TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 29
539 BC King Cyrus “the Great” of Persia marches into Babylon, freeing Jewish captives and allowing them to return home
1268 Conradin, the last legitimate male heir of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings and Holy Roman Emperors, is executed with Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily
1618 Sir Walter Raleigh is executed. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh’s enemies spread rumors that he was opposed the accession of King James.
1811 1st Ohio River steamboat leaves Pittsburgh for New Orleans
1814 The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, launched in New York City.
1901 Leon Czolgosz is electrocuted for the assassination of US President William McKinley. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot McKinley on September 6 during a public reception at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, N.Y. Despite early hopes of recovery, McKinley died September 14, in Buffalo, NY.
1923 The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
1929 Black Tuesday–the most catastrophic day in stock market history, the herald of the Great Depression. 16 million shares were sold at declining prices. By mid-November $30 billion of the $80 billion worth of stocks listed in September will have been wiped out.
1945 The first ball-point pen goes is sold by Gimbell’s department store in New York for a price of $12.
1956 Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal crisis.
1960 Chartered C46 carrying Cal State’s football team crashes, kills 16
1964 Thieves steal a jewel collection–including the world’s largest sapphire, the 565-carat “Star of India,” and the 100-carat DeLong ruby–from the Museum of Natural History in New York. The thieves were caught and most of the jewels recovered.
1969 The U.S. Supreme Court orders immediate desegregation, superseding the previous “with all deliberate speed” ruling.
1969 First computer-to-computer link; the link is accomplished through ARPANET, forerunner of the Internet.
1972 Palestinian guerrillas kill an airport employee and hijack a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to Cuba. They force West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.
1982 Car maker John DeLorean indicted for drug trafficking, later acquitted
1988 2,000 US anti-abortion protesters arrested for blocking clinics
1998 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports condemns both sides on the Apartheid issue for committing atrocities.
1998 John Glenn, at age 77, becomes the oldest person to go into outer space. He is part of the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-95.
2004 For the first time, Osama bin Laden admits direct responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US; his comments are part of a video broadcast by the Al Jazeera network.
2005 3 separate bombings in India’s capital city of Delhi a few days before the important festival of Diwali left about 60 people dead.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
