1773. The document became known as the "Philadelphia Resolutions."
The Tea Act of 1773 was a bill designed to save the faltering British East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as yet another example of taxation tyranny. In response, the "Philadelphia Resolutions" called the British tax upon America unfair and said that it introduced "arbitrary government and slavery" upon the American citizens. The resolutions urged all Americans to oppose the British tax and stated that anyone who transported, sold or consumed the taxed tea would be considered "an enemy to his country."
On December 16, 1773, two months after the publication of the resolutions, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawks boarded three British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor in what is now known as the Boston Tea Party.
Parliament, outraged by this blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts—called the "Intolerable Acts" by the colonists—in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act_of_1773
1780 Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalton,_Vermont#History
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunbridge,_Vermont#History
1781 Washington takes Yorktown. On October 16, a British attack intended to silence a French battery failed. The allied batteries, from their closer second siege line, were now firing directly into the British defensive works. That night, an attempted breakout across the York River to Gloucester Point failed due to a severe storm. Cornwallis, whose army was running low on food and ammunition, offered to surrender on October 17.
1789 In Philadelphia, as the second general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church closed, a church constitution had been adopted. Canons of the new denomination were ratified and a revised version of the "Book of Common Prayer" was authorized.
1829 The first U.S. annunciator, invented by Seth Fuller, was placed in service in the 170-room hotel, the Tremont House, Boston, Mass. It was known as "hanging bells" because of the 140 bells mounted in a space 57-ft long, 6-ft high and 1-ft deep. A small hammer hitting a gong gave an audible alert and vibrated a card showing the room number. Fuller received a patent on his invention on 26 Dec 1833. The luxury hotel had further innovations, including the installation of eight bathrooms and toilets in the basement. Each of two cisterns in the hotel attic contained three hogsheads of rainwater. One supplied the baths, and the other supplied other outlets, including running cold water in the laundry and kitchen
1844 The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane was formed in Philadelphia, Pa., with 13 members. This was the first U.S. psychiatric association. Its officers were Samuel B. Woodward, Samuel White and Thomas S. Kirkbride. As they prepared to meet for the first time in 1844, a major item on the agenda was the use of mechanical restraints. After extensive discussion, the superintendents concluded that they were not ready to abandon mechanical restraints. The association changed its name in 1892 to the Medico-Psychological Association, and again in 1921 to the American Psychiatric Association.
1844 The Miami Synod was formed at Xenia, Ohio.
cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=M&word=MIAMISYNOD
1846 American dentist, Dr William Thomas Green Morton (9 Aug 1819 - 15 Jul 1868) made the first public demonstration of the administration of ether anesthetic, which the patient inhaled from a blown glass flask, during an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The patient, Gilbert Abbott, age 20, had a small superficial tumor removed from beneath the left lower jaw. Two weeks before (30 Sep1846), Morton had privately made a painless tooth extraction for a patient. The suggestion to use ether came from the chemist Charles T. Jackson, (1860-1913). After the success of the public demonstration, the use of ether for painless operations spread quickly to other countries.
1848 The first homeopathic college in the U.S began preliminary instruction. The Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, incorporated 8 Apr 1848, began the regular course with 15 students on 6 Nov 1848. This first class graduated six students on 29 Mar 1849*. The first dean of the college was Dr. Walter Williamson, who founded it with Constantine Hering and Jacob Jeanes. It merged with the Hahnemann College of Philadelphia (1870). As developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann over 200 years ago, homeopathy treats patients with very dilute amounts of a substance (derived from a various plants, animal materials and minerals) that, in larger amounts, would produce similar symptoms to the illness being treated.
1851 Psychopathic gunfighter "Wild Bill" Longley is born in Texas. The sadistic and murderous western gunman William Preston Longley is born on this day in 1815 in Austin County, Texas.
Little is reliably known of the youth of William Longley, or "Wild Bill" as he was later aptly called. But it is certain that before he was even 20 years old, Longley had already killed several men, and the evidence suggests he was probably what modern-day psychologists would term a psychopath. Notoriously short-tempered, Longley frequently killed for the most trivial of reasons. More than a few men died simply because he believed they had somehow slighted or insulted him, like an unarmed man named Thomas, who Longley murdered in cold blood for daring to argue with him over a card game. He had a particularly strong dislike of blacks, and African-Americans in Texas avoided him whenever possible.
Wherever Longley traveled he left behind a trail of pointless murders, but most of the details of his life are shrouded in myth and supposition. Legend has it that Longley was once hanged along with a horse thief; but shots fired back by the departing posse cut his rope, and he was saved. Reports that he was imprisoned for at least a time and once lived with the Ute Indians are more believable, though not confirmed.
After fleeing to Louisiana to escape punishment for killing a minister named Roland Lay, Longley was captured and returned to Lee County, Texas, where he was tried and found guilty of murder. Sentenced to hang, during his final days Longley became a Catholic, wrote long letters about his life, and claimed that he had actually only killed eight men. On the day of his execution, October 28, 1878, he climbed the steps to the gallows with a cigar in his mouth and told the gathered crowd that his punishment was just and God had forgiven him. After kissing the sheriff and priest and bidding farewell to the crowd, the noose was fitted around his neck, and he was hanged. Unfortunately, the rope slipped so that Longley's knees hit the ground, denying him a quick and painless death. After the hangman pulled the rope taut once more, the famous killer slowly choked to death. It took 11 minutes before he was finally pronounced dead.
1854 Lincoln speaks out against slavery. On this day in 1854, an obscure lawyer and Congressional hopeful from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Congress had passed five months earlier. In his speech, the future president denounced the act and outlined his views on slavery, which he called "immoral."
Under the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, two new territories—Kansas and Nebraska—would be allowed into the Union and each territory’s citizens would be given the power to determine whether slavery would be allowed within the territory’s borders. It was believed that the act would set a precedent for determining the legality of slavery in other new territories. Controversy over the act influenced political races across the country that fall. Abolitionists, like Lincoln, hoped to convince lawmakers in the new territories to reject slavery.
Lincoln, who was practicing law at the time, campaigned on behalf of abolitionist Republicans in Illinois and attacked the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He denounced members of the Democratic Party for backing a law that "assumes there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another." He believed that the law went against the founding American principle that "all men are created equal." Lincoln was an abolitionist at heart, but he realized that the outlawing of slavery in states where it already existed might lead to civil war. Instead, he advocated outlawing the spread of slavery to new states. He hoped this plan would preserve the Union and slowly eliminate slavery by confining it to the South, where, he believed, "it would surely die a slow death."
Lincoln and his fellow abolitionists were dismayed when Kansans voted a pro-slavery candidate into Congress in November. As Lincoln’s political career picked up momentum over the next several years, he continually referred to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the seeming inevitability that Kansas should become a slave state as "a violence…it was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence."
Lincoln continued to actively campaign against slavery in Kansas and helped to raise money to support anti-slavery candidates in that state. Meanwhile he continued his law practice and ran for the U.S. Senate in 1859. Although he lost to Democrat Stephen Douglas, Lincoln began to make a name for himself in national politics and earned increasing support from the North and abolitionists across the nation. It was this constituency that helped him win the presidency in 1860.
1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery.
Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during which he was so moved that he publicly announced his dedication to destroying the institution of slavery. As early as 1848 he was formulating a plan to incite an insurrection, and he shared the idea with Frederick Douglass.
In the 1850s, Brown traveled to Kansas with five of his sons to fight against the proslavery forces in the contest over that territory. On May 21, 1856, proslavery men raided the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown personally sought revenge. On May 25, Brown and his sons attacked three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They killed five men with broad swords and triggered a summer of guerilla warfare in the troubled territory. One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting.
By 1857, Brown returned to the East and began raising money to carry out his vision of a mass uprising of slaves. He secured the backing of six prominent abolitionists, known as the "Secret Six," and he assembled an invasion force. His "army" grew to include 22 men, including five black men and three of Brown's sons. The group rented a Maryland farm near Harpers Ferry and prepared for the assault.
Although Brown spent years dreaming of the raid, he apparently put little thought into the specifics of its execution. He made no attempt to notify the slaves that he hoped would join him, and he had little idea what to do with the armory he planned to capture. On the night of October 16, Brown and his band overran the arsenal. Some of his men rounded up a handful of hostages, including a few slaves. Word of the raid spread, and by morning Brown and his men were surrounded. A company of U.S. marines arrived on October 17, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart. On the morning of October 19, the soldiers overran Brown and his survivors. Ten of his men were killed, including two of his sons.
The wounded Brown was tried by the state of Virginia for treason and murder, and he was found guilty on November 2. He went to the gallows on December 2, 1859. Before his execution, he handed his guard a slip of paper that read, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." It was a prophetic statement. Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown's raid helped make any further accommodation between North and South nearly impossible and thus became an important impetus of the Civil War.
1869 “Now the Light Has Gone Away,” written by Frances R. Havergal (1836–1879), appeared in Songs for Little Singers.
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/h/a/v/havergal_fr.htm
1861 Confederacy starts selling postage stamps. During the summer of 1861 when there were no Confederate postage stamps available, a few enterprising postmasters contracted with local printers with the full permission of the CSA government to print their own stamps solely for local use and only until such time as regular issue Confederate stamps were available. On October 16, 1861, Confederate general issue postage stamps made their first appearance. The Confederacy would issue 13 different major stamps (16 stamps when the different printers are taken into consideration) which would see postal usage.
1867 Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar, crosses international date line.
1869 The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered". It was a 10-foot (3.0 m) tall purported "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P.T. Barnum are still on display.
1875 Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.
1876 Construction began on the first cantilever bridge built on the American continent. Preliminary work had already been completed for the 1,125 foot long High Bridge between Jessamine and Mercer counties to carry the Cincinnati Southern Railroad 275 feet high over a deep gorge of the Kentucky River. Finished on 20 Feb 1877, it was then the highest railroad bridge in the U.S. The design, by bridge engineer Charles Shaler Smith, used Whipple double-interesection trusses built outwardly from the cliffs. The stone foundations for the piers were built on bedrock. Great care in design and workmanship included inspections from the mill and throughout the erection, marking the beginning of modern scientific bridge building.
1882 The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business. The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (reporting mark NKP), abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the Nickel Plate Road, the railroad served a large area, including trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Its primary connections included Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Toledo.
1900 Frank Sprague was granted a patent for a multi-control for electric trains. Up to that point, all trains were operated with locomotives, which supplied tractive effort, and trailer cars in which the passengers or freight were placed. In the multiple-unit system, each car of the train carries electric traction motors. By means of relays energized by train-line wires, the engineer or motorman commands all of the traction motors in the train to behave in unison. There is no need for locomotives, so every car in the train can generate revenue. Furthermore, higher acceleration and speed are possible as compared to the locomotive system.
1908 The first aeroplane flight in England was made by Samuel Cody, an American, who built his own machines and by trial and error took to the air at Farnborough. Sam Cody arrived in England at the age of 34 as a cowboy and Wild West showman. When he failed to pull the crowds he turned to other interests and activities, one of which was kites and large man-lifting kites. Cody patented a two-celled box kite (1901) with wings for lift. In 1903, Cody succeeded in crossing the English Channel in a canvas canoe, towed by one of his large kites. Cody was able to make a series of very short powered 'flights' over the period Sep to Oct 1908. On 16 Oct 1908, the fifth, which ended in a crash, was the first officially recorded powered flight - a length of 1,390 feet.
1912 Game eight of the World Series. In the Series finale, Christy Mathewson squares off against Hugh Bedient in quest of his first win of the Series. He takes a 1-0 lead into the 7th, but with one out, Boston manager Jake Stahl hits a pop-up to short LF. The ball drops among Art Fletcher, Josh Devore, and Fred Snodgrass. Heinie Wagner walks, and with two outs, pinch hitter Olaf Henriksen doubles home the tying run. Smoky Joe Wood relieves Bedient, and the two aces match zeroes until Red Murray doubles and Fred Merkle singles in the 10th to give New York a 2-1 lead. In the last of the 10th, pinch hitter Clyde Engle lifts a can of corn to CF Snodgrass, who drops the ball. Snodgrass then makes a great catch of a long drive by Harry Hooper. Steve Yerkes walks, bringing up Tris Speaker, who pops a high foul along the 1B line. C Chief Meyers chases it, but it drops a few feet from 1B Merkle, who could have taken it easily. Reprieved, Speaker then singles in the tying run and sends Yerkes to 3B. After Duffy Lewis is walked intentionally, 3B Larry Gardner hits a long sac fly to a retreating Devore that scores Yerkes with the winning run. This World Series was the most butterfingered in history, with thirty-one errors recorded, seventeen for The Giants. The Red Sox earn $4,024.68 each; the Giants' share is $2,566.47 each.
1913 - The temperature in Downtown San Francisco soared to 101 degrees to equal their record for October. (The Weather Channel)
1916 The first birth control clinic in the U.S. was opened - by Margaret Sanger, her sister, Ethel Byrne, both nurses, and an associate, Fania Mindell - at 46 Amboy Street, near the corner of Pitkin Avenue, in Brooklyn, NYC, was in the impoverished area of Brownsville. A circular announcing its opening was printed in English, Yiddish and Italian. The clinic was closed by the police, and she received a 30-day jail sentence. Sanger also helped organize (1917) the National Birth Control League which would later become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She opened a permanent birth control clinic in New York City in 1923. The first birth-control clinic in the world was opened in 1885 by Dr. Aletta Jacobs in Amsterdam.
1923 Disney Co founded. Disney got his start in Kansas City, where, beginning in 1922, he produced animated advertisements and small vignettes for a local movie house. Newman's Laugh-O-Grams (named after the theater where they were shown) soon grew to be full-length (four to seven minutes) animated shorts. The people who worked with Disney on this series included Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Isadore "Friz" Freleng, all of whom would later achieve fame in animation. Very few of the cartoons in this series survive today. In 1923, Disney moved to Hollywood, taking his crew with him, and started producing shorts for national distribution. His first series there was the "Alice" Comedies, about a live-action little girl's adventures with animated cartoon characters.
1925 The Texas State Text Book Board banned evolutionary theory from all its textbooks.
1927 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau was incorporated.
1928 A U.S. patent (No. 1,687,510) was issued for the first electric light bulb frosted on the inside with sufficient strength for commercial handling. The inventor, Marvin Pipkin, worked at the Incandescent Lamp Department of the General Electric Company, Nela Park, Ohio. The advantages of frosting the inside of a bulb (versus the outside) are less absorption of light and less collection of dust. The previous etching processes tended to weaken the glass because the etched pits in the surface were sharply angled. He was able to produce rounded pits by treating the bulb with a weaker etching solution, or a strong solution used for a shorter time.
1937 - An unlikely winter-like storm produced as much as ten inches of snow in Minnesota and Iowa.
1939 World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe.
1939 Radio listeners welcomed "The Right to Happiness" on the NBC Blue network.
1940 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
1940 Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.
1941 "Gordo" comic strip (by Gus Arriola) first appears in newspapers. The Gordo comic strip was founded in stereotypes. The title character was a Mexican bean farmer who spoke broken English and liked to siesta all day. Gordo hadn't been in print long before praise started coming in from diplomats, prominent educators, Mexican government officials and the like, for its effectiveness in promoting friendship and understanding between global neighbors. The strip was only a couple of weeks old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and the country was suddenly at war. After less than a year, Gordo went on hiatus while Arriola served in the U.S. military.
1941 "Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard" recorded by the Will Bradley Orchestra. In 1940 Bradley and McKinley began to feature the boogie woogie sound in their arrangements. Initial success with the song Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar sparked a slew of similar recordings, such as Bounce Me Brother, with a Solid Four, "Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard," and Scrub Me Mama, with a Boogie Beat. The new style proved popular with the public, and the band quickly developed a niche following.
1942 National Boxing Association freezes titles of those serving in armed services.
1944 "The Robe", by Lloyd Douglas, was published. Based on the imagined life of the Roman soldier in charge of Christ's crucifixion, Douglas's religious epic is one of the decade's biggest sellers. The Robe sold more than 2 million copies, without any reprint edition. Douglas sold the motion picture rights to this story, though the film, starring Richard Burton, was not released until 1953, after Douglas's death.
1945 "His Honor, the Barber" debuted on NBC radio. Barry Fitzgerald's weekly series, His Honor, the Barber, appeared in was fashioned of homespun, with an expensive tailor's touch. The character he played is sure fire for cornfed philosophizing: a small-town judge who doubles in hair-clipping. The resemblance between this series and another well-wearing job cut to the same cloth, radio's 13-year-old One Man's Family, was more than coincidental. Both of them are written and directed by paunchy, bald Carlton Errol Morse, 44, one of radio's masters of the so-human touch.
1946 Nazi war criminals executed. At Nuremberg, Germany, 10 high-ranking Nazi officials are executed by hanging for their crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and war crimes during World War II.
Two weeks earlier, the 10 were found guilty by the International War Crimes Tribunal and sentenced to death along with two other Nazi officials. Among those condemned to die by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. Seven others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.
The trial, which had lasted nearly 10 months, was conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the USSR, France, and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged one by one. Hermann Goering, who at sentencing was called the "leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews," committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia; he is now known to have died in Berlin at the end of the war.
1948 William J. Danker held the first Missouri Synod worship service in Tokyo.
1951 The first motion picture in the U.S. of the inside of a living heart was shown at the clinical session of the New York Academy of Medicine Post Graduate Fortnightly held at Montefiore Hospital, New York City, where the film was made. A dog's heart was the subject of the 9-1/2 minute colour film, which showed the opening and closing of the mitral valve. This structure was of interest because it is often crippled by rheumatic fever. Entitled A Cinematographic Study of the Function of the Mitral Valve in Situ, the film was the result of work by Dr. Elliott S. Hurwitt, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz and photography by Anatol Herskovitz.
1958 Chevrolet introduces the El Camino. On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero, which had already been on the market for two years, the El Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with the same "cat's eye" taillights and dramatic rear fins. It was, ads trilled, "the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load!" "It rides and handles like a convertible," Chevy said, "yet hauls and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels."
Ford's Ranchero was the first "car-truck" sold in the United States, but it was not a new idea. Since the 1930s, Australian farmers had been driving what they called "utes"—short for "coupé utility"—all around the outback. Legend has it that a farmer's wife from rural Victoria had written a letter to Ford Australia, asking the company to build a car that could carry her to church on Sundays and her husband's pigs to market on Mondays. In response, Ford engineer Lewis Brandt designed a low-slung sedan-based vehicle that was a ritzy passenger car in the front, with wind-up windows and comfortable seats and a rough-and-tumble pickup in back. The ute was a huge hit; eventually, virtually every company that sold cars Down Under made its own version.
In the United States, however, ute-type vehicles were slower to catch on. Though the Ranchero was a steady seller, the first incarnation of the El Camino was not and Chevy discontinued it after just two years. In 1964, the company introduced a new version, this one built on the brawnier Chevelle platform. In 1968, the more powerful SS engine made the El Camino into one of the iconic muscle cars of the late 1960s and 1970s.
In 1987, Chevrolet dropped the El Camino from its lineup for good. Today, the car is a cult classic. In 2008, Pontiac announced plans to introduce an El-Camino–inspired "sport truck" and even considered naming it the El Camino, before settling on the shorter G8 ST. In 2009, however, GM's financial difficulties forced the carmaker to postpone production of its new models; it also announced plans to eliminate the Pontiac brand altogether by 2010
1962 Cuban missile crisis began as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba. At midday, and again in the early evening of October 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy called together a group of his closest advisers at the White House. Late the night before, the CIA had produced detailed photo intelligence identifying Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction on the island of Cuba, some ninety miles off the Florida coast; now the president and his men confronted the dangerous decision of how the United States should respond.
1964 China detonated the country's first atomic bomb, and became the fifth country with nuclear arms after the United States (1945), Great Britain (1953), the Soviet Union (1961), and France. It was determined by the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission to have been exploded in the vicinity of Lop Nor, a lake in a remote area of Central Asia. The AEC characterized it as a low-yield explosion "typical of an early nuclear test" of a fission device employing uranium-235 equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT or less. The Chinese Government stated "This is a major achievement of the Chinese people in their struggle to increase their national defence capability and oppose the U.S. imperialist policy of nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats."
1965 “Yesterday” by the Beatles topped the charts. McCartney is the only Beatle to play on "Yesterday." It was the first time a Beatle recorded without the others. A string quartet was brought in to play on this. In addition to the strings, this is notable as one of the first Pop songs to use elements of Classical Music. While touring in Paris, McCartney claims he tumbled out of bed and the tune was in his head. He thought he had heard it somewhere before.
1968 United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the USA's team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
1969 100-1 shot NY Mets beat Orioles 5-3 & win 66th World Series in 5. In game five Cleon Jones, awarded 1B when shoe polish on the ball proves he was hit by a pitch, scores on Donn Clendenon's home run. Al Weis's home run an inning later ties the game. Ron Swoboda's double and two Baltimore errors in the 8th give New York a 5-3 win and the Series. Jerry Koosman completes the Mets amazin' achievement with a 5-hitter.
1971 "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart topped the charts.
1973 Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris peace accords. Kissinger accepted, but Tho declined the award until such time as "peace is truly established."
1975 The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
1975 Rahima Banu, a 2-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
1978 Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.
1982 Halley's Comet was observed on its 30th recorded visit to Earth, first detected using the 5-m (200-in) Hale Telescope at the Mount Palomar Observatory by a team of astronomers led by David Jewett and G. Edward Danielson. They found the comet, beyond the orbit of Saturn, about 11 AU (1.6 billion km) from the Sun. While 50 million times fainter than the faintest objects our eyes can see, they needed to use not only the largest American telescope but also special electronic equipment developed for the Space Telescope. In 1705, Halley used Newton's theories to compute the orbit and correctly predicted the return of this comet about every 76 years. After his death, for correctly predicting its reappearance, it was named after Halley.
1984 Archbishop Desmond Tutu (b. 7 October 1931) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1985 Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip
1987 Paul Holc became the youngest person in the world known to have an organ transplant of any kind when he received a new heart at just three hours old. The heart transplant was performed by surgeons at Loma Linda University Medical Center. At birth, the baby weighed 6 pounds 6¾ ounces, and suffered from hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a fatal heart defect in which the heart's left chamber is missing or atrophied. He was delivered early by Caesarian section because a donor heart became available from a brain-dead baby in Canada. By the time he celebrated his 10th birthday, hundreds of similar transplants had been performed at Loma Linda.
1987 - Ten cities in the southeastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date. The low of 34 degrees at Augusta GA marked their third straight morning of record cold. A cold front brought showers and thunderstorms to parts of the central U.S. Lightning struck a bull and six cows under a tree near Battiest OK. (The National Weather Summary)
1987 Jessica McClure rescued 58 hrs after falling 22' into a well shaft. Jessica McClure became famous at the age of 18 months after getting herself trapped in a Midland, Texas well on October 14, 1987. Rescuers worked for 58 hours to free "Baby Jessica" from an 8-inch-wide pipe. A vital part of the rescue the use of the relatively new technology of waterjet cutting.
1988 - Late afternoon thunderstorms produced severe weather in southwestern Lower Michigan and northern Indiana. One thunderstorm spawned a tornado north of Nappanee IN which caused half a million dollars damage. Six cities in California reported record high temperatures for the date. The afternoon high of 100 degrees at Red Bluff CA was the latest such reading of record for so late in the autumn season. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 Orel Hershiser, first to pitch shutout in playoff & world series. In 1988, the World Series Championship was transformed into a "California Classic" as the Los Angeles Dodgers went up against the neighboring Oakland Athletics. Los Angeles had benefited from the amazing arm of Orel Hershiser who had ended the regular season with a record-breaking fifty-nine consecutive scoreless innings as well as one win and a save in the National League Championship Series. Orel Hershiser gives up three hits and hits three himself to beat Oakland 6-0.
1989 - Heavy snow blanketed the foothills of Colorado. Up to three inches was reported around Denver. Echo Lake was buried under nineteen inches of snow. Temperatures again warmed into the 80s and lower 90s in the eastern and south central U.S. Thirteen cities reported record high temperatures for the date, including Atlantic City NJ with a reading of 84 degrees. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1991 Handguns in Texas. On a Wednesday afternoon in Killeen, Texas, George Jo Hennard drives his pickup truck through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria and begins firing indiscriminately into the crowded restaurant with a semi-automatic pistol. The deranged Hennard killed 22 people and wounded 20, one fatally, before turning the gun on himself.
Present in the restaurant was Suzanna Gratia, who narrowly escaped being shot but whose mother and father were killed. Gratia had her own gun with her that day but had left it locked in her car as required by Texas state law. After recovering from the tragedy, Gratia became a fierce advocate of the right to carry concealed handguns in public places and led a popular movement that resulted in the approval of the Texas Concealed Handgun License Act in 1995. In 1996, she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as Suzanna Gratia-Hupp and continued to be a vocal proponent of the right to bear arms.
1995 The Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Attended by at least 100,000 men*.
2006 The creation of the heaviest man-made element was announced by researchers from Russia's Joint Institute of Nuclear Research and the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The results were published in the journal Physics Review C. The element, if confirmed, is the first man-made noble gas, below radon on the periodic table. The new element resulted from the collision of accelerated calcium ions with atoms of the man-made heavy element californium, and existed barely a millisecond before decaying into element 114, then element 112 and then split in half. A claim in 1999 for element 118 from kryton and lead was retracted in 2001 after independent confirmation failed. The new work was closely scrutinized.
2006 A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport.
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_16
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-long-march
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_16.htm
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct16.html
*Crowd size controversy
Because of the name of the event, the number of attendees was a primary measure of its success and estimating the crowd size, always a contentious issue, reached new heights in bitterness. March organizers estimated the crowd size at between 1.5 to 2 million people, but were shocked when the United States Park Police officially estimated the crowd size at 400,000. Farrakhan threatened to sue the National Park Service because of the controversial low estimate from the Park Police.
Three days after the march, Dr. Farouk El-Baz and a team of ten research associates and graduate students at the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University released an estimate of 870,000 people with a margin of error of about 25 percent. They arrived at this figure by enlarging aerial photographs taken by the Park Service and counting crowd density. They later revised that figure to 837,000 ±20% (669,600 to 1,004,400). This revision was made when the Park Service provided original 35mm negatives; the first count was made with scanned printed photographs.
The Park Service estimate was never retracted, and other academics have supported its lower figure.
After the Million Man March, the Park Police ceased making official crowd size estimates. Roger G. Kennedy, the Park Service director, said Congress had provided the "structure and canons" for counting people, but it had not demanded that the exercise actually be done. He contemplated informing Congress, "Thank you for telling us how to do it, but we won't be doing it."[25] In the 1997 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, Congress included language that prohibits the National Park Service from conducting crowd estimates in the District of Columbia. The legislation also states that if event organizers want crowd estimates, they should contract with an outside agency.
