October 24
1901: Annie Edson Taylor (1838-1921) rode in a barrel over Niagara Falls and survived, becoming the first person to do so.
1939: Nylon stockings first went on sale at the New York World’s Fair.
1946: A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket took the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1977: Veterans Day was observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday was once again observed on Nov. 11 beginning the following year.
1992: The Toronto Blue Jays became the first Major League Baseball team based outside the United States to win the World Series.
2008: Many of the world’s stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10 percent, in what became known as
“Bloody Friday.”
October 25
1764: Abigail Smith (1744-1818) married John Adams (1735-1826), who later became the second U.S. president, from 1797 to 1801.
1881: Pablo Picasso, one of the most prolific and influential artists of the 20th century, was born in Málaga, Spain. (Died 1973.)
1940: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (1877-1970), was appointed as the first general of African-American descent in the U.S. Army.
Turner (age unknown) was granted a patent for the football shoulder pad.
October 26
1776: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1791) departed from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.
1955: The last allied troops withdrew from Austria, 10 years after the final battle of World War II, and the country declared permanent neutrality.
1958: Pan American Airways made the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France.
1965: John Lennon (1940-1980) created a worldwide furor when he declared, “We [the Beatles] are more popular than Jesus Christ right now.”
1993: Michael Jackson (1958-2009) received a patent for shoes that allow the wearer to lean far forward.
2001: President George W. Bush (born 1946) signed the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act, as it is officially known, is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”
October 27
1682: Philadelphia, Pa., was founded.
1838: Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs (1796-1860) issued the Extermination Order, which ordered all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.
1858: Theodore Roosevelt (26th U.S. president, 1901-1909) was born in New York City. (Died 1919.)
1904: The first subway opened in New York City.
1946: The first commercially sponsored TV show, Geographically Speaking sponsored by Bristol-Myers, was broadcast. It was cancelled 35 days later.
1954: Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (1912-2002) became the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
2011: A 16-foot-long Burmese python was captured in the Everglades.
October 28
1886: The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States commemorating the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908).
1955: Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and world’s richest individual, was born.
1958: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963) was elected Pope and took the name John XXIII.
1998: The entire association football team of Bena Tshadi playing against Basanga was killed by lightning during a match in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Everyone on Basanga, the home team, survived.
2014: Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ralph Rigby, 62, a native of Auburn, N.Y., retired from the U.S. Army after 42 years of continuous service, to become the last active-duty person drafted during the Vietnam era.
October 29
1675: German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) made the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.
1787: The opera Don Giovanni by Mozart (1756-1791) had its premiere performance in Prague.
1792: Mount Hood was named after the British naval officer Alexander Hood (1758-1798) by Lt. William E. Broughton (1764-1821) who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River in Oregon.
1886: The first ticker-tape parade took place in New York City when office workers spontaneously threw ticker tape into the streets when the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.
1929: The New York Stock Exchange crashed, signaling the start of the Great Depression.
1954: Hudson Motor Co. and Nash-Kelvinator Corp. merged to form American Motors Corporation. (AMC went out of business in 1987.)
October 30
1735: Second president, John Adams, was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass. (Died 1826.)
1864: Four prospectors founded Helena, Mont., after discovering gold at “Last Chance Gulch.”
1963: The first Lamborghini car debuted in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy.
1974: Major League Baseball player Nolan Ryan (born 1947) threw the fastest recorded pitch, 100.9 mph, while on the California Angels.
1985: Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off for its final successful mission. (It exploded during takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986.)