TIME TRAVELING, October 31: 1517 Priest and scholar Martin Luther posts the 95 Theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation. 1861 Gen. Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War and commander of Union forces, retires from service early in the Civil War citing failing health and advancing years. 1864 Nevada becomes the 36th state to join the Union. 1892 “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, is published. The book is the first collection of Holmes stories, which Conan Doyle had been publishing in magazines since 1887. 1922 Benito Mussolini becomes prime minister of Italy. 1926 Celebrated magician and escape artist Harry Houdini dies in a Detroit, Mich., hospital of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix suffered 12 days earlier when he was punched in the stomach unexpectedly by a student in Montreal. During a lecture, Houdini had mentioned the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows. 1941 After 14 years of work, the 60-foot busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota are declared finished. 1950 Earl Lloyd, 21, becomes the first African-American to play in a National Basketball Association game when he takes the court in the season opener for the Washington Capitols. 1952 The United States detonates its first hydrogen bomb. 1955 Britain’s Princess Margaret announces she will not, after all, marry the divorced Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend, saying she has made this decision out of loyalty to the British crown. 1956 Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek becomes the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole – and to set foot on the South Pole. 1957 The Japanese car company Toyota establishes a U.S. headquarters in an old Rambler dealership in Hollywood, Calif., hoping to saturate the American second-car market with its small, inexpensive Toyopet Crown sedans. 1959 Living in Moscow, Russia, former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, originally from Fort Worth, Texas, announces he will never return to the United States. 1968 In an address to the nation five days before the presidential election, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he has ordered a halt of all U.S. bombardment of North Vietnam as an act of goodwill to give peace talks a fair chance. 1969 Wal-Mart Discount City stores are incorporated was Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated near her New Delhi home by two Sikh security guards. Her son, Rajiv, is sworn in as prime minister. 1992 It is announced that five American nuns had been killed near Monrovia, Liberia, by rebels loyal to Liberian politician (and future president) Charles Taylor. 1993 River Phoenix, 23, at the time considered one of the most promising actors of his generation, collapses and dies of a drug overdose outside a Hollywood nightclub. 1994 An American Eagle ATR-72 plunges into an Indiana farm, killing 68 people. 1997 British au pair Louise Woodward is sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. She is later released after her sentence is reduced to manslaughter. 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., killing all 217 people aboard. 2002 Former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow is indicted on 78 counts of fraud and other charges related to the collapse of Enron Corporation.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:16:12 +0000
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