EVENTS
- 1783 – World’s First Manned Balloon Flight. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a teacher from France, spent about 4 minutes in the air in a balloon made by flight pioneers Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Ètienne Montgolfier. The Montgolfier brothers were responsible for the world’s first balloon flight and for sending the first living being – a duck – on a balloon.
- 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte of France begins hexile on St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1917 – World War I spy Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad at Vincennes Barracks, outside Paris.
- 1945 – Pierre Laval, the former premier of Vichy France, was executed for collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II.
- 1946 – Nazi leader Hermann Goering committed suicide by swallowing poison in his Nuremberg prison cell just hours before his scheduled hanging for war crimes.
- 1951 – The television sitcom I Love Lucy airs its first episode.
- 1964 – Soviet Russia’s leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
- 1987 – Thomas Sankara killed. Thomas Sankara, the President of Burkina Faso, was killed during a coup led by Blaise Compaoré.
- 1989 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the all time leading points scorer in the NHL.
- 1990 – Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1991 – The U.S. Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court by a 52-48 vote following several days of tumultuous hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning sexual harassment charges made by a former aide. Thomas became the second African American to sit on the Court, replacing retired Justice Thurgood Marshall, an African American.
- 2003 – Shenzhou 5, China’s first human space flight mission launched. Launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the middle of the Gobi desert in northern China, this launch brought the Chinese into the exclusive club of countries who have achieved manned space flight. The other countries are the USA and the Soviet Union/Russia.
BIRTHDAYS
- 70 B – C Virgil (Roman Poet)
- 1844 – German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was born in the Province of Saxony (Best known for stating, “God is dead,” and for his prediction in the late 1800s, “There will be wars such as there have never been on Earth before.” He eventually succumbed to mental illness.
- 1881 – P (G (Wodehouse (English author)
- 1924 – Lee Iacocca was born to Italian immigrant parents in Allentown, Pennsylvania, October 15, 1924 (as Lido Anthony Iacocca) (Dubbed “America’s first corporate folk hero,” he was a mechanical engineer who became an automobile executive at Ford and later helped save Chrysler from bankruptcy (He also served as foundation chairman for the rehabilitation of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
- 1926 – Michel Foucault (French philosopher)
- 1931 – A (P (J (Abdul Kalam (Indian scientist, politician, 11th President of India)
- 1938 – Fela Kuti (Nigerian singer-songwriter, musician, activist)
- 1945 – Jim Palmer (Baseball Player)
- 1959 – Emeril Lagasse (Chef)
- 1959 – Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York)
- 1969 – Vanessa Marcil (Actress)
- 1999 – Bailee Madison (Actress)
DEATHS
- 1817 – Tadeusz Kościuszko (Polish/American general)
- 1917 – Mata Hari (Dutch spy)
- 1946 – Hermann Göring (German military leader, politician, Minister President of Prussia)
- 1959 – Stepan Bandera (Ukrainian politician)
- 1964 – Cole Porter (American composer)