Yes, today is Halloween! It’s a wonderful day and a great deal of fun, but today has historical significance in a great many ways. Be sure to take notes as you keep in mind that on October 31 in history, these events happened:
In 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” was first published.
In 1517, Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation by nailing a proclamation to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.
In 1864, Nevada was admitted to the Union as the 36th state.
In 1926, magician, illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini died of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital following a blow to the abdomen.
In 1931, with the Great Depression in full swing, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that 827 banks had failed during the past two months.
In 1941, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota — consisting of the sculpted heads of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt — was completed.
In 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam.
In 1984, India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh guards. Her son, Rajiv, succeeded her.
In 1985, salvage divers located the remains of the booty-laden pirate ship Whydah, which sank Feb. 17, 1717, off Cape Cod, Mass.
In 1988, former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos pleaded innocent to charges that she and her husband, deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, embezzled more than $100 million from the Philippine government.
In 1990, Egypt rebuffed a call by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for a peaceful settlement to the Gulf crisis but a key Soviet diplomat said his government had not ruled out military force.
In 1992, more than 300 people were killed in renewed fighting as Angola slid back into civil war.
In 2001, U.S.-led forces resumed air strikes in Afghanistan, hitting Taliban positions in the northern part of the country and outside the capital, Kabul. The Taliban claimed 1,500 people were killed.
In 2002, Andrew Fastow, former Enron chief financial officer, was indicted on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy in the collapse of the Houston energy trading company.
In 2003, a rebel group known to kidnap children and sell them in Sudan as slaves struck a village in northern Uganda, killing 18 and abducting many more.
In 2004, Iranian lawmakers chanted, “Death to America!” after a unanimous vote to allow their government to resume uranium enrichment activities.
Also in 2004, Japan confirmed a Japanese man taken hostage in Baghdad had been beheaded. The kidnappers had demanded Japan pull its troops out of Iraq.
In 2005, Samuel Alito, a 55-year-old conservative federal appeals judge, was nominated by U.S. President George Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor.
Also in 2005, the U.N. Security Council, in a unanimous vote, warned Syria to stop obstructing the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Related Articles:
Fun with History – The White House
San Antonio: Culture and History Abound
Pearl Harbor: An Unforgettable Trip