Today in History October 27 He was the first African-American general officer in the United States Air Force

October 27 is the 300th day of the year. There are 65 days remaining until the end of the year.

General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.

Today's Highlight in History 1954 – Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.


Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. (December 18, 1912 – July 4, 2002) was an American United States Air Force general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.

He was the first African-American general officer in the United States Air Force. On December 9, 1998, he was advanced to four-star general by President Bill Clinton.

During World War II, Davis was commander of the 99th and the 332nd Fighter Group, which escorted bombers on air combat missions over Europe. Davis himself flew sixty missions in P-39, Curtiss P-40, P-47 and P-51 Mustang fighters. Davis followed in his father's footsteps in breaking racial barriers, as Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was the first African-American general in the United States Army.

Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr was born in Washington, D.C. on December 18, 1912, the second of three children born to Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. and Elnora Dickerson Davis. His father was a U.S. Army officer, and at the time was stationed in Wyoming serving as a lieutenant with an all-white cavalry unit. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. served 41 years before he was promoted to brigadier general in October 1940. Elnora Davis died from complications after giving birth to their third child (Elnora) in 1916.

Colonel Davis in front of a P-47, ~1944

After attending the University of Chicago, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New Yorkin 1932. He graduated in 1936, 35th in a class of 278. He was the academy's fourth black graduate (and the first graduate since Charles Young in 1889). When he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, the Army had a grand total of two black line officers — Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. and Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. After graduation he married Agatha Scott.

At the start of his senior year at West Point, Davis had applied for the Army Air Corps but was rejected because it did not accept blacks. He was instead assigned to the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment (one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments) at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was not allowed inside the base officers' club.

Capt Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr., of Washington, D.C.,
climbing into an Advanced Trainer.
Tuskegee, Alabama. January 1942

He later attended the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, but then was assigned to teach military tactics at Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Tuskegee, Alabama. This was something his father had done years before. It was the Army's way to avoid having a black officer in command of white soldiers.

Early in 1941, the Roosevelt administration, in response to public pressure for greater black participation in the military as war approached, ordered the War Department to create a black flying unit. Captain Davis was assigned to the first training class at Tuskegee Army Air Field (hence the name Tuskegee Airmen), and in March 1942 earned his wings as one of five black officers to complete the course. He was the first black officer to solo an Army Air Corps aircraft. In July that year, having been promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was named commander of the first all-black air unit, the 99th Pursuit Squadron.

.Wikipedia

World Events

1275 – Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1682 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
1795 – The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S
1904 – The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.
1922 – A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the country's annexation to the South African Union.
1948 – Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc.
1954 – Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
1961 – Mauritania and Mongolia join the United Nations.
1964 – Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
1988 – Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.
1991 – Turkmenistan achieves independence from the Soviet Union.
1992 – United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating first military, then national, debate about gays in the military that resulted in the United States "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.
1995 – Former Prime Minister of Italy Bettino Craxi is convicted in absentia of corruption.
1997 – October 27, 1997 mini-crash: Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 554.26 points to 7,161.15.
1999 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
2005 – Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers.
2011 – Michael D. Higgins was chosen in the Irish presidential election as the ninth President of Ireland by the biggest vote in Irish history.

South African footballer shot dead

South Africa's football captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa has died after being shot, South African police say.

Senzo Meyiwa played for the national team and Orlando Pirates

The incident reportedly happened at Meyiwa's girlfriend's house in Vosloorus, south of Johannesburg.The 27-year-old played for Orlando Pirates and had played in South Africa's last four Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

On Saturday, he was in action for his club, when they progressed to the semi-finals of the South African League Cup.

In a statement, the South African Police Service said that Meyiwa had been declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

No further details were immediately given.

BBC

I believe in the power of prayer - Ebola survivor

Nina Pham, a Dallas nurse who has been battling Ebola after treating a patient in Texas, has now been declared free of the disease, and gave thanks to God and all those who have prayed for her in recent weeks.

Nina Pham after her release from care. Screenshot.

“I feel fortunate and blessed to be standing here today,” Pham said in a press conference Oct. 24. “I would first and foremost like to thank God, my family and friends. Throughout this ordeal, I have put my trust in God and my medical team.”

Pham thanked everyone who had been involved in her care, both in Texas and Maryland. She offered special gratitude to Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly for donating plasma, calling it a “selfless act.”

“I believe in the power of prayer because I know so many people all over the world have been praying for me,” she continued. “I join you in prayer now for the recovery of others.”

The 26-year-old nurse, described by friends as a devout Catholic, is believed to have contracted Ebola while caring for a Thomas Eric Duncan, a patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Duncan passed away from Ebola Oct. 8.

Pham was transferred to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland on Oct. 16. Numerous tests have now shown her to be Ebola free, and she will return to Texas to continue regaining strength.

Pham’s fellow nurse, Amber Vinson, had also contracted Ebola after caring for Duncan. Vinson is currently being treated. Her family said Oct. 22 that she had tested free of the disease.

(CNA/EWTN News)

Today in History October 26 - Baby receives a heart transplant from a baboon.

October 26 is the 299th day of the year. There are 66 days remaining until the end of the year.

"Baby Fae", shortly after her transplant.
The dark stripe on her torso is the surgical incision.

Today's Highlight in History
1984 – "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon.


Stephanie Fae Beauclair, known as Baby Fae, was an American infant born in 1984 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She became the first infant subject of a xenotransplant procedure, receiving the heart of a baboon. The procedure, performed by Leonard L. Bailey at Loma Linda University Medical Center, was successful, but Fae died 21 days later of heart failure due to rejection of the transplant. The rejection is thought to be have been caused largely by a humoral response against the graft, due to Fae's type O blood creating antibodies against the type AB xenograft. The blood type incompatibility was seen as unavoidable: fewer than 1% of baboons are type O, and Loma Linda only had seven young female baboons – all of which were type AB – available as potential donors. It was hoped that the transplant could be replaced by an allograft at a later date, before Fae's body began generating isohaemagglutinins, but a suitable donor could not be found in time.

The procedure was subject to a wide ethical and legal debate, but the attention that it generated is thought to have paved the way for Bailey to perform the first successful infant allograft heart transplant a year later.

The Baby Fae case, and Bailey's role in it, has been a popular case study in the realm of medical ethics. Bailey did not look for a human heart for Fae. There were questions as to whether parents should be allowed to volunteer children for experimental medical procedures, and whether the parents themselves were properly informed by Bailey. However, because Fae's mother had no medical insurance, she could not afford to pay for the heart transplant procedure. The xenograft, on the other hand, was offered for free. When asked why he had picked a baboon over a primate more closely related to humans in evolution, he replied "Er, I find that difficult to answer. You see, I don't believe in evolution."Charles Krauthammer, writing in Time, said the Baby Fae case was totally within the realm of experimentation and was "an adventure in medical ethics." Ultimately, the American Medical Association and top medical journals criticized Bailey, concluding that xenografts should be undertaken only as part of a systematic research program with controls in randomized clinical trials.
Wikipedia

World Events

1863 – The Football Association, the oldest football association in the world, is formed in London.
1905 – Norway becomes independent from Sweden.
1909 – Itō Hirobumi, four time Prime Minister of Japan (the 1st, 5th, 7th and 10th) and Resident-General of Korea, is assassinated by An Jung-geun at the Harbin train station in Manchuria.
1921 – The Chicago Theatre opens.
1936 – The first electric generator at Hoover Dam goes into full operation.
1940 – The P-51 Mustang makes its maiden flight.
1955 – Ngô Đình Diệm declares himself Premier of South Vietnam.
1958 – Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France.
1964 – Eric Edgar Cooke becomes last person in Western Australia to be executed.
1967 – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crowns himself Emperor of Iran and then crowns his wife Farah Empress of Iran.
1968 – Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy pilots Soyuz 3 into space for a four-day mission.
1977 – Ali Maow Maalin, the last natural case of smallpox, develops rash in Merca district, Somalia. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
1979 – Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is assassinated by Korean Central Intelligence Agency head Kim Jae-gyu. Choi Kyu-hah becomes the acting President; Kim is executed the following May.
1984 – "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon.
1985 – The Australian government returns ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara Aborigines.
1992 – The Charlottetown Accord fails to win majority support in a Canada wide referendum.
1992 – The London Ambulance Service is thrown into chaos after the implementation of a new CAD, or Computer Aided Dispatch, system which failed.
1994 – Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty.
1995 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: Mossad agents assassinate Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shaqaqi in his hotel in Malta.
1999 – Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
2000 – Laurent Gbagbo takes over as president of Côte d'Ivoire following a popular uprising against President Robert Guéï.
2001 – The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.
2002 – Moscow theater hostage crisis: Approximately 50 Chechen terrorists and 150 hostages die when Russian Spetsnaz storm a theater building in Moscow, which had been occupied by the terrorists during a musical performance three days before.
2003 – The Cedar Fire, the second-largest fire in California history, kills 15 people, consumes 250,000 acres (1,000 km2), and destroys 2,200 homes around San Diego.

Today in History October 24 The birth of United Nations (UN)

October 24 is the 297th day of the year. There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.

Flag

Today's Highlight in History 1945 – Founding of the United Nations.

Emblem

The Chilean delegation signing
 the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945

      

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established on 24 October 1945 to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN Headquarters is situated in Manhattan, New York City, and enjoys extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict.

During the Second World War, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated talks on a successor agency to the League of Nations, and the United Nations Charter was drafted at a conference in April–June 1945; this charter took effect on 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. The UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in major actions in Korea and the Congo, as well as approving the creation of the state of Israel in 1947. The organization's membership grew significantly following widespread decolonization in the 1960s, and by the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military and peacekeeping missions across the world with varying degrees of success.

Secretaries-General of the United NationsNo.NameCountry of originTook officeLeft officeNote


1 Trygve Lie                          Norway 2 February 1946 10 November 1952 Resigned
2 Dag Hammarskjöld             Sweden 10 April 1953 18 September 1961 Died in office
3 U Thant                              Myanmar 30 November 1961 31 December 1971
4 Kurt Waldheim                    Austria 1 January 1972 31 December 1981
5 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar         Peru 1 January 1982 31 December 1991
6 Boutros Boutros-Ghali         Egypt 1 January 1992 31 December 1996
7 Kofi Annan                         Ghana 1 January 1997 31 December 2006
8 Ban Ki-moon                     South Korea 1 January 2007 Incumbent


The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by South Korean Ban Ki-moon since 2007. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.

The current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon

The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased.

The United Nations' system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations in 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.

Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City. The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.Other UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. On the basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.

Wikipedia

World Events

1851 – William Lassell, discovers the moons Umbriel, and Ariel, orbiting Uranus.
1857 – Sheffield F.C., the world's oldest association football club still in operation, is founded in Sheffield, England.
1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls, in a barrel.
1911 – Orville Wright, remains in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
1926 – Harry Houdini's last performance, which is at the Garrick Theater in Detroit
1929 – "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
1930 – A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Vargas is then installed as "provisional president."
1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.
1943 – The Provisional Government of Free India formally declared war on Britain and the United States of America.
1945 – Founding of the United Nations.
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1947 – Walt Disney testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
1949 – The cornerstone of the United Nations Headquarters is laid.
1954 – Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam.
1957 – The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
1964 – Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony until the next year, with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence)
1973 – Yom Kippur War ends.
1977 – Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
1980 – The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
1986 – Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi is helped by Syrian officials.
1990 – Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army, which was implicated in false flag terrorist attacks implicating communists and anarchists as part of the strategy of tension from the late 1960s to early 1980s.
1992 – The Toronto Blue Jays become the first Major League Baseball team based outside the United States to win the World Series.
1998 – Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission
2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
2004 – Arsenal Football Club loses to Manchester United, ending a row of unbeaten matches at 49 matches, which is the record in the Premier League.
2005 – Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in Florida resulting in 35 direct 26 indirect fatalities and causing $20.6B USD in damage.
2007 – Chang'e 1, the first satellite in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, is launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
2008 – "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

Jean-Paul Sartre the man who declines the Nobel Prize in Literature

Jean-Paul Sartre in Venice in 1967

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.

His work also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his open relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.

He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution".

In 1964 Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life, Les mots (Words). The book is an ironic counterblast to Marcel Proust, whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of André Gide (who had provided the model of littérature engagée for Sartre's generation). Literature, Sartre concluded, functioned ultimately as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In October 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but he declined it. He was the first Nobel laureate to voluntarily decline the prize, and remains one of only two laureates to do so. In 1945, he had refused the Légion d'honneur. The Nobel prize was announced on 22 October 1964; on 14 October, Sartre had written a letter to the Nobel Institute, asking to be removed from the list of nominees, and warning that he would not accept the prize if awarded, but the letter went unread; on 23 October, Le Figaro published a statement by Sartre explaining his refusal. He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution. After being awarded the prize he tried to escape the media by hiding in the house of Simone's sister Hélène de Beauvoir in Goxwiller, Alsace.

Hélène de Beauvoir's house in Goxwiller,where Sartre tried to hide from the media
after being awarded the Nobel Prize.

Sartre's and de Beauvoir's grave in
the Cimetière de Montparnasse

Though his name was then a household word (as was "existentialism" during the tumultuous 1960s), Sartre remained a simple man with few possessions, actively committed to causes until the end of his life, such as the May 1968 strikes in Paris during the summer of 1968 during which he was arrested for civil disobedience. President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire."

In 1975, when asked how he would like to be remembered, Sartre replied:

       I would like [people] to remember Nausea, [my plays] No Exit and The Devil and the Good Lord, and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Then my essay on Genet, Saint Genet.... If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don't ask for more. As a man, if a certain Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered, I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived,... how I lived in it, in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself.

.wikipedia

Today in History October 22; The Supremes; America's most successful vocal group

October 22 is the 295th day of the year. There are 70 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Supremes: Diana Ross (right), Mary Wilson (center),
Florence Ballard (left) performing
"My World Is Empty Without You"
onThe Ed Sullivan Show in 1966.

Today's Highlight in History: 1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go)


The Supremes were an American female singing group and the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and are, to date, America's most successful vocal group with 12 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Most of these hits were written and produced by Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. At their peak in the mid-1960s, the Supremes rivaled the Beatles in worldwide popularity and their success made it possible for future African American R&B and soul musicians to find mainstream success.

Founding members Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, all from the Brewster-Douglass public housing project in Detroit. They formed the Primettes as the sister act to the Primes (with Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who went on to form the Temptations). Barbara Martin replaced McGlown in 1960, and the group signed with Motown the following year as the Supremes. Martin left the act in early 1962, and Ross, Ballard, and Wilson carried on as a trio.

The Supremes in 1965.

During the mid-1960s, the Supremes achieved mainstream success with Ross as lead singer. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, and replaced Ballard with Cindy Birdsong. Ross left to pursue a solo career in 1970 and was replaced by Jean Terrell. Diana Ross & the Supremes gave their final performance on January 14, 1970 at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. At the final performance, the replacement for Diana Ross, Jean Terrell, was introduced.

When she left, the group's name reverted to the Supremes. After 1972, the lineup changed more frequently; Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene all became members of the group during the mid-1970s. The Supremes disbanded in 1977 after an 18-year run.



The Supremes A' Go-Go album of 1966 was the first album by an all-female group to reach number-one on the Billboard 200 album charts in the United States. Remaining on the Billboard album chart for 60 weeks, it sold over 1 million copies in the United States and about 3.5 million copies world-wide, making it their 2nd best selling album behind their chart busting Greatest Hits which sold over 3 million copies in the states and over 6 million copies world-wide and held onto the #1 spot for 5 weeks on Billboard Magazine.

World Events

362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
451 – The Council of Chalcedon adopts the Chalcedonian Creed regarding the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ.
794 – Emperor Kanmu relocates the Japanese capital to Heiankyo (now Kyoto).
1383 – The 1383–85 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando dies without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.
1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
1784 – Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 – The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
1859 – Spain declares war on Morocco.
1875 – First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners
1927 – Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including a motor with onephase electricity
1928 – Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd
1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.
1978 – Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II.
2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms
2007 – Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos. All except one died in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and 10 damaged.
2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
2013 – The Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013