Today in History

[pegasus]

Get Ready for Kindergarten Month



Today in History: August 28th, the 240th day of 2013 with 126 days left in the year

1609--English sea explorer Henry Hudson and his ship, the Half Moon[/I,] reached present-day Delaware Bay.
1619--Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor and began the Thirty Years War when he tried to eradicate Protestantism.
1640--the Scots under Leslie defeated royalist English forces under Lord Conway at the battle of Newburn near Newcastle during the English civil war..
1774-photo.goodreads.com/groups/1307983044p3/49609.jpg [/img]-St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born saint and founder of the first female apostolic community in the United States.
1828--Russian novelist Count Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula, Russia; died 1910 at age 82 of pneumonia.
1830--in Baltimore, Md., "Tom Thumb" the passenger-carrying train locomotive was demonstrated for the first time.
1879--in South Africa, King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, was captured by the British following his defeat in the British-Zulu War.
1883--slavery was banned by the British Parliament throughout the British Empire
1914--during World War I, the battle of Heligoland Bight took place between British and German ships in the North Sea with the Germans losing four ships and 1,000 sailors; British casualties were 33 killed.
1916--Germany declared war against Romania and Italy declared war against Germany in World War I.
1917--Pre. Wilson was picketed by woman suffragists in front of the White House, who demand that he support an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote.
1922--the first radio commercial aired, on WEAF in New York City.
1941--more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the German Gestapo in occupied Ukraine.
1945--the Allies began occupying Japan at the end of World War II.
1947--legendary bullfighter Manolete died at age 30 after being gored during a fight in Linares, Spain.
1955--Emmett Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, Miss., by two white men after he was accused of whistling at a white woman and found murdered three days later.
1963--200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, DC, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1968--police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
1973--an earthquake shook Veracruz, Mexico; death toll estimates ranged from 600 to 1,200.
1981--John W. Hinckley Jr. pleaded innocent to charges of attempting to kill Pres. Reagan.
1988--70 people were killed when three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany.
1990--an F5 tornado struck the Chicago area, killing 29 people.
1990--The bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada were discovered near the campus of the University of Florida two days after three young female students had been killed and mutilated in two separate locations near the campus.
1990--Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait to be the 19th province of Iraq, in a move that foreshadowed the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
1996--Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana were divorced after 15 years of marriage.
2003--a Defense Department survey found that nearly 1 in 5 female Air Force Academy cadets said they had been sexually assaulted during their time at the academy.
2003--British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied the government had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons threat and said he would have resigned if it had been true.
2005--New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered everyone in the city to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Katrina.
2006--fugitive self-proclaimed prophet and polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was arrested during a traffic stop in Nevada
2008--Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a speech at Invesco Field in Denver.
2008--former US Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., accused of killing unarmed Iraqi detainees in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter in Riverside, Calif.
2012--former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney swept to the Republican presidential nomination at a storm-delayed national convention in Tampa, Fla.

Thought for Today:
"The best armor is to keep out of range."--Italian proverb
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[pegasus]

International Day Against Nuclear Tests



Today in History: August 29th, the 241st day of 2013 with 124 days left in the year

1350--in the Hundred Years war, a Spanish fleet under La Carda was defeated by the English at the battle of Winchelsea
1475--the Truce of Picquigny was signed, under which Edward IV of England agreed to withdraw his invading army from France in return for gold and a yearly pension.
1533--the last Incan King of Peru, Atahualpa, was executed on orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro.
1756--on learning of the Franco-Austrian alliance, Frederick II of Prussia invaded Saxony, heralding the start of the Seven Years War.
1792--at least 900 died when the British warship Royal George sank at Spithead while repairs were being carried out just below the water-line.
1825--Brazilian independence under Pedro I was recognized by Portugal.
1833--the "Factory Act", legislation to settle child labor laws, was passed in England.
1842--the Treaty of Nanking was signed between the British and Chinese, ending the first Opium War.
1862--the Bureau of Engraving and Printing began operations at the US Treasury.
1877--the 2nd president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Brigham Young, died in Salt Lake City at age 76.
1885--Gottfried Daimler received a patent for the first motorcycle.
1923--actor-director Lord Richard Attenborough, age 90, was born.
1936--Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is 77.
1943--responding to a clampdown by Nazi occupiers, Denmark managed to scuttle most of its naval ships.
1944--15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris as the French capital continued to celebrate its liberation from the Nazis.
1953--an early version of the animated cartoon character Speedy Gonzales made his debut in the Warner Bros. cartoon Cat-Tails for Two.
1957--the US Senate approved a Civil Rights Act after South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, ended a filibuster that had lasted 24 hours.
1958--pop superstar Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Ind.[ died 2009 at his home in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, Calif. at age 50.
1972--swimmer Mark Spitz of the United States won the third of his seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics.
1982--3-time Academy Award-winning actress Ingrid Bergman died in London on her 67th birthday.
1991--the Supreme Soviet, the parliament of the USSR, suspended all activities of the Communist Party, bringing an end to the institution.
2003--a bombing at the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, Iraq, killed at least 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim
2005--Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast near Buras, La., bringing floods that devastated New Orleans. More than 1,800 people in the region died.
2008--GOP presidential nominee John McCain picked Sarah Palin, a maverick conservative governor of Alaska, to be his running mate.
2012--Hurricane Isaac sidestepped New Orleans, sending the worst of its howling wind and heavy rain into a cluster of rural fishing villages.
2012--the NFL announced it would open the regular season with replacement officials due to the strike of its regular officials.

Thought for Today:
"Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true."
—Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894).American physician and author

[pegasus]

International Guide Dogs Month



Today in History: September 4th, the 247th day of 2013 with 118 days left in the year

476--Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire,wais deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian who proclaims himself king of Italy.
1596--one of the first tsunamis ever to be recorded devastated the east coast of Kyushu, the southernmost major island of Japan.
1609--English navigator Henry Hudson, working for the Dutch East India Company, arrived at the island of Manhattan, before sailing up the river that now bears his name.
1618--the "Rodi" avalanche destroyed Plurs, Switzerland, killing 1,500.
1781--Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers under the leadership of Governor Felipe de Neve and named "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles'' (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels). .
1780--patriot Francis Marion's Carolina militia routed Loyalists at Blue Savannah, SC, and won new recruits to the Patriot cause.
1833--after answering an ad in The New York Sun, 10-year-old Barney Flahery became the first newsboy or as we know it, paperboy.
1864--John Hunt Morgan, the feared Confederate cavalry leader, was killed during a Union cavalry raid on the town of Greenville, Tenn.
1886--a group of Apache Indians led by Geronimo (also known as Goyathlay, "One Who Yawns") surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.
1888--George Eastman received a patent for his roll-film camera and registered his trademark: Kodak.
1893--English author Beatrix Potter first told the story of Peter Rabbit in the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess.
1908--Richard Wright, whose books Native Son and Black Boy exposed the harsh effects of American racism, was born; died 1960 at age 52.
1917--the American expeditionary force in France suffered its first fatalities in World War I when a German plane attacked a British-run base hospital.
1918--American troops land at Archangel in northern Russia as part of an Allied intervention in the Russian civil war.
1936---considered one of the best Astaire-Rogers musicals, Swing Time opened in the United States
1945--2,200 Japanese soldiers on Wake Island finally lay down their arms-days after their government had already formally capitulated.
1948--Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicated in favor of her daughter Juliana after nearly six decades of rule for health reasons.
1949--it was history's longest pro tennis match when Pancho Gonzales and Ted Schroeder played 67 games in five sets.
1951--In the first live coast-to-coast TV broadcast, Pres. Truman addressed the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco.
1957--Ford Motor Co. began selling its ill-fated Edsel line.
1957--Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.
1963--a Swissair Caravelle III carrying 80 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Zurich, killing all on board.
1964--on CBS, Gilligan’s Island began its 98-episode run.
1968--Radio Hanoi announced the death of Ho Chi Minh.
1971--an Alaska Airlines jet crashed near Juneau, killing all 111 people on board.
1972--Mark Spitz became the first person to win seven gold medals at a single Olympic Games when the United States won the 400-m relay in Munich, Germany.
1989--Georges Simenon, writer of 84 books based on the detective character Inspector Maigret, died.
1991--country music star Dottie West died in Nashville, Tenn., of liver and heart failure as a result of a one-car crash earlier in the week.
1996--the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) led an attack on a military base in Guaviare, Colombia to protest the military's drug eradication program, which was backed by the US.
1998--Internet services company Google filed for incorporation in California.
1998--the UN tribunal on Rwanda sentenced former prime minister Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 genocide.
2002--singer Kelly Clarkson was voted the first "American Idol" on the Fox TV series.
2003--Verizon Communications and two unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, reached a tentative, five-year contract agreement.
2006--"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, 44, died after a stingray's barb pierced his chest.
2007--toy maker Mattel Inc. recalled 800,000 lead-tainted, Chinese-made toys worldwide, a third major recall in just over a month.
2008--Sen. John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in St. Paul, Minn., vowing to vanquish what he called the "constant partisan rancor" gripping Washington.
2008--Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a sex scandal, forcing the Democrat out of office.
3012--the US Treasury Department reported the national debt had topped $16 trillion.

Thought for Today:
"I am one of the people who love the why of things." —
--Catherine the Great (1729-1796).Russian czarina

[pegasus]

Play Days



Today in History: September 6th, the 249day of 2013 with 116 days left in the year

1522--one of Ferdinand Magellan's five ships--the Vittoria under the command of Juan Sebastian Del Cano--arrivds in Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world.
1666--the Great Fire of London ended after destroying much of the city including 96 churches along with St Paul's Cathedral.
1706--French troops besieging Turin under the command of the Duke of Orleans were defeated by Austrians under Prince Eugene, ending French attempts to capture northern Italy.
1714--the Treaty of Baden was signed between the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and France, ending War of Spanish Succession.
1757--Marie-Joseph du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, French general who aided the colonists in the American Revolution, was born in Chavaniac-Lafayette, France; died 1834 at age 76 in Paris, France.\
1781--British Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold added to his notoriety by ordering his British command to burn New London, Conn.
1812--the Russian army under Gen. Kutuzov was defeated at heavy cost by Napoleon at the battle of Borodino.
1813--the nickname "Uncle Sam" was first used as a symbolic reference to the United States in an editorial in the Troy Post of New York.
1819--the lathe was patented by Thomas Blanchard of Middlebury, Conn. 1822--Brazil proclaimed independence from Portugal and Pedro I became first Emperor of Brazil in December 1822.
1844--explorer John C. Fremont arrived at the shores of the Great Salt Lake, one of the many areas he mapped for the westward-moving nation.
1860--Jane Addams, the famed American Nobel Prize-winning social worker (Chicago's Hull House), reform activist as a founder of the ACLU and proponent of world peace, was born; died 1935 at age 74.
1860--Giuseppe Garibaldi led his "Red Shirts" in seizing Naples in the Italian war of liberation against the Austrians.
1861--Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, Ky., during the Civil War.
1863--after months of fighting, Confederate forces evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island, SC.
1869--the first major coal mine disaster in the US occurred at Avondale mine, Pa., when a fire broke out in a mine shaft, 110 were killed,
1901--Pres. McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.
1914--the French 6th Army under the command of Gen. Michel-Joseph Manoury attacked the right flank of the German 1st Army, beginning the decisive 1st Battle of the Marne
1915--a prototype tank nicknamed Little Willie rolled off the assembly line in England to eventually transformed military battlefields.
1916--the first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.
1939--the Union of South Africa declared war on Germany.
1940--the German air force under Hermann Goering began its "blitz" bombing campaign on London.
1941--Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.
1943--79 people were killed when the Congressional Limited, a New York-bound Pennsylvania Railroad train, derailed and crashed in Philadelphia.
1952--Canadian television broadcasting began in Montreal.
1959--the Mattel Toy Corporation sold the first Barbie Doll.
1962--New Jersey Governor Chris Christie turns 51 years old today.
1966--South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, was stabbed to death by an apparently deranged page during a parliamentary session in Cape Town.
1970--Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three jetliners, which were later blown up on the ground in Jordan after the passengers and crews were evacuated.
1972--at Furstenfeldbruck Air Base near Munich, an attempt by West German police to rescue nine Israeli Olympic athletes held hostage by Palestinian terrorists ended in disaster
1975--Czechoslovakian tennis player Martina Navratilova, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum.
1976--a Soviet Air Force pilot lands his MIG fighter jet in Japan and asks for asylum in the US.
1983--the Soviet Union admitted shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007.
1985--all 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field.
1986--Bishop Desmond Tutu was enthroned as Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa -- the first black head of South Africa's Anglicans.
1991--the Soviet Union recognized the independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Russian lawmakers upheld a decision by residents of Leningrad to restore the city's pre-revolutionary name, St. Petersburg.
1995--Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking "Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played.
1997--Great Britain bade farewell to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
2001--Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants became the fifth player in baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a season. (He finished the year with a record 73 homers.)
2002--meeting outside Washington, D.C. for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of September 11.
2003-Mahmoud Abbas resigned as Palestinian prime minister.
2004--former Pres. Clinton underwent successful heart bypass surgery.
2005--the California Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriages. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later vetoed the bill.)
2006--Pres. Bush acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.
2007--Volkswagen of America announces that it was moving its headquarters from Auburn Hills, Mich. to Herndon, Va.
2007--Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who was one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time, died at age 71 in Modena, Italy.
2008--in the wake of Russia's military standoff with Georgia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that now was not the right time for the U.S. to move forward on a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia.
2008--more than 100 people died in a rockslide that crashed into a shantytown just outside Cairo, Egypt.
2012--Drew Peterson, the former Illinois police officer who'd gained notoriety after his much-younger wife, Stacy, vanished in 2007, was convicted of murdering a previous wife, Kathleen Savio.

Thought for Today:
"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality."
--Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) Anglo-Irish author and philosopher

[pegasus]

September Is Healthy Aging Month



Today in History: September 7th, the 250th day of 2013 with 115 days left in the year

1533--England's Queen Elizabeth I was born in Greenwich; died 1603 at age 69..
1812--the Battle of Borodino took place as French troops clashed with Russian forces outside Moscow.
1825--the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, bade farewell to Pres. John Quincy Adams at the White House.
1860--Grandma Moses, the famous American folk painter, was born; died 1961 at age 101.
1864--Union Gen. William T. Sherman orders residents of Atlanta, Georgia, to evacuate the city.
1892--James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan to win the world heavyweight crown in New Orleans.
1907--the British liner RMS Lusitania set out from Liverpool, England, on its maiden voyage, arriving six days later in New York.
1921--a flash flood hits the San Antonio River, killing 51 people and causing millions of dollars in damages
1927--TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector.
1936--rock musician Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas[ died 1959 at age 22 in a plane crash.
1940--the German air force began its blitz on London.
1943--a fire at the Gulf Hotel, a rooming house in Houston, claimed 55 lives.
1950-- the UN Security Council rejects a Soviet resolution that would condemn the American bombing of North Korea.
1957--NBC-TV debuted the original version of its animated peacock logo.
1963--the National Professional Football Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, Ohio.
1977--the Panama Canal treaties, calling for the United States to turn over control of the waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington, D.C.
1979--ESPN made its cable TV debut.
1996--rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later at age 25.
1998--St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire hit his 61st home run of the season, equaling Roger Maris' single-season home run record.
2003--Yasser Arafat tapped the Palestinian parliament speaker, Ahmed Qureia, to take over as prime minister following the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas.
2006--former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage confirmed he was the source of a leak that disclosed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, saying he didn't realize Plame's job was covert.
2008--troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed in government conservatorship.
2008--Hurricane Ike roared across low-lying islands in the Atlantic as a Category 4 storm.
2012--twin earthquakes and a spate of aftershocks struck southwestern China, toppling thousands of houses and killing at least 64 people

Thought for Today:
"People do not live in the present always, at one with it. They live at all kinds of and manners of distance from it, as difficult to measure as the course of planets. Fears and traumas make their journeys slanted, peripheral, uneven, evasive."
—Anais Nin (1903-1977).American writer and poet

[pegasus]

Friday the 13th



According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini, who died on a Friday 13th. He was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one Friday 13th of November he died.[4]

Several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.

One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.
The number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table results in the death of one of the diners. Friday is also the day when Jesus Christ was crucified, according to the Gospels, making it through folklore and adding to its unpopularity.
Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects.
Records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common. One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.
The connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and in John J. Robinson's 1989 work Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, an action apparently motivated financially and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown - Philip IV, the King of France. He falsely charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses.

Today in History: September 13th, the day of 2013 with days left in the year


Thought for Today:
"

[pegasus]

Women's Friendship Month



Today in History: September 14th, the 257th day of 2013 with 108 days left in the year

1262--Cadiz was captured by Alfonso X of Castile, ending a 500-year occupation of the city by the Moors.
1515--Francis I of France defeated the Swiss at the Battle of Marignano, or the "Battle of the Giants", resulting in the French recovery of Milan.
1741--after only 23 days, George Frederick Handel completed his "Messiah" oratorio.
1752--Great Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, with the loss of eleven days.
1779--patriot Col. Daniel Brodhead ended an ambitious assault against the Seneca Indians throughout the Allegheny Valley of Pennsylvania, while Maj. Gen. John Sullivan had attacked the Iroquois of central New York.
1812--Napoleon Bonaparte's troops entered Moscow following the Battle of Borodino to find the Russian city ablaze and largely abandoned/
1814--Francis Scott Key wrote a poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry," after witnessing how an American flag flying over the Maryland fort withstood a night of British bombardment that later became the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."
1829--the Treaty of Adrianople was signed, ending war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
1847-- US forces under Gen. Winfield Scott entered Mexico City and raised the American flag over the Hall of Montezuma.
1854--allied armies, including those of Britain and France, landed in the Crimea to oppose the Russians, who had sparked the Crimean War by invading Turkey.
1857--Alice Stone Blackwell, American women's suffragist and editor, was born; side 1950 at age 92.
1861--the first naval engagement of the Civil War took place as the USS Colorado attacked and sank the Confederate private schooner Judah off Pensacola, Fla.
1862--Gen. Robert E. Lee's exhausted Confederate forces closed two passes through Maryland's South Mountain, allowing Lee time to gather his forces further west along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg..
1868--the first recorded hole-in-one at golf was scored by Tom Morris at Prestwick in Scotland.
1879--Margaret Sanger, American birth-control advocate (Planned Parenthood), was born; died 1966 at age 86.
1901--Pres. McKinley died in Buffalo, N.Y., of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin eight days earlier and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in, becoming the youngest president in US history at age 42.
1916--Italian troops launched a short, concentrated attack on Austro-Hungarian positions on the Italian Front, near the Isonzo River.
1927--modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan died in Nice, France, when her scarf became entangled in a wheel of the sports car she was riding in.
1939--the first successful helicopter, Igor Sikorsky's VS-300, made its first flight.
1940--the US Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft in US history.
1941--Vermont passed a resolution enabling its servicemen to receive wartime bonuses by declaring the U.S. to be in a state of armed conflict, giving rise to headlines that Vermont had "declared war on Germany."
1944--the US 1st Marine Division landed on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for Gen. MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, 4,000 Narines were killed..
1959--the Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar surface.
1960--the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
1963--Mary Ann Fischer of Aberdeen, SD, gave birth to four girls and a boy, the first known surviving quintuplets in the US.
1964--Pope Paul VI opened the third session of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, also known as "Vatican II."
1968--Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain won his 30th game of the season, to be the first 30-game winner in the major leagues since 1938.
1975--Pope Paul VI declared Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton the first American-born saint.
1975--Rembrandt's priceless painting "The Nightwatch" was slashed by an unemployed teacher with a kitchen knife in Amsterdam.
1982--Princess Grace of Monaco, formerly actress Grace Kelly, died at age 52 of injuries suffered in a car crash.
1988--Hurricane Gilbert slammed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 5 storm after forcing thousands of residents to flee.
1991--the government of South Africa, the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party signed a national peace pact.
1994--the remainder of the major league baseball season was cancelled on the 34th day of a strike by players.
1999--millions of people evacuated their homes as Hurricane Floyd moved across the Atlantic Ocean toward the Bahamas and the US..
2003--Swedes rejected adopting the European common currency in a referendum overshadowed by the killing of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, an ardent euro supporter.
2003--an older half-sister of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, Yetunde Price, was shot to death in Compton, Calif. by gang member Robert Edward Maxfield.
2008--losing its devastating punch as a major hurricane, Ike nevertheless drubbed the Midwest with powerful winds and floodwaters.
2012-- fury over an anti-Muslim film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad spread across the Muslim world.
2012-- a French gossip magazine's publication of topless photos of Prince William's wife, Kate, prompted an immediate lawsuit from the royal couple and statements of outrage from palace officials

Thought for Today:
"America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a mosaic, for in it each nation, people or race which has come to its shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation."
—Baudouin I (1930-1993) King of Belgium

[pegasus]

International Peace Day



Today in History: September 21st, the 264th day of 2013 with 101 days left in the year

1327--King Edward II of England was murdered in Berkeley Castle and was succeeded by his son Edward III.
1435--Philip, Duke of Burgundy and Charles VII of France signed the peace Treaty of Arras.
1599--William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, was performed for the first time by the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
1745--the Battle of Prestonpans took place in Scotland, in which the Jacobite army of just over 3,000 under Bonnie Prince Charlie defeated the English Royal forces led by Sir John Cope.
1746--after a short siege the French under Admiral La Bourdonnais took Madras, India, from the English.
1779--the Louisiana governor and Spanish military officer Bernardo de Galvez, with the aide of American troops and militia volunteers, captured the British post and garrison at Baton Rouge.
1780--American Gen. Benedict Arnold met with British Maj. John Andre to discuss handing over West Point to the British, in return for the promise of a large sum of money and a high position in the British army.
1792--the French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.
1893--one of America's first horseless carriages was taken for a short test drive in Springfield, Mass., by Frank Duryea, who had designed the vehicle with his brother, Charles.
1897--the New York Sun ran an editorial answering a question from an 8-year-old girl that included the line, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."
1904--the remarkable Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph died on the Colville reservation in northern Washington at the age of 64.
1912--magician Harry Houdini first publicly performed his so-called Chinese Water Torture Cell trick at the Circus Busch in Berlin.
1917--Austria-Hungary and Germany made separate replies to the proposal issued by Pope Benedict XV calling for an immediate armistice between the warring parties of World War I.
1931--Great Britain went off the gold standard.
1937--The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was first published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. of London.
1938--a hurricane struck parts of New York and New England, causing widespread damage and claiming more than 600 lives.
1948--Milton Berle debuted as permanent host of The Texaco Star Theater on NBC and TV's first star - Uncle Miltie.
1949--Mao Zedong announced that the new Chinese government would be "under the leadership of the Communist Party of China."
1964--Malta gained independence from Great Britain.
1970--NFL Monday Night Football debuted on ABC as the Cleveland Browns defeated the visiting New York Jets, 31-21.
1973--Henry Kissinger was confirmed by the US Senate to become Secretary of State, the first naturalized citizen to hold the office.
1981--Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1982--Amin Gemayel, brother of Lebanon's assassinated president-elect, Bashir Gemayel, was himself elected president.
1982--the NFL players began a 57-day strike, their first regular-season walkout.
1983--Interior Secretary James G. Watt described a special advisory panel as consisting of "a black ... a woman, two Jews and a cripple." Watt later apologized and resigned.
1987--NFL players called a strike, mainly over the issue of free agency. (The 24-day walkout prompted football owners to hire replacement players.)
1989--Hurricane Hugo crashed into Charleston, SC, causing 26 deaths.
1989--the US Senate Armed Forces Committee unanimously confirmed Gen. Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. the first African American to achieve the United States' highest military post.
1989--21 students in Alton, Tex., died when their school bus colleded with a soft-drink delivery truck and careened into a water-filled pit.
1992--The Vatican and Mexico established full diplomatic relations, ending a rift of 130 years.
1996--the board of Virginia Military Institute voted to admit women.
1998--Pres. Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal was publicly broadcast, showing him answering one question from prosecutors by saying, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
1998--Olympic gold medal track star Florence Griffith Joyner, 38, died in her sleep after suffering an epileptic seizure.
1999--an earthquake in Taiwan Killed 1000s of people, caused billions of dollars in damages and left an estimated 100,000 homeless.
2001--the US Congress approved $15 billion to help an airline industry reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
2003--Paul Martin was elected by Canada's Liberal Party to succeed Jean Chretien as prime minister.
2003--NASA's aging Galileo spacecraft deliberately plunged into Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, bringing a fiery conclusion to a 14-year exploration of the solar system's largest planet and its moons.
2008--Mad Men became the first basic-cable show to win a top series Emmy award.
2008--baseball said farewell to the original Yankee Stadium as the Bronx Bombers defeated the Baltimore Orioles 7-3.
2012--a man was bitten multiple times after leaping from a monorail into a tiger exhibit at the Bronx Zoo.
2012--people lined up to buy Apple's iPhone5 as it went on sale.

Thought for Today:
"The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow."
--H.G. Wells (1866-1946), English author (War of the Worlds)

[pegasus]

National Voter Registration Day



Today in History: September 24th, the 267th day of 2013 with 98 days left in the year

622--the prophet Muhammad completed his Hegira, or "flight," from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution.
1493--Christopher Columbus' began his second expedition to the New World
1625--the Dutch attacked San Juan, Puerto Rico
1683--the Jews were expelled from all French possessions in America
1789--the US Congress passed the First Judiciary Act, which provided for an attorney general and a Supreme Court.
1829--Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the peace treaty of Adrianople.
1869--financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market, sending Wall Street into a panic known as Black Friday.
1890--the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy.
1896--F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist of the Jazz Age (The Great Gatsby) and screenwriter, was born in St. Paul, Minn.; died 1940 at age 44.
1918--the government of Bulgaria announced it had sent a delegation to seek a ceasefire with the Allied powers in World War I.
1929--the first all-instrument flight took place in New York when Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over Mitchell Field.
1934--Babe Ruth made his farewell appearance as a regular player with the New York Yankees in a game against the Boston Red Sox and lost.
1936--Jim Henson, American puppeteer and creator of The Muppets, was born; died 1990 at age 53 of pneumonia.
1936--Don Budge became the first player to win all four major titles, winning the US Tennis Open, after winning the Australian, French and British Opens.
1941--nine allied governments meeting in London pledged allegiance to the Atlantic Charter
1948--Mildred Gillars, accused of being Nazi wartime radio propagandist "Axis Sally," pleaded not guilty in Washington, D.C., to charges of treason.
1955--Pres. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Denver.
1957--the Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field before moving to Los Angeles for the next season.
1957--federal troops were sent to Little Rock, Ark., to protect nine black students at the newly integrated Central High School.
1960--the USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.
1961--Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color premiered on NBC.
1963--the US Senate ratified a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear testing.
1964--the Warren Commission report on Pres. Kennedy's assassination was delivered to Pres. Johnson.
1966--Hurricane Inez slammed into the islands of the Caribbean, killing hundreds of people.
1966--"Last Train to Memphis" gave the made-for-TV Monkees a real-life pop hit.
1968--[o]60 Minutes[/u] premiered on CBS.
1969--the trial of the "Chicago Eight" (later seven) began - five of the defendants were later convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots.
1976--newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 San Francisco bank robbery carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1980-- Iraqi troops crossed the border and encircled Abadan, Iran, setting fire to the world's biggest oil refinery.
1991--children's author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, died in La Jolla, Calif., at age 87.
1995--three decades of Israeli occupation of West Bank cities ended with the signing of a pact by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
2001--Pres. Bush ordered a freeze on the assets of 27 people and organizations with suspected links to terrorism.
2007--United Auto Workers walked off the job at GM plants in the first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976.
2008--officials reopened Galveston, Tex., to residents who were warned about Hurricane Ike's debris and disruption of utilities.
2012--Pres. Obama told the ABC talk show "The View" that "there's no doubt" that the Benghazi assault wasn't spontaneous.
2012--provocative ads began appearing in New York City subways, equating Muslim radicals with savages.

Thought for Today:
"History is mostly guessing, the rest is prejudice." --
Will Durant (1885-1981)American historian
[/size][/color]

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Better Breakfast Month



Today in History: September 25th, the 268th day of 2013 with 97 days left in the year

1513--Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama to reach the Pacific Ocean.
1555--the Peace of Augsburg was promulgated, resolving bitter disputes between Protestants and Catholics in German states.
1629--the Truce of Altmark was signed, ending the 1625-29 phase of the Polish-Swedish War of Succession.
1690--one of the earliest American newspapers, Publick Occurrences, published its first — and last — edition in Boston.
1775--American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen was captured by the British as he led an attack on Montreal.
1789--the first US Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)
1864--Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis met with Gen. John Bell Hood in Georgia to discuss the recent misfortunes of the Army of Tennessee.
1890--Mormon president Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto formally renouncing the practice of polygamy.
1890--Sequoia National Park was established in central California and named after the giant redwood trees growing there.
1897--William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize-winning of the American South, was born in New Albany, Miss.; died 1962 at age 64.
1904--a New York City police officer ordered a female automobile passenger on Fifth Avenue to stop smoking a cigarette and her male companion was arrested and later fined $2 for "abusing" the officer.
1911--ground was broken for Boston's Fenway Park.
1915--the 3rd battle of Arois: following a four-day artillery bombardment along a 6 1/2 mile front, British forces launched an attack on German positions at Loos, Belgium.
1919--Pres. Wilson collapsed after a speech in Pueblo, Colo., during a tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles.
1932--the Spanish region of Catalonia received a Charter of Autonomy that was revoked by Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War.
1956--the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service.
1959--Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on his trip to the US with two days of meetings with Pres. Eisenhower.
1962--Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in Round 1 to win the world heavyweight title at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
1969--Sen. Charles Goodell of New York proposed legislation that would require the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam by the end of 1970.
1977--South African black civil rights leader Steve Biko was buried in King William's Town after dying in police custody.
1978--144 people were killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collided over San Diego.
1979--Evita, the third musical from the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber collaboration, opened on Broadway.
1980--Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, 32, choked to death on his own vomit after a drinking binge.
1981--Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1983--38 Irish nationalist guerillas shot their way out of prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1992--the Mars Observer blasted off on a $980 million mission to the Red Planet.
1992--a judge in Orlando, Fla., ruled in favor of Gregory Kingsley, a 12-year-old seeking to "divorce" his biological parents.
2001--Saudi Arabia cut its relations with Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban government.
2001--Michael Jordan, who'd left professional basketball after winning a half-dozen championship rings, announced he was returning to the game with the Washington Wizards.
2003--15 people died in a nursing home fire in Nashville, Tenn.
2003--France reported a staggering death toll of 14,802 from the summer heat wave.
2005--the Irish Republican Army (IRA) gave up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors.
2008--anti-apartheid activist Kgalema Motlanthe became the third president of South Africa since the end of white rule.
2011--two American hikers held for more than two years in an Iranian prison, returned to the United States.
2012--Pres. Obama, speaking to the UN General Assembly, pledged US support for Syrians trying to oust Pres. Bashar Assad

Thought for Today:
"The richer your friends, the more they will cost you."
--Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) American writer

[pegasus]

World Rabies Day



Today in History: September 28th, the 271st day of 2013 with 94 days left in the year

48 BC--upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey the Great was assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt.
1066--Duke William of Normandy landed at Pevensey, Sussex, and began the Norman Conquest of England. .
1542--Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego, Calif.
1745--the British national anthem, God Save the King, had its first public performance at the Drury Lane Theatre in London.
1781--American patriots, backed by a French fleet, began their successful siege of Yorktown, Va.
1787--the Congress of the Confederation voted to send the just-completed Constitution of the United States to state legislatures for their approval.
1850--flogging was abolished as a form of punishment in the United States Navy.
1863--Union Generals Alexander M. McCook and Thomas Crittenden were ordered to Indianapolis, Ind. to face a court of inquiry following the Federal defeat at the battle of Chickamauga in Georgia.
1918--the flu pandemic hit Philadelphia prompted by a Liberty Loan parade in the city.
1920--eight members of the Chicago White Sox were indicted for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in what became known as the "Black Sox" scandal.
1924--two US Army planes landed in Seattle, having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days.
1939--Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a treaty calling for the partitioning of Poland, which the two countries had invaded.
1941--Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox became the last player to bat .400.
1942--Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold gave highest priority to the development of two exceptional aircraft--the B-35 Flying Wing and the B-36 Peacemaker capable of bombing runs in Europe while based in the US.
1968--a battle begins for the Special Forces camp at Thuong Duc, situated between Da Nang and the Laotian border in Vietnam.
1988--Roch Theriault, the leader of the most bizarre and violent cult in Canadian history, fatally wounded his follower Solange Boislard.
1991--jazz great Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 65.
2001--Pres. Bush told reporters the United States was in "hot pursuit" of terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
2002--Iraq defiantly rejected a U.S.-British plan for the UN to force Pres. Hussein to disarm and open his palaces for weapons searches.
2003--a massive blackout struck almost all of Italy, leaving millions of people without power.
2003--a bomb exploded outside an upscale nightclub in southwestern Colombia, killing at least 13 people.
2008--Pres. Bush urged Congress to pass a $700 billion rescue plan for beleaguered financial companies.
2008--Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 7 returned to Earth after completing their country's first spacewalk mission.
2008--Austrian 16-year-olds voted for the first time in parliamentary elections under a law adopted in 2007.
2012--citing national security risks, Pres. Obama blocked a Chinese company from owning four wind farm projects in northern Oregon near a Navy base.

Thought for Today:
"A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth."
--Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer

[pegasus]

Kitchen Fires Prevention Week



Today in History: October 7th, the 280th day of 2013 with 85 days left in the year

1571--in the Battle of Lepanto in southwestern Greece, Don John of Austria and his 316 ships defeated the Turkish navy with 250 galleys in the last great confrontation between oared ships.
1573--William Laud, English Archbishop of Canterbury (1633-45); beheaded by Parliament 1645 at age 71.
1763--George III of Great Britain issued the Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of the Alleghenies to white settlement.
1765--the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.
1777--the second Battle of Saratoga began during the American Revolution.
1780--Patriot militia under Col. William Campbell defeated Loyalist militia at the Battle of King's Mountain in North Carolina.
1799--the bell of the sunken Lutine was salvaged off the coast of Holland and presented to Lloyds of London, where it has been rung ever since to mark a marine disaster.
1816--the Washington, a steamboat with a double-deck design that will soon prove ideal for western rivers arrived at the docks in New Orleans.
1849--American novelist and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe died at age 40.
1858--the fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Galesburg, Ill.
1864--iat the Battle of Darbytow Unnon troops turned back Gen. Robert E. Lee's attempt to regain ground lost around Richmond, Va. .
1868--Cornell University was inaugurated in Ithaca, N.Y.
1871--the most devastating fire in US history was ignited in Wisconsin, killing 1,2000 and destroying 2 billion trees.
1910--a major wildfire devastated the northern Minnesota towns of Spooner and Baudette, charring at least 300,000 acres and killing some 40 people.
1913--Henry Ford's entire Highland Park, Mich. automobile factory began running on a continuously moving assembly line for the first time.
1919--KLM, the national airline of the Netherlands, was established and is now the oldest existing airline.
1929--former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, one of the main figures of the Teapot Dome scandal, went on trial in Washington, D.C.
1940--German troops occupied Romania as part of Hitler's strategy of creating an unbroken Eastern front to menace the Soviet Union and gain control of its oil fields.
1943--Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on Wake Island, ordered the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with US forces.
1949--the German Democratic Republic or East Germany was formed.
1954--Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by New York's Metropolitan Opera.
1959--the far side of the moon was photographed for the first time by the Soviet Union's Luna 3 spacecraft.
1960--Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard M. Nixon held their second televised debate.
1963--Pres. Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.
1968--the Motion Picture Association of America adopted a film-rating system.
1970-- Pres. Nixon announced a 5-point proposal to end the Vietnamese war, based on a "standstill" cease-fire in place in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
1975--a NY State Supreme Court judge reversed a deportation order for John Lennon, allowing him to remain legally in his adoptive home of New York City
1981--Egypt's parliament named Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat.
1982--the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical Cats opened on Broadway, beginning its record run of 7,485 performances.
1985--Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean with more than 400 people aboard.
1991--University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him; Thomas denied Hill's allegations.
1992--trade representatives of the US, Canada and Mexico initialed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in San Antonio, Tex.
1996--Fox News Channel made its debut.
1998--Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside Laramie, Wyo.; he died five days later.
2001--Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants wrapped up his record-breaking season with his 73rd home run.
2001--the US and Britain launched air attacks against military targets and Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.
2003---California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace him.
2003--Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly to allow Turkish troops to be sent to Iraq.
2003--American scientists Alexei Abrikosov and Anthony Leggett and Russian Vitaly Ginzburg won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in how matter can behave at extremely low temperatures.
2006--Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who had chronicled Russian military abuses against civilians in Chechnya, was found shot to death in Moscow.
2008--the misery worsened on Wall Street, as the Dow lost more than 500 points and all the major indexes slid more than 5 percent.
2008--the Federal Reserve announced a radical plan to buy massive amounts of short-term debt, known as commercial paper, to get credit markets moving again.
2008-- Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan and Yoichiro Nambu of the US won the Nobel Prize in physics.
2012--Venezuela's National Electoral Council announced that Pres. Hugo Chavez had won re-election for the third time.

Thought for Today:
"If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life."
--James Michener (1907-1997).American author (Tales of the South Pacific)

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German-American Heritage Month



Today in History: October 24th, the 297th day of 2013 with 68 days left in the year

439--Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, fell to Genseric and the Vandals.
1537--Jane Seymour, the third wife of England's King Henry VIII, died 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward VI.
1632--Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch tradesman and scientist who is known as the "father of microbiology"; died 1723 at age 90.
1648--the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War and, effectively, the Holy Roman Empire.
1755--a British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ended in failure.
1775--a British naval fleet of six ships sailed up the James River to attack Patriot troops and destroy the town of Norfolk, Va.
1836--Alonzo D. Phillips of Springfield, Mass. obtained a patent for phosphorous friction safety matches.
1861--the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to Pres. Lincoln over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.
1862--Union General Don Carlos Buell was replaced after the Battle of Perryville, Ky. and was replaced by Gen. William Rosecrans,
1897--the New York Journal's printed the first regular comic strip called The Yellow Kid.
1901--widow Anna Edson (correct) Taylor on her 43rd birthday became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
1917--a combined German and Austro-Hungarian decimated the Italian line along the northern stretch of the Isonzo River in the Battle of Caporetto in one of the most crushing victories of World War I.
1929--Black Thursday got its name when Wall Street investors panicked and ordered their stock brokers to sell all their shares.
1930--John Wayne debuted in his first starring role in The Big Trail
1931--the George Washington Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was dedicated.
1939--nylon stockings were first sold publicly in Wilmington, Del.
1940--the 40-hour work week went into effect in the US under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
1945--the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.
1947--two rush-hour commuter trains collided in South Croydon, England, killing 32 people caused by heavy fog and a serious mistake by a signalman.
1952--Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict.
1955--the Boxing Hall of Fame was dedicated in upstate New York.
1962--a naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by Pres. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.
1969--Richard Burton dazzled wife Elizabeth Taylor when he bought her a 69-carat Cartier diamond ring costing $1.5 million.
1970--Salvador Allende, an avowed Marxist, became president of Chile after being confirmed by the Chilean congress.
1972--Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who'd broken Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Conn., at age 53.
1987--30 years after it was expelled, the Teamsters union was welcomed back into the AFL-CIO.
1989--former television evangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years (later reduced to 8 years, then 4) in prison for fraud and conspiracy.
1991--Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 70
1992--the Toronto Blue Jays became the first team outside the US to win a World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves 4-3 in Game 6.
2002--Authorities arrested Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo in connection with the Washington-area sniper attacks.
2003--the era of supersonic jet travel came to an end as three British Airways Concordes landed at London's Heathrow Airport.
2005--civil rights activist Rosa Parks died at age 92.
2007--Facebook Inc. sold a 1.6% stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from Google Inc.
2008--Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother were found slain in their Chicago home; the body of her 7-year-old nephew was found three days later.
2008--a Russian Soyuz capsule touched down in Kazakhstan after delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space, a Russian and an American, to the international space station.
2012--Pablo Sandoval became the fourth player to hit three home runs in a World Series game as the San Francisco Giants won the first game vs. the Detroit Tigers.
2012--Hurricane Sandy roared across Jamaica and toward Cuba, before taking aim on the eastern UA

Thought for Today:
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
--Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher

[pegasus]

Books for Treats Day



Today in History: October 31st, the 304th day of 2013 with 61 days left in the year

1517--Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
1776--in a speech before British Parliament, King George III acknowledged that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the American colonies.
1795--John Keats, English Romantic poet. one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Shelley, was born in London; died 1921 at age 25 of tuberculosis in King's College, London.
1846--the Donner party became trapped in what is now known as Donner Pass in the Sierra Mountains.
1861--citing failing health, Gen. Winfield Scott, commander of the Union forces, retired from service.
1864--Nevada became the 36th state.
1868--Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for mail carriers.
1888--John Boyd Dunlop took out a patent for his pneumatic bicycle tire.
1892--The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle, was published for the first time in book form (had benn publishing in magazines since 1887).
1914--Russian troops under General Russki pushed the Germans under Hindenburg back to their original positions, ending the battle of the Vistula River.
1922--Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy.
1926--magician Harry Houdini died of complications from a ruptured appendix causing gangrene and peritonitis.
1931--Dan Rather, broadcast journalist for CBS, turns 82 today.
1938--the day after his War of the Worlds broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the show was real.
1941--the Navy destroyer USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of some 100 lives.
1941--work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927. Actually, the money ran out.
1954--the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began a revolt against French rule.
1956--British and French military forces join Israel in the Suez Canal Zone to try to retake the canal from Egypt.
1961--the body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin's Tomb as part of the Soviet Union's "de-Stalinization" drive.
1968--Pres. Johnson ordered a halt to all bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
1984--Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards.
1992--five American nuns in Liberia were shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
1992--Pope John Paul II formally proclaimed that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning the astronomer Galileo for holding that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
1993--River Phoenix died at the age of 23 after collapsing outside The Viper Room in Hollywood
1999--EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.
2001--New York hospital worker Kathy T. Nguyen (nwen) died of inhalation anthrax, the fourth person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism.
2005--Pres. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court.
2006--P.W. Botha, South Africa's apartheid-era president, died at age 90.
2008--Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel died in Chicago at age 96.
2012--Pres. Obama joined Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for a tour of damage along the New Jersey coast from Superstorm Sandy.

Thought for Today:
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."
—Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English author and critic