October 9

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

October 9, 1962 - Uganda achieved independence after nearly 70 years of British rule.

October 9, 1963 - Landslide - On this day, a landslide in Italy leads to the deaths of more than 2,000 people when it causes a sudden and massive wave of water to overwhelm a dam. The Diga del Vajont dam was built in the Vaiont Gorge to supply hydroelectric power to Northern Italy. Located 10 miles northeast of Belluno, it rose 875 feet above the Piave River below and was a full 75 feet wide at its base. The construction of the dam created a large reservoir, which held more than 300,000 cubic feet of water. While the dam was solidly constructed, its location was a poor choice. The Vaiont Gorge was located in a section of the Alps known for instability. In 1963, the area experienced heavy rains—about 90 inches by October 9. At 10:41 p.m., the wet land could no longer hold and a massive landslide came crashing down from Mount Toc, causing a huge pile of dirt and rocks to plunge into the reservoir at about 70 miles per hour. The impact of the debris caused an immense wave of water to rise as high as 300 feet above the level of the dam. Workers living alongside the dam were killed instantly. The displaced water crashed over the dam and into the Piave River below. It stormed down the river and engulfed the town of Longarone. Within minutes the town had virtually vanished and nearly 2,000 people were dead. The tsunami-like wave then rushed down to San Martino, where it killed hundreds more. In the aftermath of the disaster, Mario Pancini, the engineer of the dam project, was summoned to court to answer questions regarding what was known of the geology of the area prior to the dam’s construction. He killed himself before his scheduled appearance.

October 9, 1967 - Chag Rivara (often known as Che Guevara) a Latin American revolution gorilla leader executed in Bolivia while trying to spark a revolution. He aided Fidel Castro to power and remains a global icon till today.

October 9, 1970 - Cambodia declared itself the Khmer Republic following the abolishment of the monarchy by the legislature.

October 9, 1992 - On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp is watching television in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, New York when she hears a thunderous crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear end of her car, an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu; a matching hole in the gravel driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked like an ordinary, bowling-ball–sized rock. It was extremely heavy for its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and warm to the touch; also, it smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. The next day, a curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite. Scientists estimate that the Earth is bombarded with about 100 pounds of meteoric material every day. Meteorites are pieces of asteroids and other debris made of rock, iron and nickel that have been orbiting in space for billions of years. Some are as tiny as dust particles and others are as huge as 10 miles across; most, however, are about the size of a baseball. Astronomers and other people who pay attention to the night sky can easily see them: When a meteorite enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it blazes across the sky like a fireball. (What most people call “shooting stars” are actually meteorites.) Thousands of people in the eastern United States saw the greenish Peekskill meteorite as it streaked toward Knapp’s Malibu and many heard it too: one witness said that it crackled like a very loud sparkler. Scientists have determined that it came from the inner edge of the main asteroid belt in space, between Jupiter and Mars. While meteorites are fairly common, a meteorite hitting a car is not: A car is, after all, a very small object on a very large planet. In fact, as far as scientists know it has only happened twice before–once in Illinois during the 1930s and once in St. Louis. Eventually, the famous Knapp meteorite was sold to a collector and two fossil dealers, who broke it into smaller chunks and sold those to a handful of other collectors and museums. The car, meanwhile, sold for $10,000 to Lang’s Fossils and Meteorites in Cranford, New Jersey. It has been on display in New York, Paris, Munich and Tokyo.

October 9, 2001 - Letters with a New Jersey postmark are sent to Capitol hill laced with Anthrax spores sent to Tom Dashel and Patrick Lehey.

October 9, 2006 - N. Korea conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

Birthday - John Lennon (1940-1980) was born in Liverpool, England. He was a member of The Beatles, an influential rock group which captivated audiences first in England and Germany, and later in America and throughout the world. He was murdered in New York City on December 8, 1980.