October in Pop Culture History

• October Gemstone: Opal
• October Flower: Calendula
• The Zodiac signs for October are Libra or Scorpio (October 23 -31)

It’s weird that October isn’t the eighth month, isn’t it?

October, the tenth month of the current Gregorian calendar and the second month of Autumn’s rule derives its name from octo, the Latin word meaning eight, as October was the eighth month of the old Roman calendar. The traditional birthstone amulets of October are opal, rose sapphire, and tourmaline; and the calendula is the month?s traditional flower.

October is shared by the astrological signs of Libra the Scales (or Balance) and Scorpio the Scorpion, and is sacred to the following Pagan deities: Cernunnos, Hecate, the Morrigan, Osiris, and the Wiccan Goddess in Her dark aspect as the Crone.

During the month of October, the Great Solar Wheel of the Year is turned to Halloween (Samhain Eve), one of the four Grand Sabbats celebrated each year by Wiccans and modern Witches throughout the world.”
– Secrets of a Witch

Hawaii has a special October event called “the Aloha Festival,” sometimes described as the “Mardi Gras of the Pacific.”

Columbus Day is celebrated the second Monday every October.
Germany’s Oktoberfest originally began on October 17, 1810, the wedding day of King Ludwig I.

The annual festival starts much earlier, often in September. In America, special holidays start earlier well. Christmas celebrations and sales start in September and even July in some department stores.
Daylight Savings Time ends every year at 2:00 A.M. local time on the last Sunday of October

“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Rain in October means wind in December.”
– Farmer saying

“When birds and badgers are fat in October, expect a cold winter.
When berries are many in October beware a hard winter.”
– unknown

“All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.”
– Thomas Wolfe

“In October dung your fields, and your land its wealth shall yield.”
-Farmer saying

“The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.”
– Johnny Mercer and Jacques Prévert in Autumn Leaves

“October is nature’s funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming – October Than May. Every green thing loves to die in bright colors.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“If ducks do slide at Hallowtide,
At Christmas they will swim;
If ducks do swim at Hallowtide
At Christmas, they will slide.”
– unknown

“Always will there be Twenty-nine fine days in October.”

“If the October moon comes without frost, expect no frost till the moon of November.”
– Farmer saying

“October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”
-Mark Twain

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
– Humbert Wolfe

“You kind of took it for granted around the Yankees that there was always going to be baseball in October.”
-Whitey Ford

1843 – London’s The News of the World began publication.

1880 – John Philip Sousa, the first recorded popular music star, became the leader of the United States Marine Band.

1880 – First electric lamp factory was opened by Thomas Edison.

1890 – Yosemite National Park was established by the U.S. Congress.

1891 – Stanford University opened.

1908 – For $825 each, Ford’s Model T car was put on the market.

1918 – Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence, also known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, captured Damascus.

1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened to traffic. It is considered the first US superhighway.

1948 – Over Fargo, North Dakota, WW II pilot George F. Gorman reported ‘playing chicken” with a blinking orb of light UFO. It was visually seen by people in the control tower but did not show up on radar.

1949 – The People’s Republic of China was established and declared by Mao Zedong.

1955 – The Honeymooners premiered on CBS

1957 – First appearance of In God We Trust on U.S. paper currency, on one-dollar bills.

1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1962 – First broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

1971 – Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida.

1979 – Pope John Paul II began his first pastoral visit to the United States.

1989 – Denmark introduced the world’s first legal modern same-sex civil union, called a “registered partnership”.

1992 – Cartoon Network began broadcasting. The first cartoon, outside of Droopy Dog’s introduction, was Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit.

1996 – Animal Planet made its debut.

1982 – Epcot opened at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida.

1982 – Sony launched the first consumer compact disc player (model CDP-101).

1999 – The infamous “You Fool” episode of Hollywood Squares aired.

2006 – Dexter premiered on Showtime

2010 – Sony launched Sony Movie Channel

2013 – The United States federal government shutdown of 2013 (October 1-16) affected many operations for the US government

History for October 2
1187 – Saladin captured Jerusalem from Balian of Ibelin.

1893 – Cheniere Caminada Hurricane, Louisiana

1925 – John Logie Baird performed the first test of a working television system.

1950 – Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz was first published.

1955 – Alfred Hitchcock premiered on CBS

1958 – The Huckleberry Hound Show premiered, in syndication

1959 – The anthology series The Twilight Zone premiered on CBS.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1968 – The Tlatelolco massacre took place in Mexico City. 30-300 student protesters and supporters were killed.

2000 – Triple Play (3 cars) was played for the first time on The Price is Right.

2002 – The Beltway sniper attacks began. Paul LaRuffa, a 55-year-old pizzeria owner, was shot six times at close range – he survived, but 17 other people did not.

2006 – Five school girls were murdered by Charles Carl Roberts in a shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania

History for October 3
1849 – Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances. It was the last time he is seen in public before his death.

1863 – The last Thursday in November was declared as Thanksgiving Day by US President Abraham Lincoln.

1872 – The Bloomingdale brothers opened their first store at 938 Third Avenue, in New York City.

1932 – Iraq gained independence from the United Kingdom.

1949 – WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opened in Atlanta. WERD was at 860 AM, and is now WAEC.

1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tested a nuclear weapon, becoming the world’s third nuclear power.

1955 – Captain Kangaroo premiered on CBS

1955 – The Mickey Mouse Club premiered on ABC

1957 – The California State Superior Court ruled that Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems was not obscene.

1960 – The Andy Griffith Show premiered on CBS

1961 – The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on CBS

1985 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis made its first flight.

1988 – Turner Network Television (TNT) began on cable, with Gone With The Wind.

1992- Singer Sinead O’Conner stirred up controversy when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live

1995 – More than 150 million people tuned in for the announcement of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. The not guilty verdict was met with both praise and criticism.

2004 – Desperate Housewives premiered on ABC

History for October 4
1535 – The first complete English-language Bible (The Coverdale Bible) was printed, translated by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale.

1636 – The Swedish Army defeated the armies of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Wittstock.

1876 – Texas A&M University opened as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

1883 – First run of the Orient Express, from Paris to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna.

1895 – The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship was played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.

1941 – Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis character debuted on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

1957 – The USSR launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.

1963 – Hurricane Flora killed 6,000 people in Cuba and Haiti.

1965 – Pope Paul VI’s visit to New York got television coverage on all 3 American networks. The Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium was broadcast in color.

1980 – Heathcliff premiered on ABC Saturday morning.

1983 – Richard Noble set a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour, driving Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

1985 – The Free Software Foundation was founded in Massachusetts, United States.

1988 – Televangelist Jim Bakker was indicted for fraud.

1990 – Beverly Hills 90210 premiered on FOX

2004 – SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize, for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.

2006 – Wikileaks was launched by Julian Assange.

History for October 5
1550 – Foundation of Concepción, Chile.

1857 – The City of Anaheim, California was founded.

1944 – Suffrage was extended to women in France.

1945 – Hollywood Black Friday – A six-month strike by Hollywood set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers’ studios.

1947 – The first televised White House address was given by US President Harry S. Truman.

1950 – You Bet Your Life, featuring Groucho Marx, premiered on NBC.

1962 – Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, was released.

1962 – The Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, backed with P.S. I Love You, was released in the United Kingdom.

1966 There was a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor, near Detroit, Michigan.

1969 – The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on BBC One. It ran 45 episodes, until 1974.

1970 – The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) began broadcasting and National Educational Television (NET) closed.

1982 – Johnson & Johnson began a nationwide product recall in the US for all products in its Tylenol brand after several bottles in Chicago were found to have been laced with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths.

1984 – Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space, flying aboard the US Space Shuttle Challenger.

1991 – The first official version of the Linux kernel (version 0.02) was released.

2001 – Barry Bonds surpassed Mark McGwire’s single-season home run total with the 71st and 72nd home runs.

2011 – American Horror Story premiered on FX

History for October 6
1723- Benjamin Franklin arrived in Philadelphia (age of 17).

1876 – The American Library Association was founded.

1927 – Opening of The Jazz Singer with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, in New York City. It was the first “talkie” hit film.

1948 (Earthquake) Ashgabat, Soviet Union

1948 – The first television network soap opera, Faraway Hill, was broadcast by the DuMont Network.

1979 – Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit the White House.

1981 – Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat was murdered by Khalid Islambouli.

1985 – Jem and the Holograms debuted, in syndication

1986 – Double Dare premiered on Nickelodeon.

1995 – 51 Pegasi was discovered to be the second major star (along with our Sun) to have a planet orbiting around it.

2000 – CSI: Crime Scene Investigation premiered on CBS

2004 – Ghost Hunters premiered on Syfy

2007 – Jason Lewis completed the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe (pedal power).

History for October 7
3761 BC – Today was the first day of creation, according to the Jewish Talmudic Calendar.

1737 (Cyclone) India

1919 – KLM, the Netherlands official airline, was founded.

1933 – Air France began, with the merger of 5 smaller French airlines.

1950 – Mother Teresa opened the Missionary of Charity.

1952 – WFIL in Philadelphia introduced Bandstand (later called American Bandstand)

1955 – American poet Allen Ginsberg performed his poem Howl for the first time at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.

1958 – The US manned space-flight project was renamed, Project Mercury. It was originally called Project Astronaut.

1985 – The Achille Lauro was hijacked by Palestine Liberation Front. The hijackers killed wheel-chair bound Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, throwing him overboard after shooting him.

1988 – An Inupiat hunter discovered three gray whales trapped under the ice in Barrow, Alaska, the US leading to a multinational effort to ‘free the whales’.

1996 – The Fox News Channel began broadcasting.

2003 – The governor of California, Gray Davis, was recalled in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

History for October 8
1860 – Telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco began operating.

1767 – Surveying for the Mason-Dixon Line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania was completed.

1881 – Haighong Typhoon, Vietnam

1871 – Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin (2000 estimated dead)

1871 – Great Michigan Fire (500? killed)

1871 – Peshtigo, Wisconsin Fire (over 1200 killed)

1871 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan including the Great Chicago Fire, and the much deadlier Peshtigo Fire.

1956 – New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series, against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1967 – Che Guevara and his men were captured in Bolivia.

1982 – Cats, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, opened on Broadway and ran for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.

1984 – The Burning Bed starring Farrah Fawcett, aired on NBC

1986 – The Fox Broadcasting Company became the US’ fourth commercial broadcast television network, with The Late Show, hosted by Joan Rivers.

2001 – US President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.

2005 (Earthquake) Kashmir, Pakistan

History for October 9
768 – Carloman I and Charlemagne were both crowned Kings of The Franks. Carloman died in 771, and Charlemagne reigned until 814.

1824 – Slavery was abolished in Costa Rica.

1873 – The US Naval Institute was established.

1888 – The Washington Monument officially opened to the public.

1919 – The Cincinnati Reds won the World Series, and eight White Sox players were later accused of intentionally losing games in exchange for money from gamblers.

1967 – Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia.

1980 – Pope John Paul II met and shook hands with the Dalai Lama in Vatican City.

1992 – The Peekskill Meteorite (about 24 pounds) landed in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family’s 1980 Chevrolet Malibu.

2006 – North Korea may have tested its first nuclear device.

2012 – The Pakistani Taliban made a failed attempt to assassinate 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai on her way home from school.

History for October 10
1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780 killed 20,000 to 30,000 people in the Caribbean region.

1845 – In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (now the United States Naval Academy) opened.

1871 – The Great Chicago Fire finally dissipated.

1871 – Tau Epsilon Phi was founded at Columbia University (other organizations did not allow Jewish members)

1918 – The Cloquet Fire, northern Minnesota, USA

1957 – The finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, was refused service in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was a bit of an international incident. He later was invited to dine with US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1964 – NBC aired the 1964 Summer Olympics opening ceremony at Tokyo, Japan, with the first time of live Olympic telecast program, by geostationary communication satellite, Syncom 3.

1971 – Sold, dismantled, and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopened in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

1973 – Vice President of the US Spiro Agnew resigned, after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.

1983 – Adam, a TV-movie about the mysterious disappearance of Adam Walsh, premiered on NBC

2010 – Cable channel The Hub (Now Discovery Family) made its debut in the United States.

2012 – Nashville premiered on ABC

History for October 11
1138 (Earthquake) Aleppo, Syria

1767 – Surveying for the Mason – Dixon line, separating Maryland from Pennsylvania was completed.

1811 – Juliana began operation as the first steam-powered ferry service between New York City, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey.

1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest university, opened.

1890 The Daughters of the American Revolution were founded, in Washington, DC.

1899 – MLB’s Western League was renamed the American League.

1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a spacewalk.

1958 – NASA launched the lunar probe Pioneer 1.

1962 – Pope John XXIII convenes the Second Vatican Council, changing several rules, including saying The mass in the local languages and having the celebrant (priest) face the congregation.

1973 – Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker were abducted by aliens in Mississippi, they told authorities.

1984 – Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a spacewalk, on the Space Shuttle Challenger.

2001 – One of the first old companies to fall behind n the digital era, The Polaroid Corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection.

2006 – 30 Rock premiered on NBC

History for October 12
1692 – The Salem witch trials ended via a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.

1773 – America’s first insane asylum opened for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia.

1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day in the US was held in New York City.

1810 – Oktoberfest begins: In Germany, the Bavarian royal family invited the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling his ‘raincoat.’

1918 – Cloquet Fire, Minnesota killed over 400 people.

1950 – The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show debuted on CBS.

1960 – Nikita Khrushchev famously pounded his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly.

1964 – The USSR launched Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew; it was the first flight without spacesuits.

1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams was published. The Answer? 42.

1994 – NASA lost radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as it descended into the thick, acidic atmosphere of Venus.

2000 – The USS Cole was badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.

History for October 13
1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy, almost 25 million light-years away, was discovered by Charles Messier.

1775 – The United States Continental Congress ordered the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).

1843 – B’nai B’rith was founded in New York City.

1914 – In Major League Baseball’s World Series, the Boston Braves defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4 games to 0, at Fenway Park in Boston, completing the first World Series sweep in history.

1917 – The 10 minute “Miracle of the Sun” was witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.

1958 – Paddington Bear made his debut in A Bear Called Paddington.

1963 (Volcano Eruption) Kuril Islands

1991- Jennifer Lopez joined the cast of In Living Color as a Fly Girl. Jamie Foxx, Steve Park, and Shawn Wayans are also added to the cast.

2010 – The 2010 Copiapo mining accident in Copiapo, Chile ended as all 33 miners came to the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground.

History for October 14
1926 – Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne was first published.

1881 – Eyemouth Windstorm Disaster, Scotland

1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers, 2-0, winning the World Series.

1912 – Former President of the US, Theodore Roosevelt, was shot and mildly wounded by John Schrank. With the fresh wound and bullet in his chest, Roosevelt still gave his scheduled speech.

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 rocket-powered (and experimental) aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound over the high desert of Southern California.

1964 – Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for striving to end racial inequality through non-violence.

1972 – Kung Fu premiered on ABC

1979 – The first Gay Rights March on Washington, CD – the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demanded”an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people” and drew 200,000 people.

1982 – President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the War on Drugs.

1994 – Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and the Foreign Minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, received the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords.

1998 – Eric Rudolph was charged with six bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.

2003 – The ‘Steve Bartman Incident’ occurred during a Major League Baseball (MLB) in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series game played between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins. Chicago lost. Steve caught a ball that was still in play.

2007 – Keeping Up with the Kardashians premiered on E!

History for October 15
1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian calendar. In several countries (Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain) October 4 of that year was followed directly by October 15.

1764 – Edward Gibbon observed a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspired him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company began operations.

1888 – The “From Hell” letter sent by Jack the Ripper was received by the London authorities (Whitechapel Vigilance Committee).

1951 – I Love Lucy premiered on CBS. It was filmed on three cameras, a TV first.

1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, was shared with the coding community for the first time.

1966 – The Black Panther Party was created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

1987 – Bob Barker, host of The Price Is Right, stopped dying his hair. The audience gave him a standing ovation when he came onstage, white-haired

2000 – Curb Your Enthusiasm premiered on HBO

2001 – Smallville premiered on The WB

History for October 16
1793 – Marie Antoinette, the widow of Louis XVI, was guillotined at the height of the French Revolution. The phrase “Let them eat cake” is often attributed to Marie but there is no evidence she ever said it.

1846 – William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

1869 – The Cardiff Giant was “discovered” in Cardiff, New York. It was a hoax.

1875 – Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah.

1916 – In Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning clinic in the United States.

1923 – The Walt Disney Company was founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

1944 – Wally Walrus debuted in The Beach Nut, a Walter Lantz’s cartoon.

1968 – Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the Black Power salute at the Olympics.

1978 – Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

1984 – Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 – The Million Man March took place in Washington, DC. Between 400,000 and 850,000 people marched.

2012 – The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb was discovered.

History for October 17
1091 – The London Tornado of 1091 destroyed many buildings, and killed two people.

1814 – The Great Beer Flood -More than 323,000 gallons of beer burst out of the Meux and Company Brewery and poured into the streets of St. Giles, London, England. 8 people were killed.

1860 – First Open (Golf) Championship (referred to in the US as the British Open).

1919 – Radio Corporation of America (RCA) incorporated.

1931 – Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion.

1933 – Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany and moved to the United States.

1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened in Sellafield, Cumbria, England.

1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer played a game of chess labeled The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne.

1958 – An Evening With Fred Astaire premiered, it was one the first “special” programs on television, and won nine Emmy Awards.

1965 – The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair closed. Over 51 million people had attended the event.

1966 – All of NBC’s news programming began airing in full-color.

1973 – OPEC imposed an oil embargo against a number of Western countries.

1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act was signed into law, creating the US Department of Education and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

1979 – Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize.

1989 (Earthquake) The Lome Prieta earthquake interrupted Game 3 of the World Series

2005 – The Colbert Report premiered on Comedy Central

2007 – Storm Chasers debuted on The Discovery Channel

2008 – Ghost Adventures premiered on The Travel Channel

History for October 18
1386 – The University of Heidelberg opened.

1620 – The Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.

1851 – Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick was first published as The Whale.

1867 – “Seward’s Folly” United States took possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million.

1898 – The United States took possession of Puerto Rico from Spain.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (Corporation) BBC was founded.

1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Eva “Evita” Duarte.

1954 – Texas Instruments introduced the first Transistor radio.

1964 – Jackie Mason appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and may have given Ed “the finger” on the air. He never appeared on the show again.

1968 – The US Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a “Black Power” salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.

1988 – Rosanne premiered on ABC

History for October 19
1512 – Martin Luther earned a doctorate of theology.

1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, ending the Revolutionary War.

1798 – Chief Justice John Jay was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.

1900 – Max Planck discovered the law of black-body radiation (Planck’s Law).

1982 – St. Elsewhere premiered on NBC

1987 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22% (508 points), named Black Monday.

2003 – Mother Teresa was beatified (the step before sainthood) by Pope John Paul II.

2004 – The Biggest Loser premiered on NBC.

2005 – Hurricane Wilma was the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 MB.

2012 – Built in 1952, Big Tex, a 52-foot statue and icon in Dallas was destroyed by fire in the 2012 State Fair of Texas.

History for October 20
1720 – Caribbean pirate Calico Jack Rackham, one of the first pirates to use the “Jolly Roger”, was captured by the Royal Navy.

1803 – The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1818 – The Convention of 1818 was signed between the US and the UK which settled the Canada/United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

1873 – Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities drafted the (American) Football rules.

1944 – Liquid natural gas exploded from storage tanks in Cleveland, killing 130 people.

1951 – CBS began using the “Eyeball” logo.

1968 – Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1977 – Lynyrd Skynyrd members Ronnie Van Zandt, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines died in a plane crash. None were aged 27.

1981 – Two police officers and a Brinks armored car guard are killed during an armed $1.6 million robbery in Rockland County, New York, carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.

1991 – The Oakland Hills, California firestorm killed 25 people.

2001 – Concert For New York: A Tribute To Heroes was broadcast on VH1 and other networks. It raised funds for the families of those killed by the September 11 terrorist attacks.

2011 – The National Transitional Council rebel forces captured (in hiding) Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte.

History for October 21
1520 – Ferdinand Magellan discovered a strait now known as Strait of Magellan in South America.

1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution was launched. It was the third such vessel completed for the US Navy.

1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.

1921 – The Sheik starring Rudolph Valentino, premiered in Los Angeles

1921 – President Warren G. Harding delivered the first speech by a sitting US President against lynching in the Deep South.

1940 – For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway was published.

1959 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.

1959 -The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.

1973 – John Paul Getty III’s ear was cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome, with a note – “This is Paul’s ear. If we don’t get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits.”

1973 – Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams (later an actor) became the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.

1978 – Frederick Valenteich (flying a Cessna 182 airplane) disappeared over Melbourne, Australia right after describing a UFO to the control tower. The last seventeen seconds of his transmission was described as ‘metallic scraping.’

1994 – North Korea and the United States signed an agreement that required North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections. On October 9, 2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test.

1995 – Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon died of a cocaine overdose

History for October 22
4004 BC – According to Ussher chronology, the world came into existence the night of October 22 in 4004 BC, a Saturday.

362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside Antioch, (in modern-day Turkey) was destroyed in a fire.

1746 – The College of New Jersey (renamed Princeton University in 1896) received its charter.

1784 – Russia founded a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

1836 – Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1879 – Thomas Edison tested the first practical electric incandescent light bulb – it lasted 13 1/2 hours.

1883 – The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opened with a performance of Gounod’s Faust.

1907 – Panic of 1907 – A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company set events in motion that lead to depression.

1926 – J. Gordon Whitehead punched magician Harry Houdini, while he was still preparing for it) in the stomach in Montreal, later causing his death.

1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents shot and killed bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.

1962 – US President John F. Kennedy announced that American reconnaissance planes had found Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba and that he had ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.

1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turned down the honor because “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution”.

1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album: The Supremes A’ Go-Go.

1976 – Red Dye No. 4 was banned by the US Food and Drug Administration.

1978 – The inauguration of Pope John Paul II took place in Saint Peter’s Square.

2001 – Grand Theft Auto III was released, creating a genre of open-world, action-adventure video games as well as spurring controversy around violence in new video games.

History for October 23
1850 – The first National Women’s Rights Convention opened in Worcester, Massachusetts.

1861 – President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.

1915 – Over 25,000 women marched on Fifth Avenue, NYC to advocate their right to vote.

1917 – Lenin called for the October Revolution.

1935 – Mobsters Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard “Lulu” Rosencrantz are fatally shot at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey – The Chophouse Massacre.

1946 – The United Nations General Assembly convened for the first time, in Flushing, Queens, New York City.

1958 – The Smurfs, a fictional race of blue dwarves, by Peyo, was serialized in the French weekly Spirou magazine.

1973 – US President Richard M. Nixon agreed to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.

1998 – Swatch Internet Time, a measure of 1000 “beats” per day was inaugurated by the Swatch Group. Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided up into 1000 parts called “.beats”. Each beat lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds.

2011 – Once Upon A Time premiered on ABC

History for October 24
1901 – Annie Edson Taylor, at age 63, became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1902 (Volcano Eruption) Santa María.

1926 – Harry Houdini’s last performance took place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.

1929 – Stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange “Black Thursday”

1931 – Over the Hudson River, and connecting the Washington Heights, Manhattan in New York City to Fort Lee, New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge opened to public traffic.

1946 – A camera onboard the V-2 No. 13 rocket took the first photograph of earth from outer space.

1947 – Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

2002 – Police arrested spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC.

2003 – Concorde made its last commercial flight.

2008 – Presidential candidate Barack Obama aired a 30-minute infomercial on CBS, NBC, Fox, BET, Univision, MSNBC and TV One.

2008 – Many of the world’s stock exchanges experienced their worst declines in history – “Bloody Friday”

History for October 25
1938 – Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounced swing music as “a degenerated musical system, turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people.”

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was named the first African American general in the United States Army.

1962 – Nelson Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison.

1964 – The Rolling Stones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1982 – Newhart premiered on CBS

1983 – Microsoft released Word, version 1

1993 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show made its television debut on FOX, featured an intercut live cast performance.

History for October 26
1774 – The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.

1775 – King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to stop the American Revolution.

1776 – Benjamin Franklin went to France to seek French support for the American Revolution.

1825 – From Albany, New York to Lake Erie, the Erie Canal opened.

1861 – The Pony Express officially closed.

1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona. The “OK” probably referred to two families, Ormsby & Kimberly, who owned the nearby corral.

1936 – The first electric generator at Hoover Dam went into operation.

1958 – Pan American Airways made the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707, from New York City to Paris, France.

1984 – V (the series) premiered on NBC

1984 – Stephanie Fae Beauclair (October 14, 1984 – November 15, 1984) “Baby Fae” received a heart transplant from a baboon.

2001 – The United States passed the first Patriot Act.

History for October 27
312 – Constantine the Great saw the Vision of the Cross. “In this sign, you shall conquer”

1275 – Amsterdam, in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was founded.

1682 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was founded.

1904 – The first underground New York City Subway line opened.

1955 – Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean was released. It premiered the night before, at the Astor Theater in New York.

1961 – NASA tested the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.

1964 – Ronald Reagan delivered his “A Time for Choosing” speech on behalf of Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater.

1966 – It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired for the first time (on CBS)

1996 – Pop-Up Video premieres on VH1.

1997 – Stock markets around the world crashed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 554.26 points (7.18%) to 7,161.15.

History for October 28
1420 – Beijing became officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty in the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, was completed.

1492 – Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba.

1636 – The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established the first college in what would become the United States, now known as Harvard University.

1886 – President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor.

1893 – Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, had its premiere performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer’s death.

1929 – “Black Monday” on Wall Street, preceding the Great Depression.

1943 – The supposed ‘Philadelphia Experiment,’ involving teleportation or invisibility by the US Navy, took place with the destroyer escort ship, the USS Eldridge. The US Navy maintains that no such experiment occurred and details of the story contradict ‘well-established facts about the Eldridge.’

1948 – Paul Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane).

1950 – The Jack Benny Show Premiered on CBS.

1962 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, ending the “Cuban Missle Crisis.”

1965 – Construction on the 650 foot high St. Louis Arch was completed.

1965 – Nostra aetate, the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions” of the Second Vatican Council, was approved by Pope Paul VI; absolving the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Innocent III’s 760-year-old declaration.

History for October 29
1618 – Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded for conspiring against James I of England.

1886 – The first ticker-tape parade took place in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

1888 – The Convention of Constantinople was signed, guaranteeing maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

1929 – “Black Tuesday” – The New York Stock Exchange crashed.

1966 – William Hartnell made his last appearance as the First Doctor in the concluding moments of Episode 4 of the Doctor Who serial ‘The Tenth Planet’.

1967 – Montreal’s World Fair – Expo 67 closed, with over 50 million visitors.

1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

1971 – Rock Guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident.

1993- The very first “Got Milk?” commercial was broadcast. It was directed by Michael Bay.

1998 – The Gothenburg discotheque fire in Sweden killed 63 students and injured 200 more.

1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery took off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.

2012 – Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the United States, killing 148 people directly and 138 in the aftermath.

History for October 30
1876 – Great Backeganj Cyclone, India (now Bangladesh)

1945 – Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signed a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the baseball color barrier.

1938 – Orson Welles broadcast his radio play of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

1947 – The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), later becoming the World Trade Organisation (WTO), was founded.

1974 – The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and champion George Foreman took place in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali won by knockout, knocking Foreman down just before the end of the eighth round.

1987 – NEC released the first 16-bit (fourth generation) video game console, the PC Engine, in Japan. It was later sold around the world under the name TurboGrafx-16.

2002 – Warren Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour, performing several songs and spoke about being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.
“Enjoy every sandwich.”

2015 – At least 56 people are killed and more than 155 injuries after a fire in the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania.

History for October 31
683 – During the second Second Islamic Civil War and the Siege of Mecca, the Kaaba caught fire and burned down.

1517 – Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.

1913 – Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. It was the first automobile highway going across the United States.

1923 – The first of 160 consecutive days of 100° Fahrenheit at Marble Bar, Western Australia.

1926 – Magician Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured (after an unexpected punch to the stomach a few days earlier).

1941 – Mount Rushmore is completed, featuring the sculpted head of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

1968 – “October Surprise” – Just before the US elections, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he had ordered a complete cessation of “all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam” effective November 1.

1969 – Wal-mart incorporated in Arkansas.

1991 – Are You Afraid of The Dark premiered on Nickelodeon

1998 – WKOW in Madison, Wisconsin became one of the first high-definition broadcasts in digital television.

2011 – Today is the date that there were 7 billion people living on Earth.