On this day: October 31st

On this day: October 31st

• 517: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
• 1864: Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.
• 1892: ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle is first published.
• 1922: Benito Mussolini becomes the youngest Premier in the history of Italy.
• 1926: Magician Harry Houdini dies after his appendix ruptures.
• 1940—The Battle of Britain concluded. Beginning on July 10, 1940, German bombers and fighters had attacked coastal targets, airfields, London, and other cities as a prelude to a Nazi invasion of England. British pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down over 1,700 German aircraft while losing 915 fighters. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” declared Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
• 1941: Mount Rushmore National Memorial was completed after 14 years of work. The memorial contains 60-foot-tall sculptures of the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, representing America’s founding, political philosophy, preservation, expansion, and conservation.
• 1950: Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association (NBA) game when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols in Rochester, New York.
• 1952: The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb at the Elugelab Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall Islands.
• 1961: The body of Joseph Stalin was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square and reburied within the Kremlin walls among the graves of lesser Soviet heroes. This occurred as part of Russia’s de-Stalinization program under his successor, Nikita Khrushchev. Stalin’s name was also removed from public buildings, streets, and factories. Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd.
• 1968: During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a halt of American bombing of North Vietnam.
• 1978: South Yemen adopts constitution. The short-lived People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, or South Yemen, adopted its constitution. South Yemen eventually unified with North Yemen in 1990 to create what is today called Yemen

• 1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by three Sikh members of her bodyguard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home.
• 1992: The Catholic Church regrets its handling of Galileo Galilee’s case. Then Pope John Paul II acknowledged the errors committed by the Catholic Church while dealing with Galileo Galilei in the 17th century.
• 1999: EgyptAir Flight 990 crash. EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the Eastern coast of the US, killing all 217 people aboard.
• 2011: Day of Seven Billion. The world’s official population reached 7 billion on approximately this day. The United Nations Population Fund designated it as the Day of Seven Billion.

Birthdays on this day: October 31st

• 1632: Jan Vermeer (Dutch Painter)
• 1795: John Keats (English Poet)
• 1860: Juliette Gordon Low (Girl Scout founder)
• 1875: Vallabhbhai Patel (Indian activist, politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of India)
• 1887: Chiang Kai-shek (Leader of Chinese Nationalist Government)
• 1892: Alexander Alekhine (Russian chess player)
• 1918: Ian Stevenson (American biochemist)
• 1931: Dan Rather (News Anchor)
• 1950: John Candy (Comedian)
• 1961: Peter Jackson (Director of Lord of the Rings Movies)
• 2000: Willow Smith (Actress and Singer)

Deaths On this day: October 31st

• 1916: Charles Taze Russell (American minister)
• 1926: Harry Houdini (Hungarian/American magician, actor)
• 1984: Indira Gandhi (Indian politician, 3rd Prime Minister of India)
• 1993: Federico Fellini (Italian director)
• 2006: P.W. Botha (South African politician, 1st State President of South Africa)

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