This Day In History

October 2

1608 Prototype of modern reflecting telescope completed by Hans Lippershey. Lippershey is known for the earliest written record of a refracting telescope, a patent he filed in 1608.His work with optical devices grew out of his work as a spectacle maker, an industry that had started in Venice and Florence in the thirteenth century, and later expanded to the Netherlands and Germany.
Lippershey applied, to the States General of the Netherlands on 2 October 1608, for a patent for his instrument "for seeing things far away as if they were nearby"[SUP], [/SUP] beating another Dutch instrument-maker's patent, Jacob Metius, by a few weeks.






1866 J Osterhoudt patents tin can with key opener





1895 1st cartoon comic strip is printed in a newspaper





1935 NY Hayden Planetarium, 4th in U.S., opens. The top half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Star Theater, which uses high-resolution fulldome video to project “space shows” based on scientific visualization of current astrophysical data, in addition to a customized Zeiss Star Projector system replicating an accurate night sky as seen from Earth.






1956 1st atomic power clock exhibited-NYC. The idea of using atomic transitions to measure time was first suggested by Lord Kelvin in 1879.[SUP][/SUP] Magnetic resonance, developed in the 1930s by Isidor Rabi, became the practical method for doing this.[SUP][/SUP] In 1945, Rabi first publicly suggested that atomic beam magnetic resonance might be used as the basis of a clock.The first atomic clock was an ammonia maser device built in 1949 at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards.





1959 Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" premieres on CBS-TV

October 2 -

1870 - The papal states vote in favor of union with Italy. The capital is moved from Florence to Rome.

1879 - A dual alliance is formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agree to come to the other’s aid in the event of aggression.

1941 - The German army launches Operation Typhoon, the drive towards Moscow

1964 - Scientists announce findings that smoking can cause cancer

October 3 -

1931 - The comic strip Dick Tracy first appears in the New York News.

1941 - The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade, opens.

1942 - Germany conducts the first successful test flight of a V-2 missile, which flies perfectly over a 118-mile course.

1951 - A "shot is heard around the world" when New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson hits a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the National League pennant.

1990 - After 40 years of division, East and West Germany are reunited as one nation.

October 3

1789 Washington proclaims 1st national Thanksgiving Day





1872 Bloomingdale's department store in New York opens





1899 J. S. Thurman patents motor-driven vacuum cleaner






1945 Ten year old Elvis sang “Old Shep” – his first public performance – for a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He came in fifth place, winning $5 and a free ticket to the fair rides.

October 5

1568 Conference of York begins: trial against Mary Stuart





1864 Most of Calcutta destroyed by cyclone (approx 60,000 die)





1892 Dalton Gang ends in shoot-out in Coffeville, Kansas bank holdup





1962 Beatles release their 1st record "Love Me Do"




1969 Monty Python's Flying Circus begins airing on BBC

October 5 -

1880 - The first ball-point pen is patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross

1921 - The World Series is broadcast on radio for the first time.

1962 - The first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery, debuts

October 6

1783 Benjamin Hanks patents self-winding clock.





1857 American Chess Association organized; 1st major U.S. chess tournament (New York City). It was won by

October 6 -

1536 - William Tyndale, the English translator of the New Testament, is strangled and burned at the stake for heresy at Vilvorde, France.

1866 - The Reno brothers–Frank, John, Simeon and William–commit the country’s first train robbery near Seymore, Indiana netting $10,000

1927 - The first "talkie," The Jazz Singer, opens with popular entertainer Al Jolson singing and dancing in black-face. By 1930, silent movies were a thing of the past.

1973 - Israel is taken by surprise when Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan attack on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, beginning the Yom Kippur War.

1981 - Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat is assassinated in Cairo by Islamic fundamentalists. He is succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak.

October 7 -

1849 - Edgar Allan Poe, aged 40, dies a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place.

1949 - Iva Toguri D’Aquino, better known as Tokyo Rose, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason.

2001 - US invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 begins; it will become the longest war in US history.

October 7

1826 Granite Railway (1st chartered railway in U.S.) begins operations





1907 France's Henry Farman flies 30m in a double decker plane





1957 "American Bandstand" premieres





2012 Antisa Khvichava, a Georgian woman believed to be the oldest woman of all time, dies at age 132

1916 - Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland (from Lebanon, TN) 222-0. Cumberland had just discontinued it's football program the year before, but had already committed to playing GT. So a team of fraternity boys went down to play the game. They never earned a first down. The score could have been higher, but the 2nd half was played using 12 minute quarters rather than 15. It is still the largest margin of victory in NCAAF.

October 8

1871 Great Fire kills 200, destroys over 4miles (10 km) of Chicago buildings





1892 Sergei Rachmaninoff 1st performs "Prelude in C-sharp-Minor" in Moscow




1906 Karl Nessler demonstrates 1st 'permanent wave' for hair, in London









1958 Dr. Ake Senning installs 1st pacemaker in Stockholm

October 8 -

1897 - Journalist Charles Henry Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, begins charting trends of stocks and bonds.

1918 - US Army corporal Alvin C. York single-handedly kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest; promoted to sergeant and awarded US Medal of Honor and French Croix de Guerre.

1921 - First live radio broadcast of a football game; Harold W. Arlin was the announcer when KDKA of Pittsburgh broadcast live from Forbes Field as the University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia University 21–13.

October 8 -

1919 - The first transcontinental air race in the United States begins, with 63 planes competing in the round-trip aerial derby between California and New York. As 15 planes departed the Presidio in San Francisco, California, 48 planes left Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York.

1970 - The best-known living Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1862 - The Confederate invasion of Kentucky stalls when Union General Don Carlos Buell stops Confederate General Braxton Bragg at the Battle of Perryville.

October 9

680 Husayn ibn 'Ali, Shi'a religious leader, enters martyrdom





1514 King Louis XII of France marries Mary Tudor





1855 Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass patents 1st calliope





1865 1st U.S. underground pipeline for carrying oil is laid in Pennsylvania





1872 Aaron Montgomery started his mail-order business





1966 Rolling Stones 1st LP recorded "Got Live if you Want It"

October 9 -

1944 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin begin a nine-day conference in Moscow, during which the war with Germany and the future of Europe are discussed.

1967 - Socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day.

1975 - Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the USSR’s first hydrogen bomb, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his struggle against “the abuse of power and violations of human dignity in all its forms.” Sakharov was forbidden by the Soviet government from personally traveling to Oslo, Norway, to accept the award. He was the first Soviet to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

October 10

1845 Naval School (now called U.S. Naval Academy) opens at Annapolis





1865 John Hyatts patents billiard ball





1899 IR Johnson patents bicycle frame






1913 Gamboa Dam in Panama blown up; Atlantic and Pacific waters mix

October 10 -

1863 - The first telegraph line to Denver is completed.

1877 - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is re-interred at West Point in New York

1971 - The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.

1973 - Spiro Agnew resigns the vice presidency amid accusations of income tax evasion. President Richard Nixon names Gerald Ford as the new vice president. Agnew is later convicted and sentenced to three years probation and fined $10,000.

October 11

732 Battle at Tours: France under Karel Martel beat Moors






1871 Great Chicago Fire is finally extinguished after 3 days, 300 killed






1922 Alaska Davidson, first woman FBI "special investigator" appointed.






1927 Lou Gehrig named AL MVP (Babe Ruth (former winner) not eligible)






1983 Last hand-cranked telephones U.S. went out of service as 440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct-dial

October 11 -

1795 - In gratitude for putting down a rebellion in the streets of Paris, France’s National Convention appoints Napoleon Bonaparte second in command of the Army of the Interior.

1877 - Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.

1950 - The Federal Communications Commission authorizes the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to begin commercial color TV broadcasts.

1975 - Saturday Night Live comedy-variety show premiers on NBC, with guest host comedian George Carlin and special guests Janis Ian, Andy Kaufman and Billy Preston.

2001 - The Polaroid Corporation, which had provided shutterbugs with photo prints in minutes with its "instant cameras" since 1947, files for bankruptcy.