A bit of October 31st history…

1517 - Martin Luther sends his 95 Theses to Albrecht von Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation

1541 - Michelangelo finishes painting “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

1846 - The Donner party, unable to cross Donner Pass, construct a winter camp

1918 - Spanish Flu kills 21,000 people in the US in a single week

1941 - Mt Rushmore Monument is completed in South Dakota

1956 - Britain and France join Israeli forces in Egypt and begin to bomb Egypt to reopen the Suez Canal

1992 - Roman Catholic Church reinstates Galileo Galilei after 359 years

2003 - Bethany Hamilton, aged 13, has her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing in Hawaii

2018 - World’s biggest statue, the Statue of Unity, is unveiled in India (pictured)

2019 - US House of Representatives votes to formalize impeachment proceedings against President Trump 

On the night of October 31, many Americans celebrate the traditions of Halloween by dressing in costumes and telling tales of witches and ghosts. Continue reading.

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A bit of October 30th history…

1420 - Wars of the Roses: Henry VI of England returns to the throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle

1873 - PT Barnum’s circus, “Greatest Show on Earth”, debuts; NYC

1938 - A radio broadcast of HG Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”, narrated by Orson Welles, allegedly causes a mass panic (pictured)

1961 - Soviet Party Congress unanimously approves a resolution removing Stalin’s body from Lenin’s Tomb in Red Square as part of de-Stalinization efforts 

1990 - Britain and France complete the “Chunnel” under the English Channel

2012 - Walt Disney purchases Lucasfilm Ltd and it’s rights for Star Wars and Indiana Jones for $4.05 billion

2017 - President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates, are indicted on fraud charges, advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to FBI

2019 - Twitter head, Jack Dorsey, announces it will no longer take political ads 

On October 30, 1735, John Adams--Revolutionary leader, Declaration of Independence signer, creator and theorist of constitutions, leading diplomat, first vice president, and second president of the United States--was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. Continue reading.

José Manuel Gallegos was born in Spanish colonial Mexico, in the town of Abiquiú, Nuevo México, on October 30, 1815. Continue reading.

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A bit of October 29th history…

539 BC - King Cyrus the Great of Persia marches into Babylon, freeing the Jewish captives and allowing them to return home

1618 - English adventurer, writer, and courtier Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against King James I of England

1929 - “Black Tuesday” Wall Street Stock Market Crashes triggering the “Great Depression”

1945 - 1st ball point pen goes on sale

2008 - 10th century Archimedes Palimpsest featuring lost works of Archimedes, made freely available on the web 10 years after being bought by unknown tech figure (pictured)

2015 - China announces the end of their 1 child policy after 35 years 

African-American folk artist Harriet Powers, nationally recognized for her quilts, was born in rural Georgia on October 29, 1837. Continue reading.

On October 29, 1855, recent German immigrant Carl Schurz wrote his wife, Margarethe Meyer Schurz, expressing hope for their future happiness. Continue reading.

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A bit of October 28th history…

1492 - Christopher Columbus sights Cuba and claims it for Spain under the name “Juana”

1538 - The 1st university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomas de Aquino, is established on Hispaniola

1793 - Eli Whitney applies for a patent on the Cotton Gin

1886 - Statue of Liberty dedicated by US President Cleveland, celebrated by 1st confetti (ticker tape) parade in NYC

1904 - St Louis police try a new investigation method - fingerprints

1919 - Volstead Act passed by US Congress, establishing prohibition, despite President Wilson’s veto

1924 - “Taung Child” discovered in lime quarry in Taung, South Africa; paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart identifies the fossil as a new hominin species, Australopithecus Africanus (thought killed by eagle) (pictured)

1965 - Gateway Arch (630 ft high) completed in St Louis, Missouri

2015 - Research indicating Plague dates back to the Bronze Age in skeletons, 5,783 years old, published 

October 28, 1875 marks the birth date of Gilbert H. Grosvenor, the editor credited with transforming National Geographic Magazine from a small scholarly journal into a dynamic world-renowned monthly.  Continue reading.

On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Continue reading.

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A bit of October 27th history…

312 - Roman Emperor Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross

1795 - Pinckney’s Treaty signed by Spain and US, establishing the southern boundary of the US and giving Americans right to navigate the Mississippi River

1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated

1938 - DuPont announces its new synthetic fiber will be called “nylon”

1962 - Black Saturday during the Cuban Missile Crisis - an American spy plane is shot down over Cuba and the navy drops warning depth charges on Soviet submarines

2019 - Wes Studi is 1st Native American actor to receive an Oscar, an honorary award for career achievement (pictured from “Last of the Mohicans”) 

The first in a series of eighty-five essays by "Publius," the pen name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, appeared in the Independent Journal, a New York newspaper, on October 27, 1787.  Continue reading.

At just after 2:30pm, on Thursday, October 27, 1904, the inaugural train of the New York City Subway emerged from City Hall Station with Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. at the controls.  Continue reading.

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