TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 10
0019 Germanicus, the best loved of Roman princes, dies of poisoning. On his deathbed he accuses Piso, the governor of Syria, of poisoning him.
0732 At Tours, France, Charles Martel kills Abd el-Rahman and halts the Muslim invasion of Europe.
1789 In Versailles France, Joseph Guillotin says the most humane way of carrying out a death sentence is decapitation by a single blow of a blade.
1845 The U.S. Naval Academy is founded at Annapolis, Md.
1863 The first telegraph line to Denver is completed.
1866 The tuxedo dinner jacket made its debut at a ball in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
1911 Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionaries overthrew the Manchu dynasty in China.
1913 The Panama Canal officially joined the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific ocean when the Gamboa dike was demolished with charges of dynamite.
1922 America has long been the worlds largest supplier of oil but many believe the oil reserves will be depleted in America in 25 years. American Oil companies continue to work with the Mexican Government to develop these new oil fields but they are facing stiff competition from British and French Oil companies.
1933 At Rio de Janeiro, nations of the Western Hemisphere sign a non-aggression and conciliation treaty. President Roosevelt adopts a “good neighbor” policy toward Latin America and announces a policy of nonintervention in Latin American affairs at the December 7th International American Conference at Montevideo, Uruguay.
1943 Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.
1944 800 Gypsy children, are murdered when they are gassed to death at Auschwitz concentration camps. As well as Jews the Nazi party had decided Gypsies should also be exterminated and approximately 1.5 million Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis.
1967 Outer Space Treaty is Enforced. The treaty declared that outer space and all celestial bodies were the common heritage of mankind and could not be claimed by any one nation.
1970 The Quebec Provincial Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, is kidnapped by terrorists.
1971 The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.
1973 Spiro Agnew resigns the vice presidency amid accusations of income tax evasion. President Richard Nixon names Gerald Ford as the new vice president. Agnew is later convicted and sentenced to three years probation and fined $10,000.
1984 The U.S. Congress passed the 2nd Boland Amendment which outlawed solicitation of 3rd-party countries to support the Contras. The amendment barred the use of funds available to CIA, defense, or intelligence agencies for “supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization or individual.”
1991 Former U.S. postal worker Joseph Harris kills two former co-workers at the post office in Ridgewood, New Jersey
2002 The US Congress gave President Bush authorization to use military force against Iraq.
2003 Rush Limbaugh announced that he was addicted to painkillers and that he was going to check into a rehab center.
2004 Christopher Reeve, famous as the ‘Superman’ actor died of heart failure, he had been a fit and well man until a freak riding accident left him as a quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury.
2008 Orakzai bombing, Afghanistan: members of the Taliban drive an explosive-laden truck into a meeting of 600 people discussing ways to rid their area of the Taliban; the bomb kills 110.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
