Post by farmgal on Oct 31, 2012 11:01:48 GMT -5
Halloween or All Hallow's Eve, an ancient celebration combining the Christian festival of All Saints with pagan autumn festivals.
October 31 is the 305th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 61 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days left until November 06, 2012: 7
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1516 Martin Lutherpreached against the abuse of indulgences one year prior to his posting of the 95 theses in Wittenberg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#The_start_of_the_Reformation
1517 Luther posts 95 theses on Wittenberg church-Protestant Reformation begins. The Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, known as the 95 Theses, (1517) challenged the teachings of the Church on the nature of penance, the authority of the pope and the usefulness of indulgences.
In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called "indulgences"—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.
Luther's frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.
The term "Protestant" first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/95_Theses
1776 King George III speaks for first time since independence declared to Parliament. On this day in 1776, in his first speech before British Parliament since the leaders of the American Revolution came together to sign of the Declaration of Independence that summer, King George III acknowledges that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the United States.
In his address, the king spoke about the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the revolutionary leaders who signed it, saying, "for daring and desperate is the spirit of those leaders, whose object has always been dominion and power, that they have now openly renounced all allegiance to the crown, and all political connection with this country." The king went on to inform Parliament of the successful British victory over General George Washington and the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, but warned them that, "notwithstanding the fair prospect, it was necessary to prepare for another campaign."
Despite George III's harsh words, General William Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, still hoped to convince the Americans to rejoin the British empire in the wake of the colonists' humiliating defeat at the Battle of Long Island. The British could easily have prevented Washington's retreat from Long Island and captured most of the Patriot officer corps, including the commander in chief. However, instead of forcing the former colonies into submission by executing Washington and his officers as traitors, the Howe brothers let them go with the hope of swaying Patriot opinion towards a return to the mother country.
The Howe brothers' attempts at negotiation failed, and the War for Independence dragged on for another four years, until the formal surrender of the British to the Americans on October 19, 1781, after the Battle of Yorktown.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George_III
1846 Eighty-seven pioneers were trapped by early snows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that piled five feet deep, with 30 to 40 foot drifts. Just 47 persons survived the "Donner Pass Tragedy". (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
1861 American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott#Civil_War
1864 The U.S. Congress admits Nevada as the 36th state. On this day in 1864, anxious to have support of the Republican-dominated Nevada Territory for President Abraham Lincoln's reelection, the U.S. Congress quickly admits Nevada as the 36th state in the Union.
In 1864, Nevada had only 40,000 inhabitants, considerably short of the 60,000 normally required for statehood. But the 1859 discovery of the incredibly large and rich silver deposits at Virginia City had rapidly made the region one of the most important and wealthy in the West. The inexpert miners who initially developed the placer gold deposits at Virginia City had complained for some time about the blue-gray gunk that kept clogging up their gold sluices. Eventually several of the more experienced miners realized that the gunk the gold miners had been tossing aside was actually rich silver ore, and soon after, they discovered the massive underground silver deposit called the Comstock Lode. Unlike the easily developed placer deposits that had inspired the initial gold rushes to California and Nevada, the Comstock Lode ore demanded a wide array of expensive new technologies for profitable development. For the first time, western mining began to attract investments from large eastern capitalists, and these powerful men began to push for Nevada statehood.
The decisive factor in easing the path to Nevada's statehood was President Lincoln's proposed 13th Amendment banning slavery. Throughout his administration Lincoln had appointed territorial officials in Nevada who were strong Republicans, and he knew he could count on the congressmen and citizens of a new state of Nevada to support him in the coming presidential election and to vote for his proposed amendment. Since time was so short, the Nevada constitutional delegation sent the longest telegram on record up to that time to Washington, D.C., containing the entire text of the proposed state constitution and costing the then astronomical sum of $3,416.77.
Their speedy actions paid off with quick congressional approval of statehood and the new state of Nevada did indeed provide strong support for Lincoln. On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning slavery.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada
1868 Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for postal carriers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Williams_Randall
1876 A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 deaths.
1903 John Barrymore makes his stage debut in “Magda”. John at first tried an art career in cartooning, before turning to acting permanently as his life's work. The Cleveland Theatre in Chicago welcomed the youngest member of the Barrymore family to the acting fold. Young John Barrymore made his stage debut in "Magda." John Barrymore soon became a leading Shakespearean actor, the Broadway idol of his time. He started in silent films in 1912, several years after his older brother Lionel. He made swashbucklers, dramas, straight comedies, and romantic comedies. Silent films of particular success for John Barrymore were "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" (1917), "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1920), "Sherlock Holmes" (1922), "Beau Brummel" (1924), "Don Juan" (1926), and "The Beloved Rogue" (1927).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrymore
1913 Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway
1913 The Indianapolis Street Car Strike and subsequent riot begins.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_Streetcar_Strike_of_1913
1917 World War I: Battle of Beersheba – "last successful cavalry charge in history"-- the charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, which covered some six kilometres to overrun and capture the last remaining Turkish trenches, and secure the surviving wells at Birüssebi.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917)
1922 Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) becomes premier of Italy. In 1921 Mussolini was elected to parliament and the National Fascist party was officially organized. Backed by nationalists and propertied interests, in Oct., 1922, Mussolini sent the Fascists to march on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III permitted them to enter the city and called on Mussolini, who had remained in Milan, to form a cabinet. At the age of 39, he became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy on October 31 1922.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini
1926 Harry Houdini died on this day of peritonitis. Days earlier, between performances at the Princess Theater in Montreal, Canada, as he relaxed in his dressing room, he was visited by a student athlete from Montreal's McGill University. The young man asked Houdini if it was true that he could actually withstand punches to the stomach. Houdini replied in the affirmative, but before he could prepare himself for the stunt by tightening his stomach muscles, the student punched the magician several times in his mid-section. Houdini performed that night and several more, then headed for Detroit where he did one show, then collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Magicians and mediums throughout the world still gather on this night, Halloween, to honor the Great Houdini.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini
1930 William ‘Count’ Basie sang with Bennie Moten’s orchestra, "Somebody Stole My Gal", on Victor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Basie
1932 A Lutheran seminary in Hankow, China, was dedicated.
1938 Great Depression: In an effort to restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public
1940 The Battle of Britain concludes. Beginning on July 10, 1940, German bombers and fighters had attacked coastal targets, airfields, London and other cities, as a prelude to a Nazi invasion of England. British pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down over 1,700 German aircraft while losing 915 fighters.
1941 World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.
1942 CBS debuted "Thanks to the Yanks", starring Bob Hawk. Hawk's show dated all the way back to 1942, when it was called Thanks to the Yanks and rewarded servicemen. In 1945, the show was renamed for its popular host, and that's when it instituted its popular "Lemac" game. A contestant would be asked five questions in a category, and each answer would begin with one of the letters L-E-M-A-C. ("Camel" backwards, of course.) Anyone who answered all five correctly would be crowned a Lemac, and all Lemacs returned at the end of the show to attempt a difficult five-part final question for a jackpot prize.
1941 Work on Mount Rushmore finally ended with the monumental heads of four U.S. presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt - carved on the face of a mountain near Keystone, S.D. It was dedicated 3 Mar 1933 and work had been continued by Gutzon Borglum's son James after his father (1867-1941), the project's sculptor for 14 years since 10 Aug 1927, died eight months earlier. The carved faces are 60-70 feet tall, and visible for 60 mi (100 km). The Gutzon Borglum's ambitious original design was left incomplete; work ceased when funds ran out. Since then, no additional carving has been done, nor is planned, other than maintenance. In its present form it stands as the largest such sculpture in existence.
1950 Unseasonably warm weather prevailed in the central U.S. for Halloween. The temperature soared to 83 degrees at Minneapolis MN, their warmest reading of record for so late in the season. (The Weather Channel)
1950 Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in NBA when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols in Rochester, New York. Nicknamed "The Big Cat", Lloyd was one of three African-Americans to enter the NBA at the same time. It was only because of the order in which the teams' season openers fell that Lloyd was the first to actually play in a game in the NBA. The date was October 31, 1950, one day ahead of Cooper of the Boston Celtics and four days before Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the New York Knicks.
1953 NBC televised "Carmen" on "Opera Theatre" in color.
1956 Brooklyn, NY ends streetcar service
1956 An airplane landed at the South Pole for the first time. When Navy Admiral George J. Dufek stepped off the Que Sera Sera, an LC-47 transport plane, he was the first American to set foot on there, the first man since Scott to stand at the Pole. He came with an advance party to build the first permanent South Pole Station. Eighty-four flights later, the Navy had dropped over 700 tons of supplies at the South Pole, and by Mar 1957, the first phase of construction of the Amundsen-Scott Station was completed. The station was established in that year for the International Geophysical Year under Paul Siple, first station scientific leader. It continued to function year-round until January 1975, when a new station was occupied.
1957 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. opens in Hollywood. On October 31, 1957, the Japanese car company Toyota establishes its U.S. headquarters in an old Rambler dealership in Hollywood, California. Toyota executives hoped to saturate the American second-car market with their small and relatively inexpensive Toyopet Crown sedans. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. sold its first Toyopet at the beginning of 1958; by the end of the year, it had sold 286 more, along with one behemoth Land Cruiser. Toyota cars were slow to catch on in the United States—it took until the mid-1960s for the company to gain a respectable chunk of the American market—but when they did, they did so with a bang. In 1972, thanks in large part to its success in the United States, Toyota sold its 1 millionth car, and three years later Toyota became the best-selling import brand in the United States.
In the mid-1950s, there were very few small cars on the road in America. People had plenty of disposable income for the first time in decades; gas was cheap; and American car companies were churning out enormous, elaborately be-finned models like the Ford Thunderbird and the Plymouth Fury. But those cars were not that easy to drive or park (especially, some people believed, for women, many of whom were learning to drive for the first time) and buying more than one tended to be too expensive for an ordinary middle-class family. As a result, foreign small-car manufacturers saw an opportunity. Volkswagen, for instance, exported more than 100,000 of its small, efficient Beetles to the United States in 1956 and the next year Toyota brought the Toyopet to Hollywood.
Though the car had been an overnight sensation in Japan, particularly among taxi drivers, it was a flop in the United States: It could barely meet California's standards for roadworthiness, it guzzled extraordinary amounts of gas and oil and when it traveled on the freeway, it tended to shake violently, overheat and stall without much warning. Meanwhile, most Americans were simply too big to fit comfortably in its tiny cabin.
In 1961, Toyota dealers stopped selling the car in the United States. Four years later, the company introduced the Corona, a sedan designed especially for American drivers that was even more affordable than the Toyopet but featured luxuries like air-conditioning, automatic transmissions, carpeting, sun visors, arm rests, tinted windows and glove compartments. The Corona was a huge hit and it set the stage for another Toyota home run: the Corolla, introduced in 1968. The Corolla went on to become the best-selling passenger car in history.
1959 Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to US.
1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand, paving the way for the British Invasion. In the autumn of 1963, Beatlemania was a raging epidemic in Britain, and it was rapidly spreading across the European continent. But in the United States, where the likes of Bobby Vinton and Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs sat atop the pop charts, John, Paul, George and Ringo could have walked through Grand Central Terminal completely unnoticed. It wasn't Grand Central that the Beatles were trying to walk through on this day in 1963, however—it was Heathrow Airport, London, where they'd just returned from a hugely successful tour of Sweden. Also at Heathrow that particular day, after a talent-scouting tour of Europe, was the American television impresario Ed Sullivan. The pandemonium that Sullivan witnessed as he attempted to catch his flight to New York would play a pivotal role in making the British Invasion possible.
It wasn't for lack of trying that the Beatles were still unknown in the United States. Their manager Brian Epstein had tried and failed repeatedly to convince Capitol Records, the American arm of their British label EMI, to release the singles that had already taken Europe by storm. Convinced that the Merseybeat sound wouldn't translate across the Atlantic, Capitol declined to release "Please Please Me," "From Me to You" and "She Loves You," allowing all three to be released on the minor American labels Vee-Jay and Swan and to languish on the pop charts without any promotion. Desperate to crack the American market, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song explicitly tailored to the American market and recorded it just two weeks before their fateful indirect encounter with Ed Sullivan. That song was "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Ed Sullivan had his staff make inquiries about the Beatles following his return to the United States, and Brian Epstein arranged to travel to New York to open negotiations. And in what surely must rank as one of the greatest one-two punches in the history of professional talent-management, Epstein convinced The Ed Sullivan Show to have the Beatles as headliners for three appearances rather than as a one-time, mid-show novelty act, and he then leveraged that contract into an agreement by Capitol Records to release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in the United States and back it with a $40,000 promotional campaign.
As a result of the chance encounter at Heathrow on this day in 1963, and of Brian Epstein's subsequent coup in New York, the Beatles would arrive in the United States on February 7, 1964, with a #1 record already to their credit. The historic Ed Sullivan appearances that followed would lead to five more in the next 12 months.
1961 In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
1963 An explosion at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now Pepsi Coliseum) in Indianapolis kills 74 people during an ice skating show. The explosion also injures 400. A faulty propane tank connection in a concession stand is blamed.
1964 "Baby Love" by the Supremes topped the charts. "Where Did Our Love Go" and "Come See About Me" were written by Holland-Dozier-Holland in one session and were all recorded within 2 weeks. According to Rolling Stone magazine, when this song was finished, Berry Gordy thought it wasn't catchy enough and sent the group back into the studio, which is when they came up with the "Oooooh" at the beginning.
1964 Barbra Streisand's "People," album goes #1 for 5 weeks. Signed to Columbia Records, she released her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, in 1963. It became a Top Ten, gold-selling record, turning Streisand into one of the best-selling recording artists of the early '60s. But despite three successful albums by early 1964, Streisand turned her back on potentially lucrative concert bookings in favor of a starring role in the Broadway show Funny Girl, in which she appeared for more than two years. "People" from that show became her first Top Ten single, and the People album her first chart-topping LP.
1965 Fort Lauderdale, FL, was deluged with 13.81 inches of rain, which brought their rainfall total for the month of October to an all-time record of 42.43 inches. (30th-31st) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1968 Vietnam War October surprise: President Johnson orders a halt to all bombing of North Vietnam. After several months of discussions at Paris, on October 31 President Johnson ordered a complete halt of all air, naval, and military artillery bombardment of North Vietnam and the "Rolling Thunder" campaign came to an end. The enemy had a sanctuary at home as well as in Cambodia.
1972 Curtis Mayfield received a gold record for "Freddie’s Dead." Mayfield really didn't hit his artistic or commercial stride as a solo artist, though, until Superfly, his soundtrack to a 1972 blaxploitation film. Drug deals, ghetto shootings, the death of young black men before their time: all were described in penetrating detail. Yet Mayfield's irrepressible falsetto vocals, uplifting melodies, and fabulous funk pop arrangements gave the oft-moralizing material a graceful strength that few others could have achieved. For all the glory of his past work, Superfly stands as his crowning achievement, not to mention a much-needed counterpoint to the sensationalistic portrayals of the film itself.
1973 Tom Seaver becomes first non-20-game winner to win Cy Young award.
1832 American Episcopal scholar George Washington Doane, 33, was consecrated as second Bishop of the Diocese of NJ. Doane is better remembered today as author of the hymn, "Softly Now the Light of Day."
1986 Universal Studios in Hollywood opened at night for Halloween. For the first time, Universal Studios in Hollywood opened at night -- to give fans a scare. Halloween Horror Night included Dracula, the Mummy, King Kong, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Wolfman, and Rick Dees. Scary!
1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards. Riots soon break out in New Delhi and nearly 10,000 Sikhs are killed.
1987 - Halloween was a wet one in the southwestern U.S. Heavy rain in southern California resulted in numerous mudslides. Weather-related auto accidents resulted in three deaths and twenty-five injuries. Mount Wilson CA received 3.14 inches of rain in 24 hours. Yakima WA reported measurable rainfall for the first time since the 18th of July. The 103 day long dry spell was their longest of record. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1987 First jockey to win 9 races in 1 day (Chris Antley at Belmont)
1987 "Bad" by Michael Jackson topped the charts. Finally, Jackson re-entered the studio with Quincy Jones to begin the near-impossible task of crafting a follow-up to Thriller. Bad was released to enormous public anticipation in 1987, and was accompanied by equally enormous publicity. It debuted at number one, and the first single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," with vocal accompaniment by Siedah Garrett, also shot up the charts to number one. Like Thriller, Bad continued to spin off singles for well over a year after its release, and became the first album ever to produce five number one hits; the others were "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the Mirror," and "Dirty Diana."
1988 - Twenty-two cities in the northeastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date. The low of 19 degrees at Cleveland OH was a record for October, and morning lows of 21 degrees at Allentown PA and Bridgeport CT tied October records. Nine cities in the southwestern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date, including Phoenix AZ with a reading of 96 degrees. Showers made Halloween a soggy one in the southeastern U.S. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Halloween night was a soggy one in New England. Showers in the northeastern U.S. produced more than an inch and a half of rain in six hours at some locations. An invasion of cold arctic air brought an abrupt end to a week of "Indian Summer" type weather in the Great Lakes Region, and brought snow and subzero wind chill readings to the Northern Plains. In Colorado, Alamosa was the cold spot in the nation with a record low of two degrees above zero, and a Halloween night storm brought 3 to 6 inches of snow to the Front Range, and 5 to 10 inches to the nearby foothills. Icy streets around Denver the next morning made for a rather spooky commute. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1992 The Vatican admitted erring for over 359 years in formally condemning Galileo Galilei for entertaining scientific truths such as the Earth revolves around the sun it, which the Roman Catholic Church long denounced as anti-scriptural heresy. After 13 years of inquiry, the Pope's commission of historic, scientific and theological scholars brought the pope a "not guilty" finding for Galileo. Pope John Paul II himself met with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to help set the record straight. In 1633, at age 69, Galileo was forced by the Roman Inquisition to repent and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest. Galileo was a 17th century Italian mathematician, astronomer and physicist remembered as one of history's greatest scientists.
1994 An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 68 passengers and crew.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Flight_4184
1997 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward, convicted by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury of second-degree murder the day before, is sentenced to life in prison.
1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board, "probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's (a Muslim) light control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined." Many believe that the aircraft was deliberately crashed as a suicide given the evidence provided in the NTSB report and the relief first officer's repeating of "I rely on God", but the pilot's actual motivation for his control inputs is not known.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990
1999 Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation met in Augsburg, Germany, to sign a “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” (JDDJ).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Declaration_on_the_Doctrine_of_Justification
2000 President Clinton stumps for his wife. On this day in 2000, lame-duck President Bill Clinton campaigns in New York on behalf of his wife, Hillary, who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. This was the first time a first lady actively campaigned for a Senate seat.
Bill gave the speech at a dinner, sponsored by a group of Irish-Americans, which both he and Hillary attended at the Fitzpatrick Hotel in New York City. His speech included references to his success in brokering peace talks between feuding sides in Northern Ireland, but the real focus of his address was to urge the group to support Hillary's upcoming Senate bid. The couple had just purchased a home in New York and planned to make the state their official residence when his presidential term ended in January 2001. Clinton admitted that he was "highly prejudiced" about the upcoming Senate race and gave Hillary high praise, saying that he had known many politicians over the years, but "of all the people I've known, she has the best combination of brains, compassion, determination and ability to get people together and get things done. She will be a fabulous senator." He went on to extol his wife's involvement in social issues, particularly her contribution to the Irish peace process. As a member of a women's group called Vital Voices, Hillary had visited Northern Ireland in 1995 to help find a solution to the sectarian violence there. Bill recounted how she had told him, "If we can just get all these [Irish] women together, they'd figure out a way to get over this problem." Clinton joked to the Irish-American crowd that Hillary was one of those "troublesome women going around upsetting apple cars everywhere [who] don't like it when troglodyte males keep wars going on."
In November 2000, despite allegations of carpet-bagging, Hillary Clinton—who had never resided in New York prior to her Senate bid—became the first woman ever elected to the Senate from New York.
2002 A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.
2003 A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.
2003 The U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration released a summary of a draft report concluding that cloned farm animals and their offspring pose little scientific risk to the food supply. This could eventually lead to products derived from clones or their offspring onto the nation's grocery shelves. No federal rule prohibits sale of food products derived from clones or their offspring, but producers say they are observing a voluntary moratorium. Since clones still cost about $20,000, they are unlikely to be eaten directly as food. Instead, farmers' elite cloned animals could be used as breeding stock to upgrade the genetics of entire herds. Milk from cloned cows and meat from offspring of cloned cows and pigs might be first to enter the food supply.
Births
1737 James Lovell (d 1814) American educator and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts. He was a delegate for Massachusetts to the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1782.
1827 Richard Morris Hunt (d 1895) American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture. Hunt was, according to design critic Paul Goldberger writing in The New York Times, "American architecture's first, and in many ways its greatest, statesman." Aside from Hunt's sculpting of the face of New York City, including designs for the facade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and many Fifth Avenue mansions lost to the wrecking ball, Hunt founded both the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society.
1835 Adelbert Ames (d 1933) American sailor, soldier, and politician. He served with distinction as a Union Army general during the American Civil War. As a Radical Republican and a Carpetbagger, he was military governor, Senator and civilian governor in Reconstruction-era Mississippi. In 1898 he served as a United States Army general during the Spanish-American War.
1848 Boston Custer, brother of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1876)
1848 James Owen Dorsey (d 1895) American ethnologist known principally for his linguistic and ethnographic studies of the Siouan Indians. As an ordained Episcopal deacon (1871), while a missionary to the Ponca tribe of the Dakota Territory, he used his knowledge of classical languages to learn the Ponca language. Subsequently, he joined the newly formed Bureau of American Ethnology (1879), as one of its first members, and was asssigned to Nebraska to study the Omaha tribe. From thereon, Dorsey was able to make extensive linguistic studies among several tribes there and others in Oregon. He published works of his own and edited other works that have remained substantial resources.
1860 Juliette Gordon Low (born Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon in Savannah, Georgia) (d 1927) American youth leader and the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912.
1873 David Randall-MacIver (d 1945) English-born American archaeologist and anthropologist who excaved in Egypt and Sudan. He began his career of excavation with Sir Flinders Petrie at Abydos, Egypt (1899-1901). After conducting excavations of the Great Zimbabwe ruins in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Randall-MacIver wrote Medieval Rhodesia (1906), in which he contended that the ruins were not built by an ancient and vanished white civilization as was currently believed but were of purely African 14th century origin (as confirmed by later archaeological study). Walls at these ruins stood as high as 32 feet over the surrounding savanna. From 1907 to 1911 Randall-MacIver led an expedition into Egypt and the Sudan.
1875 Eugene Isaac Meyer (d 1959) American financier, public official, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. He was the father of publisher Katharine Graham.
1896 Ethel Waters (d 1977) American blues and jazz vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her best-known recording was her version of the spiritual, "His Eye is on the Sparrow", and she was the second African American ever nominated for an Academy Award. In the period before her death in Los Angeles, California, she toured with The Reverend Billy Graham.
1910 Harry Harlow (d 1981) American psychologist who studied the social behaviour and development of monkeys. His research in the areas of learning, motivation, and affection extended understanding in general human and child psychology. He experimented with 6-12 hours old infant monkeys separated from their mothers then provided with an inanimate substitute "mother" made either of wire mesh or cloth providing warmth and food. However, as adults, these deprived monkeys exhibited strange behavioral patterns. Some females were negligent as mothers that did not nurse or comfort their young. The other mothers were abusive, biting or injuring their young, even sometimes causing the baby's death. In 1967, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.
1912 Dale Evans was the stage name of Lucille Wood Smith (d 2001), American writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
1914 Joseph Carcione (d 1988) consumer advocate known as "The Green Grocer," owned and operated a produce import/export business in South San Francisco at the Golden Gate Produce Terminal II. He hosted short television bits offering advice in the world of produce, and wrote a newspaper column and two books on the same subject.
1919 Father Magnus J. Wenninger OSB, born Park Falls, Wisconsin, mathematician who works on constructing polyhedron models, and wrote the first book on their construction.
1922 Barbara Bel Geddes, American actress (d. 2005)
1927 Narinder Singh Kapany Indian-American physicist who is widely acknowledged as the father of fibre optics. He coined the term fibre optics for the technology transmitting light through fine glass strands in devices from endoscopy to high-capacity telephone lines that has changed the medical, communications and business worlds. While growing up in Dehradun in northern India, a teacher informed him that light only traveled in a straight line. He took this as a challenge and made the study of light his life work, initially at Imperial College, London. On 2 Jan 1954, Nature published his report of successfully transmitting images through fiber optical bundles. The following year he went to the U.S. to teach. In 1960, Optics Technology. He holds over 100 patents.
1930 Michael Collins U.S. Astronaut, born in Rome, Italy, was the Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot orbiting while Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walked on the moon. Selected as a NASA astronaut in Oct 1963, Collins' first assignment was as Gemini VII backup pilot. As a pilot on the three-day Gemini X Mission, launched 18 Jul 1966, he docked with a separately launched Agena target vehicle, and made two extra-vehicular space walks, retrieving micrometeorite detection equipment from the Agena. On the Apollo 11 first lunar landing mission, launched 16 Jul 1969, he remained in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked the Moon's surface. His skill, recovering the Eagle and returning the orbiter to Earth, were vital to the success of the mission.
1931 Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr, American journalist who is the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of a television news magazine, Dan Rather Reports, on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9, 1981, to March 9, 2005. He also contributed to CBS' 60 Minutes. Rather became embroiled in controversy about a disputed news report involving the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election and subsequently left CBS Evening News in 2005 and left the network altogether after 43 years in 2006.
1935 Ronald Lewis Graham, mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He has done important work in scheduling theory, computational geometry, Ramsey theory, and quasi-randomness.
1936 Michael Landon (b 1991) American actor, writer, director, and producer, who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza (1959–1973), Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983), and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven (1984–1989). Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide twenty-two times, second only to Lucille Ball (TV Guide, July 6, 1991). His twenty-eight years of full-hour television acting surpasses that of TV legends Lucille Ball and James Arness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Landon
1937 Thomas Richard Paxton American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Paxton's songs include "The Last Thing on My Mind", "Bottle of Wine", "Whose Garden Was This?", "The Marvelous Toy", and "Ramblin' Boy".
1943 Louis Brian Piccolo (d 1970) professional football player for the Chicago Bears for 4 years. He died from embryonal cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of lung cancer, which was first diagnosed after it had spread to his chest cavity. He was the subject of the 1971 TV movie Brian's Song. Piccolo was portrayed in the original film by James Caan and by Sean Maher in the 2001 remake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brian_Piccolo
1950 John Franklin Candy (d 1994) Canadian actor and comedian. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto, Ontario branch of The Second City, its related Second City Television series, and in his role in comedy films such as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, The Great Outdoors, and Uncle Buck. One of his most renowned onscreen performances was that of Del Griffith, the loquacious, homeless shower curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklin_Candy
1950 Margaret Jane Pauley American television journalist, and has been involved in news reporting since 1975. She is most known for her 13-year tenure on NBC's Today program and later 12 years of Dateline NBC, and has acknowledged publicly her struggle with mental health and bipolar disorder.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Pauley
Deaths
1879 Jacob Abbott (b 1803) American writer of children's books--the Rollo books.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Abbott
1879 Joseph Hooker (b 1814) career United States Army officer, fought in the Mexican-American War, and was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, best remembered for his stunning defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hooker
1907 Daniel C. Roberts, American Episcopal clergyman and hymnist, (b. 5 Nov 1841).
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/r/o/b/roberts_dc.htm
1986 Robert Sanderson Mulliken (b 1896) American chemist and physicist who received the 1966 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for "fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules." In 1922, he first suggested a method of isotope separation by evaporative centrifuging. Thereafter, most of his research career was concerned with the interpretation of molecular spectra and with the application of quantum theory to the electronic states of molecules. With Friedrich Hund, he developed the molecular-orbital theory of chemical bonding, based on the idea that atomic orbitals of isolated atoms become molecular orbitals, extending over two or more atoms in the molecule. He also made major contributions to the theory and interpretation of molecular spectra.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sanderson_Mulliken
1916 Charles Taze Russell (b 1852), or Pastor Russell, was a prominent early 20th century Christian Restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement, from which Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups emerged after his death.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell
1926 Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born magician (b. 1874)
1963 Sam Shoemaker (b. 1893), American Episcopal clergyman, died. Ordained in 1921, he became rector of Calvary Episcopal Church (New York City) in 1925. A popular counselor and radio speaker, Shoemaker stressed personal evangelism and everyday practice of the Christian faith. He also assisted Alcoholics Anonymous in formulating the “Twelve Steps.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Shoemaker
1986 Robert Sanderson Mulliken (b 1896) American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Dr. Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966. He received the Priestley Medal in 1983.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sanderson_Mulliken
1983 George Stanley Halas, Sr. (b 1895), nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything", was a player, coach, inventor, jurist, producer, philanthropist, philatelist, owner and pioneer in professional American football and the iconic longtime leader of the NFL's Chicago Bears. He is often referred to as the "Father of the National Football League".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stanley_Halas
1988 George Eugene Uhlenbeck (b 1900) Dutch-American physicist who, with Samuel A. Goudsmit, proposed the concept of electron spin (Jan 1925) - a fourth quantum number which was a half integer. This provided Wolfgang Pauli's anticipated "fourth quantum number." In their experiment, a horizontal beam of silver atoms travelling through a vertical magnetic field was deflected in two directions according to the interaction of their spin (either "up" or "down") with the magnetic field. This was the first demonstration of this quantum effect, and an early confirmation of quantum theory. As well as fundamental work on quantum mechanics, Uhlenbeck worked on atomic structure, the kinetic theory of matter and extended Boltzmann's equation to dense gases.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eugene_Uhlenbeck
1993 River Jude Phoenix (b 1970) American film actor. Phoenix began acting at age 10. He appeared in diverse roles, making his first notable appearance in the 1986 film Stand by Me, a well-received coming-of-age film based on a novella by Stephen King. Phoenix made a transition into more adult orientated roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and My Own Private Idaho (1991). Phoenix died of a drug overdose on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub the Viper Room. He was the oldest sibling of actors Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix.
2000 Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner Jr. (b 1915) American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Christian Feast Day:
Abaidas (Coptic Church)
Quentin
Wolfgang of Regensburg
Halloween (Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other places)
Reformation Day (Slovenia and Protestant Church)
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_31.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct31.html
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_31
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1031.htm
www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm#lk
October 31 is the 305th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 61 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days left until November 06, 2012: 7
Countdown until Obama leaves Office
www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1516 Martin Lutherpreached against the abuse of indulgences one year prior to his posting of the 95 theses in Wittenberg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#The_start_of_the_Reformation
1517 Luther posts 95 theses on Wittenberg church-Protestant Reformation begins. The Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, known as the 95 Theses, (1517) challenged the teachings of the Church on the nature of penance, the authority of the pope and the usefulness of indulgences.
In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called "indulgences"—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.
Luther's frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.
The term "Protestant" first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/95_Theses
1776 King George III speaks for first time since independence declared to Parliament. On this day in 1776, in his first speech before British Parliament since the leaders of the American Revolution came together to sign of the Declaration of Independence that summer, King George III acknowledges that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the United States.
In his address, the king spoke about the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the revolutionary leaders who signed it, saying, "for daring and desperate is the spirit of those leaders, whose object has always been dominion and power, that they have now openly renounced all allegiance to the crown, and all political connection with this country." The king went on to inform Parliament of the successful British victory over General George Washington and the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, but warned them that, "notwithstanding the fair prospect, it was necessary to prepare for another campaign."
Despite George III's harsh words, General William Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, still hoped to convince the Americans to rejoin the British empire in the wake of the colonists' humiliating defeat at the Battle of Long Island. The British could easily have prevented Washington's retreat from Long Island and captured most of the Patriot officer corps, including the commander in chief. However, instead of forcing the former colonies into submission by executing Washington and his officers as traitors, the Howe brothers let them go with the hope of swaying Patriot opinion towards a return to the mother country.
The Howe brothers' attempts at negotiation failed, and the War for Independence dragged on for another four years, until the formal surrender of the British to the Americans on October 19, 1781, after the Battle of Yorktown.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George_III
1846 Eighty-seven pioneers were trapped by early snows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that piled five feet deep, with 30 to 40 foot drifts. Just 47 persons survived the "Donner Pass Tragedy". (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
1861 American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott#Civil_War
1864 The U.S. Congress admits Nevada as the 36th state. On this day in 1864, anxious to have support of the Republican-dominated Nevada Territory for President Abraham Lincoln's reelection, the U.S. Congress quickly admits Nevada as the 36th state in the Union.
In 1864, Nevada had only 40,000 inhabitants, considerably short of the 60,000 normally required for statehood. But the 1859 discovery of the incredibly large and rich silver deposits at Virginia City had rapidly made the region one of the most important and wealthy in the West. The inexpert miners who initially developed the placer gold deposits at Virginia City had complained for some time about the blue-gray gunk that kept clogging up their gold sluices. Eventually several of the more experienced miners realized that the gunk the gold miners had been tossing aside was actually rich silver ore, and soon after, they discovered the massive underground silver deposit called the Comstock Lode. Unlike the easily developed placer deposits that had inspired the initial gold rushes to California and Nevada, the Comstock Lode ore demanded a wide array of expensive new technologies for profitable development. For the first time, western mining began to attract investments from large eastern capitalists, and these powerful men began to push for Nevada statehood.
The decisive factor in easing the path to Nevada's statehood was President Lincoln's proposed 13th Amendment banning slavery. Throughout his administration Lincoln had appointed territorial officials in Nevada who were strong Republicans, and he knew he could count on the congressmen and citizens of a new state of Nevada to support him in the coming presidential election and to vote for his proposed amendment. Since time was so short, the Nevada constitutional delegation sent the longest telegram on record up to that time to Washington, D.C., containing the entire text of the proposed state constitution and costing the then astronomical sum of $3,416.77.
Their speedy actions paid off with quick congressional approval of statehood and the new state of Nevada did indeed provide strong support for Lincoln. On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning slavery.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada
1868 Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for postal carriers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Williams_Randall
1876 A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 deaths.
1903 John Barrymore makes his stage debut in “Magda”. John at first tried an art career in cartooning, before turning to acting permanently as his life's work. The Cleveland Theatre in Chicago welcomed the youngest member of the Barrymore family to the acting fold. Young John Barrymore made his stage debut in "Magda." John Barrymore soon became a leading Shakespearean actor, the Broadway idol of his time. He started in silent films in 1912, several years after his older brother Lionel. He made swashbucklers, dramas, straight comedies, and romantic comedies. Silent films of particular success for John Barrymore were "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" (1917), "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1920), "Sherlock Holmes" (1922), "Beau Brummel" (1924), "Don Juan" (1926), and "The Beloved Rogue" (1927).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrymore
1913 Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway
1913 The Indianapolis Street Car Strike and subsequent riot begins.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_Streetcar_Strike_of_1913
1917 World War I: Battle of Beersheba – "last successful cavalry charge in history"-- the charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, which covered some six kilometres to overrun and capture the last remaining Turkish trenches, and secure the surviving wells at Birüssebi.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917)
1922 Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) becomes premier of Italy. In 1921 Mussolini was elected to parliament and the National Fascist party was officially organized. Backed by nationalists and propertied interests, in Oct., 1922, Mussolini sent the Fascists to march on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III permitted them to enter the city and called on Mussolini, who had remained in Milan, to form a cabinet. At the age of 39, he became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy on October 31 1922.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini
1926 Harry Houdini died on this day of peritonitis. Days earlier, between performances at the Princess Theater in Montreal, Canada, as he relaxed in his dressing room, he was visited by a student athlete from Montreal's McGill University. The young man asked Houdini if it was true that he could actually withstand punches to the stomach. Houdini replied in the affirmative, but before he could prepare himself for the stunt by tightening his stomach muscles, the student punched the magician several times in his mid-section. Houdini performed that night and several more, then headed for Detroit where he did one show, then collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Magicians and mediums throughout the world still gather on this night, Halloween, to honor the Great Houdini.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini
1930 William ‘Count’ Basie sang with Bennie Moten’s orchestra, "Somebody Stole My Gal", on Victor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Basie
1932 A Lutheran seminary in Hankow, China, was dedicated.
1938 Great Depression: In an effort to restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public
1940 The Battle of Britain concludes. Beginning on July 10, 1940, German bombers and fighters had attacked coastal targets, airfields, London and other cities, as a prelude to a Nazi invasion of England. British pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down over 1,700 German aircraft while losing 915 fighters.
1941 World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.
1942 CBS debuted "Thanks to the Yanks", starring Bob Hawk. Hawk's show dated all the way back to 1942, when it was called Thanks to the Yanks and rewarded servicemen. In 1945, the show was renamed for its popular host, and that's when it instituted its popular "Lemac" game. A contestant would be asked five questions in a category, and each answer would begin with one of the letters L-E-M-A-C. ("Camel" backwards, of course.) Anyone who answered all five correctly would be crowned a Lemac, and all Lemacs returned at the end of the show to attempt a difficult five-part final question for a jackpot prize.
1941 Work on Mount Rushmore finally ended with the monumental heads of four U.S. presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt - carved on the face of a mountain near Keystone, S.D. It was dedicated 3 Mar 1933 and work had been continued by Gutzon Borglum's son James after his father (1867-1941), the project's sculptor for 14 years since 10 Aug 1927, died eight months earlier. The carved faces are 60-70 feet tall, and visible for 60 mi (100 km). The Gutzon Borglum's ambitious original design was left incomplete; work ceased when funds ran out. Since then, no additional carving has been done, nor is planned, other than maintenance. In its present form it stands as the largest such sculpture in existence.
1950 Unseasonably warm weather prevailed in the central U.S. for Halloween. The temperature soared to 83 degrees at Minneapolis MN, their warmest reading of record for so late in the season. (The Weather Channel)
1950 Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in NBA when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols in Rochester, New York. Nicknamed "The Big Cat", Lloyd was one of three African-Americans to enter the NBA at the same time. It was only because of the order in which the teams' season openers fell that Lloyd was the first to actually play in a game in the NBA. The date was October 31, 1950, one day ahead of Cooper of the Boston Celtics and four days before Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the New York Knicks.
1953 NBC televised "Carmen" on "Opera Theatre" in color.
1956 Brooklyn, NY ends streetcar service
1956 An airplane landed at the South Pole for the first time. When Navy Admiral George J. Dufek stepped off the Que Sera Sera, an LC-47 transport plane, he was the first American to set foot on there, the first man since Scott to stand at the Pole. He came with an advance party to build the first permanent South Pole Station. Eighty-four flights later, the Navy had dropped over 700 tons of supplies at the South Pole, and by Mar 1957, the first phase of construction of the Amundsen-Scott Station was completed. The station was established in that year for the International Geophysical Year under Paul Siple, first station scientific leader. It continued to function year-round until January 1975, when a new station was occupied.
1957 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. opens in Hollywood. On October 31, 1957, the Japanese car company Toyota establishes its U.S. headquarters in an old Rambler dealership in Hollywood, California. Toyota executives hoped to saturate the American second-car market with their small and relatively inexpensive Toyopet Crown sedans. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. sold its first Toyopet at the beginning of 1958; by the end of the year, it had sold 286 more, along with one behemoth Land Cruiser. Toyota cars were slow to catch on in the United States—it took until the mid-1960s for the company to gain a respectable chunk of the American market—but when they did, they did so with a bang. In 1972, thanks in large part to its success in the United States, Toyota sold its 1 millionth car, and three years later Toyota became the best-selling import brand in the United States.
In the mid-1950s, there were very few small cars on the road in America. People had plenty of disposable income for the first time in decades; gas was cheap; and American car companies were churning out enormous, elaborately be-finned models like the Ford Thunderbird and the Plymouth Fury. But those cars were not that easy to drive or park (especially, some people believed, for women, many of whom were learning to drive for the first time) and buying more than one tended to be too expensive for an ordinary middle-class family. As a result, foreign small-car manufacturers saw an opportunity. Volkswagen, for instance, exported more than 100,000 of its small, efficient Beetles to the United States in 1956 and the next year Toyota brought the Toyopet to Hollywood.
Though the car had been an overnight sensation in Japan, particularly among taxi drivers, it was a flop in the United States: It could barely meet California's standards for roadworthiness, it guzzled extraordinary amounts of gas and oil and when it traveled on the freeway, it tended to shake violently, overheat and stall without much warning. Meanwhile, most Americans were simply too big to fit comfortably in its tiny cabin.
In 1961, Toyota dealers stopped selling the car in the United States. Four years later, the company introduced the Corona, a sedan designed especially for American drivers that was even more affordable than the Toyopet but featured luxuries like air-conditioning, automatic transmissions, carpeting, sun visors, arm rests, tinted windows and glove compartments. The Corona was a huge hit and it set the stage for another Toyota home run: the Corolla, introduced in 1968. The Corolla went on to become the best-selling passenger car in history.
1959 Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to US.
1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand, paving the way for the British Invasion. In the autumn of 1963, Beatlemania was a raging epidemic in Britain, and it was rapidly spreading across the European continent. But in the United States, where the likes of Bobby Vinton and Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs sat atop the pop charts, John, Paul, George and Ringo could have walked through Grand Central Terminal completely unnoticed. It wasn't Grand Central that the Beatles were trying to walk through on this day in 1963, however—it was Heathrow Airport, London, where they'd just returned from a hugely successful tour of Sweden. Also at Heathrow that particular day, after a talent-scouting tour of Europe, was the American television impresario Ed Sullivan. The pandemonium that Sullivan witnessed as he attempted to catch his flight to New York would play a pivotal role in making the British Invasion possible.
It wasn't for lack of trying that the Beatles were still unknown in the United States. Their manager Brian Epstein had tried and failed repeatedly to convince Capitol Records, the American arm of their British label EMI, to release the singles that had already taken Europe by storm. Convinced that the Merseybeat sound wouldn't translate across the Atlantic, Capitol declined to release "Please Please Me," "From Me to You" and "She Loves You," allowing all three to be released on the minor American labels Vee-Jay and Swan and to languish on the pop charts without any promotion. Desperate to crack the American market, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song explicitly tailored to the American market and recorded it just two weeks before their fateful indirect encounter with Ed Sullivan. That song was "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Ed Sullivan had his staff make inquiries about the Beatles following his return to the United States, and Brian Epstein arranged to travel to New York to open negotiations. And in what surely must rank as one of the greatest one-two punches in the history of professional talent-management, Epstein convinced The Ed Sullivan Show to have the Beatles as headliners for three appearances rather than as a one-time, mid-show novelty act, and he then leveraged that contract into an agreement by Capitol Records to release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in the United States and back it with a $40,000 promotional campaign.
As a result of the chance encounter at Heathrow on this day in 1963, and of Brian Epstein's subsequent coup in New York, the Beatles would arrive in the United States on February 7, 1964, with a #1 record already to their credit. The historic Ed Sullivan appearances that followed would lead to five more in the next 12 months.
1961 In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
1963 An explosion at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now Pepsi Coliseum) in Indianapolis kills 74 people during an ice skating show. The explosion also injures 400. A faulty propane tank connection in a concession stand is blamed.
1964 "Baby Love" by the Supremes topped the charts. "Where Did Our Love Go" and "Come See About Me" were written by Holland-Dozier-Holland in one session and were all recorded within 2 weeks. According to Rolling Stone magazine, when this song was finished, Berry Gordy thought it wasn't catchy enough and sent the group back into the studio, which is when they came up with the "Oooooh" at the beginning.
1964 Barbra Streisand's "People," album goes #1 for 5 weeks. Signed to Columbia Records, she released her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, in 1963. It became a Top Ten, gold-selling record, turning Streisand into one of the best-selling recording artists of the early '60s. But despite three successful albums by early 1964, Streisand turned her back on potentially lucrative concert bookings in favor of a starring role in the Broadway show Funny Girl, in which she appeared for more than two years. "People" from that show became her first Top Ten single, and the People album her first chart-topping LP.
1965 Fort Lauderdale, FL, was deluged with 13.81 inches of rain, which brought their rainfall total for the month of October to an all-time record of 42.43 inches. (30th-31st) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1968 Vietnam War October surprise: President Johnson orders a halt to all bombing of North Vietnam. After several months of discussions at Paris, on October 31 President Johnson ordered a complete halt of all air, naval, and military artillery bombardment of North Vietnam and the "Rolling Thunder" campaign came to an end. The enemy had a sanctuary at home as well as in Cambodia.
1972 Curtis Mayfield received a gold record for "Freddie’s Dead." Mayfield really didn't hit his artistic or commercial stride as a solo artist, though, until Superfly, his soundtrack to a 1972 blaxploitation film. Drug deals, ghetto shootings, the death of young black men before their time: all were described in penetrating detail. Yet Mayfield's irrepressible falsetto vocals, uplifting melodies, and fabulous funk pop arrangements gave the oft-moralizing material a graceful strength that few others could have achieved. For all the glory of his past work, Superfly stands as his crowning achievement, not to mention a much-needed counterpoint to the sensationalistic portrayals of the film itself.
1973 Tom Seaver becomes first non-20-game winner to win Cy Young award.
1832 American Episcopal scholar George Washington Doane, 33, was consecrated as second Bishop of the Diocese of NJ. Doane is better remembered today as author of the hymn, "Softly Now the Light of Day."
1986 Universal Studios in Hollywood opened at night for Halloween. For the first time, Universal Studios in Hollywood opened at night -- to give fans a scare. Halloween Horror Night included Dracula, the Mummy, King Kong, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Wolfman, and Rick Dees. Scary!
1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards. Riots soon break out in New Delhi and nearly 10,000 Sikhs are killed.
1987 - Halloween was a wet one in the southwestern U.S. Heavy rain in southern California resulted in numerous mudslides. Weather-related auto accidents resulted in three deaths and twenty-five injuries. Mount Wilson CA received 3.14 inches of rain in 24 hours. Yakima WA reported measurable rainfall for the first time since the 18th of July. The 103 day long dry spell was their longest of record. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1987 First jockey to win 9 races in 1 day (Chris Antley at Belmont)
1987 "Bad" by Michael Jackson topped the charts. Finally, Jackson re-entered the studio with Quincy Jones to begin the near-impossible task of crafting a follow-up to Thriller. Bad was released to enormous public anticipation in 1987, and was accompanied by equally enormous publicity. It debuted at number one, and the first single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," with vocal accompaniment by Siedah Garrett, also shot up the charts to number one. Like Thriller, Bad continued to spin off singles for well over a year after its release, and became the first album ever to produce five number one hits; the others were "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the Mirror," and "Dirty Diana."
1988 - Twenty-two cities in the northeastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date. The low of 19 degrees at Cleveland OH was a record for October, and morning lows of 21 degrees at Allentown PA and Bridgeport CT tied October records. Nine cities in the southwestern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date, including Phoenix AZ with a reading of 96 degrees. Showers made Halloween a soggy one in the southeastern U.S. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Halloween night was a soggy one in New England. Showers in the northeastern U.S. produced more than an inch and a half of rain in six hours at some locations. An invasion of cold arctic air brought an abrupt end to a week of "Indian Summer" type weather in the Great Lakes Region, and brought snow and subzero wind chill readings to the Northern Plains. In Colorado, Alamosa was the cold spot in the nation with a record low of two degrees above zero, and a Halloween night storm brought 3 to 6 inches of snow to the Front Range, and 5 to 10 inches to the nearby foothills. Icy streets around Denver the next morning made for a rather spooky commute. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1992 The Vatican admitted erring for over 359 years in formally condemning Galileo Galilei for entertaining scientific truths such as the Earth revolves around the sun it, which the Roman Catholic Church long denounced as anti-scriptural heresy. After 13 years of inquiry, the Pope's commission of historic, scientific and theological scholars brought the pope a "not guilty" finding for Galileo. Pope John Paul II himself met with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to help set the record straight. In 1633, at age 69, Galileo was forced by the Roman Inquisition to repent and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest. Galileo was a 17th century Italian mathematician, astronomer and physicist remembered as one of history's greatest scientists.
1994 An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 68 passengers and crew.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Flight_4184
1997 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward, convicted by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury of second-degree murder the day before, is sentenced to life in prison.
1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board, "probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's (a Muslim) light control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined." Many believe that the aircraft was deliberately crashed as a suicide given the evidence provided in the NTSB report and the relief first officer's repeating of "I rely on God", but the pilot's actual motivation for his control inputs is not known.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990
1999 Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation met in Augsburg, Germany, to sign a “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” (JDDJ).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Declaration_on_the_Doctrine_of_Justification
2000 President Clinton stumps for his wife. On this day in 2000, lame-duck President Bill Clinton campaigns in New York on behalf of his wife, Hillary, who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. This was the first time a first lady actively campaigned for a Senate seat.
Bill gave the speech at a dinner, sponsored by a group of Irish-Americans, which both he and Hillary attended at the Fitzpatrick Hotel in New York City. His speech included references to his success in brokering peace talks between feuding sides in Northern Ireland, but the real focus of his address was to urge the group to support Hillary's upcoming Senate bid. The couple had just purchased a home in New York and planned to make the state their official residence when his presidential term ended in January 2001. Clinton admitted that he was "highly prejudiced" about the upcoming Senate race and gave Hillary high praise, saying that he had known many politicians over the years, but "of all the people I've known, she has the best combination of brains, compassion, determination and ability to get people together and get things done. She will be a fabulous senator." He went on to extol his wife's involvement in social issues, particularly her contribution to the Irish peace process. As a member of a women's group called Vital Voices, Hillary had visited Northern Ireland in 1995 to help find a solution to the sectarian violence there. Bill recounted how she had told him, "If we can just get all these [Irish] women together, they'd figure out a way to get over this problem." Clinton joked to the Irish-American crowd that Hillary was one of those "troublesome women going around upsetting apple cars everywhere [who] don't like it when troglodyte males keep wars going on."
In November 2000, despite allegations of carpet-bagging, Hillary Clinton—who had never resided in New York prior to her Senate bid—became the first woman ever elected to the Senate from New York.
2002 A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.
2003 A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.
2003 The U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration released a summary of a draft report concluding that cloned farm animals and their offspring pose little scientific risk to the food supply. This could eventually lead to products derived from clones or their offspring onto the nation's grocery shelves. No federal rule prohibits sale of food products derived from clones or their offspring, but producers say they are observing a voluntary moratorium. Since clones still cost about $20,000, they are unlikely to be eaten directly as food. Instead, farmers' elite cloned animals could be used as breeding stock to upgrade the genetics of entire herds. Milk from cloned cows and meat from offspring of cloned cows and pigs might be first to enter the food supply.
Births
1737 James Lovell (d 1814) American educator and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts. He was a delegate for Massachusetts to the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1782.
1827 Richard Morris Hunt (d 1895) American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture. Hunt was, according to design critic Paul Goldberger writing in The New York Times, "American architecture's first, and in many ways its greatest, statesman." Aside from Hunt's sculpting of the face of New York City, including designs for the facade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and many Fifth Avenue mansions lost to the wrecking ball, Hunt founded both the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society.
1835 Adelbert Ames (d 1933) American sailor, soldier, and politician. He served with distinction as a Union Army general during the American Civil War. As a Radical Republican and a Carpetbagger, he was military governor, Senator and civilian governor in Reconstruction-era Mississippi. In 1898 he served as a United States Army general during the Spanish-American War.
1848 Boston Custer, brother of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1876)
1848 James Owen Dorsey (d 1895) American ethnologist known principally for his linguistic and ethnographic studies of the Siouan Indians. As an ordained Episcopal deacon (1871), while a missionary to the Ponca tribe of the Dakota Territory, he used his knowledge of classical languages to learn the Ponca language. Subsequently, he joined the newly formed Bureau of American Ethnology (1879), as one of its first members, and was asssigned to Nebraska to study the Omaha tribe. From thereon, Dorsey was able to make extensive linguistic studies among several tribes there and others in Oregon. He published works of his own and edited other works that have remained substantial resources.
1860 Juliette Gordon Low (born Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon in Savannah, Georgia) (d 1927) American youth leader and the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912.
1873 David Randall-MacIver (d 1945) English-born American archaeologist and anthropologist who excaved in Egypt and Sudan. He began his career of excavation with Sir Flinders Petrie at Abydos, Egypt (1899-1901). After conducting excavations of the Great Zimbabwe ruins in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Randall-MacIver wrote Medieval Rhodesia (1906), in which he contended that the ruins were not built by an ancient and vanished white civilization as was currently believed but were of purely African 14th century origin (as confirmed by later archaeological study). Walls at these ruins stood as high as 32 feet over the surrounding savanna. From 1907 to 1911 Randall-MacIver led an expedition into Egypt and the Sudan.
1875 Eugene Isaac Meyer (d 1959) American financier, public official, publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. He was the father of publisher Katharine Graham.
1896 Ethel Waters (d 1977) American blues and jazz vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her best-known recording was her version of the spiritual, "His Eye is on the Sparrow", and she was the second African American ever nominated for an Academy Award. In the period before her death in Los Angeles, California, she toured with The Reverend Billy Graham.
1910 Harry Harlow (d 1981) American psychologist who studied the social behaviour and development of monkeys. His research in the areas of learning, motivation, and affection extended understanding in general human and child psychology. He experimented with 6-12 hours old infant monkeys separated from their mothers then provided with an inanimate substitute "mother" made either of wire mesh or cloth providing warmth and food. However, as adults, these deprived monkeys exhibited strange behavioral patterns. Some females were negligent as mothers that did not nurse or comfort their young. The other mothers were abusive, biting or injuring their young, even sometimes causing the baby's death. In 1967, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.
1912 Dale Evans was the stage name of Lucille Wood Smith (d 2001), American writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
1914 Joseph Carcione (d 1988) consumer advocate known as "The Green Grocer," owned and operated a produce import/export business in South San Francisco at the Golden Gate Produce Terminal II. He hosted short television bits offering advice in the world of produce, and wrote a newspaper column and two books on the same subject.
1919 Father Magnus J. Wenninger OSB, born Park Falls, Wisconsin, mathematician who works on constructing polyhedron models, and wrote the first book on their construction.
1922 Barbara Bel Geddes, American actress (d. 2005)
1927 Narinder Singh Kapany Indian-American physicist who is widely acknowledged as the father of fibre optics. He coined the term fibre optics for the technology transmitting light through fine glass strands in devices from endoscopy to high-capacity telephone lines that has changed the medical, communications and business worlds. While growing up in Dehradun in northern India, a teacher informed him that light only traveled in a straight line. He took this as a challenge and made the study of light his life work, initially at Imperial College, London. On 2 Jan 1954, Nature published his report of successfully transmitting images through fiber optical bundles. The following year he went to the U.S. to teach. In 1960, Optics Technology. He holds over 100 patents.
1930 Michael Collins U.S. Astronaut, born in Rome, Italy, was the Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot orbiting while Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walked on the moon. Selected as a NASA astronaut in Oct 1963, Collins' first assignment was as Gemini VII backup pilot. As a pilot on the three-day Gemini X Mission, launched 18 Jul 1966, he docked with a separately launched Agena target vehicle, and made two extra-vehicular space walks, retrieving micrometeorite detection equipment from the Agena. On the Apollo 11 first lunar landing mission, launched 16 Jul 1969, he remained in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked the Moon's surface. His skill, recovering the Eagle and returning the orbiter to Earth, were vital to the success of the mission.
1931 Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr, American journalist who is the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of a television news magazine, Dan Rather Reports, on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9, 1981, to March 9, 2005. He also contributed to CBS' 60 Minutes. Rather became embroiled in controversy about a disputed news report involving the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election and subsequently left CBS Evening News in 2005 and left the network altogether after 43 years in 2006.
1935 Ronald Lewis Graham, mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He has done important work in scheduling theory, computational geometry, Ramsey theory, and quasi-randomness.
1936 Michael Landon (b 1991) American actor, writer, director, and producer, who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza (1959–1973), Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983), and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven (1984–1989). Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide twenty-two times, second only to Lucille Ball (TV Guide, July 6, 1991). His twenty-eight years of full-hour television acting surpasses that of TV legends Lucille Ball and James Arness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Landon
1937 Thomas Richard Paxton American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Paxton's songs include "The Last Thing on My Mind", "Bottle of Wine", "Whose Garden Was This?", "The Marvelous Toy", and "Ramblin' Boy".
1943 Louis Brian Piccolo (d 1970) professional football player for the Chicago Bears for 4 years. He died from embryonal cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of lung cancer, which was first diagnosed after it had spread to his chest cavity. He was the subject of the 1971 TV movie Brian's Song. Piccolo was portrayed in the original film by James Caan and by Sean Maher in the 2001 remake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brian_Piccolo
1950 John Franklin Candy (d 1994) Canadian actor and comedian. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto, Ontario branch of The Second City, its related Second City Television series, and in his role in comedy films such as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, The Great Outdoors, and Uncle Buck. One of his most renowned onscreen performances was that of Del Griffith, the loquacious, homeless shower curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklin_Candy
1950 Margaret Jane Pauley American television journalist, and has been involved in news reporting since 1975. She is most known for her 13-year tenure on NBC's Today program and later 12 years of Dateline NBC, and has acknowledged publicly her struggle with mental health and bipolar disorder.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Pauley
Deaths
1879 Jacob Abbott (b 1803) American writer of children's books--the Rollo books.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Abbott
1879 Joseph Hooker (b 1814) career United States Army officer, fought in the Mexican-American War, and was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, best remembered for his stunning defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hooker
1907 Daniel C. Roberts, American Episcopal clergyman and hymnist, (b. 5 Nov 1841).
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/r/o/b/roberts_dc.htm
1986 Robert Sanderson Mulliken (b 1896) American chemist and physicist who received the 1966 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for "fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules." In 1922, he first suggested a method of isotope separation by evaporative centrifuging. Thereafter, most of his research career was concerned with the interpretation of molecular spectra and with the application of quantum theory to the electronic states of molecules. With Friedrich Hund, he developed the molecular-orbital theory of chemical bonding, based on the idea that atomic orbitals of isolated atoms become molecular orbitals, extending over two or more atoms in the molecule. He also made major contributions to the theory and interpretation of molecular spectra.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sanderson_Mulliken
1916 Charles Taze Russell (b 1852), or Pastor Russell, was a prominent early 20th century Christian Restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement, from which Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups emerged after his death.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell
1926 Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born magician (b. 1874)
1963 Sam Shoemaker (b. 1893), American Episcopal clergyman, died. Ordained in 1921, he became rector of Calvary Episcopal Church (New York City) in 1925. A popular counselor and radio speaker, Shoemaker stressed personal evangelism and everyday practice of the Christian faith. He also assisted Alcoholics Anonymous in formulating the “Twelve Steps.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Shoemaker
1986 Robert Sanderson Mulliken (b 1896) American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Dr. Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966. He received the Priestley Medal in 1983.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sanderson_Mulliken
1983 George Stanley Halas, Sr. (b 1895), nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything", was a player, coach, inventor, jurist, producer, philanthropist, philatelist, owner and pioneer in professional American football and the iconic longtime leader of the NFL's Chicago Bears. He is often referred to as the "Father of the National Football League".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stanley_Halas
1988 George Eugene Uhlenbeck (b 1900) Dutch-American physicist who, with Samuel A. Goudsmit, proposed the concept of electron spin (Jan 1925) - a fourth quantum number which was a half integer. This provided Wolfgang Pauli's anticipated "fourth quantum number." In their experiment, a horizontal beam of silver atoms travelling through a vertical magnetic field was deflected in two directions according to the interaction of their spin (either "up" or "down") with the magnetic field. This was the first demonstration of this quantum effect, and an early confirmation of quantum theory. As well as fundamental work on quantum mechanics, Uhlenbeck worked on atomic structure, the kinetic theory of matter and extended Boltzmann's equation to dense gases.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eugene_Uhlenbeck
1993 River Jude Phoenix (b 1970) American film actor. Phoenix began acting at age 10. He appeared in diverse roles, making his first notable appearance in the 1986 film Stand by Me, a well-received coming-of-age film based on a novella by Stephen King. Phoenix made a transition into more adult orientated roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and My Own Private Idaho (1991). Phoenix died of a drug overdose on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub the Viper Room. He was the oldest sibling of actors Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix.
2000 Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner Jr. (b 1915) American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Christian Feast Day:
Abaidas (Coptic Church)
Quentin
Wolfgang of Regensburg
Halloween (Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other places)
Reformation Day (Slovenia and Protestant Church)
www.todayinsci.com/10/10_31.htm
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
www.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.amug.org/~jpaul/oct31.html
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_31
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih1031.htm
www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm#lk