General Discussion on the Month of October in History

A lot of the information contained herein will be things that happened during the month of October in history. The reason why I started this research is to find out if anything in particular will lead me to believe whether or not October might be significant in relation to Biblical events in history both in the past and for the future.

So, these are some events that occurred in: October (Tishri 30 days in September-October or Cheshvan 29-30 days in October-November), but for now, I don't know the exact date or the date of the event(s) may be controversial. So I am storing that data here until I have time to find the exact date in October. Here are some major events and their approximate dates:

Events Occurring in Ethanim (the month of gifts, i.e., of vintage offerings; called Tisri after the Exile; It was the first month of the civil year, and the seventh of the sacred year 1 Kings 8:2 The word is of Phoenician origin and signifies "perennial," referring to living streams. It corresponds to ending of September-beginning of October). Since the Bible, from its first book onward, presents chronological data, and since the first mention of years of life is in connection with the life of Adam, it would seem that the ancient use of the month called Ethanim as the initial month of the year would give some basis for believing that Adam’s start of life was in this month. (Genesis 5:1-5) It was on the first day of the first month (later called Ethanim) that Noah, after having already spent over ten months within the ark, removed the ark’s covering and observed that the floodwaters had drained off the ground. (Genesis 8:13) Over 1,300 years later Solomon inaugurated the completed temple at Jerusalem in Ethanim. (1Kings 8:2; 2Chronicles 5:3) After Jerusalem’s destruction in 607B.C.E., the killing of Governor Gedaliah and the subsequent flight to Egypt of the remaining Israelites in the month of Ethanim marked the full desolation of Judah. (2Kings 25:25, 26; Jeremiah 41:1, 2) These events were involved in the reasons for “the fast of the seventh month” mentioned at Zechariah 8:19. Seventy years later, by this very same month, the released Israelite exiles had returned from Babylon to begin the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.— Ezra 3:1,6.

The evidence also indicates that Jesus’ birth, as well as his baptism and anointing, took place during this month. —

Jesus Birth - Currently I do not know exactly when Jesus was born, (but it was apparently in the month of Ethanim) but I know when he was not born. He was not born anytime close to December 25. According to my research, he was born in or around fall, most likely during the month of October since the bible shares when he died or was sacrificed. He was 33 1/2 years old and died in Late March or Early April, or Nisan 14 in the year 33CE, which when backing off 6 months lands around late September or Early October. Some facts to aid in pin pointing the date of Jesus birth are:
1. Luke 2:8-12 says, 8 "There were also in the same region shepherds living out of doors and keeping watch in the night over their flocks. 9 Suddenly Jehovah’s angel stood before them, and Jehovah’s glory gleamed around them, and they became very fearful. 10 But the angel said to them: “Do not be afraid, for look! I am declaring to you good news of a great joy that all the people will have. 11 For today there was born to you in David’s city a savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this is a sign for you: You will find an infant wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”"
2. He was born in a manger and was outdoors. Outside during the months of December were cold and grounds covered in snow.
3. When Jesus “was about thirty years old,” he left home and commenced his ministry. (Luke 3:23)
4. He was also baptized around the time of his birth or in the fall (September-October).
5. Jesus was born approximately 6 months after the birth of his relative John the Baptizer, during the rule of Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus and the Syrian governorship of Quirinius and toward the close of the reign of Herod the Great over Judea.
Ref: Matthew 2:1,13,20-22; Luke 1:24-31,36 2:1,2,7.
6. A number of events intervened between the time of Jesus' birth and Herod's death. These included
• Jesus' circumcision on the 8th day following his birth (Luke 2:21)
• His being brought to the temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth (Luke 2:22-23, Leviticus 12:1-4,8)
• The journey of the astrologers from eastern parts to Bethlehem where Jesus was no longer in a manger but in a house (Matthew 2:1-11, Luke 2:7,15-16)
• Joseph & Mary’s flight to Egypt with the young child (Matthew 2:13-15)
• Followed by Herod’s realization that the astrologers had not followed his instructions, and the subsequent slaughter of all boys in Bethlehem and its districts under the age of two years (further indicating that Jesus was not a newborn infant by this time).

Jubilee - It was on the tenth day of the seventh month (in the month of Tishri), on the Day of Atonement, that the horn (shoh·phar′, or sho·phar′, a curved, animal horn) was sounded, proclaiming liberty throughout the land. ... Starting the count of years with the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, their first Jubilee year began in Tishri of 1424 B.C.E.

Temple Alter set up - In the seventh month (Ethanim, or Tishri) of the year 537 B.C.E., the altar was set up; and in the following year, the foundation of the new temple was laid. As Solomon had done, the builders hired Sidonians and Tyrians to bring cedar timbers from Lebanon. (Ezr 3:7)

When did the prophetic “seventy weeks” actually begin?

As to the beginning of the 70 weeks, Nehemiah was granted permission by King Artaxerxes of Persia, in the 20th year of his rule, in the month of Nisan, to rebuild the wall and the city of Jerusalem. (Ne 2:1, 5, 7, 8) In his calculations as to the reign of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah apparently used a calendar year that began with the month Tishri (September-October), as does the Jews’ present civil calendar, and ended with the month Elul (August-September) as the 12th month. Whether this was his own reckoning or the manner of reckoning employed for certain purposes in Persia is not known.

Nehemiah speaks regarding Tishri - Some may object to the above statement and may point to Nehemiah 7:73, where Nehemiah speaks of Israel as being gathered in their cities in the seventh month—the monthly order here being based on a Nisan-to-Nisan year. But Nehemiah was here copying from “the book of genealogical enrollment of those who came up at the first” with Zerubbabel, in 537 B.C.E. (Ne 7:5) Again, Nehemiah describes the celebration of the Festival of Booths in his time as taking place in the seventh month. (Ne 8:9, 13-18) This was only fitting because the account says that they found what Jehovah commanded “written in the law,” and in that law, at Leviticus 23:39-43, it says that the Festival of Booths was to be in “the seventh month” (that is, of the sacred calendar, running from Nisan to Nisan).

Festival of Booths - Ethanim (Tishri; September-October) was originally the first month of the Jewish calendar, but after the Exodus from Egypt it became the seventh month of the sacred year, since Abib (Nisan; March-April), formerly the seventh month, was made the first month. ... This ceremony began at the close of the 15th of Tishri, the first day of the festival, actually in the beginning of the 16th, the festival’s second day, and was carried on for the five succeeding nights. During the Festival of Booths, in the seventh month, Ethanim or Tishri, branches of trees, including palm, olive, myrtle, and poplar, were used in constructing booths in which the people resided for the duration of the festival. Le 23:40; Ne 8:15.

FESTIVAL OF TRUMPET BLAST This festival occurred on the first day (or the new moon) of the seventh month, Ethanim (Tishri). It was the beginning of the secular year for the Jews. It stood apart from the Festival of the New Moon in the other 11 months as being more important. The command states additionally concerning the Festival of Trumpet Blast that it should be set aside as a day of holy convention, on which no sort of laborious work was to be done. Le 23:24; Nu 29:1-6. This festival, of course, would be an important one, not only because the month it initiated saw the beginning of a new agricultural and labor year but also because the Day of Atonement fell on the 10th day of this month and the Festival of Booths began on the 15th. Truly this festival marked the start of a month for thankfulness to Jehovah.



Start of Agricultural Year. Whereas Abib (or Nisan) became the first month of the year in the sacred Jewish calendar following the Exodus from Egypt, Ethanim continued to be viewed as the first month in a secular or agricultural sense. With this month, almost all the harvesting had been completed, marking the conclusion of the agricultural year. The early rains that thereafter fell softened the ground for the plowing that would follow and that would denote the initiation of new agricultural operations. Jehovah referred to Ethanim as the turning point of the year when speaking of the festival of ingathering as being “at the outgoing of the year” and “at the turn of the year.” (Ex 23:16; 34:22) It is also notable that it was not in the month of Abib but in this month of Ethanim that the Jubilee year began.—Le 25:8-12.

The later name applied to the month, Tishri, means “Beginning of the Year,” and Tishri 1 is still observed by the Jews as their New Year’s Day or Rosh Hashanah (“Head of the Year”).



2Kings25:24-30- King Je·hoi′a·chin gets released from prison. 24 Ged·a·li′ah swore an oath to them and their men and said to them: “Do not be afraid of being servants to the Chal·de′ans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.” 25 And in the seventh month, Ish′ma·el son of Neth·a·ni′ah son of E·lish′a·ma, who was of the royal line, came with ten other men, and they struck down Ged·a·li′ah and he died, along with the Jews and the Chal·de′ans who were with him in Miz′pah. 26 After that all the people, from small to great, including the army chiefs, rose up and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chal·de′ans. 27 And in the 37th year of the exile of King Je·hoi′a·chin+ of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 27th day of the month, King E′vil-mer′o·dach of Babylon, in the year he became king, released King Je·hoi′a·chin of Judah from prison. 28 He spoke kindly with him and put his throne higher than the thrones of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 So Je·hoi′a·chin took off his prison garments, and he regularly ate before him all the days of his life. 30 A regular allowance of food was given him from the king, day after day, all the days of his life.

The first day of Nisan, or Abib, marked the start of the sacred year, and the first day of Tishri, or Ethanim, marked the beginning of the secular year.


Zerubbabel - Ezr 5:14, 15) At Jerusalem, the temple altar was erected in the seventh month (Ethanim, or Tishri, September-October), under the direction of Zerubbabel and High Priest Jeshua (Ezr 3:1, 2),


Moon - The seventh new moon of each year (corresponding to the first day of the month of Ethanim, or Tishri) was sabbatical, and the Law covenant decreed it to be a time of complete rest.


On December 22, 1989, the UN General Assembly designated the second Wednesday of October as the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. This event was to be observed annually during the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, 1990-1999. On December 20, 2001, the assembly decided to maintain the observance to promote a global culture of natural disaster reduction, including disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness. So, on October 1990 The International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction began. It is slated to be recognized on the 2nd Wednesday of each month of October. It is a United Nations observance. The date so far has been between October 8-14 each year. The United Nations’ (UN) International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction is annually observed on the second Wednesday of October to raise the profile of disaster risk reduction. It also encourages people and governments to participate in building more resilient communities and nations.



Sabbath Year - The Sabbath year evidently began with the trumpet blast on Ethanim (Tishri) 10, the Day of Atonement. ... However, some hold that, while the Jubilee year started with the Day of Atonement, the Sabbath year started with Tishri 1, so I believe that this may have happened in September and not in October.


The Flood of Noah's day
Genesis 7:11 "In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day all the springs of the vast watery deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And the rain poured down on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. 13 On that very day, Noah went into the ark along with his sons, Shem, Ham, and Ja′pheth, and his wife and the three wives of his sons. I believe that the 2nd month is Iyar(in Hebrew) or April-May which month had 29 days. So the Flood began on 17 Iyar 2370 BCE or 1656 years after Adam arrived on earth. I'm checking to see if anything with regards to the flood that happened in October.



World War 1 - World War I (WWI or WW1 or World War One), also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war centered in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. I'm checking to see what if anything happened with WW1 during the month of October.



The fall of Jerusalem - We know that the fall of Jerusalem was in 607 B.C.E. but I don't know what day and month the siege took place. In the July 2014 Watchtower magazine P 30 pp9-11 says that "In line with that prophecy, a world shaking event happened one night early in October 539B.C.E. While Babylon's king and his nobles were drinking wine from holy vessels captured from Jerusalem's temple and were praising their man-made gods, the armies of Media and Persia conquered Babylon.

My question is why now is JW.Org mentioning the month of October so often in their research instead of just stating the year?

Moses crossed over into the promised land 1943B.C.E. I wonder what month they crossed over into that promised land?

Israelites were in captivity for 430 years I wonder what month they were released from captivity. They were released in 1513 B.C.E.


Annual meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses - takes place on first Saturday of October each year. In 2012, 2018 the date was October 6.

October 2012 A self-guided tour outlining the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses opened at our world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. The exhibit highlights the struggles, dangers, and triumphs experienced by some who have sought to practice Christianity. Why was all this work done? When asked what benefit Jehovah’s Witnesses would gain from taking the tour, one member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses repeated the well-known saying: “To know where we are going, we have to know where we have to know from where we came.”

Chart of Great Tribulation and what happens afterwards



The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began in late October 1929 and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries


Remember this site on October is still under construction and will be updated as time permits.

Jewish Hebrew Calendar conversion

Notes: The "first month" of the Jewish calendar is the month of Nissan, in the spring, when Passover occurs. However, the Jewish New Year is in Tishri, the seventh month, and that is when the year number is increased. This concept of different starting points for a year is not as strange as it might seem at first glance. The American "new year" starts in January, but the new "school year" starts in September, and many businesses have "fiscal years" that start at various times of the year. Similarly, the Jewish calendar has different starting points for different purposes.

The names of the months of the Jewish calendar were adopted during the time of Ezra, after the return from the Babylonian exile. The names are actually Babylonian month names, brought back to Israel by the returning exiles. Note that most of the Bible refers to months by number, not by name.

The Jewish calendar has the following months:


Hebrew . . . . . . . . . Number .. Length ... Gregorian Calendar Equivalent
Nissan (in Hebrew) ....... 1 ..... 30 days .. March-April
Iyar (in Hebrew) ......... 2 ..... 29 days .. April-May
Sivan (in Hebrew)......... 3 ..... 30 days .. May-June
Tammuz (in Hebrew)........ 4 ... 29 days .. June-July
Av (in Hebrew)............ 5 ..... 30 days .. July-August
Elul (in Hebrew).......... 6 ..... 29 days .. August-September
Tishri (in Hebrew)........ 7 ..... 30 days .. September-October
• Sometimes spelled Tishrei. Following the Babylonian exile it was called Tishri, a name that does not appear in the Bible record but that is found in postexilic writings. Before this time, Tishri was called Ethanim. (For a little more information on this topic, see General Discussion on October in History above)
Cheshvan (in Hebrew)...... 8 ..... 29-30 days.October-November
Kislev (in Hebrew)........ 9 ..... 29-30 days.November-December
Tevet (in Hebrew)........ 10 ..... 29 days .. December-January
Shevat (in Hebrew)....... 11 ..... 30 days .. January-February
Adar I (in Hebrew)....... 12 ..... 30 days .. February-March (leap years only)
Adar (in Hebrew)
Adar II (in Hebrew)...... 12 ..... 29 days .. February-March (13 in leap years)
(called Adar Beit in leap years)

October 31

October 31st - Halloween or All Hallow's Eve, an ancient celebration combining the Christian festival of All Saints with Pagan autumn festivals. (see Holidays - Christian or Pagan)

1517 - Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg's palace church, denouncing the selling of papal indulgences and questioning various ecclesiastical practices. This marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

1864 - Nevada - 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.

1917 - In the Middle East, the British led by General Edmund Allenby begin an attack against Turkish defensive lines stretching between Gaza and Beersheba in southern Palestine. The initial attack on Beersheba surprises the Turks and they pull troops away from Gaza which the British attack secondly. The Turks then retreat northward toward Jerusalem with the Allies in pursuit. Aiding the Allies, are a group of Arab fighters led by T. E. Lawrence, an Arab speaking English archeologist, later known as Lawrence of Arabia. He is instrumental in encouraging Arab opposition to the Turks and in disrupting their railroad and communication system.

1926 - Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital. Twelve days before, Houdini had been talking to a group of students after a lecture in Montreal when he commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows. Suddenly, one of the students punched Houdini twice in the stomach. The magician hadn’t had time to prepare, and the blows ruptured his appendix. He fell ill on the train to Detroit, and, after performing one last time, was hospitalized. Doctors operated on him, but to no avail. The burst appendix poisoned his system, and on October 31 he died. In 1908, Houdini began performing more dangerous and dramatic escapes. In a favorite act, he was bound and then locked in an ironbound chest that was dropped into a water tank or thrown off a boat. In another, he was heavily bound and then suspended upside down in a glass-walled water tank. Other acts featured Houdini being hung from a skyscraper in a straitjacket, or bound and buried—without a coffin—under six feet of dirt. In his later years, Houdini campaigned against mediums, mind readers, fakirs, and others who claimed supernatural talents but depended on tricks. At the same time, he was deeply interested in spiritualism and made a pact with his wife and friends that the first to die was to try and communicate with the world of reality from the spirit world. Several of these friends died, but Houdini never received a sign from them. Then, on Halloween 1926, Houdini himself passed on at the age of 52. His wife waited for a communiqué from the spirit world but it never came; she declared the experiment a failure shortly before her death in 1943.

1940 - The Battle of Britain concluded. 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. "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," declared Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

1941 - Mount Rushmore National Memorial was completed after 14 years of work. The memorial contains 60-foot-tall sculptures of the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt - representing America's founding, political philosophy, preservation, and expansion and conservation.

1950 - Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association (NBA) game when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols in Rochester, New York.

1952 - The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb at the Elugelab Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall Islands.

1961 - The body of Joseph Stalin was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square and reburied within the Kremlin walls among the graves of lesser Soviet heroes. This occurred as part of Russia's de-Stalinization program under his successor Nikita Khrushchev. Stalin's name was also removed from public buildings, streets, and factories. Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd.

1968 - During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a halt of American bombing of North Vietnam.

1984 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by three Sikh members of her bodyguard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home.

Birthday - (1887-1975) - Chinese soldier and statesman Chiang Kai-shek was born in Chekiang. Educated at the Wampoa Military Academy, he led the KMT (nationalist) forces in the struggle against the Communist army led by Mao Zedong.

October 30

1270: The eighth and last Crusade is launched.

1697: France signs the Peace of Ryswick, ending the War of the Grand Alliance between France on one side and England, the Netherlands, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire on the other.

October 30, 1905 - To counter the spread of revolutionary movements in Russia, Czar Nicholas II took a step toward constitutional government by allowing for an elected parliament (Duma) with legislative powers and guaranteeing civil liberties.

1938 - The War of the Worlds radio broadcast panicked millions of Americans. Actor Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatized the story by H.G. Wells depicting a Martian invasion of New Jersey. Their script utilized simulated radio news bulletins which many listeners thought were real. Their script described the landing of an invasion force from Mars that would cause widespread destruction on Earth. Apparently this was intended as a Halloween joke. Even after disclaimers from the radio station spoke to the millions of listeners, most people affected did not hear this disclaimer and then panicked when they listened to the radio program. Some listeners even took measures in an attempt to protect themselves from imaginary aliens. Today there is a real war looming on the horizon, however people are failing to respond to its approach. This war is foretold, not in a science fiction novel, but in God's inspired word, the Bible. It is the war of Armageddon - God's war against this wicked system of things. Revelations 16:14-16

1943 - Moscow and Teheran Conferences
In a declaration signed in Moscow on 30 October 1943, the Governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and China called for an early establishment of an international organization to maintain peace and security. That goal was reaffirmed at the meeting of the leaders of the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom at Teheran on 1 December 1943.

1990 - For the first time since the Ice Age, Great Britain was connected with the European continent, via a new rail tunnel under the English Channel.

Birthday - John Adams (1735-1826) the 2nd U.S. President was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He served from March 4, 1797 to March 3, 1801. He had been George Washington's vice president, and was the father of John Quincy Adams, the 6th President. He died on July 4, 1826, the same day as Thomas Jefferson, on the 50th anniversary of adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Birthday - Emily Post (1872-1960) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She wrote influential books on etiquette and a syndicated newspaper column giving advice on manners in specific situations.

Birthday - Admiral William "Bull" Halsey (1882-1959) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was the American fleet commander during World War II in the Pacific and played a leading role in the defeat of the Japanese. In 1942, he launched the Doolittle Raid, the first air raid on Japan. From 1942-44, he coordinated successful attacks on the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. In 1944, he led the U.S. fleet to victory at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history.

October 29

October 29, 1618 - British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in London for treason on orders from King James I.

1814 - The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, launched in New York City. Things went downhill from here!

1858 - On this day in 1858, the first store opens in a small frontier town in Colorado Territory that a month later will take the name of Denver in a shameless ploy to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. The brainchild of a town promoter and real estate salesman from Kansas named William H. Larimer Jr., Denver and its first store were created to serve the miners working the placer gold deposits discove red a year before at the confluence of Cheery Creek and the South Platte River. By 1859, tens of thousands of gold seekers had flooded into the area, but by then the placer deposits were already playing out and most miners quickly departed for home or headed west into the mountains in search of richer lodes. As a result, by 1860, Larimer’s new town had almost failed before it had even really started. Although it was still centrally located for servicing the mining camps along the Rocky Mountain Front Range, Denver had neither the rail or water transportation routes needed to bring in goods cheaply. Even the tran scontinental Union Pacific railroad, which opened in 1869, didn’t stop at Denver initially. In 1870, Denver began to overcome its geographical isolation with the arrival of the Kansas Pacific Railroad from the East and the completion of the 105-mile Denver Pacific Railway joining Denver to the Union Pacific line at Cheyenne. Other lines began to connect Denver to the booming mining regions in the Rockies, and by the mid-1870s, the city was thriving as a railroad hub and center of the western mining industry. By 1890, Denver had a popu lation of more than 106,000, making it the 26th largest urban area in the nation and earning it the nickname, the “Queen City of the Plains.” However, the Silver Panic of 1893 brought the boom to an abrupt end, though it was partially revived a year later by the gold discoveries on Cripple Creek. Although the growing significance of farming and ranching helped moderate its ups and downs by decreasing the city’s dependency on mining, this cyclical pattern of economic boom and bust would continue to dominate Denver, and many other western cities, throughout much of the 20th century.

1901 - Leon Czolgosz is electrocuted for the assassination of US President William McKinley. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot McKinley on September 6 during a public reception at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, N.Y. Despite early hopes of recovery, McKinley died September 14, in Buffalo, NY.

1927 - Russian archaeologist Peter Kozloff apparently uncovers the tomb of Genghis Khan in the Gobi Desert, a claim still in dispute.

1929 - The stock market crashed as over 16 million shares were dumped amid tumbling prices. The Great Depression followed in America, lasting until the outbreak of World War II. The 1920s investment boom goes bust when a record number of shares are traded on Wall Street in October 1929 — 16.4 million on the 29th alone—evaporating $30 billion from the stock market's value. As overleveraged investors crash, consumer spending declines and a tariff reduces foreign markets for U.S. goods. Unemployment rises and the country sinks into the Great Depression. By 1933, some 9,000 banks fail, taking uninsured depositors with them. Today the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, begun in 1933, insures deposits up to $250,000. The Dow lost an additional 30 points, or 12 percent in this one day for a total loss of 24% of its total value. By mid-November $30 billion of the $80 billion worth of stocks listed in September will have been wiped out.

1945 - The first ball-point pen goes is sold by Gimbell's department store in New York for a price of $12.

1952 - French forces launch Operation Lorraine against Viet Minh supply bases in Indochina.

1964 - Thieves steal a jewel collection--including the world's largest sapphire, the 565-carat "Star of India," and the 100-carat DeLong ruby--from the Museum of Natural History in New York. The thieves were caught and most of the jewels recovered.

1969 - First computer-to-computer link; the link is accomplished through ARPANET, forerunner of the Internet.

1972 - Palestinian guerrillas kill an airport employee and hijack a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to Cuba. They force West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.

1983 - More than 500,000 people protest in The Hague, The Netherlands, against cruise missiles.

1998 - The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record up to that time, Hurricane Mitch, makes landfall in Honduras (in 2005 Hurricane Wilma surpassed it); nearly 11,000 people died and approximately the same number were missing.

Birthday - Nazi propaganda minister Paul Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was born in Rheydt, near Dusseldorf, Germany. Considered a master propagandist, he controlled all Nazi newspapers, radio and film production. He was a virulent anti-Semite who advocated the extermination of the Jews. Devoted to Hitler until the end, he died at Hitler's Berlin bunker in 1945 after poisoning his six children.

Birthday - 1815-1876 - SAMUEL MANAIAKALANI KAMAKAU born in Mokuleia, Oahu, Hawaii and died in Honolulu, Hawaii. He lived his life as a great Hawaiian historian and public service for the people of Hawaii.

October 28

October 28, 1636 - Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in America, was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was named after John Harvard, a Puritan who donated his library and half of his estate. Distinguished alumni include; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, and NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois.

October 28, 1846 - The Donner Party departed Illinois heading for California. The group totaled 90 persons, including immigrants, families and businessmen, led by George and Jacob Donner. Tragedy later struck as they became stranded in snow in the Sierras where famine and cannibalism took its toll. There were 48 survivors by the end of their journey in April of 1847.

October 28, 1886 - The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor. The statue was a gift from the people of France commemorating the French-American alliance during the American Revolutionary War. Designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the entire structure stands 300 feet (92.9 meters) tall. The pedestal contains the words: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

October 28, 1918 - The Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded, assembled from three provinces - Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia - which had been part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire.

October 28, 1918 - In the waning days of World War I, mutiny broke out in the German fleet at Kiel. Ships in port ran up the red flag of revolution. The uprising spread to Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck, resulting in a general strike in Berlin which brought the government of Kaiser Wilhelm to a halt.

October 28, 1919 - Prohibition began in the U.S. with the passage of the National Prohibition (Volstead) Act by Congress. Sales of drinks containing more than one half of one percent of alcohol became illegal. Called a "noble experiment" by Herbert Hoover, prohibition last nearly 14 years and became highly profitable for organized crime which manufactured and sold liquor in saloons called speakeasies.

October 28, 1922 - Fascist blackshirts began their "March on Rome" from Naples which resulted in the formation of a dictatorship under Benito Mussolini. October 28, 1949 - Helen Anderson became the first woman ambassador, appointed by President Harry Truman to be Ambassador to Denmark.

On October 28, 1929 "Black Monday", more investors facing margin calls decided to get out of the market, and the slide continued with a record loss in the Dow for the day of 38.33 points, or close to 13% of its total stock/asset value. The market would not return to the peak closing of September 3, 1929 until November 23, 1954. It was the first Monday after Black Thursday, which kicked off the stock market crash of 1929. On Black Monday, stocks fell 13%. That followed the 11% decline experienced a few days earlier on Black Thursday. The next day was Black Tuesday when the stock market lost the remaining gains it had made during the entire year. The sell-off was not enough to start the Great Depression of 1929. But it set the stage by shattering confidence in business investing. As people realized that banks had used their savings to invest on Wall Street, they rushed to take out their deposits. Banks closed over the weekend, and then only gave out 10 cents on the dollar. Many people who had never invested in the stock market also lost their life savings. Banks without deposits went bankrupt. Businesses couldn't get loans. People couldn't buy houses. Wall Street investors turned to gold and drove up gold prices. Since the dollar was tied to the gold standard, people turned in dollars for gold and consequently, depleted reserves. In response, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to protect the value of the dollar. This contractionary monetary policy turned a bad recession into the Great Depression.

October 28, 1958 - Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope, taking the title John XXIII. Best known for undertaking the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II).

October 28, 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the announcement by Soviet Russia's leader Nikita Khrushchev that his Soviet government was halting construction of missile bases in Cuba and would remove the offensive missiles. President Kennedy immediately accepted the offer then lifted the U.S. naval blockade of Cuba.

October 28, 1971 - The British House of Commons voted 356-244 in favor of joining the European Economic Community.


Birthday - Dr. Jonas Salk (1914-1995) was born in New York City. In 1952, he developed a vaccine for the dreaded childhood disease Polio (poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis). His vaccine reduced deaths from Polio in the U.S. by 95%.
Birthday - Microsoft founder Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, October 28, 1955. In 1975, he co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen, designing software for IBM computers. By 1980, Microsoft became the leading software company for IBM compatible computers. Gates became a billionaire by age 31 and remains one of the world's wealthiest individuals.

October 27

October 27, 1656 - William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, are executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death.

1787 - The first of 85 Federalist Papers appeared in print in a New York City newspaper. The essays argued for the adoption of the new U.S. Constitution. They were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.

1904 - The New York City subway began operating, running from City Hall to West 145th Street, the first underground and underwater rail system in the world. It was at 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city’s innovative new rapid transit system: the subway. At 7 p.m. that evening, the subway opened to the general public, and more than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride under Manhattan. IRT service expanded to the Bronx in 1905, to Brooklyn in 1908 and to Queens in 1915. Since 1968, the subway has been controlled by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA). The system now has 26 lines and 468 stations in operation; the longest line, the 8th Avenue “A” Express train, stretches more than 32 miles, from the northern tip of Manhattan to the far southeast corner of Queens. Every day, some 4.5 million passengers take the subway in New York. With the exception of the PATH train connecting New York with New Jersey and some parts of Chicago’s elevated train system, New York’s subway is the only rapid transit system in the world that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No matter how crowded or dirty, the subway is one New York City institution few New Yorkers—or tourists—could do without.

1978 - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

1994 - The U.S. Justice Department announces that the U.S. prison population has topped one million for the first time in American history. The figure—1,012,851 men and women were in state and federal prisons—did not even include local prisons, where an estimated 500,000 prisoners were held, usually for short periods. The recent increase, due to tougher sentencing laws, made the United States second only to Russia in the world for incarceration rates.




2019 - President of the United States orders the killing/execution of ISIS leader & chief terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in hopes of making the world a safer place to live.

Acknowledgments for the charts & reports for this data belong to:
This 2016 report was made possible by a generous grant from the Public Welfare Foundation and the contributions of individuals across the country who support justice reform. The infographic slideshows and the graph of correctional control were made possible by Gabe Isman of our Young Professionals Network. Bob Machuga and J. Andrew World helped with design issues, and Alison Walsh helped us gather research. Melissa Sickmund at the National Center for Juvenile Justice and Todd Minton at the Bureau of Justice Statistics expanded our knowledge of agencies’ datasets; and Alex Friedmann, Neelum Arya and Drew Kukorowski provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this report. Any errors or omissions, and final responsibility for all of the many value judgements required to produce a data visualization like this, however, are the sole responsibility of the authors.


Birthday - British navigator James Cook (1728-1779) was born in Yorkshire, England. He explored New Zealand, Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands.
Birthday - Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) the 26th U.S. President was born in New York City. He succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt served from September 14, 1901 to March 3, 1909. Best remembered for stating, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
Birthday - Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was born in Swansea, Wales. His works included; The World I Breathe, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, The Doctor and the Devil and the drama Under Milk Wood.

October 26

October 26, 1881 - The shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, occurred between the feuding Clanton and Earp families. Wyatt Earp, two of his brothers and "Doc" Holliday gunned down two Clantons and two others. After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral. On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge. Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

1825 - The Erie Canal opened as the first major man-made waterway in America, linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River, bypassing the British-controlled lower St. Lawrence. The canal cost over $7 million and took eight years to complete.

1917 - At Ypres, a second attempt is made but fails to capture the village of Passchendaele, with Canadian troops participating this time. Four days later, the Allies attack again and edge closer as the Germans slowly begin pulling out.

1951 - Winston Churchill became Britain's prime minister for a second time, following his Conservative Party's narrow victory in general elections. In his first term from 1940-45 he had guided Britain through its struggle against Nazi Germany.

1955 - Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed South Vietnam a republic and declared himself president.

2001 - On this day in 2001, President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act, as it is officially known, is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” Bush hoped the bipartisan legislation would empower law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent future terrorist attacks on American soil. The law was intended, in Bush’s words, to “enhance the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them.” The act increased intelligence agencies’ ability to share information and lifted restrictions on communications surveillance. Law enforcement officials were given broader mandates to fight financial counterfeiting, smuggling and money laundering schemes that funded terrorists. The Patriot Act’s expanded definition of terrorism also gave the FBI increased powers to access personal information such as medical and financial records. The Patriot Act superseded all state laws. While Congress voted in favor of the bill, and some in America felt the bill actually did not go far enough to combat terrorism, the law faced a torrent of criticism. Civil rights activists worried that the Patriot Act would curtail domestic civil liberties and would give the executive branch too much power to investigate Americans under a veil of secrecy—a fear not felt since the protest era of the 1960s and 1970s when the FBI bugged and infiltrated anti-war and civil rights groups. The Patriot Act has faced ongoing legal challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union, and in recent years, some members of Congress who had originally supported the bill have come to mistrust the Bush administration’s interpretation of the law. Nevertheless, a Republican-controlled Congress passed and Bush signed a renewal of the controversial Patriot Act in March 2006. Bush exacerbated the controversy over the renewal of the act by issuing a so-called “signing statement”—an executive exemption from enforcing or abiding by certain clauses within the law—immediately afterward. So far, the Patriot act has not worked to stop terrorism.

Birthday -1947 - Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois, October 26, 1947. She was First Lady from 1993-2001 during the presidency of her husband Bill Clinton. In 2000, she became the only First Lady ever elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as a Democrat from New York. She was re-elected in 2006 and then began a presidential campaign, hoping to become America's first female president. She lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama who went on to win the general election and appointed her as U.S. Secretary of State in 2008.

Birthday - 1946 - Wheel of Fortune’s Pat Sajak born in Chicago.

October 25

October 25, 1774 - On this day the First Continental Congress sends a respectful petition to King George III to inform his majesty that if it had not been for the acts of oppression forced upon the colonies by the British Parliament, the American people would be standing behind British rule. The king did not respond to the petition to Congress’ satisfaction and eight months later on July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress adopted a resolution entitled “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.” Written by John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, the resolution laid out the reasons for taking up arms and starting a violent revolution against British rule of the colonies.

1854 - During the Crimean War, the Charge of the Light Brigade occurred as Lord Cardigan led the British cavalry against the Russians at Balaclava. Of 673 British cavalrymen taking part in the charge, 272 were killed. The Charge was later immortalized in the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

1955 - Austria reassumed its sovereignty with the departure of the last Allied forces. The country had been occupied by the Nazis from 1938-45. After World War II, it was divided into four occupation zones by the U.S., Russia, Britain and France.

1971 - The U.N. seats the People’s Republic of China and expels Taiwan. In a dramatic reversal of its long-standing commitment to the Nationalist Chinese government of Taiwan, and a policy of non-recognition of the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC), America’s U.N. representatives vote to seat the PRC as a permanent member. Over American objections, Taiwan was expelled. The reasons for the apparently drastic change in U.S. policy were not hard to discern. The United States had come to value closer relations with the PRC more than its historical commitment to Taiwan. U.S. interest in having the PRC’s help in resolving the sticky Vietnam situation; the goal of using U.S. influence with the PRC as diplomatic leverage against the Soviets; and the desire for lucrative economic relations with the PRC, were all factors in the U.S. decision. Relations with the PRC thereupon soared, highlighted by President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Not surprisingly, diplomatic relations with Taiwan noticeably cooled, though the United States still publicly avowed that it would defend Taiwan if it were attacked.

1983 - The Caribbean island of Grenada was invaded by the U.S. to restore "order and democracy." Over 2,000 Marines and Army Rangers seized control after a political coup the previous week had made the island a "Soviet-Cuban colony," according to President Ronald Reagan.

Birthday - Artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Malaga, Spain. He was an experimental painter and also became a fine sculptor, engraver and ceramist.
1948, wrestling legend Don Gable is born in the tiny town of Waterloo, Iowa.

October 24

October 24, 1648 - The Treaty of Westphalia is signed, ending the Thirty Years War and radically shifting the balance of power in Europe. The Thirty Years War, a series of wars fought by European nations for various reasons, ignited in 1618 over an attempt by the king of Bohemia (the future Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II) to impose Catholicism throughout his domains. Protestant nobles rebelled, and by the 1630s most of continental Europe was at war. As a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Netherlands gained independence from Spain, Sweden gained control of the Baltic and France was acknowledged as the preeminent Western power. The power of the Holy Roman Emperor was broken and the German states were again able to determine the religion of their lands. The principle of state sovereignty emerged as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia and serves as the basis for the modern system of nation-states.

1861 - The first transcontinental telegram in America was sent from San Francisco to Washington, addressed to President Abraham Lincoln from the Chief Justice of California.

1901 - On this day in 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. After her husband died in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the U. S. before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898. In July 1901, while reading an article about the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the border of upstate New York and Canada. Strapped for cash and seeking fame, Taylor came up with the perfect attention-getting stunt: She would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Taylor was not the first person to attempt the plunge over the famous falls. In October 1829, Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, survived jumping down the 175-foot Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara River, on the Canadian side of the border. More than 70 years later, Taylor chose to take the ride on her birthday, October 24. (She claimed she was in her 40s, but genealogical records later showed she was 63.) With the help of two assistants, Taylor strapped herself into a leather harness inside an old wooden pickle barrel five feet high and three feet in diameter. With cushions lining the barrel to break her fall, Taylor was towed by a small boat into the middle of the fast-flowing Niagara River and cut loose. Knocked violently from side to side by the rapids and then propelled over the edge of Horseshoe Falls, Taylor reached the shore alive, if a bit battered, around 20 minutes after her journey began. After a brief flurry of photo-ops and speaking engagements, Taylor’s fame cooled, and she was unable to make the fortune for which she had hoped. She did, however, inspire a number of copy-cat daredevils. Between 1901 and 1995, 15 people went over the falls; 10 of them survived. Among those who died were Jesse Sharp, who took the plunge in a kayak in 1990, and Robert Overcracker, who used a jet ski in 1995. No matter the method, going over Niagara Falls is illegal, and survivors face charges and stiff fines on either side of the border.

1917 - In northern Italy, a rout of the Italian Army begins as 35 German and Austrian divisions cross the Isonzo River into Italy at Caporetto and then rapidly push 41 Italian divisions 60 miles southward. By now, the Italians have been worn down from years of costly but inconclusive battles along the Isonzo and in the Trentino, amid a perceived lack of Allied support. Nearly 300,000 Italians surrender as the Austro-Germans advance, while some 400,000 desert. The Austro-Germans halt at the Piave River north of Venice only due to supply lines which have become stretched to the limit.

1921 - In the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne, an American officer selects the body of the first “Unknown Soldier” to be honored among the approximately 77,000 United States servicemen killed on the Western Front during World War I.

1922 - The Irish Parliament voted to adopt a constitution for an Irish Free State, which formally came into existence in December.

1929 - "Black Thursday" occurred in the New York Stock Exchange as nearly 13 million shares were sold in panic selling. Five days later "Black Tuesday" saw 16 million shares sold. The huge volume meant that the report of prices on the ticker tape in brokerage offices around the nation was hours late, so investors had no idea what most stocks were actually trading for at that moment, increasing panic. Panic ensued.

1931 - Chicago gangster "Scarface" Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in jail for Federal income tax evasion. In 1934, he was transferred to Alcatraz prison near San Francisco. He was paroled in 1939, suffering from syphilis. He retired to his mansion in Miami Beach where he died in 1947.

1945 - The United Nations was founded. "United Nations Day" officially designated by the General Assembly. Its Charter is ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and the majority of other signatories, and comes into force replacing the League of Nations. Despite the failure of the League of Nations in arbitrating the conflicts that led up to World War II, the Allies as early as 1941 proposed establishing a new international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. The idea of the United Nations began to be articulated in August 1941, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which proposed a set of principles for international collaboration in maintaining peace and security. Later that year, Roosevelt coined “United Nations” to describe the nations allied against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan. The term was first officially used on January 1, 1942, when representatives of 26 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and signed the Declaration by the United Nations, which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and presented the united war aims of the Allies. In October 1943, the major Allied powers–Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, (which is the predecessor to Russia who has been determined to be the Biblical "King of the North" and China—met in Moscow and issued the Moscow Declaration, which officially stated the need for an international organization to replace the League of Nations. That goal was reaffirmed at the Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, and in August 1944 Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. During seven weeks, the delegates sketched out the form of the world body but often disagreed over issues of membership and voting. Compromise was reached by the “Big Three”—the United States, Britain, and the USSR—at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and all countries that had adhered to the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations were invited to the United Nations founding conference. On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco with 50 nations represented. Three months later, during which time Germany had surrendered, the final Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted and signed by the delegates. The Charter called for the U.N. to maintain international peace and security, 1Thessalonians 5:3 promote social progress and better standards of life, strengthen international law, and promote the expansion of human rights. On October 24, 1945, the U.N. Charter came into force upon its ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first U.N. General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, opened in London on January 10, 1946. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone was laid for the present United Nations headquarters, located in New York City. Since 1945, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded five times to the United Nations and its organizations and five times to individual U.N. officials.

1949 - Cornerstone laid for present UN Headquarters in New York City.

1951 - President Harry Truman finally proclaims that the nation’s war with Germany, begun in 1941, is officially over. Fighting had ended in the spring of 1945.

1966 - In Manila, President Johnson meets with other Allied leaders and they pledge to withdraw troops from Vietnam within six months if North Vietnam “withdraws its forces to the North and ceases infiltration of South Vietnam.” A communiqué signed by the seven participants (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States) included a four-point “Declaration of Peace” that stressed the need for a “peaceful settlement of the war in Vietnam and for future peace and progress” in the rest of Asia and the Pacific. After the conference, Johnson flew to South Vietnam for a surprise two-and-a-half-hour visit with U.S. troops at Cam Ranh Bay.

1980 - Communist authorities in Poland granted recognition to the trade union "Solidarity." It was subsequently outlawed in 1981 after the government imposed martial law. In 1989, it was re-legalized.

1994 - For the first time in 25 years, British troops were absent from the streets of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, following cease-fires by Irish Republican Army (IRA) and pro-British forces.

October 24, ???? (unknown what year it began) Today is National Bologna Day!

October 23

October 23, 4004B.C.E. (BCE= Before our common Era) - The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from what is claimed to be a literal reading of the Bible by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh (Church of Ireland). The chronology is sometimes associated with young Earth creationism, which holds that the universe was created only a few millennia ago by God as they believe is described in the first two chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis. Ussher deduced that the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE, in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox. Lightfoot similarly deduced that Creation began at nightfall near the autumnal equinox, but in the year 3929 BCE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

October 23, 1942 - British General Bernard Montgomery launched a major offensive against German forces under Erwin Rommel at El Alamein, Egypt.

October 23, 1956 - A Hungarian uprising against Communist rule began with students and workers demonstrating in Budapest. Soviet Russians responded by sending in tanks and put down the revolt after several days of bitter fighting.

October 23, 1983 - Terrorists drove a truck loaded with TNT into the U.S. and French headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, exploding it and killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers.

October 23, 1989 - Hungary declared itself a republic 33 years after Soviet Russian troops crushed a popular revolt against Communist rule.

October 23, 1990 - Ukrainian Prime Minister Vitaly Masol resigned after mass protests by students, becoming the first Soviet official of that rank to quit under public pressure.

October 22

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2658Kv2a7g 1:40min

1864 - On this day in 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood pulls his battered army into Guntersville, Alabama, but finds the Tennessee River difficult to cross. Plotting another attack against the Yankees, he continues traveling westward with his defeated army. Hood’s Army of Tennessee had been having a difficult time in the previous months. Hood became commander in July 1864 as the army was pinned inside of Atlanta by Union General William T. Sherman. Hood made a series of desperate attacks to drive the Yankees away, but failed and nearly destroyed his force. After holding Sherman off for a month, Hood was forced to evacuate Atlanta to the south. After Union troops captured the city, Hood moved his force west and attacked Sherman’s supply line, which ran from Chattanooga, Tennessee, 100 miles northwest of Atlanta. On October 5, Union troops held off the Confederates at Allatoona, Georgia. Over the next two weeks, Hood managed to capture parts of Sherman’s supply line and forced the Union general to move back toward Chattanooga to take on Hood. The Rebel leader hoped to draw Sherman into battle, but his own generals were unanimously opposed to such a move. A shocked Hood consented to their opinion, and headed into Alabama before Sherman arrived. Hood had no intention of retreating for long. Although his army was demoralized after Atlanta, he still hoped to draw Sherman from Georgia. He planned an invasion of Union-held Tennessee, where he wanted to recapture Chattanooga and Nashville. But now Hood, usually confident and determined, began to show signs of confusion and timidity. On October 22, Hood’s army marched from Gadsden to Guntersville to cross the mighty Tennessee River. However, Hood forgot to retrieve his army’s pontoon bridge, which lay across the Coosa River in eastern Alabama. Hood’s superior officer, General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, sent the bridge to Guntersville but arrived to find that the army was gone. Hood had continued west past Decatur, Alabama, before finally crossing the Tennessee at Courtland. The move took the Rebels more than 50 miles out of their way and made a surprise attack on the state of Tennessee unlikely. When Hood did move into Tennessee, Sherman’s force was ready and waiting. In November and December, Hood nearly destroyed the remnants of his army at the battles of Franklin and Nashville.

1913 - A coal mine explosion in Dawson, New Mexico, kills more than 250 workers on this day in 1913. A heroic rescue effort saved 23 others, but also cost two more people their lives. The coal mine, where 284 workers were on duty on October 22, was owned by Phelps, Dodge and Company. At exactly 3 p.m., a tremendous explosion ripped through the Stag Canyon Fuel Company’s number-two mine. The entire town could feel a jolt from the explosion and many immediately rushed to the scene. The cause of the explosion was typical of many early coal-mine disasters—a pocket of methane gas had been ignited by a miner’s lamp. The explosion blocked the mouth of the mine shaft with rocks, timber and other debris so effectively that it took rescuers eight hours to move 100 feet into the shaft. The rescue effort was further complicated when the fans that were bringing fresh air down the shaft broke and took hours to repair. Still, the emergency crews worked feverishly for two days, digging through the coal and debris and finding scores of bodies. Two rescuers died from gas inhalation during the operation. Finally, the rescue team found a group of 23 miners who had managed to survive. Many had broken bones and some suffered from illnesses related to gas exposure, but they were pulled out alive before a cheering crowd. Two hundred and sixty-one workers were not so fortunate. Thousands of early miners died around the world in similar disasters before battery-powered lamps greatly reduced the number of methane-gas explosions in mines. A coal mine explosion in Dawson, New Mexico, kills more than 250 workers on this day in 1913. A heroic rescue effort saved 23 others, but also cost two more people their lives. The coal mine, where 284 workers were on duty on October 22, was owned by Phelps, Dodge and Company. At exactly 3 p.m., a tremendous explosion ripped through the Stag Canyon Fuel Company’s number-two mine. The entire town could feel a jolt from the explosion and many immediately rushed to the scene. The cause of the explosion was typical of many early coal-mine disasters—a pocket of methane gas had been ignited by a miner’s lamp. The explosion blocked the mouth of the mine shaft with rocks, timber and other debris so effectively that it took rescuers eight hours to move 100 feet into the shaft. The rescue effort was further complicated when the fans that were bringing fresh air down the shaft broke and took hours to repair. Still, the emergency crews worked feverishly for two days, digging through the coal and debris and finding scores of bodies. Two rescuers died from gas inhalation during the operation. Finally, the rescue team found a group of 23 miners who had managed to survive. Many had broken bones and some suffered from illnesses related to gas exposure, but they were pulled out alive before a cheering crowd. Two hundred and sixty-one workers were not so fortunate. Thousands of early miners died around the world in similar disasters before battery-powered lamps greatly reduced the number of methane-gas explosions in mines.

1934 - Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is shot by FBI agents in a cornfield in East Liverpool, Ohio. Floyd, who had been a hotly pursued fugitive for four years, used his last breath to deny his involvement in the infamous Kansas City Massacre, in which four officers were shot to death at a train station. He died shortly thereafter. Charles Floyd grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. When it became impossible to operate a small farm in the drought conditions of the late 1920s, Floyd tried his hand at bank robbery. He soon found himself in a Missouri prison for robbing a St. Louis payroll delivery. After being paroled in 1929, he learned that Jim Mills had shot his father to death. Since Mills, who had been acquitted of the charges, was never heard from or seen again, Floyd was believed to have killed him. Moving on to Kansas City, Floyd got mixed up with the city’s burgeoning criminal community. A local prostitute gave Floyd the nickname “Pretty Boy,” which he hated. Along with a couple of friends he had met in prison, he robbed several banks in Missouri and Ohio, but was eventually caught in Ohio and sentenced to 12-15 years. On the way to prison, Floyd kicked out a window and jumped from the speeding train. He made it to Toledo, where he hooked up with Bill “The Killer” Miller. The two went on a crime spree across several states until Miller was killed in a spectacular firefight in Bowling Green, Ohio, in 1931. Once he was back in Kansas City, Floyd killed a federal agent during a raid and became a nationally known criminal figure. This time he escaped to the backwoods of Oklahoma. The locals there, reeling from the Depression, were not about to turn in an Oklahoma native for robbing banks. Floyd became a Robin Hood-type figure, staying one step ahead of the law. Even the Joads, characters in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, spoke well of Floyd. However, not everyone was so enamored with “Pretty Boy.” Oklahoma’s governor put out a $6,000 bounty on his head. On June 17, 1933, when law enforcement officials were ambushed by a machine-gun attack in a Kansas City train station while transporting criminal Frank Nash to prison, Floyd’s notoriety grew even more. Although it was not clear whether or not Floyd was responsible, both the FBI and the nation’s press pegged the crime on him nevertheless. Subsequently, pressure was stepped up to capture the illustrious fugitive, and the FBI finally got their man this day on October 22, 1934.

October 22, 1962 - In a televised speech of extraordinary gravity, President John F. Kennedy announces that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba. These missile sites—under construction but nearing completion—housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C. Kennedy announced that he was ordering a naval “quarantine” of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from transporting any more offensive weapons to the island and explained that the United States would not tolerate the existence of the missile sites currently in place. The president made it clear that America would not stop short of military action to end what he called a “clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace.” October 22, 1979 - The exiled Shah of Iran arrived in the United States for medical treatment. A few weeks later, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. They demanded the return of the Shah for trial. The U.S. refused. The Shah died of cancer in July of 1980. The hostages were freed in January of 1981. What is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis actually began on October 15, 1962—the day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. The next day, President Kennedy secretly convened an emergency meeting of his senior military, political, and diplomatic advisers to discuss the ominous development. The group became known as ExCom, short for Executive Committee. After rejecting a surgical air strike against the missile sites, ExCom decided on a naval quarantine and a demand that the bases be dismantled and missiles removed. On the night of October 22, Kennedy went on national television to announce his decision. During the next six days, the crisis escalated to a breaking point as the world tottered on the brink of nuclear war between the two superpowers. On October 23, the quarantine of Cuba began, but Kennedy decided to give Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev more time to consider the U.S. action by pulling the quarantine line back 500 miles. By October 24, Soviet ships enroute to Cuba capable of carrying military cargoes appeared to have slowed down, altered, or reversed their course as they approached the quarantine, with the exception of one ship—the tanker Bucharest. At the request of more than 40 nonaligned nations, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant sent private appeals to Kennedy and Khrushchev, urging that their governments “refrain from any action that may aggravate the situation and bring with it the risk of war.” At the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. military forces went to DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever reached in the postwar era, as military commanders prepared for full-scale war with the Soviet Union. On October 25, the aircraft carrier USS Essex and the destroyer USS Gearing attempted to intercept the Soviet tanker Bucharest as it crossed over the U.S. quarantine of Cuba. The Soviet ship failed to cooperate, but the U.S. Navy restrained itself from forcibly seizing the ship, deeming it unlikely that the tanker was carrying offensive weapons. On October 26, Kennedy learned that work on the missile bases was proceeding without interruption, and ExCom considered authorizing a U.S. invasion of Cuba. The same day, the Soviets transmitted a proposal for ending the crisis: The missile bases would be removed in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. The next day, however, Khrushchev upped the ante by publicly calling for the dismantling of U.S. missile bases in Turkey under pressure from Soviet military commanders. While Kennedy and his crisis advisers debated this dangerous turn in negotiations, a U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba, and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was killed. To the dismay of the Pentagon, Kennedy forbid a military retaliation unless any more surveillance planes were fired upon over Cuba. To defuse the worsening crisis, Kennedy and his advisers agreed to dismantle the U.S. missile sites in Turkey but at a later date, in order to prevent the protest of Turkey, a key NATO member. On October 28, Khrushchev announced his government’s intent to dismantle and remove all offensive Soviet weapons in Cuba. With the airing of the public message on Radio Moscow, the USSR confirmed its willingness to proceed with the solution secretly proposed by the Americans the day before. In the afternoon, Soviet technicians began dismantling the missile sites, and the world stepped back from the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was effectively over. In November, Kennedy called off the blockade, and by the end of the year all the offensive missiles had left Cuba. Soon after, the United States quietly removed its missiles from Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis seemed at the time a clear victory for the United States, but Cuba emerged from the episode with a much greater sense of security. The removal of antiquated Jupiter missiles from Turkey had no detrimental effect on U.S. nuclear strategy, but the Cuban Missile Crisis convinced a humiliated USSR to commence a massive nuclear buildup. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union reached nuclear parity with the United States and built intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking any city in the United States. A succession of U.S. administrations honored Kennedy’s pledge not to invade Cuba, and relations with the communist island nation situated just 80 miles from Florida remained a thorn in the side of U.S. foreign policy for more than 50 years. In 2015, officials from both nations announced the formal normalization of relations between the U.S and Cuba, which included the easing of travel restrictions and the opening of embassies and diplomatic missions in both countries.

1972 - President Thieu turns down peace proposal - In Saigon, Henry Kissinger meets with South Vietnamese President Thieu to secure his approval of a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out at the secret peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The proposal presumed a postwar role for the Viet Cong and Thieu rejected the proposed accord point for point and accused the United States of conspiring with China and the Soviet Union to undermine his regime. Kissinger, who had tentatively agreed to initial the draft in Hanoi at the end of the month, cabled President Nixon that Thieu’s terms “verge on insanity” and flew home. Meanwhile, in the countryside, with a future cease-fire under discussion, both sides in the conflict ordered their forces to seize as much territory as possible and the fighting continued. The Communists hit Bien Hoa airbase with rockets and South Vietnamese commanders in the field reported that the peace talks had no effect on military action. To support the South Vietnamese forces, U.S. B-52 bombers continued to strike Communist positions in an arc north of Saigon, while other U.S. planes flew 220 missions over North Vietnam.

2012 - Cyclist Lance Armstrong is stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

Birthday - (1811-1886) Hungarian composer Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, Hungary. He was a brilliant pianist best known for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Liebestraum No. 3, and his Faust and Dante symphonies.

Birthday - 1936 - Bobby Seale was born in Liberty, Texas He is best known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton.

October 21

October 21, 1805 - The Battle of Trafalgar took place between the British Royal Navy and the combined French and Spanish fleets. The victorious British ended the threat of Napoleon's invasion of England. British naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson was mortally wounded aboard his ship Victory.

October 21, 1879 - Thomas Edison successfully tested an electric incandescent lamp with a carbonized filament at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, keeping it lit for over 13 hours.

October 21, 1915 - The first transatlantic radio voice message was made by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company from Virginia to Paris.

1941 -

October 21, 1944 - During World War II in Europe, American troops captured Aachen in western Germany after a week of hard fighting. It was the first large German city taken by the Allies.

October 21, 1967 - Thousands of anti-war protesters stormed the Pentagon during a rally against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. About 250 were arrested. No shots were fired, but demonstrators were struck with nightsticks and rifle butts.

Birthday - Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) was born in Cheraw, South Carolina (as John Birks Gillespie). He was a trumpet player, composer, band leader and one of the founding fathers of modern jazz, known for his trademark puffed cheeks and bent trumpet.
Birthday - Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born on this day in 1772 in the small town of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire.

October 20

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zgOaBUifW4 1:56min

October 20, 1818 - The U.S. and Britain agreed to set the U.S.- Canadian border at the 49th parallel. October 20, 1935 - Mao Zedong's 6,000 mile "Long March" ended as his Communist forces arrived at Yanan, in northwest China, almost a year after fleeing Chiang Kai-shek's armies in the south.

October 20, 1944 - During World War II in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur set foot on Philippine soil for the first time since his escape in 1942, fulfilling his promise, "I shall return."

October 20, 1968 - Jacqueline Kennedy married multi-millionaire Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis, ending nearly five years of widowhood following the assassination of her first husband, President John F. Kennedy.

October 20, 1973 - The 'Saturday Night Massacre' occurred during the Watergate scandal as President Richard M. Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned. A firestorm of political protest erupted over the firings leading to widespread demands for Nixon's impeachment.

1994 - On this day in 1994, Burt Lancaster, a former circus performer who rose to fame as a Hollywood leading man with some 70 movies to his credit, including From Here to Eternity and Atlantic City, in a career that spanned more than four decades, dies of a heart attack at the age of 80 in Century City, California. Lancaster was born on November 2, 1913, in New York City and raised in East Harlem. After a stint at New York University, which he attended on an athletic scholarship, he quit to join the circus, where he worked as an acrobat. An injury forced Lancaster to give up the circus in 1939, and he worked a series of jobs until he was drafted into the Army in 1942. Three years later, while on leave, Lancaster’s acting career was launched after he went to visit the woman who would become his second wife at the theatrical office where she was employed and was asked by a producer’s assistant to audition for a Broadway play. He got the part, as an Army sergeant, and soon got noticed by Hollywood. In 1946, Lancaster made his silver-screen debut opposite Ava Gardner in The Killers, based on an Ernest Hemingway short story. Lancaster stars as The Swede, a former boxer who’s tangled up with the mob and waiting to be murdered by hit men. He went on to star in the 1951 biopic Jim Thorpe: All-American, about the Native American Olympian, and 1952’s The Crimson Pirate, in which he put his acrobatic skills to use as the swashbuckling title character. In 1953, he co-starred with Deborah Kerr and Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity, a World War II film set in Hawaii just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film, which contained the now-iconic scene in which Lancaster and Kerr are locked in a beachside embrace as waves roll over them, earned Lancaster his first Best Actor Oscar nomination. Among Lancaster’s other movie credits during the 1950s were Apache (1954), in which he plays a Native American warrior; Sweet Smell of Success (1957), in which he plays a ruthless gossip columnist; and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), in which he portrays Wyatt Earp to Kirk Douglas’s Doc Holliday. During the 1960s and 1970s, Lancaster appeared in movies such as 1960’s Elmer Gantry, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a con man turned preacher; 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg, about the World War II Nazi war-crime trials; 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz, which was based on the true story of a convicted murderer who becomes a bird expert while behind bars and garnered Lancaster another Best Actor Oscar nomination; Italian director Luchino Visconti’s 1963 historical drama The Leopard, in which Lancaster plays an aging aristocrat; 1968’s The Swimmer, based on a John Cheever story; the 1970 disaster movie Airport; and 1979’s Zulu Dawn, with Peter O’Toole and Bob Hoskins. In 1980, Lancaster co-starred in director Louis Malle’s Atlantic City and his performance as an aging gangster earned him his fourth Best Actor Academy Award nomination. He was also featured in Local Hero (1983), in which he plays an eccentric oil company owner; and 1989’s Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner. Lancaster formed a production company with his agent, Harold Hecht, in the 1950s, becoming one of the first actors in Hollywood to do so. Among his producing credits were 1955’s Marty, which won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Ernest Borgnine).

Birthday - British architect Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was born in Wiltshire, in southwestern England. Considered one of the greatest minds of his time, he designed St. Paul's Cathedral and 52 churches for the City of London. His secular buildings included the "new" wing of Hampton Court near London and Greenwich Hospital, now the Royal Naval College.

October 19

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT6cP5cfeYk 1:17min


202 BC Battle of Zama: Hannibal Barca and the Carthaginian army are defeated by Roman legions under Scipio Africanus, ending 2nd Punic War

439 The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa

615 St Deusdedit I begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1216 King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry

1298 Rindfleisch-140 Jews of Heilbron Germany are murdered

1453 French retake Bordeaux following the Battle of Castillon

1466 The Thirteen Years' War ends with the Second Peace of Thorn, Germany

1781 - As their band played The World Turned Upside Down, the British Army marched out in formation and surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown. More than 7,000 British and Hessian troops, led by British General Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to General George Washington. The war between Britain and its American colonies was effectively ended. The final peace treaty was signed in Paris on September 3, 1783.

1789 - New York statesman John Jay, a former president of the Continental Congress, is sworn in as the first chief justice of the United States, October 19, 1789. Jay and the Supreme Court's five other justices must "ride circuit"—travel to the lower district courts around the country—to hear cases. Their 1793 decision in Chisholm v. Georgia affirming federal judiciary authority over the states proves so unpopular, Congress enacts the 11th Amendment to overrule it.

October 19, 1914 - On this day near the Belgian city of Ypres, Allied and German forces begin the first of what would be three battles to control the city and its advantageous positions on the north coast of Belgium during the First World War. After the German advance through Belgium and eastern France was curtailed by a decisive Allied victory in the Battle of the Marne in late September 1914, the so-called “Race to the Sea” began, as each army attempted to outflank the other on their way northwards, hastily constructing trench fortifications as they went. The race ended in mid-October at Ypres, the ancient Flemish city with its fortifications guarding the ports of the English Channel and access to the North Sea beyond. After the Germans captured the Belgian city of Antwerp early in October, Antwerp’s remaining Belgian forces along with troops of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, withdrew to Ypres, arriving at the city between October 8 and 19 to reinforce the Belgian and French defenses there. Meanwhile, the Germans prepared to launch the first phase of an offensive aimed at breaking the Allied lines and capturing Ypres and other channel ports, thus controlling the outlets to the North Sea. On October 19, a protracted period of fierce combat began, as the Germans opened their Flanders offensive and the Allies steadfastly resisted, while seeking their own chances to go on the attack wherever possible. Fighting continued, with heavy losses on both sides, until November 22, when the arrival of winter weather forced the battle to a halt. The area between the positions established by both sides during this period—from Ypres on the British side to Menin and Roulers on the German side—became known as the Ypres Salient, a region that over the course of the next several years would see some of the war’s bitterest and most brutal struggles.

1943 - On this day in 1943, local Chinese and native Suluks rise up against the Japanese occupation of North Borneo. The revolt, staged in the capital, Jesselton, resulted in the deaths of 40 Japanese soldiers. The Japanese had begun scooping up islands in the Dutch East Indies in late 1941. Kuching, on the northern coast of Borneo, was taken in December; January of ’42 saw the fall of Brunei Bay and Jesselton, also in North Borneo. The British and Dutch forces on the islands were dealt swift and severe blows. Attempts by the Allies to hold on to other islands in the region—Malaya, Sumatra, and Java—began shortly thereafter, with British General Archibald Wavell commanding a unified force of British, Dutch, and Australian soldiers. It was a disastrous failure. The treatment of Allied and civilian prisoners in the Japanese-controlled islands was horrendous, with hundreds dying of disease and starvation. The rebellion of Chinese settlers and native Suluks in the Borneo capital of Jesselton, although delivering a blow to the Japanese to the tune of 40 dead occupying soldiers, was dealt with quickly and brutally. The Japanese destroyed dozens of Suluk villages, rounded up and tortured thousands of civilians, and executed almost 200 without trial. In one extreme example of cruelty, several dozen Suluk women and children had their hands tied behind them and were hanged from their wrists from a pillar of a mosque. They were then shot down by machine-gun fire. North Borneo would not be liberated until 1945, mostly the work of Australian forces. The next year, it would be made a colony of Britain. That region of Borneo controlled by the Dutch was given sovereignty in 1949 after a rebellion by Indonesian forces.

1960 - The U.S. embargo of Cuba began as the State Department prohibited shipment of all goods except medicine and food.

1972 - Kissinger discusses draft Peace Treaty with President Thieu - Henry Kissinger and U.S. officials hold meetings in Saigon with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to discuss the proposed peace treaty drafted by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator in Paris. Thieu remained adamant in his opposition to the draft treaty provisions that permitted North Vietnamese troops to remain in place in the South. Kissinger tried to convince Thieu to agree to the provisions anyway, but Thieu still balked. This would be a major stumbling block in the continuing negotiations. In an attempt to further the peace process, President Nixon announced a halt in bombing of North Vietnam above the 20th parallel. He also sent a message to North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong confirming that the peace agreement was complete and pledging that it would be signed by the two foreign ministers on October 31. However, Thieu’s continued recalcitrance caused so much friction at the negotiating table that the North Vietnamese walked out. They returned only after Nixon ordered the resumption of the Linebacker II bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The peace treaty was eventually signed in January 1973 (after the United States threatened to sign it alone with the North Vietnamese if Thieu refused to participate) and the cease-fire went into effect at midnight on January 27, 1973. Under the terms of the treaty, all U.S. military forces departed two months later. As Thieu feared, the peace treaty left 160,000 troops in the South and the fighting in South Vietnam resumed after only a brief pause. As U.S. military aid, which had been promised by President Nixon, slowed and then ceased altogether, the South Vietnamese were left fighting for their very lives. They held out for two years, but succumbed to the North Vietnamese in 1975, when Saigon fell in just 55 days.

1977 - Concord makes its historic landing in New York city

1987 - "Black Monday" occurred on Wall Street as stocks plunged a record 508 points or 22.6 per cent, the 2nd largest one-day drop in stock market history. the one-day crash of Black Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6%, was worse in percentage terms than any single day of the 1929 crash (although the combined 25% decline of October 28-29, 1929 was larger than October 19, 1987, and remains the worst two day decline ever in the stock markets history).

1990 - Beset by a seriously eroding economy, Soviet Russia's President Mikhail Gorbachev won parliamentary approval to switch to a market economy.

2015 US scientists from University of California find evidence life on earth may have begun 4.1 billion years ago, 300 million earlier than previously thought

October 18

October 18, 1685 - The Edict of Nantes was revoked by King Louis XIV of France thus depriving Protestant Huguenots of all religious and civil liberties previously granted to them by Henry IV in 1598.

1867 - On this day in 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiasticly expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson. Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote, sparsely populated and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it in battle with a rival such as Great Britain. Negotiations between Seward (1801-1872) and the Russian minister to the U.S., Eduard de Stoeckl, began in March 1867. However, the American public believed the land to be barren and worthless and dubbed the purchase “Seward’s Folly” and “Andrew Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden,” among other derogatory names. Some animosity toward the project may have been a byproduct of President Johnson’s own unpopularity. As the 17th U.S. president, Johnson battled with Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction policies following the Civil War. He was impeached in 1868 and later acquitted by a single vote. Nevertheless, Congress eventually ratified the Alaska deal. Public opinion of the purchase turned more favorable when gold was discovered in a tributary of Alaska’s Klondike River in 1896, sparking a gold rush. Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, and is now recognized for its vast natural resources. Today, 25 percent of America’s oil and over 50 percent of its seafood come from Alaska. It is also the largest state in area, about one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined, though it remains sparsely populated. The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut word alyeska, which means “great land.” Alaska has two official state holidays to commemorate its origins: Seward’s Day, observed the last Monday in March, celebrates the March 30, 1867, signing of the land treaty between the U.S. and Russia, and Alaska Day, observed every October 18, marks the anniversary of the formal land transfer.

1898 - Only one year after Spain granted Puerto Rico self-rule, American troops raise the U.S. flag over the Caribbean nation, formalizing U.S. authority over the island’s one million inhabitants. In July 1898, near the end of the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launched an invasion of Puerto Rico, the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven American deaths, U.S. troops were able to secure the island by mid August. After the signing of an armistice with Spain, the island was turned over to the U.S forces on October 18. U.S. General John R. Brooke became military governor. In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and officially approving the cession of Puerto Rico to the United States. In the first three decades of its rule, the U.S. government made efforts to Americanize its new possession, including granting full U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 and considering a measure that would make English the island’s official language. However, during the 1930s, a nationalist movement led by the Popular Democratic Party won widespread support across the island, and further U.S. assimilation was successfully opposed. Beginning in 1948, Puerto Ricans could elect their own governor, and in 1952 the U.S. Congress approved a new Puerto Rican constitution that made the island an autonomous U.S. commonwealth, with its citizens retaining American citizenship. The constitution was formally adopted by Puerto Rico on July 25, 1952. Movements for Puerto Rican statehood, along with lesser movements for Puerto Rican independence, have won supporters on the island, but popular referendums in 1967 and 1993 demonstrated that the majority of Puerto Ricans still supported their special status as a U.S. commonwealth.

October 18, 1945 - The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial began with indictments against 24 former Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring and Albert Speer. The trial lasted 10 months, with delivery of the judgment completed on October 1, 1946. Twelve Nazis were sentenced to death by hanging, three to life imprisonment, four to lesser prison terms, and three were acquitted.