OCTOBER 31st

On this date in:
1517	Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
1795	Poet John Keats was born in London.
1864	Nevada became the 36th state.
1926	Magician Harry Houdini died of complications from a ruptured appendix.
1938	The day after his "War of the Worlds" broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the simulated Martian invasion was real.
1956	Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole.
1968	President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
1984	Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards.
1991	Theatrical producer Joseph Papp died at age 70.
1992	It was announced that five American nuns in Liberia had been shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
1993	Italian movie director Federico Fellini died at age 73.
1999	EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.
2001	A 61-year-old New York hospital worker died from inhalation anthrax.
2001	Microsoft and the Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the historic antitrust case against the software giant.
2005	President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
2006	P.W. Botha, South Africa's apartheid-era president, died at age 90.
2007	Three lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombings were found guilty of mass murder and other charges, but four other top suspects were convicted on lesser charges and an accused ringleader was completely acquitted in the attacks that killed 191 people.

Article of the day

Martin Luther posts 95 theses

On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.

In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment--called "indulgences"--for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.

Luther's frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German and distributed widely. A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.

The term "Protestant" first appeared in 1529, when Charles V revoked a provision that allowed the ruler of each German state to choose whether they would enforce the Edict of Worms. A number of princes and other supporters of Luther issued a protest, declaring that their allegiance to God trumped their allegiance to the emperor. They became known to their opponents as Protestants; gradually this name came to apply to all who believed the Church should be reformed, even those outside Germany. By the time Luther died, of natural causes, in 1546, his revolutionary beliefs had formed the basis for the Protestant Reformation, which would over the next three centuries revolutionize Western civilization.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5483

Today Birthdays

Dermot Mulroney turns 45 years old today.

AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Actor Dermot Mulroney turns 45 years old today.

88 Dick Francis Author 78 Michael Collins Astronaut 77 Dan Rather Broadcast journalist 71 Tom Paxton Folk singer 69 Ron Rifkin Actor ("Alias") 66 David Ogden Stiers Actor ("M.A.S.H.") 62 Stephen Rea Actor 60 Deidre Hall Actress 58 Jane Pauley Broadcast journalist 50 Brian Stokes Mitchell Actor 47 Peter Jackson Director ("Lord of the Rings" movies) 47 Larry Mullen Jr. Rock musician (U2) 45 Mikkey Dee Rock musician (Motorhead) 45 Johnny Marr Rock musician (The Smiths, Modest Mouse) 45 Fred McGriff Baseball player 44 Rob Schneider Actor, comedian ("Saturday Night Live") 44 Darryl Worley Country singer 43 Mike O'Malley Actor, comedian 42 Adam Horovitz (Adrock) Musician (The Beastie Boys) 41 Adam Schlesinger Rock musician (Fountains of Wayne) 40 Rob Van Winkle (Vanilla Ice) Rapper 38 Linn Berggren Rock singer (Ace of Base) 32 Piper Perabo Actress 28 Eddie Kaye Thomas Actor ("American Pie" movies) 27 Frank Iero Rock musician (My Chemical Romance)

OCOBER 30th

On this date in:
1735	John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass.
1885	Poet Ezra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho.
1938	The radio play "The War of the Worlds," starring Orson Welles, aired on CBS. The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked some listeners who thought its portrayal of a Martian invasion was true.
1953	George C. Marshall, who, as secretary of state following World War II, engineered a massive economic aid program for Europe, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1961	The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb.
1975	The New York Daily News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.
1989	Mitsubishi Estate Co., a major Japanese real estate concern, announced it was buying 51 percent of Rockefeller Group Inc. of New York.
1997	A jury in Cambridge, Mass., convicted British au pair Louise Woodward of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The judge later reduced the verdict to manslaughter and set Woodward free.
1998	In Nicaragua, a mudslide caused by Hurricane Mitch killed at least 2,000 people.
2000	Comedian, TV host, author and composer Steve Allen died at age 78.
2002	Minnesota Democrats tapped former vice president Walter Mondale to run for the seat of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone less than a week before the election. (Mondale lost to Republican Norm Coleman.)
2002	Rapper Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC was killed in a shooting in New York at age 37.
2005	The body of Rosa Parks arrived at the U.S. Capitol, where the civil rights pioneer became the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda.

Article of the day

Welles scares nation

Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of "War of the Worlds"--a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth.

Orson Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H.G. Wells' 19th-century science fiction novel War of the Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably as the voice of "The Shadow" in the hit mystery program of the same name. "War of the Worlds" was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause.

The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells."

Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy "Charlie McCarthy" on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.

Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to "the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra." Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory" had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer's field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.

Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. "Good heavens," he declared, "something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here's another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me ... I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it ...it ... ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate."

The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired "heat-ray" weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon "Martian cylinders" landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee. In fact, that was not far from the truth.

Perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed that a real Martian invasion was underway. Panic broke out across the country. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn't see their lights. One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, "New York has been destroyed! It's the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!"

When news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it was just fiction. There were rumors that the show caused suicides, but none were ever confirmed.

The Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. Orson Welles feared that the controversy generated by "War of the Worlds" would ruin his career. In fact, the publicity helped land him a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane--a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=7066

Today Birthdays

Nastia Liukin turns 19 years old today.

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast Olympic gold-medal gymnast Nastia Liukin turns 19 years old today.

72 Dick Vermeil Football coach 71 Dick Gautier Actor 71 Claude Lelouch Movie director 69 Eddie Holland Songwriter 69 Grace Slick Rock singer (Jefferson Airplane/Starship) 68 Ed Lauter Actor 67 Otis Williams R&B singer (The Temptations) 63 Henry Winkler Actor ("Happy Days") 62 Chris Slade Rock musician (Asia) 61 Timothy B. Schmit Rock musician (The Eagles) 59 Leon Rippy Actor 57 Harry Hamlin Actor ("L.A. Law") 55 Charles Martin Smith Actor 54 T. Graham Brown Country singer 51 Kevin Pollak Actor 48 Diego Maradona Soccer player 45 Michael Beach Actor 41 Gavin Rossdale Rock musician (Bush) 38 Ben Bailey Comedian, TV host ("Cash Cab") 38 Nia Long Actress 32 Kassidy Osborn Country singer (SHeDAISY) 30 Gael Garcia Bernal Actor ("The Motorcycle Diaries") 16 Tequan Richmond Actor ("Everybody Hates Chris")

OCTOBER 29th

On this date in:
1682	The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, Pa.
1891	Broadway star Fanny Brice was born Fanny Borach in Newark, N.J.
1901	President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.
1911	American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died at age 64.
1923	The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.
1940	Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number - 158 - in America's first peacetime military draft.
1947	Frances Cleveland Preston, the widow of President Grover Cleveland, died at age 83.
1956	Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal crisis.
1956	"The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered as NBC's nightly TV newscast.
1964	Thieves made off with the Star of India and other gems from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
1966	The National Organization for Women was founded.
1967	The musical "Hair" opened off-Broadway.
1971	Rock musician Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band died in a motorcycle accident at age 24.
1987	Jazz great Woody Herman died at age 74.
1998	John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, returned to space 36 years later, at age 77.
2004	Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he had ordered the Sept. 11 attacks.
2004	European Union leaders signed the EU's first constitution.
2006	Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won re-election in a landslide.

Article of the day

John Glenn returns to space

Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging.

Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America's first astronauts. A decorated pilot, he had flown nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes.

In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, and his spacecraft, Vostok 1, made a full orbit before returning to Earth. Less than one month later, American Alan B. Shepard, Jr., became the first American in space when his Freedom 7 spacecraft was launched on a suborbital flight. American "Gus" Grissom made another suborbital flight in July, and in August Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space advance arrived.

On February 20, 1962, NASA and Colonel John Glenn accomplished this feat with the flight of Friendship 7, a spacecraft that made three orbits of the Earth in five hours. Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral. Glenn later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the "Clean Marine" in the years after his historic flight. Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear in a fall from a horse. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later, he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president.

In 1998, Glenn attracted considerable media attention when he returned to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In 1999, he retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record for the state of Ohio.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5479

Today Birthdays

Gabrielle Union turns 35 years old today.

AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Actress Gabrielle Union turns 35 years old today.

71 Sonny Osborne Bluegrass musician (The Osborne Brothers) 68 Connie Mack III Former U.S. senator, R-Fla. 66 Lee Clayton Country singer 64 Denny Laine Rock musician (Wings, Moody Blues) 63 Melba Moore Singer 62 Peter Green Rock musician (Fleetwood Mac) 61 Richard Dreyfuss Actor 60 Kate Jackson Actress ("Charlie's Angels") 57 Dirk Kempthorne Secretary of the Interior 55 Denis Potvin Hockey Hall of Famer 51 Dan Castellaneta Actor ("The Simpsons") 51 Steve Kellough Country musician (Wild Horses) 47 Randy Jackson Singer (The Jackson Five) 43 Peter Timmins Rock musician (Cowboy Junkies) 41 Joely Fisher Actress 41 Paris Rapper 41 Rufus Sewell Actor 39 SA Martinez Rock singer (311) 38 Toby Smith Musician (Jamiroquai) 37 Winona Ryder Actress 36 Tracee Ellis Ross Actress 35 Trevor Lissauer Actor ("Sabrina the Teenage Witch") 32 Milena Govich Actress 31 Brendan Fehr Actor 28 Ben Foster Actor

OCTOBER 28th

On this date in:
1636	Harvard College was founded.
1793	Eli Whitney applied for a patent for the cotton gin.
1919	Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
1922	Fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.
1940	Italy invaded Greece during World War II.
1958	The Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected pope, taking the name John XXIII.
1962	Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
1965	Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
1976	Former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman entered a federal prison camp in Safford, Ariz., to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related convictions.
1980	Republican nominee Ronald Reagan asked voters during a debate with President Jimmy Carter in Cleveland, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
2002	American diplomat Laurence Foley was assassinated in front of his house in Amman, Jordan.
2004	Insurgents executed 11 Iraqi soldiers and declared on an Islamic militant Web site that Iraqi fighters would avenge "the blood" of women and children killed in U.S. strikes on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.
2005	Vice President Dick Cheney's top adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, resigned after he was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation. (Libby was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison. President George W. Bush commuted his sentence.)
2006	Hall of Fame basketball coach Red Auerbach died at age 89.
2007	Argentina's first lady, Cristina Fernandez, claimed victory in the country's presidential election; she became the first woman elected to the post.

Article of the day

Gateway Arch completed

On this day in 1965, construction is completed on the Gateway Arch, a spectacular 630-foot-high parabola of stainless steel marking the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront of St. Louis, Missouri.
The Gateway Arch, designed by Finnish-born, American-educated architect Eero Saarinen, was erected to commemorate President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and to celebrate St. Louis' central role in the rapid westward expansion that followed. As the market and supply point for fur traders and explorers--including the famous Meriwether Lewis and William Clark--the town of St. Louis grew exponentially after the War of 1812, when great numbers of people began to travel by wagon train to seek their fortunes west of the Mississippi River.
In 1947-48, Saarinen won a nationwide competition to design a monument honoring the spirit of the western pioneers. In a sad twist of fate, the architect died of a brain tumor in 1961 and did not live to see the construction of his now-famous arch, which began in February 1963. Completed in October 1965, the Gateway Arch cost less than $15 million to build. With foundations sunk 60 feet into the ground, its frame of stressed stainless steel is built to withstand both earthquakes and high winds. An internal tram system takes visitors to the top, where on a clear day they can see up to 30 miles across the winding Mississippi and to the Great Plains to the west.
In addition to the Gateway Arch, the Jefferson Expansion Memorial includes the Museum of Westward Expansion and the Old Courthouse of St. Louis, where two of the famous Dred Scott slavery cases were heard in the 1860s. Today, some 4 million people visit the park each year to wander its nearly 100 acres, soak up some history and take in the breathtaking views from Saarinen's gleaming arch.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5477

Today Birthdays

Brad Paisley turns 36 years old today.

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill Country singer Brad Paisley turns 36 years old today.

81 Cleo Laine Jazz singer 79 Joan Plowright Actress 72 Charlie Daniels Country musician 71 Lenny Wilkens Hall of Fame basketball coach 69 Jane Alexander Actress 67 Curtis Lee Singer 64 Dennis Franz Actor ("NYPD Blue") 63 Wayne Fontana Singer 60 Telma Hopkins Actress 59 Bruce Jenner Olympic track and field gold medalist 56 Annie Potts Actress ("Designing Women") 53 Bill Gates Microsoft Corp. Chairman 51 Stephen Morris Rock musician (New Order) 50 Ron Hemby Country musician (The Buffalo Club) 50 William Reid Rock musician (The Jesus & Mary Chain) 48 Mark Derwin Actor 46 Daphne Zuniga Actress ("Melrose Place") 45 Lauren Holly Actress 43 Jami Gertz Actress 42 Chris Bauer Actor 42 Andy Richter Actor, comedian 41 Julia Roberts Actress 40 Caitlin Cary Country musician 39 Jeremy Davies Actor 39 Ben Harper Rock singer 36 Terrell Davis Football player 34 Joaquin Phoenix Actor ("Walk the Line") 30 Justin Guarini Singer ("American Idol") 29 Brett Dennen Singer 29 Dave Tirio Rock musician (Plain White T's)

OCTOBER 27th

On this date in:
1787	The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper.
1858	Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, was born in New York City.
1880	Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee.
1914	Author-poet Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales.
1947	"You Bet Your Life," starring Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC Radio.
1967	Expo '67 closed in Montreal.
1978	Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
1997	The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 554.26 points, forcing the stock market to shut down for the first time since the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
2002	Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith broke the NFL career rushing yardage record of 16,726 held by Walter Payton. (Smith finished his career with 18,355 yards rushing.)
2002	Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff, becoming the country's first elected leftist leader.
2004	The Boston Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 in Game 4.
2005	White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court after three weeks of criticism from fellow conservatives.

Article of the day

New York City subway opens

At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city's innovative new rapid transit system: the subway.

While London boasts the world's oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States in 1897, the New York City subway soon became the largest American system. The first line, operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. Running from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal in midtown, and then heading west along 42nd Street to Times Square, the line finished by zipping north, all the way to 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem. On opening day, Mayor McClellan so enjoyed his stint as engineer that he stayed at the controls all the way from City Hall to 103rd Street.

At 7 p.m. that evening, the subway opened to the general public, and more than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride under Manhattan. IRT service expanded to the Bronx in 1905, to Brooklyn in 1908 and to Queens in 1915. Since 1968, the subway has been controlled by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA). The system now has 26 lines and 468 stations in operation; the longest line, the 8th Avenue "A" Express train, stretches more than 32 miles, from the northern tip of Manhattan to the far southeast corner of Queens.

Every day, some 4.5 million passengers take the subway in New York. With the exception of the PATH train connecting New York with New Jersey and some parts of Chicago's elevated train system, New York's subway is the only rapid transit system in the world that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No matter how crowded or dirty, the subway is one New York City institution few New Yorkers--or tourists--could do without.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5473

Today Birthdays

John Cleese turns 69 years old today.

AP Photo/Matt Sayles Actor and comedian John Cleese ("Monty Python") turns 69 years old today.

88 Nanette Fabray Actress 86 Ralph Kiner Baseball Hall of Famer 84 Ruby Dee Actress 83 Warren Christopher Former secretary of state 66 Lee Greenwood Country singer 62 Ivan Reitman Director, producer 59 Jack Daniels Country musician 59 Garry Tallent Rock musician (The E Street Band) 58 Fran Lebowitz Author 57 K.K. Downing Rock musician (Judas Priest) 56 Roberto Benigni Actor, director ("Life is Beautiful") 55 Peter Firth Actor 55 Robert Picardo Actor 50 Simon LeBon Singer (Duran Duran) 44 J.D. McFadden Rock musician 41 Scott Weiland Rock singer (Stone Temple Pilots) 41 Jason Finn Rock musician (Presidents of the United States of America) 40 Sean Holland Actor 31 Sheeri Rappaport Actress 24 Kelly Osbourne Rock singer, TV personality ("The Osbournes")

OCTOBER 26th

On this date in:
1774	The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia.
1825	The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River in upstate New York.
1881	The gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Ariz., as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and "Doc" Holliday confronted Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded.
1962	In one of the most dramatic verbal confrontations of the Cold War, American U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson asked his Soviet counterpart during a Security Council debate whether the USSR had placed missiles in Cuba.
1967	The Shah of Iran crowned himself and his queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne.
1972	National security adviser Henry Kissinger declared "peace is at hand" in Vietnam.
1984	A newborn with a severe heart defect was given the heart of a baboon in an experimental transplant in Loma Linda, Calif. She lived for 21 more days.
1996	Federal prosecutors cleared Richard Jewell as a suspect in the Olympic park bombing.
2001	President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, giving authorities unprecedented ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop in their pursuit of possible terrorists.
2002	A hostage siege by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater ended with 129 of the 800-plus captives dead, most from a knockout gas used by Russian special forces who stormed the theater.
2004	Israel's parliament approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
2004	The final vote count in the Afghan presidential election gave a resounding victory to interim leader Hamid Karzai.
2005	The Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917 by defeating the Houston Astros 1-0 in Game 4.

Article of the day

Shootout at the OK Corral

On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented "law and order" in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.

On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike's brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it's still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury's chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were "fully justified in committing these homicides." The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=51977

Today Bithdays

72	Shelley Morrison Actress ("Will and Grace")
66	Bob Hoskins Actor
63	Pat Conroy Author
63	Jaclyn Smith Actress ("Charlie's Angels")
62	Pat Sajak TV game show host ("Wheel of Fortune")
61	Hillary Rodham Clinton U.S. senator, D-N.Y.
57	Bootsy Collins Musician
57	Maggie Roche Singer (The Roches)
57	Julian Schnabel Director
56	James Pickens Jr. Actor ("Grey's Anatomy")
55	Keith Strickland Rock musician (The B-52's)
54	D. W. Moffett Actor
52	Rita Wilson Actress
47	Dylan McDermott Actor ("The Practice")
46	Cary Elwes Actor
45	Natalie Merchant Rock singer (10,000 Maniacs)
41	Keith Urban Country singer
37	Anthony Rapp Actor ("Rent")
31	Jon Heder Actor ("Napoleon Dynamite")
30	Mark Barry Singer (BB Mak)
24	Sasha Cohen Figure skater

OCTOBER 25th

On this date in:
1400	Author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London.
1760	Britain's King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.
1812	The U.S. frigate United States captured the British vessel Macedonian during the War of 1812.
1854	The "Charge of the Light Brigade" took place during the Crimean War as an English brigade of more than 600 men, facing hopeless odds, charged the Russian army in the Battle of Balaclava and suffered heavy losses.
1918	The Canadian steamship Princess Sophia foundered off the coast of Alaska; nearly 400 people died.
1951	Peace talks aimed at ending the Korean War resumed in Panmunjom.
1962	U.S. ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the U.N. Security Council.
1962	Author John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1983	A U.S.-led force invaded Grenada at the order of President Ronald Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect U.S. citizens there.
1986	The Boston Red Sox lost Game 6 of the World Series to the New York Mets when a routine ground ball went through Boston first baseman Bill Buckner's legs, allowing the winning run to score in the 10th inning.
1994	Susan Smith of Union, S.C., claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. She later confessed to drowning the children and was convicted of murder.
1999	Golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when their Learjet flew uncontrolled for four hours before crashing in South Dakota.
1999	Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan bolted the GOP to mount a bid for the Reform Party nomination.
2002	Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., 58, was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota.
2003	Florida State's Bobby Bowden became the winningest coach in major college football history with his 339th victory as the Seminoles beat Wake Forest 48-24.
2005	U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached 2,000.

Article of the day

Pablo Picasso born

Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, is born in Malaga, Spain.

Picasso's father was a professor of drawing, and he bred his son for a career in academic art. Picasso had his first exhibit at age 13 and later quit art school so he could experiment full-time with modern art styles. He went to Paris for the first time in 1900, and in 1901 was given an exhibition at a gallery on Paris' rue Lafitte, a street known for its prestigious art galleries. The precocious 19-year-old Spaniard was at the time a relative unknown outside Barcelona, but he had already produced hundreds of paintings. Winning favorable reviews, he stayed in Paris for the rest of the year and later returned to the city to settle permanently.

The work of Picasso, which comprises more than 50,000 paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures, and ceramics produced over 80 years, is described in a series of overlapping periods. His first notable period--the "blue period"--began shortly after his first Paris exhibit. In works such as The Old Guitarist (1903), Picasso painted in blue tones to evoke the melancholy world of the poor. The blue period was followed by the "rose period," in which he often depicted circus scenes, and then by Picasso's early work in sculpture. In 1907, Picasso painted the groundbreaking work Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which, with its fragmented and distorted representation of the human form, broke from previous European art. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon demonstrated the influence on Picasso of both African mask art and Paul Cezanne and is seen as a forerunner of the Cubist movement, founded by Picasso and the French painter Georges Braque in 1909.

In Cubism, which is divided into two phases, analytical and synthetic, Picasso and Braque established the modern principle that artwork need not represent reality to have artistic value. Major Cubist works by Picasso included his costumes and sets for Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1917) and The Three Musicians (1921). Picasso and Braque's Cubist experiments also resulted in the invention of several new artistic techniques, including collage.

After Cubism, Picasso explored classical and Mediterranean themes, and images of violence and anguish increasingly appeared in his work. In 1937, this trend culminated in the masterpiece Guernica, a monumental work that evoked the horror and suffering endured by the Basque town of Guernica when it was destroyed by German war planes during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso remained in Paris during the Nazi occupation but was fervently opposed to fascism and after the war joined the French Communist Party.

Picasso's work after World War II is less studied than his earlier creations, but he continued to work feverishly and enjoyed commercial and critical success. He produced fantastical works, experimented with ceramics, and painted variations on the works of other masters in the history of art. Known for his intense gaze and domineering personality, he had a series of intense and overlapping love affairs in his lifetime. He continued to produce art with undiminished force until his death in 1973 at the age of 91.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5468

Today Birthdays

91	Lee MacPhail Hall of Fame baseball executive
85	Bobby Thomson Baseball player
80	Jeanne Cooper Actress ("The Young and the Restless")
80	Marion Ross Actress ("Happy Days")
71	Jeanne Black Country singer
68	Bobby Knight Hall of Fame college basketball coach
67	Anne Tyler Author
64	Jon Anderson Rock singer (Yes)
64	Taffy Danoff Singer (Starland Vocal Band)
61	Glenn Tipton Rock musician (Judas Priest)
60	Dave Cowens Bsaketball Hall of Famer
59	Brian Kerwin Actor
53	Matthias Jabs Rock musician (The Scorpions)
51	Nancy Cartwright Actress ("The Simpsons")
50	Mark Miller Country singer (Sawyer Brown)
46	Chad Smith Rock musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
45	Tracy Nelson Actress ("Father Dowling Mysteries")
44	Michael Boatman Actor ("Spin City")
44	Kevin Michael Richardson Actor
40	Speech Singer
38	Adam Goldberg Actor
38	Adam Pascal Actor, singer
38	Ed Robertson Rock musician (Barenaked Ladies)
38	Chely Wright Country singer
37	Pedro Martinez Baseball player
37	Midori Violinst
37	Craig Robinson Actor ("The Office")
35	Michael Weston Actor
28	Mehcad Brooks Actor ("Desperate Housewives")
28	Ben Gould Actor
27	Young Rome R&B singer
24	Katy Perry Singer

OCTOBER 24th

On this date in:
1648	The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War and, effectively, the Holy Roman Empire.
1861	The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent from California to President Abraham Lincoln.
1931	The George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was dedicated. (It opened to traffic the next day.)
1940	The 40-hour work week went into effect in the United States.
1952	Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict.
1962	The U.S. blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis began under a proclamation signed by President John F. Kennedy.
1987	Thirty years after it was expelled for refusing to answer allegations of corruption, the Teamsters union was welcomed back into the AFL-CIO.
1992	The Toronto Blue Jays became the first team outside the United States to win a World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves 4-3 in Game 6.
1999	Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., died at age 77.
2001	The House passed a $100 billion economic stimulus package in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
2002	Authorities arrested Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo in connection with the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Muhammad was later sentenced to death, Malvo to life in prison.)
2003	The era of supersonic jet travel came to an end as three British Airways Concordes landed at London's Heathrow Airport.
2005	Civil rights activist Rosa Parks died at age 92.
2007	Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc.

Article of the day

First barrel ride down Niagara Falls

On this day in 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

After her husband died in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the U. S. before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898. In July 1901, while reading an article about the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the border of upstate New York and Canada. Strapped for cash and seeking fame, Taylor came up with the perfect attention-getting stunt: She would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Taylor was not the first person to attempt the plunge over the famous falls. In October 1829, Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, survived jumping down the 175-foot Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara River, on the Canadian side of the border. More than 70 years later, Taylor chose to take the ride on her birthday, October 24. (She claimed she was in her 40s, but genealogical records later showed she was 63.) With the help of two assistants, Taylor strapped herself into a leather harness inside an old wooden pickle barrel five feet high and three feet in diameter. With cushions lining the barrel to break her fall, Taylor was towed by a small boat into the middle of the fast-flowing Niagara River and cut loose.

Knocked violently from side to side by the rapids and then propelled over the edge of Horseshoe Falls, Taylor reached the shore alive, if a bit battered, around 20 minutes after her journey began. After a brief flurry of photo-ops and speaking engagements, Taylor's fame cooled, and she was unable to make the fortune for which she had hoped. She did, however, inspire a number of copy-cat daredevils. Between 1901 and 1995, 15 people went over the falls; 10 of them survived. Among those who died were Jesse Sharp, who took the plunge in a kayak in 1990, and Robert Overcracker, who used a jet ski in 1995. No matter the method, going over Niagara Falls is illegal, and survivors face c

82	Y.A. Tittle Football Hall of Famer
72	David Nelson Actor, producer
72	Bill Wyman Rock musician (Rolling Stones)
69	F. Murray Abraham Actor ("Amadeus")
61	Kevin Kline Actor
60	Kweisi Mfume Former NAACP president
55	Billy Thomas Country musician (Terry McBride and the Ride)
54	Mike Rounds Governor of South Dakota
34	Corey Dillon Football player
29	Ben Gillies Rock musician (Silverchair)
28	Monica R&B singer, actress
25	Adrienne Bailon R&B singer, actress
19	Shenae Grimes Actress ("90210")

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=5464

Today Birthdays

OCTOBER 23rd

On this date in:
1707	The first Parliament of Great Britain, created by the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, held its first meeting.
1915	Some 25,000 women marched in New York City demanding the right to vote.
1925	Comedian and talk show host Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa.
1942	Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein in Egypt during World War II.
1956	An anti-Stalinist revolt began in Hungary.
1973	President Richard M. Nixon agreed to turn White House tape recordings requested by the Watergate special prosecutor over to Judge John J. Sirica.
1987	The U.S. Senate rejected the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork, 58-42.
1989	A white man, Charles Stuart, claimed that he and his pregnant wife had been shot by a black robber in Boston; Carol Stuart and her prematurely delivered baby died. Charles Stuart was later implicated in the shootings and apparently committed suicide.
1993	Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Joe Carter became the second player to end a World Series with a home run - a three-run shot that gave Toronto an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6.
1998	Dr. Barnett Slepian, a doctor who performed abortions, was killed at his home in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., when a sniper fired through his kitchen window. (James Kopp was convicted of murder and is serving 25 years to life in prison.)
1998	Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed a land-for-peace agreement at the White House, following nine days of talks at Wye River, Md.
2002	Gunmen seized a crowded Moscow theater, taking hundreds hostage and threatening to kill them unless the Russian army pulled out of Chechnya.
2003	Madame Chiang Kai-shek, widow of the Chinese nationalist leader, died in New York at age 105.
2006	Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced by a federal judge in Houston to 24 years, four months for his role in the company's collapse.

Article of the day

Cuban Missile Crisis

In a televised speech of extraordinary gravity, President John F. Kennedy announces that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba. These missile sites--under construction but nearing completion--housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C. Kennedy announced that he was ordering a naval "quarantine" of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from transporting any more offensive weapons to the island and explained that the United States would not tolerate the existence of the missile sites currently in place. The president made it clear that America would not stop short of military action to end what he called a "clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace."

What is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis actually began on October 15, 1962--the day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. The next day, President Kennedy secretly convened an emergency meeting of his senior military, political, and diplomatic advisers to discuss the ominous development. The group became known as ExCom, short for Executive Committee. After rejecting a surgical air strike against the missile sites, ExCom decided on a naval quarantine and a demand that the bases be dismantled and missiles removed. On the night of October 22, Kennedy went on national television to announce his decision. During the next six days, the crisis escalated to a breaking point as the world tottered on the brink of nuclear war between the two superpowers.

On October 23, the quarantine of Cuba began, but Kennedy decided to give Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev more time to consider the U.S. action by pulling the quarantine line back 500 miles. By October 24, Soviet ships en route to Cuba capable of carrying military cargoes appeared to have slowed down, altered, or reversed their course as they approached the quarantine, with the exception of one ship--the tanker Bucharest. At the request of more than 40 nonaligned nations, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant sent private appeals to Kennedy and Khrushchev, urging that their governments "refrain from any action that may aggravate the situation and bring with it the risk of war." At the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. military forces went to DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever reached in the postwar era, as military commanders prepared for full-scale war with the Soviet Union.

On October 25, the aircraft carrier USS Essex and the destroyer USS Gearing attempted to intercept the Soviet tanker Bucharest as it crossed over the U.S. quarantine of Cuba. The Soviet ship failed to cooperate, but the U.S. Navy restrained itself from forcibly seizing the ship, deeming it unlikely that the tanker was carrying offensive weapons. On October 26, Kennedy learned that work on the missile bases was proceeding without interruption, and ExCom considered authorizing a U.S. invasion of Cuba. The same day, the Soviets transmitted a proposal for ending the crisis: The missile bases would be removed in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.

The next day, however, Khrushchev upped the ante by publicly calling for the dismantling of U.S. missile bases in Turkey under pressure from Soviet military commanders. While Kennedy and his crisis advisers debated this dangerous turn in negotiations, a U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba, and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was killed. To the dismay of the Pentagon, Kennedy forbid a military retaliation unless any more surveillance planes were fired upon over Cuba. To defuse the worsening crisis, Kennedy and his advisers agreed to dismantle the U.S. missile sites in Turkey but at a later date, in order to prevent the protest of Turkey, a key NATO member.

On October 28, Khrushchev announced his government's intent to dismantle and remove all offensive Soviet weapons in Cuba. With the airing of the public message on Radio Moscow, the USSR confirmed its willingness to proceed with the solution secretly proposed by the Americans the day before. In the afternoon, Soviet technicians began dismantling the missile sites, and the world stepped back from the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was effectively over. In November, Kennedy called off the blockade, and by the end of the year all the offensive missiles had left Cuba. Soon after, the United States quietly removed its missiles from Turkey.

The Cuban Missile Crisis seemed at the time a clear victory for the United States, but Cuba emerged from the episode with a much greater sense of security. A succession of U.S. administrations have honored Kennedy's pledge not to invade Cuba, and the communist island nation situated just 80 miles from Florida remains a thorn in the side of U.S. foreign policy. The removal of antiquated Jupiter missiles from Turkey had no detrimental effect on U.S. nuclear strategy, but the Cuban Missile Crisis convinced a humiliated USSR to commence a massive nuclear buildup. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union reached nuclear parity with the United States and built intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking any city in the United States.

Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=7058

Today Birthdays

72	Philip Kaufman Director ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers")
68	Pele Soccer player
66	Michael Crichton Author
65	Barbara Ann Hawkins R&B singer (The Dixie Cups)
62	Mel Martinez U.S. senator, R-Fla.
57	Michael Rupert Actor
54	Ang Lee Director
52	Dianne Reeves Jazz singer
52	Dwight Yoakam Country singer
49	Sam Raimi Director
49	Weird Al Yankovic Musical parodist
46	Doug Flutie Football player
44	Robert Trujillo Rock musician (Metallica)
43	Al Leiter Baseball player, sportscaster
42	Brian Nevin Rock musician (Big Head Todd and the Monsters)
42	David Thomas R&B singer (Take 6)
40	Junior Bryant Country singer, musician
36	Jimmy Wayne Country singer
34	Eric Bass Rock musician (Shinedown)
33	Keith Van Horn Basketball player
32	Ryan Reynolds Actor
30	John Lackey Baseball player
23	Masiela Lusha Actress ("George Lopez")
22	Briana Evigan Actress
22	Jessica Stroup Actress ("90210")