On This Week in History: October 8-14

On This Week In History

Sunday, October 8

1912 – The First Balkan War begins (Flashback to AP European History!)

1956 – New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in a World Series

1982 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats opens on Broadway. It runs for nearly 18 years, closing on September 10, 2000

 

Monday, October 9

768 – Charlemagne is crowed king of the Franks (Another AP European History throwback, just for Mrs. Hylas)

1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in 1582 Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Poland (the calendar skips directly from October 4th to October 15th).

1701 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut is chartered in Old Saybrook, CT. It is later renamed Yale University.

1940 – John Lennon, of the Beatles, is born

 

Tuesday, October 10

1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000-30,000 people in the Caribbean

1871 – A fire spreads through Chicago for two days after a ‘barn accident’ at the O’Leary family farm. The popular story of the fire’s origin blames Mrs. O’Leary’s cow for knocking over a lantern

1903 – The Women’s Social and Political Union is founded by suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst

 

Wednesday, October 11

1884 – Eleanor Roosevelt is born

1968 – Apollo 7 is launched, becoming the first successful manned Apollo mission with astronauts Wally Schirra, Don F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham

1975 – NBC’s Saturday Night Live debuts

1984 – Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk (done upon the Challenger)

 

Thursday, October 12

1492 – Christopher Columbus’ expedition lands in the Bahamas

1692 – A letter from Massachusetts Governor Sir William Phips ends the Salem Witch Trials

1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon from a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters

1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the Executive Mansion to the White House

 

Friday, October 13

1775 – The Continental Congress establishes the Continental Navy, later renamed the United States Navy

1903 – The Boston Americans, later known as the Red Sox, win the first modern World Series

1925 – Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is born

 

Saturday, October 14

1912 – Theodore Roosevelt is shot in the chest by John Schrank in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Roosevelt continues on to deliver his scheduled speech for the day, with the bullet still in his chest

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force becomes the first pilot to fly an aircraft in level flight faster than the speed of sound

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins after a U.S. Air Force craft flies over Cuba, photographing Soviet missiles being erected on the island

1979 – The first Gay Rights march on Washington, D.C., occurs and draws nearly 100,000 people