Today in Your History — October
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, October 2022
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PHOTO BY: Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Oct. 31: Mount Rushmore is completed (1941)
Mount Rushmore has become one of the most famous landmarks in the United States, comprising the 60-foot-tall heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt carved into a mountainside in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The plan was not without its controversies: It was built on land sacred to the Lakota people who lived there, and sculptor Gutzon Borglum had ties to the Ku Klux Klan. South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson came up with the idea to increase tourism to the area, and construction officially began in 1927 after a dedication by President Calvin Coolidge. The project proceeded in fits and starts over the next 14 years, with funding often falling short, and the federal government paid most of the nearly $1 million total cost, with much of the rest of the budget coming from private donations. The monument was originally supposed to include the presidents’ bodies down to the waist, but Borglum died in March 1941 and it became clear that the U.S. was about to enter World War II. Borglum’s son Lincoln took over the project, and with funding running out, Mount Rushmore was officially declared completed October 31, 1941, with only the heads completed. “I do not think any more should be done on figures of the Memorial,” Lincoln said. “It looks very well as it is and I think it is more effective this way." —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: The Ring Magazine via Getty Images
Oct. 30: Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle to regain the heavyweight title (1974)
In 1973, George Foreman had famously defeated Joe Frazier to become the heavyweight champion of the world. On this date in 1974, the 25-year-old Texan faced off against Muhammad Ali in a much-publicized bout that was fought in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) — the unlikely location earned the fight the nickname the Rumble in the Jungle. Foreman was unbeaten in his first 40 bouts, and Ali came into the fight as an underdog, with 4-1 odds of winning. Employing a strategy that he called rope-a-dope, Ali spent much of the match with his back on the ropes, letting Foreman tire himself out. And then, in the eighth round, Ali dealt the blow that knocked Foreman out. “Under an African moon in the darkness before dawn today, a bee battered a lion as Muhammad Ali registered an eighth-round knockout of George Foreman and regained the world heavyweight title at the age of 32 after a lapse of more than seven years,” Dave Anderson wrote in The New York Times. Never one to be modest, Ali relished the victory. “Foreman was humiliated,” he said after the bout. “I did it. I told you he was nothing but did you listen? I told you I was going to jab him in the corners, I told you I was going to take all his shots. I told you he had no skill. I told you he didn’t like to be punched.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Photofest
Oct. 29: The musical Hair opens Off-Broadway (1967)
On October 29, 1967, the generation-redefining hippie musical Hair opened Off-Broadway at New York’s newly opened Public Theater as the first production of the New York Shakespeare Festival. With its rock sound, nudity and of-the-moment subject matter (the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution), Hair was like no other musical that had come before it. And while it would go on to become one of the classics of the genre, it wasn’t without its dissenters in those early days. In the Village Voice review, critic Michael Smith wrote, “I loathed and despised it. Described as ‘an American tribal love-rock musical,’ it turns out to be all phony. My reaction may be inappropriate; I’ve lived in the Village too long, that’s all. This is show business, I guess, and I shouldn’t have expected truth, sincerity, devotion to reality, responsibility to the social environment, even plain honest art — but I did expect all that, and it’s possible. I was astonished, then baffled, then depressed to find, instead, the same debased standards and goals that have wrecked Broadway. Hair is bald opportunism.” After a limited run at the Public, Hair moved uptown to Broadway, where it opened at the Biltmore Theatre on April 29, 1968, and earned two Tony nominations, for best musical and best director. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
Oct. 28: Construction of the Gateway Arch is completed (1965)
One of the most enduring landmarks in the United States, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is a monument to westward expansion, marking the starting point of the 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen came up with the plan for a sweeping archway, and he said at the time, “Neither an obelisk nor a rectangular box nor a dome seemed right on this site or for this purpose. But here, at the edge of the Mississippi River, a great arch did seem right.” Saarinen sadly died of a brain tumor in 1961, before construction began in February 1963; less than three years later, on October 28, 1965, the final triangular piece of stainless steel was fitted into the 630-foot-tall arch, completing the elegant and timeless design. The planning had been so precise that the two “legs” were only off by three-eighths of an inch, meaning that the final puzzle piece practically slid into place with no effort. The project cost less than $15 million, and the completion of construction came with quite a bit of pomp and circumstance: A time capsule was welded to the top of the arch containing the signatures of more than 700,000 St. Louis residents, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey watched the proceedings from a helicopter. All these decades later, the architectural marvel still stands as the tallest monument in the United States and the tallest arch anywhere in the world. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
Oct. 27: The Boston Red Sox end the Curse of the Bambino by winning their first World Series in 86 years (2004)
In December 1919, the Boston Red Sox made the ill-advised decision to sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, kicking off nearly nine decades of misfortune, the Curse of the Bambino, which trailed the team. In the years after their 1918 championship win, the Red Sox only made it to the World Series four times, and they lost each in devastating fashion during the seventh game. All that changed in 2004, when they defeated the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, coming back from a 3-0 deficit and sweeping the last four games. In the World Series, they faced off against the St. Louis Cardinals, and the energy was palpable, with Bostonians turning “Reverse the Curse” into an almost religious mantra. And then, on October 27, 2004, the unthinkable happened: They finally won the World Series, in three games. The city erupted into a joyful celebration, and general manager Theo Epstein summed up the mood: “This is what we’ve all been waiting for. We can die happy.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Toby Talbot/AP Photo
Oct. 26: Gary Trudeau debuts his Pulitzer-winning comic strip Doonesbury (1970)
After debuting his comic strip Bull Tales in the Yale Daily News in September 1968, artist Garry Trudeau made the leap to the big leagues on October 26, 1970, when the renamed Doonesbury — after its everyman protagonist Michael Doonesbury — debuted in 28 newspapers. Known for its astute political and social commentary, the strip centered around a sprawling cast of characters, including a hippie, a liberal talk-show host, a campus chaplain and a feminist attorney. Trudeau took aim at politicians, spoke out against the Vietnam War and honed a sharp satirical point of view. “You can't exaggerate the importance of novelty in jumpstarting a career,” Trudeau told NPR. “People were so surprised by this strip that was about sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll and politics and all the things that I was concerned about and was thinking about in college that I got cut a lot of slack.” Those early years weren’t always easy: After he struck a deal to have the strip syndicated, someone stole a suitcase containing the first six weeks of cartoons out of Trudeau’s car! In 1975, Doonesbury became the first daily comic strip to win a Pulitzer Prize, with Trudeau picking up the prize for editorial cartooning. Doonesbury is still going strong, with Trudeau producing new strips each Sunday, more than a half-century after the comic first debuted. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Oct. 25: Florida State’s Bobby Bowden becomes the winningest coach in college football history (2003)
On this date in 2003, the Florida State Seminoles squared off against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, and in the final minutes of the game, the crowd in Tallahassee began to chant the name of the FSU head coach: “Bobby Bowden! Bobby Bowden!” With the team’s 48-24 victory, he achieved an impressive record: After four decades of coaching, his 339th career victory took him into the lead as the winningest coach in Division I college football history, surpassing Joe Paterno of Penn State. “It’s just something that happened,” Bowden said after the game. “I’m kind of uncomfortable about it because it ain’t over. I expect Joe to come back, and he will, and I’ll do the best I can do.” Bowden retired in 2009, ending his career with an impressive 377 wins. Taking into account teams at all division levels in college football, that stat actually places Bowden in fourth place behind John Gagliardi (489 wins with Carroll and Saint John’s), Joe Paterno (409 wins with Penn State) and Eddie Robinson (408 wins with Grambling). So what was the secret to Bowden’s success? He’s been quoted as saying, “He who gets the best players usually wins.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Oct. 24: The Concorde makes its last commercial flight (2003)
The supersonic Concorde made its first transatlantic flight in September 1973, dramatically cutting down the time it took to get from the United States to Europe. With a takeoff speed of 250 mph and a cruising speed of 1,350 mph, the plane flew at more than twice the speed of sound, with a standard flight from London to New York taking a little under three and a half hours (as opposed to eight on a typical plane). While it was heralded at the time as a cutting-edge transportation breakthrough, the era of supersonic travel would come to an end after just a little over 30 years, when British Airways flew the final scheduled commercial Concorde flight from JFK to Heathrow on October 24, 2003. Among the roughly 100 passengers on board that day were Christie Brinkley, Joan Collins and Sir David Frost; at the helm was Captain Michael Bannister, who estimated at the time that he had flown 8,000 hours and about 8 million miles since joining the Concorde team in 1997. “There’s a little sadness,” Bannister told CBS News. “What we’ve tried to do is make the retirement of the Concorde a celebration. It’s something we’d like to do with the style and grace and elegance befitting this majestic aircraft.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Courtesy of Apple Corp. via Getty Images
Oct. 23: Apple announces the first iPod (2001)
Earlier this year, Apple officially discontinued its last iPod model, the Touch, bringing an end to more than two decades of the groundbreaking music device. On October 23, 2001, Apple announced its new MP3 player, which they said in a statement, “packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket.” After being gone from Apple for 12 years, Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997, and the iPod proved to be just the thing that would save the tech giant from financial collapse. “With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go,” Jobs said. “Listening to music will never be the same again.” The device became available November 10 with a suggested retail price of $399. Like few other devices in recent memory, the iPod changed the way we live, and Time magazine summed up its appeal upon its 10th anniversary in 2011: “Like many Apple products, the iPod wasn’t the first device of its kind. But like many examples of Jobs’ legacy, it was the product that did it best; it was the first to show listeners that a piece of technology could be more than useful; it could be cool, and eventually impossible to imagine living without.” In the end, Apple sold 450 million iPods before they were discontinued. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Oct. 22: President John F. Kennedy announces the Cuban missile crisis to the American public (1962)
In the summer of 1962, the Cold War seemed as if it might finally start to heat up — if not outright boil over — when the United States discovered the Soviet Union had begun shipping missiles to Cuba. On October 14, U-2 spy planes flew over ballistic missiles on launch sites, and President John F. Kennedy had to act fast: He placed the island nation under a naval blockade, surrounding Cuba with a ring of ships to halt the arrival of more Soviet military supplies. American citizens didn’t learn about the potentially imminent danger until a radio and television address on October 22, when JFK announced, “This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purposes of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.” During the speech, he called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council and demanded that Premier Nikita Khrushchev stop his aggression, but he focused more on justice than war-mongering: “Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right — not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world.” The tactic worked, and on October 28, Khrushchev announced that his regime would cease construction on the missile sites and return the existing missiles back to the Soviet Union. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Ullstein Bild via Getty Images
Oct. 21: The Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City (1959)
In 1943, industrialist and art lover Solomon R. Guggenheim commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build a permanent home for his expansive collection of modern artworks. The building, which was recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, was one of the most striking and controversial constructions to ever hit the United States, complete with a spiral design that drew inspiration from nautilus shells, spider webs and ancient ziggurats. On October 21, 1959, six months after Wright’s death at the age of 91 and a decade after Guggenheim’s death, the museum finally opened its doors in New York City on the eastern edge of Central Park. Thousands of art lovers flocked to that inaugural exhibition, which featured works by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Stuart David, Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky hung around the sloping rotunda. Reviews for the building itself were decidedly mixed at the time, with a critic for the New York Mirror calling the building “one of Mr. Wright’s most joyous monstrosities,” while fellow architect Philip Johnson proclaimed it “Mr. Wright’s greatest building. New York’s greatest building.” “This building is non-traditional, non-representational, non-historical abstract art in its own right; indeed, it not merely coincides with the contents, it supersedes them,” Lewis Mumford wrote in The New Yorker. “You may go to this building to see Kandinsky or Jackson Pollock; you remain to see Frank Lloyd Wright.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
Oct. 20: Three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd are killed in a plane crash (1977)
Forty-five years ago on October 20, 1977, tragedy struck the world of rock ’n’ roll when three members of the pioneering Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died in a plane crash. After a gig in Greenville, South Carolina, the band was flying in a chartered Convair 240 on their way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when the propeller-driven plane ran out of fuel and crashed into a forested area in Gillsburg, Mississippi. The victims included Ronnie Van Zant, the band’s 28-year-old lead singer and principal songwriter; guitarist Steve Gaines; backup singer Cassie Gaines; road manager Dean Kilpatrick; and the two pilots. The remaining 20 passengers were severely injured. Following the devastating crash, the rest of the band went on a 10-year hiatus, later reuniting in 1987 for a tour with Johnny Van Zant taking over lead vocals from his late older brother. Today, an 8-foot-tall granite monument marks the crash site, and it’s become a popular pilgrimage site for fans of the band that brought the world “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBW/Alamy
Oct. 19: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is published (1953)
“When did science fiction first cross over from genre writing to the mainstream of American literature?” asks the website for the National Endowment for the Arts. “Almost certainly it happened on October 19, 1953, when a young Californian named Ray Bradbury published a novel with the odd title of Fahrenheit 451. This chilling dystopian novel imagines a future world in which our protagonist, Guy Montag, is a “fireman,” whose job it is to burn down houses where books have been found. In a review for The New York Times, J. Francis McComas wrote at the time, “Reading Ray Bradbury’s first full-scale novel is an unsettling experience. All his customary hypnotic eloquence, his remarkable virtuosity cannot hide the distressing fact that this is no precisely designed work of fiction but a polemic; moving and convincing at times, this glum portrayal of a dismal future seldom makes its appeal exclusively to the emotions. Mr. Bradbury seems to have developed a virulent hatred for many aspects of present-day culture, namely, such monstrosities as radio, TV, most movies, amateur and professional sports, automobiles and other similar aberrations which he feels debase the bright simplicity of the thinking man’s existence.” Bradbury wrote his most famous novel on a rented typewriter in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library, completing the slim volume in just nine days. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Donaldson Collection/Getty Images
Oct. 18: The celebrated musical West Side Story is released in American movie theaters (1961)
On October 18, 1961, American audiences first got a taste of one of the greatest movie musicals of all time, West Side Story, when it premiered at New York’s Rivoli Theatre just in time for the Academy Awards eligibility period; it would expand to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., the following month, before having its L.A. premiere in December. Adapted for the screen from the 1957 musical of the same name and inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the cinema classic moved the action from Verona to the mean streets of Manhattan, where Tony and Maria fall in love despite the protests of their warring gang factions, the Jets and the Sharks. The music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim were fresh and modern; the choreography by Jerome Robbins revolutionary. Unsurprisingly, it was an immediate critical triumph, with Bosley Crowther writing in The New York Times, “What they have done with West Side Story in knocking it down and moving it from stage to screen is to reconstruct its fine material into nothing short of a cinema masterpiece.” The musical was also a smash hit at the box office, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1961, and when it came time for the Oscars the following year, it absolutely cleaned up: West Side Story won 10 trophies out of its 11 nominations, including for best picture and best director. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Daily Herald Archive/National Science & Media Museum/SSPL via Getty Images
Oct. 17: Al Capone is convicted of tax evasion (1931)
The Brooklyn-born gangster Al Capone — aka Scarface — dominated the Chicago underworld in the late 1920s, and his reign of criminal terror included murder, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, robbery, bribery, protection rackets and more. And yet, while Capone’s exploits were well known, law enforcement couldn’t seem to take him down once and for all. President Herbert Hoover asked Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, “Have you got this fellow Capone yet? I want that man in jail.” By 1931, the U.S. Treasury Department began assembling a case against Capone, and on June 5, he was indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion for failing to pay taxes between 1925 and 1929; a week later, additional charges were added for conspiracy to violate Prohibition laws. At the time, Capone had reportedly boasted, “They can’t collect legal taxes from illegal money.” But unsurprisingly, his legal prowess was no match for the justice system: Following a highly publicized trial and nine hours of deliberation, on October 17, 1931, Capone was found guilty of three felonies and two misdemeanors. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay $80,000 in fines and court costs. Capone entered the Atlanta penitentiary in May 1932 and was transferred to Alcatraz two years later. By the end of the decade, he was in severe decline, suffering from the late stages of syphilis, and in November 1939, he was released from jail and sent to a Baltimore hospital. He died at the age of 48 at his Florida estate on January 25, 1947. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Barbara Laing/Liaison Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Oct. 16: Baby Jessica is rescued (1987)
On October 14, 1987, 18-month-old Jessica McClure (whose married surname is now Morales) briefly became the most famous child in America: She was playing in the backyard of her aunt’s daycare center in Midland, Texas, when her mother went inside to answer the phone. When she came back outside, Jessica had slipped into an 8-inch-diameter well and become trapped 22 feet underground at the bottom of the shaft. Over the next 58 hours, rescuers worked to free Baby Jessica from the tunnel, using a rat-hole rig to drill a hole parallel to the well while pumping oxygen down to her to keep her alive. CNN was on the scene covering the events live, only the second time since the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger that Americans could tune in to watch history unfold around the clock. “Everybody in America became godfathers and godmothers of Jessica while this was going on,” President Ronald Reagan later told her parents about the outpouring of concern and support. Throughout the ordeal, she recited nursery rhymes and even sang songs like “Winnie the Pooh.” On the evening of October 16, rescuers lifted Jessica out of the well safely, and Scott Shaw captured the moment in a photograph that would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Left with a diagonal scar across her forehead, Morales didn’t learn about the accident until three years later, when she saw her own story on Rescue 911 and was told by her stepmother that she was the kid being rescued. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images
Oct. 15: I Love Lucy airs on CBS (1951)
At 9 p.m. October 15, 1951, American TV watchers became acquainted with the antics of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo when I Love Lucy debuted on CBS. That first episode — actually the second to be filmed — was called “The Girls Want to Go to the Nightclub,” and it effectively set up the women vs. men dynamic that would come to define the sitcom. In this episode, it’s the Mertzes’ 18th wedding anniversary, and Ricky and Fred want to go to a boxing match while Lucy and Ethel want to go to the Copacabana. It was a smash hit from the start, with The Hollywood Reporter reporting a day after the premiere: “Every once in a rare great while, a new TV show comes along that fulfills, in its own particular niche, every promise of the often harassed new medium. Such a show, it is a genuine pleasure to report, is I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in a filmed domestic comedy series for Philip Morris that should bounce to the top of the ratings heap in no time at all. If it doesn't, the entire structure of the American entertainment business should be overhauled from top to bottom.” That first year, the sitcom classic was nominated for one Emmy for best comedy show, but it lost to The Red Skelton Hour. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Underwood Archives via Getty Images
Oct. 14: Yeager breaks the sound barrier (1947)
Following his time as a fighter pilot during World War II, U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager volunteered to test an experimental aircraft designed to fly faster than the speed of sound. Many aviation experts at the time believed that flying at that speed would break an airplane apart, but Yeager was no stranger to heroic risk-taking: He had shot down 13 German planes during the war. On Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager made history during his flight over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California on Bell Aircraft Company’s secret X-1 plane. The rocket plane, which was modeled after a .50-caliber bullet and painted bright orange, was nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis,” after Yeager’s wife. Attached to a B-29 mothership, Yeager ascended to an altitude of 25,000 feet, and after he was released from the bomb bay, he rocketed to 40,000 feet at a speed of 662 miles per hour — the sound barrier at that altitude. Perhaps more impressively, he pulled off the historic feat while suffering from two broken ribs, a result of being thrown from his horse the night before! The American public didn’t learn about the record-breaking stunt until June 1948, when the results of his test flight were finally made public. And in 1953, he would go on to beat the world speed record when he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane. Years later, Sam Shepard portrayed Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, and the pilot himself made a cameo as Fred, a bartender at Pancho’s Palace. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Roberto Candia
Oct. 13: Miners rescued from collapsed mine (2010)
In a remote Chilean gold and copper mine, some 500 miles north of Santiago, deep in the Atacama Desert, disaster struck on Aug. 5, 2010. A massive cave-in occurred, following similar incidents years earlier, leaving 32 Chileans and one Bolivian trapped underground, some 2,300 feet below the surface. While many feared the worst, rescuers began drilling holes to search for signs of life. And on Aug. 22, probes detected the sound of tapping, and the miners were able to send up a message: “Estamos bien en el refugio los 33,” or “The 33 of us in the shelter are well.” To complete the rescue mission, the Chilean government collaborated with NASA to design specially built capsules, which were then used to winch each miner to the surface one at a time, at a speed of about 2.3 feet per second. More than a billion viewers from around the globe watched the rescue happen live, including 5.3 million who watched on the live-streaming service Ustream, the most ever for that site. After 23 hours, the last man, 54-year-old foreman Luis Urzua, was raised to the surface, followed by the three rescuers who had descended into the cavern to organize the operation. Chilean president Sebastián Piñera tweeted: “The excitement! The joy! The proudness to be Chilean! And the gratefulness to God.” If you think the story sounds like it would make a great movie, you’d be correct: In 2015, Antonio Banderas starred in a film about the events called The 33. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Everett via Shutterstock
Oct. 12: An iron lung is used for the first time (1928)
As poliomyelitis (polio) swept the nation in the early 20th century, one of the most devastating symptoms was muscle paralysis: If the chest was impacted, the patient would lose the ability to breathe and would be at risk of dying. Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw Jr. of the Harvard School of Public Health came up with an ingenious solution in the form of an “iron lung,” a contraption that comprised an enormous metal box with bellows on one end that would pump air in and out. Patients would enter the coffin-like machine — officially known as a negative pressure ventilator — with their head outside the chamber, and then pressurized cylinders created a vacuum that pushed oxygen into the lungs and artificially aided breathing. On this date in 1928, the device was first used on an 8-year-old girl at Boston Children’s Hospital, and the results were miraculous and nearly instantaneous. Within seconds of being placed inside, she began to breathe normally after being dangerously close to dying of respiratory paralysis. Amazingly, despite his medical breakthrough, Drinker wasn’t even a doctor: He was an industrial hygienist and engineer who focused on such issues as ventilation and pollution in settings like coal mines and hospitals. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank
Oct. 11: Saturday Night Live airs on NBC (1975)
On this date in 1975, Canadian producer Lorne Michaels launched his game-changing new comedy variety series, which was then known as NBC’s Saturday Night, before it eventually changed its name to Saturday Night Live in 1977. For that first season, the impossibly talented cast known as the Not Ready for Primetime Players included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner. But there were two other lesser-known faces in the bunch for that first go-around: George Coe, who only appeared on one episode, and Michael O’Donoghue, who lasted three. Legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin served as host, alongside two musical guests — Billy Preston and Janis Ian — plus there were special appearances by the likes of Andy Kaufman and Valri Bromfield. While the show would go on to become a juggernaut, nabbing 87 Emmys and counting over its nearly five-decade run, it didn’t necessarily strike critics as an immediate hit. As The Hollywood Reporter wrote in its review that first week: “NBC’s live late-night musical-comedy series, Saturday Night, got off to a less than auspicious start with comic George Carlin as the opening night host. The 90-minute show, which replaced reruns of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, was plagued throughout with a lack of exciting guests and innovative writing, helping to keep the debut at a lackluster pace.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CSU Archives / Everett Collection
Oct. 10: Pan Am flys ‘around-the-world’ (1959)
On this date in 1959, Pan American World Airways began operating weekly Tokyo-to-London flights on its Boeing 707 jets, which meant that, for the first time ever, a passenger could take one single airline to travel around the world. This didn’t mean, of course, that travelers could circumnavigate the globe on the same flight — they’d need to change planes in Tokyo, San Francisco and London — but it was still a major moment in airline industry history. In an internal newsletter made for Pan Am’s traffic sales and service personnel in 1962, the airline reported: “Round-the-world travel, once a rarely experienced adventure, has increased 113 percent since the start of the jet age, and some 50,000 persons will make the global flight this year, according to a study made by Pan American.” The use of jet engines, they continued, “cuts the girth of the globe to 42 hours and 10 minutes’ flight time eastbound from New York to New York.” And, as a result, round-the-world travel increased by some 57 percent in the year following that groundbreaking flight in October 1959. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: The Print Collector/Getty Images
Oct. 9: The Washington Monument turns 100 (1988)
Honoring America’s first president, the Washington Monument officially opened to the public on Oct. 9, 1888, 40 years after the laying of the first cornerstone. Just after 1 p.m. that day, 32 visitors entered the steam-powered elevator for a 10-minute ride to the top. An impressive structure built in the style of an Egyptian obelisk, it briefly reigned as the tallest structure in the world, at 555 feet, 5 1/8 inches. But it was surpassed by the Eiffel Tower just a year later — though it still ranks as the world’s tallest stone structure. By the time its centennial rolled around in 1988, more than 75 million visitors had made a pilgrimage to what Mark Twain once jokingly referred to as a “chimney with the top broken off.” But if you were in the nation’s capital in October 1988, you might have been surprised to find that there were no major centennial celebrations to mark the occasion. In fact, the lack of fanfare was so noticeable that The New York Times wrote a brief piece on the “little-heralded anniversary.” They quoted Donna J. Donaldson, the chief of visitor services, who said: “The monument already had two anniversaries.” She was referring to the celebration of 100 years since its completion in 1984 and of its dedication in 1985. “It hardly needs another one,” she concluded. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Steve Helber
Oct. 8: Martha Stewart reports to prison (2004)
In March 2004, after an attention-grabbing trial, domestic diva Martha Stewart was found guilty on four charges, including lying and obstructing justice related to the sale of biotechnology stocks in 2001. Later that summer, Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison, five months of house arrest, two years of probation and a fine of $30,000. At 6:15 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 8, the TV host and cookbook author reported to a minimum-security prison in Alderson, West Virginia, that had been nicknamed “Camp Cupcake” by locals. In a statement on her website, Stewart wrote: “As I announced in September, although my lawyers remain very confident in the strength of my appeal and will continue to pursue it on my behalf, I have decided to serve my sentence now because I want to put this nightmare behind me as quickly as possible for the good of my family and my company.” During her time behind bars, Stewart earned the nickname “M. Diddy,” and she even took pottery classes in which she made a 14-piece ceramic Nativity scene — which she later recreated and sold online for $149. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Janerik Henriksson, TT News Agency, File
Oct. 7: Swedish entrepreneurs launch Spotify (2008)
On this date in 2008, Swedish entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon changed the music industry forever with the launch of the streaming platform Spotify. In an era of rampant music piracy, the pair envisioned Spotify as a way of providing access to songs that listeners didn’t have to pay to download individually — as long as they were willing to listen to some advertisements or subscribe. “I realized that you can never legislate away from piracy,” Ek later told The Telegraph. “The only way to solve the problem was to create a service that was better than piracy and at the same time compensates the music industry.” While many critics now grumble at the mere pennies artists make from such transactions, the setup was no doubt groundbreaking. That first day it launched in Sweden, Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and it would be nearly three years before it would cross the pond and be made available to American music fans. Today Spotify boasts 188 million subscribers and 433 million monthly active users. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Mark Elias, File
Oct. 6: Michael Jordan retires from the NBA (1993)
On this date in 1993, Michael Jordan took to the podium at the Chicago Bulls’ training center in Deerfield, Illinois, and made a shocking announcement: At the age of 30, months after winning his third straight NBA title, he would be retiring from the game he loved. “I have achieved a lot in my short career,” he said during the press conference. “I just feel I don’t have anything else to prove.” Jordan’s father, James, had been murdered that summer, and His Airness said the crime had made him realize that “it can be taken away from you at any time.” He continued, “I have always stressed ... that when I lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it’s time to leave. I never wanted to leave when my skills started to diminish, because that’s when I’d feel the foot in my back, pushing me out the door.” After departing the NBA, Jordan made a brief foray into minor league baseball before returning to the Bulls in March 1995. Back with the old crew, he picked up a staggering three more championships before calling it quits once again in 1999. He came out of retirement yet again in 2001 to play for the Washington Wizards (he had joined them in 2000 as part owner and president of basketball operations) then retired for the last time in 2003. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Oct. 5: Apple founder Steve Jobs dies (2011)
On this date in 2011, Silicon Valley lost one of its transformative visionaries with the death of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs at the age of 56. In 2003, Jobs had been diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, and he eventually received a liver transplant in 2009, before taking three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s CEO. He officially stepped down in August 2011, handing over the reins to the company’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook. Upon the announcement of his death, Jobs was lauded by some of the brightest minds in the country, including President Barack Obama, who said in a statement, “Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.” On Oct. 14, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared that Oct. 16 would be Steve Jobs Day, and on that day the tech visionary was celebrated with a memorial service at Stanford University. Attendees included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bono and Joan Baez, whom Jobs once dated. British actor Stephen Fry summed up the event on Twitter by writing, “I don’t know that there was ever a more beautiful memorial service. Everyone who spoke did so with such passion and love and simplicity.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS via Getty Images
Oct. 4: Leave It to Beaver debuts (1957)
Sixty-five years ago today, Americans were introduced to the Cleaver clan with the premiere of the classic sitcom Leave It to Beaver on CBS. The show centered on an all-American family, featuring Hugh Beaumont and Barbara Billingsley as parents Ward and June Cleaver, Tony Dow as older brother Wally, and Jerry Mathers as the breakout star, Theodore, a.k.a. “the Beaver.” A pilot first aired in April 1957 as part of the anthology series Studio 57, but the first proper episode, “Beaver Gets ‘Spelled,’ ” ran in October. In this episode, when Beaver’s teacher sends him home with a note for his parents, his classmates convince him that he’s going to be kicked out of school. After he loses the note, Wally helps him write a fake response from his parents telling Miss Canfield that Beaver has been whipped as punishment. Unsurprisingly, Beaver hadn’t in fact committed any expellable offenses, and Miss Canfield was simply asking his parents if it would be OK for him to play Smokey the Bear in the school pageant! The sitcom classic would go on to earn two Emmy nominations and run for six seasons. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content
Oct. 3: Mickey Mouse Club debuts (1955)
In July 1955, Disney introduced the Mouseketeers during the televised grand opening of Disneyland as a preview for their series, which would premiere in the fall. On Oct. 3, American audiences finally got to tune in to the first episode of The Mickey Mouse Club, when it aired on ABC at 5 p.m. With two hosts, Jimmie Dodd and Roy Williams, and a dozen talented kid stars, that first episode included a newsreel segment with kids from around the world and a Cartoon of the Day, “Pueblo Pluto,” which saw Mickey Mouse and Pluto taking a trip to the American Southwest. The Variety review that week summed up the show’s appeal as follows: “There’s never been anything like Mickey Mouse to hit television. … There’s enough here to keep the kiddies in every household glued to their sets most every afternoon, and if they take a break for some segment that doesn’t entirely appeal to them, so what? From a look at the show, it should be apparent that that $15,000,000 gross will be an annual entry on ABC’s books.” The New York Daily News called it “a smash box office hit, no doubt about that.” The series was an immediate success, becoming the highest-rated daytime program of the time. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Images Press via Getty Images
Oct. 2: Rock Hudson dies of AIDS (1985)
As the HIV/AIDS crisis raged during the early 1980s, many Americans were able to ignore its ravages and dismiss it as simply an illness affecting gay people. All that began to change with the 1985 death at age 59 of the beloved Hollywood legend Rock Hudson, the first major celebrity to succumb to the disease. Hudson had gone to the doctor the previous year about an irritation on his neck; it turned out to be a lesion caused by Kaposi’s sarcoma, a type of cancer that affected AIDS patients. He was officially diagnosed on June 5, 1984. The following July, Hudson collapsed at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and he was taken to the American Hospital in the suburb of Neuilly. With tabloids buzzing about his condition, he finally announced his diagnosis to the public via a press release. Shortly before his death, a number of his industry friends and former castmates, including Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley MacLaine, threw a black-tie benefit gala to raise money in the fight against AIDS. Hudson, who was too sick to attend, bought $10,000 worth of tickets and sent a telegram to be read by Burt Lancaster: “I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo/Doug Jennings
Oct. 1: EPCOT Center opens at Disney World (1982)
As Walt Disney originally envisioned it, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow — or E.P.C.O.T., for short — would be a utopian community that would incorporate all the latest technology and advancements in urban planning and design. Though his vision would go unrealized before his death, Disney’s idea would later morph into what would become the second theme park at Walt Disney World in central Florida. Forty years ago today, EPCOT Center opened its doors to the public. It was reported to be the most expensive private construction project in history, with a price tag of $800 million and a footprint more than double the size of the Magic Kingdom. When it opened, the park comprised two main areas: Future World, with attractions based on big ideas like communications, food production, energy and transportation; and World Showcase, which featured themed pavilions based on countries including Japan, Mexico, France and Canada. According to the Tampa Bay Times, park designers had created over 52,000 costumes in 1,400 different designs; sent 16 camera crews around the world to capture 1.5 million feet of film footage in 30 countries; created a “smellitizer” cannon to add scents to attractions; invented the first walking audio-animatronic (Benjamin Franklin); hired the Sherman Brothers to write new tunes; and planted some 12,500 trees and 200,000 shrubs and other plants. The dedication plaque still shows the words of former chairman and CEO E. Cardon Walker: “To all who come to this place of joy, hope and friendship, welcome.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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