The Week of October 10 in History

I fell in love with history in the ninth grade in a World History class when the teacher taught Egyptian history (thank you, Miss Fischer!). I have been collecting historical bits of information for years. A year ago, I began tweeting historical facts every day. This blog entry is like the “best of” the events, births, and deaths that occurred during this week. If you want to read even more of these events on a daily basis. Follow me on Twitter at @kay_bigelow

October 10

• October 10 is the 283rd day of the year. There are 82 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1837 – Robert Gould Shaw, American Army officer who commanded the 54th Regiment, an all-Black infantry regiment. He was killed at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863. 
• 1944 – 800 Gypsy children were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. 
• 1945 – The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang signed a principle agreement in Chongqing about the future of post-war China. Later, the pact was commonly referred to as the Double-Ten Agreement
• 1957 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, Ghana Finance Minister, after he was refused service in a Dover, DE restaurant.
• 1964 – The opening ceremony at the 1965 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan was broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary communication satellite.
• 2010 – Joan Sutherland, Australian operatic soprano, died. She was born in 1926.

October 11

• October 11 is the 284th day of the year. There are 81 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1811 – Inventor John Stevens’ boat, the Juliana, began operation as the first steam-powered ferry service between NYC and Hoboken, NJ.
• 1872 – Emily Davison, English suffragette, was born. She died carrying a suffragette flag in 1913 after stepping in front of King George’s horse running in the Epsom Derby, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later.
• 1910 – Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field in St. Louis, Missouri
• 1912 - Betty Noyes, singer who dubbed Debbie Reynolds' singing voice in “Singin in the Rain,” was born.
• 1968 - NASA launched Apollo 7, the 1st successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham on board.
• 1975 – The NBC show Saturday Night Live debuted with George Carlin as host and Andy Kaufman, Janis Ian, and Billy Preston as guests.
• 1984 – Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a space walk.

October 12

• October 12 is the 285th day of the year.There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year.
• October 12 is National Coming Out Day in the UK. 
• October 12 is Freethought Day in the US.

• 1692 – The Salem witch trials were ended by 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 NYC.
• 1901 – The Executive Mansion is renamed the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt. 
• 1908 – Ann Petry, American author of 4 novels, was born. She was the first African-American woman author to reach a million books sold. She died in 1997.
• 1915 – Edith Cavell, English nurse, died in front of a firing squad for helping approx. 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during WWI. She was arrested and found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. She was born in 1867. 
• 1928 – An “iron lung” respirator was used for the first time at Children's Hospital in Boston. 
• 1964 – The Soviet Union launched the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew & the first flight without space suits.
• 1979 – The “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams was published. 
• 1999 – The 6 billionth living human in the world was born. 
• 2000 – The USS Cole was badly damaged off Aden, Yemen by two suicide bombers. Seventeen crew members were killed.

October 13

• October 13 is the 286th day of the year. There are 79 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar were simultaneously arrested by agents of King Phillip of France and tortured into a confessing to heresy. 
• 1792 – The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion (the name was changed to White House by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901) was laid.
• 1881 – The start of the revival of the Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends agree to only speak Hebrew.
• 1945 – Milton S. Hershey, American candy maker, died. He was born in 1857.
• 1967 – The first game of the American Basketball Association was played as the Anaheim Amigos lose to the Oakland Oaks134-129 in Oakland, CA.
• 1976 – The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle was obtained by Dr. F.A. Murphy.
• 1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago, IL. 
• 2005 – Vivian Malone Jones, American civil rights activist, died. She was born in 1942. She was one of the first two African Americans to try to enroll at the U of Alabama in 1963, but was blocked by Governor George Wallace from enrolling at the then all-white university.
• 2010 – The 2010 Copiapo mining accident in Chile came to an end as all 33 miners arrive at the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground awaiting rescue.

October 14

• October 14 is the 287th day of the year. There are 78 days remaining until the end of the year.
• October 14 is the International World Standards Day.

• 1066 – In England, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeated the English army and killed English King Harold II. 
• 1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeated King Edward II of England, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence.
• 1773 – The first recorded Ministry of Education was formed in Poland.
• 1894  – e.e. cummings, American poet, was born. He died in 1962.
• 1926 – The “Winnie-the-Pooh” by A.A. Milne was first published.
• 1979 – The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights occurred. The demands were "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people,” and drew 200,000 people.
• 1990 – Leonard Bernstein, American composer and conductor, died. He was born in 1918. #music #composers #conductors

October 15

• October 15 is the 288th day of the year. There are 77 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 70 BCE – Virgil, Roman poet, was born. He died in 19 BCE.
• 1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company began operation.
• 1910 – Airship America launched from NJ in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.
• 1939  – The New York Municipal Airport (renamed LaGuardia Airport) was dedicated.
• 1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, was shared with the coding community for the first time.
• 1964 – Cole Porter, American composer, died. He was born in 1891.
• 1989 – Wayne Gretzky became the all-time leading points scorer in the National Hockey League.
• 2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 733.08 points, the second worst day in the Dow’s history based on a percentage drop.

October 16

• October 16 is the 289th day of the year. There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year. 
• October 16 is World Food Day (International). 

• 1758 - Noah Webster, American lexicographer, was born. He died in 1843.
• 1846 – William Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital using the ether dome.
• 1940 – Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was named the first African American general in the US Army.
• 1968 - United States’ athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked off the USA's team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
• 1998 – Jon Postel, American Internet pioneer, died. He was born in 1943.