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Today in 1492 Columbus reached “New World” 532 Years Ago.It's YOM KIPPUR. John Denver crashes/dies in '97.Robt E. Lee died in 1870.Gore wins Nobel '07. Conscientious objector awarded Medal of Honor in 1945.​

Alfred Nobel (born October 21, 1833, Stockholm, Sweden—died December 10, 1896, San Remo, Italy) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in...id=email-hist-tdih-2024-1012-10122024&om_rid=

Conscientious objector awarded Medal of Honor in 1945. https://www.history.com/this-day-in...id=email-hist-tdih-2024-1012-10122024&om_rid=
 
Last edited:
"In 1492
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
And landed, by coincidence
In front of long-term residents
So while Columbus claimed a lot
I reckon he discovered squat"
--- author unknown ( to me)
 
He thought he had landed in India hence why native Americans are still called Indians. The Vikings beat Columbus by 400+ years

Vikings first arrived in North America in 1021 AD:
Evidence
Scientists used a new dating technique to analyze tree rings from wood cut for the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The technique used a solar storm to reference an atmospheric radiocarbon signal, which allowed scientists to pinpoint the year the trees were felled.
 

1812 Sir Isaac Brock saves Canada from U.S. invasion​

During the War of 1812, British and Indian forces under Sir Isaac Brock defeat Americans under General Stephen Van Rensselaer at the Battle of Queenstown Heights, on the Niagara frontier in Ontario, Canada. The British victory, in which more than 1,000 U.S. troops were killed, wounded, or captured, effectively ended any further U.S. invasion of Canada. Sir Isaac Brock, Britain’s most talented general in the war, was killed during the battle.
 
"In 1492
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
And landed, by coincidence
In front of long-term residents
So while Columbus claimed a lot
I reckon he discovered squat"
--- author unknown ( to me)
He thought he had landed in India hence why native Americans are still called Indians. The Vikings beat Columbus by 400+ years

Vikings first arrived in North America in 1021 AD:
Evidence
Scientists used a new dating technique to analyze tree rings from wood cut for the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The technique used a solar storm to reference an atmospheric radiocarbon signal, which allowed scientists to pinpoint the year the trees were felled.
The purpose of the mission was to find a way westward to India - a supposed short cut from sailing around Africa.
Their calculations of the Earths Circumference lead them to believe the mission was more than feasible.
( they should have looked at Eratosthenes‘ calculations of 1700 years earlier which have proven to have less than 1%error of today’s measurements).
The real fortunate outcome, however, is that the 3 ship flotilla actually made it across the Atlantic Ocean and back! During peak hurricane season without encountering any serious weather whatsoever.
Had they encountered such a storm they no doubt would have been lost at sea never to be heard from again - casualties no doubt of sailing off the edge of a Flat Earth 🌎
🤔🤙😎
 
Their internet was probably down that day:)
Haha.
Columbus in fact had read Eratosthenes’ works so was aware of the mathematics. But E was an ancient scientist (b4 Jah-EEE-Sus) in the true sense of the word and Columbus of course lived at a time when the Catholic Church pretty much ruled “scientific” Europe and thus all science needed to conform to Church teaching.

Columbus being a good catholic believed in the Ptolemy “earth centric” hypothesis which was promoted by the Church and P’s calculations of the Earths circumference were much smaller than what we know today as reality.

Hence Columbus got lucky by sailing into a huge unknown continent b4 he would’ve died at sea and the rest according to cliche is History.

jonny
 

1867 U.S. takes possession of Alaska​

On October 18, 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. Indigenous peoples had settled the unforgiving territory thousands of years earlier. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiastically expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson.
Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it in battle with a rival such as Great Britain. Negotiations between Seward (1801-1872) and the Russian minister to the U.S., Eduard de Stoeckl, began in March 1867. However, the American public believed the land to be barren and worthless and dubbed the purchase “Seward’s Folly” and “Andrew Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden,” among other derogatory names. Some animosity toward the project may have been a byproduct of President Johnson’s own unpopularity. As the 17th U.S. president, Johnson battled with Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction policies following the Civil War. He was impeached in 1868 and later acquitted by a single vote. Nevertheless, Congress eventually ratified the Alaska deal.
Andrew Johnson
Public opinion of the purchase turned more favorable when gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska, in 1899, sparking a gold rush. Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, and is now recognized for its vast natural resources. Today, 25 percent of America’s oil and over 50 percent of its seafood come from Alaska. It is also the largest state in area, about one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined, though it remains sparsely populated.
The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut word alyeska, which means “great land.” Alaska has two official state holidays to commemorate its origins: Seward’s Day, observed the last Monday in March, celebrates the March 30, 1867, signing of the land treaty between the U.S. and Russia, and Alaska Day, observed every October 18, marks the anniversary of the formal land transfer.
Why the Purchase of Alaska Was Far From 'Folly'
Featured

Why the Purchase of Alaska Was Far From ‘Folly’

Though mocked by some at the time, the 1867 purchase of Alaska came to be regarded as a masterful deal.
Read moreRead more about Why the Purchase of Alaska Was Far From ‘Folly’
By: History.com Edit
 
Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash

On October 20, 1977, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the tour plane for Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in a heavily wooded area of southwestern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt. The accident killed band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.

That summer, members of the rock band Aerosmith had considered chartering that same airplane—a Convair 240 operated out of Addison, Texas—for their upcoming tour. But concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith to look elsewhere—a decision that saved one band but doomed another. The plane was chartered instead by Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date.
The original core of Lynyrd Skynyrd—Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom—first came together under the name “My Backyard” back in 1964, as Jacksonville, Florida, teenagers. Under that name and several others, the group developed its chops playing local and regional gigs throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, then finally broke out nationally in 1973 following the adoption of the name “Lynyrd Skynyrd” in honor of a high school gym teacher/nemesis named Leonard Skinner. The newly renamed band scored a major hit with their hard-driving debut album (pronounced ‘lĕh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd) (1973), which featured one of the most familiar and joked-about rock anthems of all time, “Free Bird.” Their follow-up album, Second Helping (1974), included the even bigger hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” and it secured the band’s status as giants of the southern rock subgenre.
On October 17, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their fifth studio album, Street Survivors, which would eventually be certified double-platinum. Three days later, however, tragedy struck the group when their chartered Convair 240 began to run out of fuel at 6,000 feet en route to Baton Rouge. The plane’s crew, whom the National Transportation Safety Board would hold responsible for the mishap in the accident report issued eight months later, radioed Houston air-traffic control as the plane lost altitude, asking for directions to the nearest airfield. “We’re low on fuel and we’re just about out of it,” the pilot told Houston Center at approximately 6:42 pm. “We want vectors to McComb [airfield] poste-haste please, sir.” Approximately 13 minutes later, however, the plane crashed just outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi.
 
Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash

On October 20, 1977, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the tour plane for Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in a heavily wooded area of southwestern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt. The accident killed band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.

That summer, members of the rock band Aerosmith had considered chartering that same airplane—a Convair 240 operated out of Addison, Texas—for their upcoming tour. But concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith to look elsewhere—a decision that saved one band but doomed another. The plane was chartered instead by Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date.
The original core of Lynyrd Skynyrd—Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom—first came together under the name “My Backyard” back in 1964, as Jacksonville, Florida, teenagers. Under that name and several others, the group developed its chops playing local and regional gigs throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, then finally broke out nationally in 1973 following the adoption of the name “Lynyrd Skynyrd” in honor of a high school gym teacher/nemesis named Leonard Skinner. The newly renamed band scored a major hit with their hard-driving debut album (pronounced ‘lĕh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd) (1973), which featured one of the most familiar and joked-about rock anthems of all time, “Free Bird.” Their follow-up album, Second Helping (1974), included the even bigger hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” and it secured the band’s status as giants of the southern rock subgenre.
On October 17, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their fifth studio album, Street Survivors, which would eventually be certified double-platinum. Three days later, however, tragedy struck the group when their chartered Convair 240 began to run out of fuel at 6,000 feet en route to Baton Rouge. The plane’s crew, whom the National Transportation Safety Board would hold responsible for the mishap in the accident report issued eight months later, radioed Houston air-traffic control as the plane lost altitude, asking for directions to the nearest airfield. “We’re low on fuel and we’re just about out of it,” the pilot told Houston Center at approximately 6:42 pm. “We want vectors to McComb [airfield] poste-haste please, sir.” Approximately 13 minutes later, however, the plane crashed just outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi.
Back in 74 I was 17 and u could drink in MI. at 18. So us Hoosiers that lived near the border went to MI. on the weekend to party. My buddies and I were listening to a local band and they played a song called “Sweet Home Alabama”. I had never heard anything like it before, and I asked what band came out with it and was told Lynyrd Skynyrd. I was hooked, I became the drunken fool from that day forward that screamed Free Bird . Never got to c them in concert,
 
I was legal twice to drink, once when I turned 18 then they upped it to 21 so I was legal again. Both times I hoped to get carded on my birthday to get the free beer but never did as I was a big boy. I was served once when I was 12 but things were more relaxed then. Sad they ran out of gas as the plane has a 1500 mile range & the trip was about 650 I think. Piss poor pilots. The 2 main reasons people die in non commercial planes is running out of fuel & flying into storms on purpose because they have to be some place. New GPS is helping the latter. The old saying was "If you have time to spare, go by air"
 
Today in 1797 First parachute jump is made over Paris, It's a very addicting sport:)

The first parachute jump of note is made by André-Jacques Garnerin from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet above Paris.
Leonardo da Vinci conceived the idea of the parachute in his writings, and the Frenchman Louis-Sebastien Lenormand fashioned a kind of parachute out of two umbrellas and jumped from a tree in 1783, but André-Jacques Garnerin was the first to design and test parachutes capable of slowing a man’s fall from a high altitude.
Garnerin first conceived of the possibility of using air resistance to slow an individual’s fall from a high altitude while a prisoner during the French Revolution. Although he never employed a parachute to escape from the high ramparts of the Hungarian prison where he spent three years, Garnerin never lost interest in the concept of the parachute. In 1797, he completed his first parachute, a canopy 23 feet in diameter and attached to a basket with suspension lines.
On October 22, 1797, Garnerin attached the parachute to a hydrogen balloon and ascended to an altitude of 3,200 feet. He then clambered into the basket and severed the parachute from the balloon. As he failed to include an air vent at the top of the prototype, Garnerin oscillated wildly in his descent, but he landed shaken but unhurt half a mile from the balloon’s takeoff site. In 1799, Garnerin’s wife, Jeanne-Genevieve, became the first female parachutist. In 1802, Garnerin made a spectacular jump from 8,000 feet during an exhibition in England. He died in a balloon accident in 1823 while preparing to test a new parachute.
 
Today in 1901 First barrel ride down Niagara Falls
On October 24, 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to successfully take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

After her husband died in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the U. S. before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898. In July 1901, while reading an article about the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the border of upstate New York and Canada. Strapped for cash and seeking fame, Taylor came up with the perfect attention-getting stunt: She would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Taylor was not the first person to attempt the plunge over the famous falls. In October 1829, Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, survived jumping down the 175-foot Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara River, on the Canadian side of the border, without anything on him. More than 70 years later, Taylor chose to take the ride on her birthday, October 24. (She claimed she was in her 40s, but genealogical records later showed she was 63.) With the help of two assistants, Taylor strapped herself into a leather harness inside a custom wooden pickle barrel five feet high and three feet in diameter. With cushions lining the barrel to break her fall, Taylor was towed by a small boat into the middle of the fast-flowing Niagara River and cut loose.

Knocked violently from side to side by the rapids and then propelled over the edge of Horseshoe Falls, Taylor reached the shore alive, if a bit battered, around 20 minutes after her journey began. After a brief flurry of photo-ops and speaking engagements, Taylor’s fame cooled, and she was unable to make the fortune for which she had hoped. She did, however, inspire a number of copy-cat daredevils. Between 1901 and 1995, 15 people went over the falls; 10 of them survived. Among those who died were Jesse Sharp, who took the plunge in a kayak in 1990, and Robert Overcracker, who used a jet ski in 1995. No matter the method, going over Niagara Falls is illegal, and survivors face charges and stiff fines on either side of the border.

https://www.history.com/news/a-daredevil-history-of-niagara-falls
 
1929 Cabinet member found guilty in Teapot Dome scandal
We have a Teapot Dome, Mi not too far from us & it's on the map.

October 25, 1929: During the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert B. Fall, who served as secretary of the interior in President Warren G. Harding’s cabinet, is found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. Fall was the first individual to be convicted of a crime committed while a presidential cabinet member.

As a member of President Harding’s corruption-ridden cabinet in the early 1920s, Fall accepted a $100,000 interest-free “loan” from Edward Doheny of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company, who wanted Fall to grant his firm a valuable oil lease in the Elk Hills naval oil reserve in California. The site, along with the Teapot Dome naval oil reserve in Wyoming, had been previously transferred to the Department of the Interior on the urging of Fall, who evidently realized the personal gains he could achieve by leasing the land to private corporations.
In October 1923, the Senate Public Lands Committee launched an investigation that revealed not only the $100,000 bribe that Fall received from Doheny but also that Harry Sinclair, president of Mammoth Oil, had given him some $300,000 in government bonds and cash in exchange for use of the Teapot Dome oil reserve in Wyoming.

In 1927, the oil fields were restored to the U.S. government by a Supreme Court decision. Two years later, Fall was convicted of bribery and sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of $100,000. Doheny escaped conviction, but Sinclair was imprisoned for contempt of Congress and jury tampering.

https://www.history.com/news/warren-harding-scandals
 
1881
Shootout at the O.K. Corral
On October 26, 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.

The OK Corral
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Shootout at the O.K. Corral (1946), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

https://www.history.com/news/6-things-you-should-know-about-wyatt-earp
 

1965 St. Louis’s Gateway Arch is completed​

On October 28, 1965, construction is completed on the Gateway Arch, a spectacular 630-foot-high catenary curve of stainless steel marking the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront of St. Louis, Missouri.

The Gateway Arch, designed by Finnish-born, American-educated architect Eero Saarinen, was erected to commemorate President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and to celebrate St. Louis’ central role in the rapid westward expansion that followed. As the market and supply point for fur traders and explorers—including the famous Meriwether Lewis and William Clark—the town of St. Louis grew exponentially after the War of 1812, when great numbers of people began to travel by wagon train to seek their fortunes west of the Mississippi River. In 1947-48, Saarinen won a nationwide competition to design a monument honoring the spirit of the western pioneers. In a sad twist of fate, the architect died of a brain tumor in 1961 and did not live to see the construction of his now-famous arch, which began in February 1963.
Completed in October 1965, the Gateway Arch cost less than $15 million to build. With foundations sunk 60 feet into the ground, its frame of stressed stainless steel is built to withstand both earthquakes and high winds. An internal tram system takes visitors to the top, where on a clear day they can see up to 30 miles across the winding Mississippi and to the Great Plains to the west. In addition to the Gateway Arch, the Jefferson Expansion Memorial includes the Museum of Westward Expansion and the Old Courthouse of St. Louis.

Today, some 4 million people visit the park each year to wander its nearly 100 acres, soak up some history and take in the breathtaking views from Saarinen’s gleaming arch.
 
1886 Statue of Liberty dedicated
The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, is dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

Originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the statue was proposed by the French abolitionist Edouard de Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the 151-foot statue was the form of a woman with an uplifted arm holding a torch. Its framework of gigantic steel supports was designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the latter famous for his design of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

In February 1877, Congress approved the use of a site on New York Bedloe’s Island, which was suggested by Bartholdi. In May 1884, the statue was completed in France, and three months later the Americans laid the cornerstone for its pedestal in New York Harbor. In June 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty arrived in the New World, enclosed in more than 200 packing cases. Its copper sheets were reassembled, and the last rivet of the monument was fitted on October 28, 1886, during a dedication presided over by President Cleveland and attended by numerous French and American dignitaries.
In 1903, a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal's lower level was inscribed with “The New Colossus,” a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration, “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

In 1892, Ellis Island, adjacent to Bedloe’s Island, opened as the chief entry station for immigrants to the United States, and for the next 32 years more than 12 million immigrants were welcomed into New York harbor by the sight of “Lady Liberty.” In 1924, the Statue of Liberty was made a national monument, and in 1956 Bedloe’s Island was renamed Liberty Island. The statue underwent a major restoration in the 1980s.
 
28 October, 1704 one of the greatest minds of modern Western Political & Sociologic Thought, John Locke, died…….
an English philosopher whose works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism,classical liberalism in particular.

He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States. His philosophical thinking was close to that of the founders of modern science, especially Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal Society. His political thought was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens & Government and in the importance of toleration, especially in matters of religion.

Much of what he advocated in the realm of politics was accepted in England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 and in the United States after the country’s declaration of independence in 1776.

There isn't one person who has posted in this forum who hasn't been influenced by his ideas.

INTJohn
 
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