Today in History

Oct 8th
1871
The Great Fire of Chicago kills 200 people and destroys 4 sq miles of buildings and the original Emancipation Proclamation
1934
Bruno Hauptman indicted for the murder of Charles Linbergh's son
2001
Pres.George W.Bush announces establishment of Homeland Security Office after the 9/11 attacks
2019
Montgomery,Alabama the home of the Civil Rights Movement, has its 1st black mayor in over 200 yrs Stephen Reed
 

8th October

2014 Motorist Jonathan Weekes (48, of Tredegar) put a blue flashing light on top of his Vauxhall Insignia and pretended to be a policeman. Unfortunately for him he pulled over a real police officer for speeding, saying 'If you had been going any faster I would have booked you.' When rumbled, Weekes drove off without any headlights on and overtook several cars at speed on narrow streets.

The court heard that when the officer asked Weekes what force he was with and where he was based, he gave a fake collar number before he drove off without any headlights on and overtook several cars at speed on narrow streets.

Weekes was traced through the car's registration number and when he was arrested at home, officers found police uniforms, batons and handcuffs bought on eBay as well as the blue light hidden in his shed.

He told magistrates that he had a "fascination" with authority figures but he "couldn't explain" why he pretended to be a police officer when he pulled over the real one.
 
Wednesday, October 9, 1957.

The final major British atomic bomb test is conducted at the remote South Australian site of Maralinga.

Australia's remoteness made it a choice for Britain to conduct testing of its atomic weapons in the 1950s. In October of 1952, the Montebello islands, off north-west Western Australia, became the site for testing of the first British atomic bomb. This was followed a year later by Britain's first atomic test on the Australian mainland, at Emu Field, in the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia. Further tests of nuclear weapons at the site were not undertaken, as it was considered too remote an area.

Maralinga is a remote area of South Australia, and was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal group. "Operation Buffalo" involved four open-air nuclear test explosions at Maralinga, and commenced on 27 September 1956, continuing through to October 22. The next series of tests at Maralinga was codenamed "Operation Antler" and involved three tests the following year. The final major test at Maralinga was conducted on 9 October 1957. However, many more minor tests were carried out in complete secrecy at Maralinga, up until 1963.

The tests at Maralinga left a legacy of radioactive contamination. Cleanup operations were insufficient to combat radiation poisoning among Australian servicemen and Aborigines who were at Maralinga during the tests. The site was formally handed back to the Maralinga people under the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act in 1985. In 1994, the Australian Government made a compensation settlement of $13.5 million with Maralinga Tjarutja, in relation to the nuclear testing.
 

1799 The sinking of HMS Lutine off the coast of Holland, with the loss of 240 men. The ship's bell was salvaged from the wreck and was later presented to shipping insurers Lloyds of London. The Lutine Bell has been rung ever since to mark a marine disaster.

1897 Henry Stumey set off in his 4.5hp Daimler from Land's End, and became the first person to drive to John o' Groats. His 929 mile journey took him 10 days.

1955 Three armed men raided a Turkish bath in London, but the well heeled customers were wearing very little clothing, and the robbers' total haul was only £7.
 
Pepper said:
October 9, 1940 John Lennon is born in Liverpool. He should be 80 years old! today. Miss you John and thanks for changing my world. ♥
Click to expand...
The day he was killed was a dark day indeed. One can only imagine the stellar music and further encouragement for social changes he would have graced us with had his life not been so cruelly cut short.
 
1000 Leif Ericson discovers "Vinland" (possibly L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada) reputedly becoming first European to reach North America

1290 Last of 16,000 Jews expelled by King Edward I leave England

1779 Siege of Savannah during American Revolutionary War: Casimir Pulaski is wounded by grapeshot
casimir-pulaski-medium.jpg
 
Saturday, October 10, 1891. : Australian bushranger Harry Power, mentor to a young Ned Kelly, dies from drowning in the Murray River.

Harry Power, born Henry Johnstone, was a notorious Victorian bushranger. He was born in Waterford, England, in 1819, and transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1841 for stealing shoes. During the 1850s and 1860s, he found himself in trouble with the law a number of times for horse stealing and other crimes. His bushranging career began after he escaped from Pentridge Gaol in 1869. Initially, he worked alone, but as he set his sights on higher goals of bushranging, he decided he needed an assistant. A friend, Jack Lloyd, told Power of Lloyd's nephew, Ned Kelly, who was just 15 at the time. Power served as a mentor to Ned Kelly, taking him on as an apprentice in 1870 and teaching him the finer arts of bushranging.

Jack Lloyd was the one who finally betrayed Power to the local constabulary. Enticed by the 500-pound reward, Lloyd led the police to Power's hideout at the back of Glenmore Station’s homestead. Power was apprehended and, as his crimes were non-violent, he was sentenced to 15 years' jail. Six years after his release, Power drowned when he fell into the Murray River near Swan Hill, on 10 October 1891.
 
Oct 10th
1845
The Naval School,now known as U.S. Naval Academy opens at Annapolis
1865
John Wesley Hyatt patents the billiard ball made of cellulose nitrate in Albany,NY
1933
The 1st synthetic detergent'Dreft' by Proctor&Gamble goes on sale
1973
U.S. Vice President,Spiro Agnew resigns after pleading no contest to allegations of tax fraud
 
10th October

1903 Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst helped found the Women's Social and Political Union to fight for women's emancipation in Britain, an organisation that gained much notoriety for its activities and whose members were the first to be christened 'suffragettes'. Emmeline's daughters Christabel and Sylvia were both active in the cause. British politicians, press and public were astonished by the demonstrations, window smashing, arson and hunger strikes of the suffragettes.

1961 Following a volcanic eruption, the entire population of the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha was evacuated to Britain.

1996 A Scottish fisherman found a message in a bottle. It had been thrown in the North Sea in 1914 to chart the currents.
 
Thursday, October 11, 1906. : The Coat of Arms of New South Wales is granted by Royal Warrant.

Each of the states of Australia has its own unique symbols and emblems. By the time Federation occurred in 1901, Queensland and South Australia had already adopted a coat of arms. In 1905, the Colonial Office suggested the state of New South Wales apply for a coat of arms to be granted. NSW Premier Joseph Carruthers commissioned NSW Government Printer, William Applegate Gullick, to make several designs, drawing upon symbols already used in the state seal. The final design was conferred by Royal warrant of Edward VII on 11 October 1906.​
 
11th October

1919 The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris. They were pre-packed lunch boxes at 3 shillings each (15p).

1982 The Mary Rose, which had been the pride of Henry VIII's English fleet until it sank in the Solent in 1545, was raised, by the Mary Rose Trust. It was one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. She was one of the largest ships in the English navy and was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship.
 
Friday, October 12, 1838. : Second Governor of South Australia, Lieutenant George Gawler, arrives in the colony.

George Gawler was born on 21 July 1795 in Devon, England. Upon finishing his schooling, he was educated at the military college of Great Marlow, where he was an exemplary student. Gawler had led a distinguished military career, and when a group of colonisation commissioners requested recommendations from the Royal Military College for a godly man as governor of South Australia, Gawler was encouraged to apply for the position. His application was accepted, and he was appointed as Governor of South Australia, taking over from the colony’s first Governor, John Hindmarsh. Gawler arrived in South Australia on 12 October 1838.

Saturday, October 12, 1918. : Australian children's classic "The Magic Pudding" is first published.

"The Magic Pudding" is a novel by artist and writer Norman Lindsay, who was known for his unusual and creative approach. Norman Alfred William Lindsay was born on 22 February 1879 in Creswick, Victoria, Australia. He was a skilled artist, and his paintings were controversial for their time, concentrating on nudes, often incorporating pagan themes of gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, in an Australian bush setting. Much of his work, which includes watercolours, lithographs, and etchings, can be found at his former home at Faulconbridge, New South Wales, now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum.

2002 -Over 200 people, almost half of whom are Australians, are killed in an explosion at a night club in Bali, Indonesia

Australians felt the impact of terrorism first-hand at 11:30pm local time on 12 October 2002. 202 people were killed and a further 209 injured when two separate bombs exploded in the town of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali, just before midnight. An electronically triggered bomb hidden in a backpack exploded in Paddy's Bar first. Just a few seconds later, a far more powerful 1000kg car bomb hidden in a white Mitsubishi van was detonated by remote control in front of the Sari Club. The dead included 99 Australians, 38 Indonesians and 26 British, as well as holiday-makers from many other nations.

No group actively claimed responsibility for the bombings, although Indonesian members of the regional Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) were named as key suspects, particularly since JI has alleged links to al-Qaeda. That same month, Abu Bakar Bashir, a leader of JI, was charged over his alleged role in the bombing. In March 2005, Bashir was found guilty of conspiracy over the attacks in Bali. On 8 August 2003, Amrozi bin Haji Nurhasyim was found guilty and sentenced to death for buying the explosives and the van used in the bombings. Another two participants, Imam Samudra and Mukhlas, were also sentenced to death.
 
Oct 12th
1892
The U.S. Pledge of Alligance was first recited in public schools during Columbus Day
1901
Pres.Theodore Roosevelt renames the 'Executive Mansion' to the'White House'
1931
Christ the Redeemer statue opens,standing 98ft{30 meters} tall high on top of Mount Corcovado overlooking Rio De Janerio The statue was built by engineer Heitor deSalva Costo
1960
Soviet leader,Nikita Khruschev bangs his shoe on his desk during a United Nations General Assembly session in NYC
 
Thursday, October 13, 1836. : One of Mitchell's men drowns as his expedition returns from the successful 'Australia Felix' discovery.

Major Thomas Mitchell was born in Craigend, Scotland, in 1792. He came to Australia after serving in the Army during the Napoleonic Wars, and took up the position of Surveyor-General of New South Wales. He undertook four expeditions into the NSW interior. His third expedition is considered to be his most successful. His instructions were to follow the Lachlan and Murrumbudgee Rivers to the Murray, then on to the junction with the Darling River. He was then to follow the Darling upstream as far as Menindee to confirm that it was the same river he had initially followed south from northern New South Wales.

Discouraged by the desolate country around the southern end of the Darling, Mitchell decided to return to the Murray to explore its more fertile surrounds. Crossing the Murray near the Murrumbidgee junction, he passed through the rich farming country of western Victoria, naming it "Australia Felix", or "Happy Australia". After continuing down to the southern coast, he turned in a northeasterly direction back towards Sydney. It was during this stage of his journey that he suffered his only loss of one of his team. On 13 October 1836, whilst scouting out a suitable crossing site on the Broken River, an ex-convict named James Taylor fell off his horse and drowned.

Friday, October 13, 1933. : Australia's first traffic lights begin operating in Sydney.

The world's first traffic light was operating in London, England, even before the advent of the automobile. Installed at a London intersection in 1868, it was a revolving gas-lit lantern with red and green signals. However, on 2 January 1869, the light exploded, injuring the policeman who was operating it. It was not until the early 1900s that Garrett Morgan, an African-American living in Cleveland, Ohio, developed the electric automatic traffic light. Originally based on a semaphore-system, traffic lights gradually evolved through the years to become the red-amber-green lights they are today.

Sydney's first set of traffic lights was installed on 13 October 1933. It was another 32 years before the nation's capital, Canberra, received its first two sets of traffic lights, on 23 October 1965.
 
Thursday, October 13, 1307. : King Philip IV of France arrests all the Knights Templars, spawning the superstition which surrounds Friday the 13th.

The order of the Knights Templar was founded around 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade. The order was recognised at the Council of Troyes in 1128 and confirmed by Pope Honorius III. The order grew to become one of the most powerful in Europe. The Knights Templar started lending money to Spanish pilgrims who wanted to travel to the Holy Land, and they gained wealth as the Church showered blessings and money on the order; but with the wealth came power and corruption. Pope Clement V urged Philip IV of France to find some means to extinguish their presence and power.

Thus it was that on 13 October 1307, Philip IV ordered the arrest of the entire order of Knights Templar in France, and had their possessions confiscated. This act served as the origin of the superstition which regards Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. The knights were put on trial and were tortured to extract confessions of sacrilegious practices, including heresy and witchcraft. Many were burnt and tortured, and under duress, admitted to a variety of heresies. These admissions were later retracted as being forced admissions. The leader of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was executed on 18 March 1314, by which time the Templars had been virtually hunted out of existence.


Saturday, October 13, 1792. : The cornerstone is laid for the White House in Washington DC.

The newly independent United States Government under the Constitution commenced in New York City on 4 March 1789. In 1790, the capital was moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city was only ever intended to be a temporary capital while preparations were made for the new US Capital in a more central location. George Washington helped select the site for the new Capital, positioned along the Potomac River. The states of Maryland and Virginia ceded land around the Potomac River to form the District of Columbia: hence the capital is known as Washington DC.

Labour began on the new capital city in 1791, and on 13 October 1792, the cornerstone was laid for the new Presidential Palace. The building's white Virginia freestone, set amongst the red brick of surrounding buildings, soon earned it the name of the "White House".
 
Oct 13th
1792
Old Farmer's Alamanc 1st edited&published by Robert Thomas
1960
Game 7 of the World Series Pirates vs Yankees ended dramatically when Pirate's Bill Mazeroski hit a bottom of the 9th HR.Pirates won 10-9
2010
The Coplapo mining accident in Chile ends as all 33 miners who were trapped for a record 69 days are rescued
2016
singer/songwriter,Bob Dylan awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
 
13th October

1884 Greenwich was chosen as the universal time meridian of longitude from which standard times throughout the world are calculated. There were two main reasons for the choice. The first was the fact that the USA had already chosen Greenwich as the basis for its own national time zone system. The second was that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian.

The decision was based on the argument that by naming Greenwich as Longitude 0º, it would be advantageous to the largest number of people. Therefore the Prime Meridian at Greenwich became the centre of world time.

Before this, almost every town in the world kept its own local time. There were no national or international conventions which set how time should be measured, or when the day would begin and end, or what length an hour might be.

2016 Queen Elizabeth II became the world's longest-reigning monarch following the death of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
 
Australian History
Monday, October 14, 1889. : Australia's first electric trams begin operating.

A tram is a rail-borne vehicle, lighter than a train, for the transport of passengers. Some of Australia's cities ran extensive tram networks in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The city of Melbourne, the second-largest city in Australia, boasts the third largest tram network in the world, consisting of 245 kilometres of track, 500 trams, and 1770 tram stops. In 1885 the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company began operating Melbourne's first cable tram line. The first service ran from Spencer St/Flinders St, to Hawthorn Bridge. As the city grew, the technical limits of the cable tram system became apparent, and electric trams were developed and implemented.

Australia's first electric tram began operating in Melbourne on 14 October 1889, running between the Box Hill Post Office on the corner of Whitehorse Road and Station Street, and the terminus near the intersection of Elgar and Doncaster Roads, Doncaster. It was also the first electric tram in the Southern Hemisphere. Box Hill and Doncaster were significant fruit-growing areas in Victoria at the time, so the line was well patronised. However, once the Union Electric Company’s contract to operate the line ceased, financial difficulties prevented the Tramway Company which took it over from addressing problems which had arisen with the under-powered cars which frequently broke down. The service continued to operate for several years, but was abandoned in January 1896.

It was not until October 1906 that another electric tram service opened. Trams still run extensively in Melbourne, as its wide streets and geometric street pattern make this mode of transport more practical than in other cities. In Adelaide, capital of South Australia, one tramline operates, originating from the city centre and terminating at Glenelg, and some trams still run in the old goldrush city of Bendigo in rural Victoria.

Monday, October 14, 1968. : The Western Australian town of Meckering suffers an earthquake which registers 6.9 on the Richter scale.

Meckering is a small town in the Avon valley region of Western Australia, about 130km east of Perth and 24km west of Cunderdin. At 10:59am on 14 October 1968, the town of approximately 240 people was struck by an earthquake which registered 6.9 on the Richter scale. No deaths were reported, but the earthquake injured 17 people, and caused an estimated $2.2 million worth of damage, translating to around $5 million today. The ground ruptured along a length of 40km, up to 1.5m wide and 2.4m high, and the evidence of this can be seen in the scar that still runs along the landscape today.
 
World History

Wednesday, October 14, 1925. : The innermost sarcophagus of Egyptian king Tutankhamun is opened, revealing the mummy.

Egypt's King Tutankhamun was the son of King Akhenaten, who lived from 1353 to 1337 BC. He was born around 1347 BC and died in his late teens. His tomb lay undiscovered for over 3300 years until a team of British archaeologists, led by Howard Carter, discovered a step leading to the tomb in November 1922. Twenty-two days later, Carter and his crew entered the tomb itself. The tomb also contained hundreds of objects, elaborately decorated and covered in gold, that the Egyptians believed would be needed by the king in his afterlife. The walls of the burial chamber were painted with scenes of his voyage to the afterworld.

Also within the tomb lay a stone sarcophagus - the final resting place of King Tutankhamun. When the sarcophagus itself was opened, it revealed three coffins, fitted within each other, and stuck together with black resin. Planning and preparing to open the sarcophagus was a process which took almost two years: the final, innermost sarcophagus was opened on 14 October 1925. Inside the final coffin, which was made out of solid gold, was the mummified body of King Tutankhamun.

The find was considered particularly significant, not only for the remarkable preservation of the mummy and the treasures, but for the fact that most of the Egyptian kings' tombs were believed to have already been found, and most of them ransacked. Tutankhamun's tomb provided an extraordinary view of the elaborate burial rites and preparations for Egyptian kings.

Sunday, October 14, 1962. : The Cuban Missile Crisis begins, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear warfare.

Cuba is an island between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 150 km south of Florida in the USA. In 1962, it was controlled by a socialist government under Fidel Castro. Castro had already sought support from the Soviet Union after the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, during which the country had adopted Marxist ideals. This had put the country in direct conflict with the USA, and Cuba needed a powerful ally.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was seen as the point in the Cold War when the USA and USSR were closest to engaging in nuclear warfare. Reconnaissance photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane on 14 October 1962, revealed that Soviet missiles were under construction in Cuba. A tense standoff ensued for two weeks, during which the USA placed a naval quarantine around Cuba to prevent further weapons being conveyed to the island.

It was not until October 28 that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and return the missiles to the Soviet Union, and remove Soviet light bombers from Cuba. This occurred on the condition that the United States would not invade Cuba

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Oct 14th
1834
Henry Blair,1st African American to receive patent for a corn planter
1884
George Eastman,founder of Eastman Kodak Company patents paper strip photographic film
1947
pilot Chuck Yeager becomes the 1st person to break the sound barrier at Rogers Dry Lake in S.Calif He flew the Bell X-1 rocket plane
 

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