Today in History, 10/31

1517: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
1861: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.1864: Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.
1887: Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist Chinese leader, is born. During WWII, he didn't get along at all with the US Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater, General Joseph Stilwell. Chiang saw the Japanese as a minor nuisance and that his prime enemy was Mao and the Communists. That was what he wanted to use most of the US Lend-Lease loot against. Stilwell, on the other hand, saw his mission as pretty much the same as Bull Halsey's from yesterday. Apart from that, they both hated each other's guts on a deeply personal level. Check out Barbara Tuchman's Stilwell and the American Experience in China for a really interesting look at a little-known aspect of WWII. 1892: Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
1912: Dale Evans is born. She and Roy Rogers were married, like, forever. 1913: The Lincoln Highway is dedicated. It is the first automobile road across America. It started at Times Square and ended up in Lincoln Park, San Francisco.

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1917: During World War I, the Battle of Beersheba takes place in what is now Israel. It is widely considered to be the last successful cavalry charge in history.
1923: 160 days of over 100 degree heat begins at Marble Bar, Australia.
1928: Cleo Moore is born. She was an actress who said, "I've been in so many women's prison movies I should get time off for good behavior." And yet, I've never heard of her! I need to add some movies to my Netflix queue. 1931: Dan Rather is born.

1936: Michael Landon is born. He is best known for playing the father on Little House on the Prairie and Little Joe on Bonanza, but early in his career he was the title character in I Was A Teenage Werewolf.

1940: The Battle of Britain ends.
1941: After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed.1941: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.1942: David Ogden Stiers is born. He played Major Charles Emerson Winchester III on the post-Frank episodes of MASH.

1943: The F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception. Those gull wings were maddening to put together in a Monogram 1/32nd scale model. Each wing was two different pieces, in case you wanted to display the model with the wings folded, and they were almost impossible to glue together without falling apart before the glue set. I used so much glue I discolored the plastic and had to mix a matching paint scheme to cover it up. Yes, I'm still bitter. Still, what an awesome plane. 1944: Folk singer and occasional Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman is born. His most famous song is "The Ballad of Charles Whitman" but, as I was just pointing out the other day, the song is in error when it says "The doctors tore his poor brain down/And not a smidge of illness could be found." In actuality, Charles Whitman died of a point-black shotgun blast to the face - there wasn't much of his brain left to tear down. We'll never know if that "rumor about a tumor" was true. Oddly, no live version of this song is availaible on YouTube or Google Video. Maybe Kinky doesn't do it anymore. Here he is doing "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

1945: Brian Doyle-Murray is born.
1946: Norman Lovett is born. He played the ship's computer Holly on the cult show Red Dwarf. Those bally pikers at the BBC won't let me embed clips from their shows, so just follow this link.
1950: John Candy is born.

1950: Jane Pauley is born.

1953: Michael J. Anderson is born. He played the Little Man From Another Place in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me.

1956: During the Suez Crisis, the United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
1959: Lee Harvey Oswald attempts to renounce his American citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR.
1961: In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
1961: Peter Jackson is born. He made a name for himself directing ultra-low budget splatter films in New Zealand, so many people (including your humble chronicler) were surprised when his take on Lord of the Rings turned out so damned fantastic. Here's the opening scene of The Fellowship of the Ring.

1967: Vanilla Ice is born. Here he is trashing a set on MTV:

1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).
Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 10/30

637: Antioch surrenders to the Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of Iron bridge.
1502: Henry VII of England is crowned.
1735: John Adams, second President of the United States, is born.1821: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian author, is born. He wrote The Brothers Karamozov and Crime and Punishment.
1831: In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.1864: Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch."
1882: William Halsey, Jr. US WWII-era admiral is born. His nickname was "Bull" Halsey, but nobody with any sense called him that to his face. When asked what his strategy was for the war in the Pacific he said, "Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs."1885: Ezra Pound is born.1893: Charles Atlas is born.1905: Czar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.
1918: The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East.
1935: Robert Caro is born. I highly recommend his book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York and I've been meaning to get to his multi-volume biography of LBJ for a while.1938: Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States. You can listen to it here.
1939: Grace Slick, of Jefferson Airplane, is born.

1941: FDR approves $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.
1945: Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier.
1945: Henry Winkler is born.1947: The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is founded.
1953: George C. Marshall, who, as secretary of state following World War II, engineered a massive economic aid program for Europe, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.1957: Kevin Pollak is born.

1961: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or not. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield to reduce fallout over the Soviet Union.1970: In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
1973: The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.1975: The New York Daily News runs the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 10/29

1268: Conradin, the last legitimate male heir of the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings of Germany and Holy Roman Emperors, is executed along with his companion Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily, a political rival and ally to the hostile Roman Catholic church.
1618: English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England. Raleigh was good pals with Queen Elizabeth I, who had James' mother, Mary, Queen of Scots' head cut off, so there might have been a little bit of revenge there, too.1787: Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.
1792: Mount Hood, Oregon is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River.1863: Sixteen countries meeting in Geneva agree to form the International Red Cross.
1886: The ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
1897: Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, is born.1901: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of US President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.1921: Bill Mauldin, WWII-era cartoonist, is born.1922: The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister.
1929: The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday," ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression. Apart from a lone dead cat bounce, the stock market would go on to lose 89% of its value by April of 1931.
1938: Ralph Bakshi is born. He did the old, unloved animated versions of Lord of the Rings and a bunch of other lesser-known works like Wizards.

1942: Bob Ross, hippie painter on PBS, is born. He said, "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy little accidents." Here are some of the outtakes from his show:

1947: Richard Dreyfuss is born.1948: Kate Jackson is born. She was the brainy Angel Sabrina Duncan on Charlie's Angels.1956: The Suez Crisis begins as Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
1957: Dan Castellaneta, voice of Homer Simpson and Krusty the Klown, is born.

1960: In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
1964: A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.1969: At 10:30 PM, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
1971: Winona Ryder is born.1971: Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band dies in a motorcycle accident.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 10/28

1636: Harvard College is established.
1664: The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, later to be known as the Royal Marines, is established.
1775: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
1886: In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.1914: Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, is born.1917: Jack Soo is born. He got his start as an entertainer in the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII and later went on to play Detective Nick Yemana on Barney Miller.

1919: The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.1936: Charlie Daniels is born.

1942: The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.1948: Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.1948: Telma Hopkins is born. She was one third of Tony Orlando and Dawn (Dawn was two people, much like Pink Lady & Jeff).

1949: Bruce Jenner is born.1952: Annie Potts is born.1955: Bill Gates is born.1962: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
1962: Daphne Zuniga is born.

1963: Lauren Holly is born. I had a huge crush on her as Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart in the old TV show Picket Fences.1965: Jami Gertz is born. I also had a huge crush on her as the over-achieving preppie Muffy Tepperman on Square Pegs.

1965: Pope Paul VI issues a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
1966: Andy Richter is born. He's one of the funniest guys in the world but he has the worst luck with sitcoms.

1967: Julia Roberts is born. Well, allegedly. Savvy conspiracy theorists know that she's really her brother Eric in drag.1967: John Romero is born. He is the archetypal rich-boy game designer, having helped in the creation of Doom. His subsequent efforts (Daikatana) have not been so successful.1970: The land speed record of 630 mph is set by Gary Gabelich in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 10/27

939: Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England.
1275: Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1644: Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.
1682: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
1728: James Cook is born.
1787: The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, is published in a New York newspaper.
1795: The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
1810: United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
1838: Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.1858: Teddy Roosevelt is born.1904: The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.
1911: Leif Erickson is born. He plays the dad possesed by evil aliens in the 50's classic Invaders from Mars.

1936: Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.1939: John Cleese is born.

1940: John Gotti is born.1946: Ivan Reitman is born. He directed Ghostbusters, Animal House, and Dave, among others.
1953: Robert Picardo is born. He played the irascible holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager.

1954: Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.1958: Simon Le Bon, singer for Duran Duran, is born.

1962: Major Rudolph Anderson of the United States Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.
1964: Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
2004: The Boston Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals four games to none.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.