TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 27
312 Roman Emperor Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross
1553 Michael Servetus, who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, is burned for heresy in Switzerland.
1659 William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson became the first Quakers to be executed in America.
1787 The first of the Federalist Papers, which called for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published.
1791 President George Washington transmits to Congress the results of the first US census, exclusive of South Carolina which had not yet submitted its findings.
1795 Pinckney’s Treaty [Treaty of San Lorenzo] signed by Spain and US, establishing the southern boundary of the US and giving Americans right to navigate the Mississippi River
1809 President James Madison orders the annexation of the western part of West Florida. Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority.
1873 Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of barbed wire.
1891 D. B. Downing, inventor, is awarded a patent for the street letter (mail) box.
1904 The New York subway officially opens running from the Brooklyn Bridge uptown to Broadway at 145th Street.
1917 20,000 women march in a suffrage parade in New York. As the largest state and the first on the East Coast to do so, New York has an important effect on the movement to grant all women the vote in all elections.
1919 Axeman of New Orleans claims last victim
1925 Fred Waller received a patent for water skis.
1927 Fox Movie-tone news, the first sound news film, is released.
1938 Du Pont announced that it would name its new synthetic yarn nylon.
1954 Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the US Air Force.
1962 American U-2 reconnaissance plane shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Cuba, killing the pilot, Maj. Rudolf Anderson, the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1962 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev offers to remove Soviet missile bases in Cuba if the U.S. removes its missile bases in Turkey.
1964 The political career of future US president Ronald Reagan is launched when he delivers a speech on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
1978 President Carter signs Hawkins-Humphrey full employment bill
1988 Larry Flynt paid hitman $1M to kill Hefner, Guccione & Sinatra
1988 US President Ronald Reagan decides to tear down a new US Embassy in Moscow because Soviet listening devices were built into the structure.
1997 Stock markets crash around the world over fears of a global economic meltdown.
1999 8 people, including the country’s prime minister, Vazgen Sargsyan and Speaker Karen Demirchyan, were killed when armed gunmen shot at the members of the Armenian National Assembly.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
