Month: October 2022 (Page 2 of 3)

On Oct. 25, 1760, Britain’s King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.

In 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown went on trial in Charles Town, Virginia, for his failed raid at Harpers Ferry. (Brown was convicted and hanged.)

In 1881, artist Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain.

In 1910, “America the Beautiful,” with words by Katharine Lee Bates and music by Samuel A. Ward, was first published.

In 1945, Taiwan became independent of Japanese colonial rule.

In 1960, the Bulova Watch Co. introduced its electronic “Accutron” model.

In 1962, during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson II demanded that Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin confirm or deny the existence of Soviet-built missile bases in Cuba; Stevenson then presented photographic evidence of the bases to the Council.

In 1971, the U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.

In 1983, a U.S.-led force invaded Grenada (greh-NAY’-duh) at the order of President Ronald Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect U.S. citizens there.

In 1986, in Game 6 of the World Series, the New York Mets rallied for three runs with two outs in the 10th inning, defeating the Boston Red Sox 6-5 and forcing a seventh game; the tie-breaking run scored on Boston first baseman Bill Buckner’s error on Mookie Wilson’s slow grounder. (The Mets went on to win the Series.)

In 1994, Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, claimed that a Black carjacker had driven off with her two young sons (Smith later confessed to drowning the children in John D. Long Lake, and was convicted of murder).

In 1999, golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when their Learjet flew uncontrolled for four hours before crashing in South Dakota; Stewart was 42.

In 2002, Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota along with his wife, daughter and five others, a week and a-half before the election.

On Oct. 23, 1707, the first Parliament of Great Britain, created by the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, held its first meeting.

In 1910, Blanche S. Scott became the first woman to make a public solo airplane flight, reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In 1915, tens of thousands of women paraded up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote.

In 1942, during World War II, Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein (el ah-lah-MAYN’) in Egypt, resulting in an Allied victory.

In 1944, the World War II Battle of Leyte (LAY’-tee) Gulf began, resulting in a major Allied victory against Japanese forces.

In 1956, a student-sparked revolt against Hungary’s Communist rule began; as the revolution spread, Soviet forces started entering the country, and the uprising was put down within weeks.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon agreed to turn over White House tape recordings subpoenaed by the Watergate special prosecutor to Judge John J. Sirica.

In 1983, 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines, were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers.

In 1987, the U.S. Senate rejected, 58-42, the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork.

In 1989, 23 people were killed in an explosion at Phillips Petroleum Co.’s chemical complex in Pasadena, Texas.

In 1995, a jury in Houston convicted Yolanda Saldivar of murdering Tejano singing star Selena. (Saldivar is serving a life prison sentence.)

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect non-infected patients.

In 2014, officials announced that an emergency room doctor who’d recently returned to New York City after treating Ebola patients in West Africa tested positive for the virus, becoming the first case in the city and the fourth in the nation. (Dr. Craig Spencer later recovered.)

On Oct. 22, 1836, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.

In 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” was published by Scribner’s of New York.

In 1928, Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover spoke of the “American system of rugged individualism” in a speech at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

In 1934, bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was shot to death by federal agents and local police at a farm near East Liverpool, Ohio.

In 1962, in a nationally broadcast address, President John F. Kennedy revealed the presence of Soviet-built missile bases under construction in Cuba and announced a quarantine of all offensive military equipment being shipped to the Communist island nation.

In 1968, Apollo 7 returned safely from Earth orbit, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1979, the U.S. government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment — a decision that precipitated the Iran hostage crisis.

In 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization was decertified by the federal government for its strike the previous August.

In 1995, the largest gathering of world leaders in history marked the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

In 2001, a second Washington, D.C., postal worker, Joseph P. Curseen, died of inhalation anthrax.

In 2014, a gunman shot and killed a soldier standing guard at a war memorial in Ottawa, then stormed the Canadian Parliament before he was shot and killed by the usually ceremonial sergeant-at-arms.

In 2016, the Chicago Cubs won their first pennant since 1945, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series. (The Cubs would go on to beat Cleveland in the World Series in seven games.)

In 2020, in the closing debate of the presidential campaign, President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden clashed over how to tame the raging coronavirus; Trump declared that the virus would “go away,” while Biden countered that the nation was heading toward a “dark winter.”

On Oct. 21, 1797, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was christened in Boston’s harbor.

In 1805, a British fleet commanded by Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated a French-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar; Nelson, however, was killed.

In 1879, Thomas Edison perfected a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.

In 1917, legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina.

In 1944, during World War II, U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen (AH’-kuhn).

In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon clashed in their fourth and final presidential debate in New York.

In 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and some 20 houses in Aberfan, Wales.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon nominated Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Both nominees were confirmed.)

In 1976, Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize for literature, the first American honored since John Steinbeck in 1962.

In 1985, former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White — who’d served five years in prison for killing Mayor George Moscone (mahs-KOH’-nee) and Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights advocate — was found dead in a garage, a suicide.

In 2001, Washington, D.C., postal worker Thomas L. Morris Jr. died of inhalation anthrax as officials began testing thousands of postal employees.

In 2014, North Korea abruptly freed Jeffrey Fowle, an American, nearly six months after he was arrested for leaving a Bible in a nightclub. Former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, 93, died in Washington.

In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not be a candidate in the 2016 White House campaign, solidifying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s status as the Democratic front-runner.