Saturday, October 15

This Day In History

• 1860   Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard.
  
• 1892   The U.S. government convinced the Crow Indians to give up 1.8 million acres of their reservation for 50 cents per acre. On this day, by presidential proclamation, the land in the mountainous area of western Montana was opened to settlers.
  
• 1905   President Grover Cleveland wrote an article for "Ladies Home Journal", joining others in the U.S. who opposed women voters. The president said, “We all know how much further women go than men in their social rivalries and jealousies... sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.”
  
• 1914   The Clayton Antitrust Act was passed.
  
• 1917   Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who had spied for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris.
  
• 1939   New York Municipal Airport, later renamed La Guardia Airport, was dedicated.
  
• 1945   The former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed.
  
• 1946   Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
  
• 1951   The situation comedy ''I Love Lucy'' premiered on CBS.
  
• 1966   President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill creating the Department of Transportation.
  
• 1969   Peace demonstrators staged activities across the country, including a candlelight march around the White House, as part of a moratorium against the Vietnam War.
  
• 1976   In the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.
  
• 1989   Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings surpassed Gordie Howe's NHL scoring record of 1,850 points in a game against the Edmonton Oilers.
  
• 1990   Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
  
• 1990   South Africa's Separate Amenities Act, which had barred blacks from public facilities for decades, was scrapped.
  
• 1991   The Senate narrowly confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, 52-48.
  
• 1993   Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end apartheid.
  
• 1997   British Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green twice drove a jet-powered car in the Nevada desert faster than the speed of sound, shattering the world's land-speed record.
  
• 1999   The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
  
• 2001   ABC said the infant son of a news producer in New York had developed skin anthrax.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 70 B.C.   Virgil (poet: The Aeneid; died Sep 21, 19 B.C.)
  
• 1844   Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher: “Plato was a bore.”; The Birth of Tragedy, Thoughts out of Season, Human, All Too Human, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist; died Aug 25, 1900)
  
• 1858   John L. Sullivan (International Boxing Hall of Famer: World Heavyweight champion [1881-1889], Marquis of Queensbury Champion [1885-1892]; last bareknuckle championship fight [75 rounds in 1889]; actor: The Great John L. Sullivan, vaudeville; died Feb 2, 1918)
  
• 1908   John Kenneth Galbraith (economist; author)
  
• 1917   Arthur (Meier) Schlesinger Jr. (Pulitzer Prize-winning author/historian)
  
• 1924   Lee (Lido) Iacocca (mechanical engineer, automobile executive: chairperson of Chrysler Corporation, president of Ford Motor Company; author: Iacocca; chairperson: centennial rehabilitation of Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island foundation)
  
• 1937   Linda Lavin (Tony Award-winning actress: Alice)
  
• 1942   Penny (Carole) Marshall (actress: Laverne & Shirley)
  
• 1954   Tanya Roberts (Leigh) (actress: Charlie’s Angels)
  
• 1959   Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York: ‘Fergie’)
  
• 1959   Emeril Lagasse (celebrity chef, TV host)