Today in History: October 31, 1517 On the last day of October in 1517, a scholar and priest named Martin Luther did as priests commonly did at the time when they had something to discuss amongst the clergy, he nailed a piece of paper to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany.  Unlike many other such documents nailed […]

Today in History: October 30, 1991 What later became known as “The Perfect Storm” was first referred to as “The Halloween Storm,” until Bob Case from the National Weather service coined the name we know it by today. No matter what you call it, it was a storm of monstrous proportions that battered the East Coast – especially New England […]

Today in History: October 29, 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was an explorer and scholar of the Elizabethan era who was born in Devon around 1552. He came from an affluent, well-connected gentry family, attended Oxford University and also studied law for a time. In 1578, Raleigh sailed for America with his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert, a venture that sparked his interest […]

Today in History: October 28, 1886 On this day in history, 1886, people flocked to New York City in droves. Every train entering the city was filled to capacity. New York’s many hotels, from the most exclusive to the most humble, had to turn away hundreds seeking lodging. No-one wanted to miss the grand ceremony of President Grover Cleveland dedicating […]

Today in History: October 25, 1415 The English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt has been immortalized by none other than William Shakespeare and is often hailed as one of the greatest military victories of all time. The battle that occurred in a muddy farmer’s field during a series of encounters called the Hundred Years War assured […]

This Day In History: October 24, 1901 Anna Edson Taylor was the first adventurer to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel who lived to tell the tale. The future daredevil was born on October 24, 1838, in Auburn, New York. Her family was financially well off, and Anna was accustomed to the finer things in life. Her […]

This Day In History: October 23, 1921 On October 23, 1921, an American officer in the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne selected the first “Unknown Soldier” to represent and honor the American soldiers who’d lost their lives in the war, both known and unknown. The decision to select such a soldier and bury him in a special site in Arlington National […]

Today in History: October 22, 1969 On this day in history, 1969, Paul McCartney denied rumors that the real Paul McCartney had died in 1966. Come on, admit it. If you’re a Beatles fan you’ve looked for all the clues on the album covers and in the song lyrics. It’s one of the rites of passage from being a casual […]

Today in History: October 21, 1967 On this day in history, 1967, nearly 100,000 people – hippies, professors, women’s groups, radicals, war veterans, liberals, and people from most every walk of life – gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the war effort in Vietnam. This protest was a dramatic indication that support for President Johnson’s war in Vietnam was rapidly […]

Today in History: October 18, 1469 Ferdinand and Isabella were one of the most famous power couples in European history. In their eyes, their crowning achievement wasn’t expanding their empire to include the New World, or uniting the various dominions that would become modern Spain- they believed their greatest accomplishment was driving out all Muslims from their country. When Ferdinand, […]

Today in History: October 17, 1777 The Battle of Saratoga, which was actually two battles that took place during September and October of 1777, was a major victory for the American Revolutionaries and a crucial turning point of the Revolutionary War. It was the push the French were looking for to enter the war against the British, which reinvigorated the […]

Today in History: October 16, 1793 During the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was one of the most hated and prominent targets of the French revolutionaries. The French people disliked her because of her foreign birth (particularly being from Austria, the bitter enemy of France at the time) , ostentatious lifestyle and […]

Today in History: October 15, 1917 On this day in history, 1917, famed femme fatale exotic dancer and convicted spy, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle MacLeod, a.k.a. Mata Hari, was executed. Mata Hari first showed up in Paris in 1905.  In need of money after having recently left her abusive husband, she began performing exotic Asian dances, for which she quickly gained […]

This Day In History: October 14, 1066 The Battle of Hastings, like so many other battles, was a dispute over the line of succession to the English throne. But it ending up being much more than that – the Battle of Hastings, fought on this day in history, 1066, ushered in a new era in the English legal system, language […]

Today in History: October 11, 2002 On this day in history, 2002, ex-United States President Jimmy Carter was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of effort through his Carter Center to “wage peace” using peaceful negotiations to resolve conflict. The Peace Prize has often been used through the years to make political statements, and in 2002 […]

Today in History: October 10, 1991 On this day in history, 1991, one of the series of killing sprees that would help inspire the phrase “going postal” occurred.  A former postal worker, Joseph Harris, who was angry that he had been fired eighteen months previously in April of 1990, murdered his ex-supervisor Carol Ott and her boyfriend in the home […]

This Day In History: October 9th While not given the fanfare of Columbus Day, today in the United States is, in fact, Leif Eriksson Day.  Leif Eriksson (other spellings include Ericson, Erikson or Eiriksson), also called “Leif the Lucky”, was the second son of the famous Norse explorer Eric the Red, who, after being booted out of Iceland somewhere around […]

Today in History: October 8, 1918 Corporal Alvin C. York, while at the head of a small detachment near the Meuse River in the Argonne Forest in France, killed at least 20 German soldiers and captured an additional 132 men, which later earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. York was born in a log cabin near the Tennessee-Kentucky border […]