EVENTS
- 1618 – British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in London for treason on orders from King James I.
- 1787 – The first performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.
- 1863 – The International Red Cross is formed.
- 1923 – With the end of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey becomes a republic.
- 1929 – The stock market crashed as over 16 million shares were dumped amid tumbling prices. The Great Depression followed in America, lasting until the outbreak of World War II.
- 1960 – Muhammad Ali wins his first professional boxing match.
- 1998 – Oldest person to fly in space. John Glenn flew on the Discovery shuttle at the age of 77 years, making him the oldest person to fly in space.
- 2005 – Bombings in Delhi. three separate bombings in India’s capital city of Delhi a few days before the important festival of Diwali left about 60 people dead.
- 2008 – Delta Air Lines merged with Northwest. The merger resulted in creating world’s largest airline. The merged entity took on the name of Delta Airlines, and the Northwest Airlines brand name was retired.
- 2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the US’s eastern coast. Hurricane Sandy, a category 2 storm by the time it made landfall in the US, hit the US’s eastern coast. The estimated damage from the hurricane was $50 billion.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1877 – Wilfred Rhodes (English cricketer)
- 1897 – Nazi propaganda minister Paul Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was born in Rheydt, near Dusseldorf, Germany (Considered a master propagandist, he controlled all Nazi newspapers, radio and film production (He was a virulent anti-Semite who advocated the extermination of the Jews (Devoted to Hitler until the end, he died at Hitler’s Berlin bunker in 1945 after poisoning his six children.
- 1938 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberian politician, 24th President of Liberia)
- 1938 – Ralph Bakshi (American director, screenwriter, producer)
- 1942 – Bob Ross (Painter and Art Instructor)
- 1947 – Richard Dreyfuss (Actor)
- 1957 – Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson voice)
- 1967 – Joely Fisher (Actress)
- 1971 – Winona Ryder (Actress)
- 1972 – Gabrielle Union (Actress)
- 1974 – Michael Vaughan (English cricketer)
- 1980 – Ben Foster (Actor – X-Men Movies)
- 1984 – Eric Staal (NHL Hockey player)
DEATHS
- 1877 – Nathan Bedford Forrest (American army officer)
- 1911 – Joseph Pulitzer (Hungarian/American politician, journalist, publisher, founded Pulitzer, Inc. )
- 1949 – George Gurdjieff (Armenian mystic)
- 1995 – Terry Southern (American author, screenwriter)
- 2011 – Jimmy Savile (English radio, television host)